Last week I was contacted by a reporter from KPLU, the Seattle affiliate for National Public Radio, wondering if I would sit down with her and talk about how many banks have elected to temporarily suspend their foreclosure process. So last Thursday she showed up at our offices, microphone in hand, and we spent the next 90 minutes discussing this brave new world of real estate.

90 minutes of conversation with three different agents (Dennis Pearce, John McCants and myself) was edited down to 4 minutes, and a good share of that was split with Jillayne Schlicke – real estate and mortgage educator extraordinaire, and Richard Hagar – a Seattle real estate appraiser. The piece aired nationally on the “Weekend Edition” on NPR this past Sunday.

I think that the initial pitch for the story was an investigative report as to how the suspension of foreclosures from big banks like Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and GMAC was effecting the day-to-day operation of real estate businesses like ours. As a real estate team that services short sale, bank-owned, resale, new construction, and auction properties, the suspensions most greatly affected our auction business. John is quoted in the report discussing this – saying that on average we’ve been seeing about 150 homes going to trustee’s sale every Friday in Snohomish County. There was about 75 scheduled for auction last week, and most of these were postponed. In King County we’ve been seeing about 300 properties going to auction every Friday, and their numbers were halved as well.

We also noticed a void in our bank-owned business, as we didn’t receive any listing assignments (which are usually awarded the week after foreclosure) and our BPO (broker price opinions – much like an appraisal or CMA – used to establish market value for the banks as they decide what to do with a property in the foreclosure process) orders were down about 95%.

There is already news of these foreclosure suspensions lifting, which – as oddly as it sounds – is good news. Foreclosure is a natural way of the market correcting itself, and if we suspend foreclosures, then we suspend the market’s ability to recover. The foreclosure industry is now an essential part of real estate, and it’s helping to stabilize a sputtering economy. Banks hire companies to manage these properties, who hire contractors and landscapers to service the properties and real estate agents to sell them. On the auction side there are trustees to handle the foreclosure process, investors purchasing the properties at auction and hiring contractors and real estate agents to ready the properties for a quick sale. All of these properties end up contributing to the title, escrow, mortgage and homeowner’s insurance businesses.

In preparation for the interview I pulled some statistics, just for a better understanding of how much market share bank-involved properties were taking up in our current market (NOTE: by bank-involved I mean short sale or bank-owned listings – that the property can’t be sold without a strong level of involvement from the bank). What I found is that in the 30 days prior to October 8th (when many banks announced that they were suspending foreclosures), bank-involved properties made up 33% of the sold inventory in Snohomish County and 22% in King County. My stat didn’t make the radio piece, but you can see how even a 30 day foreclosure suspension could affect our market.

I wish that they could have devoted more time to discussing the issue at length, but I’m happy that Pickett Street got it’s share of four minutes of fame. You can listen to the piece or read the transcript at NPR.org, or you can use the player below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tags: BPO, Jesse, John, Pickett Street, radio, REO, short sale

Pickett Street Properties Team joined Keller Williams associates across America on May 13th – and took the day off!   But it was hardly a day of rest.  Over 25,000 associates across the US and Canada spent their day giving back, as part of the company’s community service initiative called RED Day. Short for “Renew, Energize, and Donate,” RED Day was created to unite Keller Williams Realty office and associates in an international day of service.

Andy and our team coordinated the activities for our Keller Williams Realty Bothell – and it was an incredible and very rewarding experience. We ended up with 60+ associates and several vendor/partners volunteering, serving in several projects throughout the greater Bothell area:

Home Renovation: We scoured our community for a home that needed some work, and approached several owners to see if they’d be interested in our help.  It took a while to find someone who would accept our “no strings attached” offer. Once we started working – they were thrilled.   The family home we served had not been touched in over 30 years.  Our team of volunteers gave it an entire “exterior makeover”, including:

1. complete house scraping, sanding, cleaning, and painting (with colors chosen by the owner!);
2. extensive roof & gutter cleaning;
3. tree and branch removal;
4. yard weeding, clearing, and leveling of the front of the property;
5. laying two pallets of sod across the entire front, making a lovely front yard;
6. landscaping – including two truckloads of bark

Food Bank – soliciting donations & goods:  we had a team of volunteers sit at a grocery store for the entire day – promoting HopeLink (a local food bank).  Our fantastic team collected over 1300 pounds of food donations, plus $300 in cash!

Senior Center Visitation – at Vintage Park, a local senior center in our area was thrilled to have a caring, fun-loving and guitar-toting group of volunteers share several hours of conversation and friendship with their residents. Our team made new friends and touched many lives.

Park Cleanup Project – Centennial Park: We worked with the City of Bothell to find two parks that needed help. Centennial Park had extensive cleaning, clearing, trimming, branch cutting, and weeding done by a great team of volunteers.

Park Painting Project – Blyth Park: The City of Bothell was also thrilled to have one of our volunteer teams paint a bathroom building in Blyth Park. Park regulars couldn’t help but come up and thank our team for enhancing their favorite park.

It was an incredible RED Day 2010!  We look forward to partnering with ALL of the Keller Williams offices in our region next year – to raise the bar even higher, and see how many projects we each can do all over the Puget Sound region. Stay tuned for more information about other upcoming service opportunities.  And make sure to join us next year!

Tags: Bothell, community, Pickett Street, red day

St. Patrick’s Day is always a special celebration for me – even though I’m a few generations removed from actually being very Irish. But I do know that my O’Shea family originally came from County Cork and County Kerry in Ireland. I also know that I’ve been saving money so that my wife and I can go tour castles in Ireland on our 20th wedding anniversary!

If you decide to experience some authentic Irish celebrations – here are a few local Irish Restaurants and PUBs:

Seattle area:

Kell’s Irish Restaurant and Pub – Pike Place Market, 1916 Post Alley, 206-728-1916 (come early!)
The Dubliner – Fremont, 3405 Fremont Ave N, 206-634-3161
Fado Irish Pub – Downtown, 801 First Ave, 206-264-2700
Paddy Coyne’s – Lake Union

Northend:

Mick Finster’s Pub & Grill – Edmonds, 24001 Hwy 99, 425-775-2121
Shawn O’Donnell’s Rest. & Pub – South Everett, 122 128th St SE, 425-338-5700
The Irishman – Downtown Everett, 2923 Colby Ave, 425-374-5783

Eastside:

JJ Mahoney’s – Redmond, 8932 161st Ave NE, 425-558-1866
Wilde Rover Irish Pub – Kirkland, 111 Central Way, 425-822-8940
Celtic Bayou – Redmond, 7281 Sammamish Pkwy NE, 425-881-0704 (shuttle bus from Marymoor Park every 15 mins from 4pm to 2am)

Or you can stay home and cook up this fine Irish feast.

May your blessings – outnumber the shamrocks that grow And may trouble avoid you – wherever you go.

P.S. Do leprechauns get angry when you make fun of their height? Yeah, but only a little!

Happy St. Patty’s Day, Andy

We recently returned from a business trip to New Orleans (and before everyone asks – no, it wasn’t during Mardi Gras!), which was host to the international convention for Keller Williams Realty International. The trip yielded many new ideas and philosophies for our business, but I won’t bore you with that right now. Instead, we want to share with you our five favorite things about The Big Easy.

5) Everything but Bourbon Street – We got to our hotel at about 1:00am on Friday night, and while our initial intention was to find a blues club and a glass of wine, I thought our late arrival would surely shelve these plans. One of our friends had arrived earlier, and in waiting for us, had brewed himself a pot of coffee, and there wasn’t any way he was going to let us go to bed without a quick walk down Bourbon Street. Our hotel was two blocks from Bourbon Street, so within a couple of minutes we were introduced to New Orlean’s most renowned destination.

I won’t get into everything we saw, smelled, or stepped on, but we all left a little wide-eyed. The street is woven in debauchery, and the seams are stitched with alcohol and waste. If you’ve been to Bourbon Street, I don’t need to describe it. If you haven’t been to Bourbon Street, you probably don’t want me to. I’m thankful that we were in New Orleans for several more nights, and that our experience of the city wasn’t defined by this one late night walk.

4) Architecture – Bourbon Street is located in a neighborhood called the French Quarter, and if you go on either side of Bourbon Street, the appeal of New Orleans grows considerably. The French Quarter is the oldest neighborhood in New Orleans, although not necessarily the most well-built. Most buildings share a wall with the neighboring building, and they don’t necessarily match in size, color, or style – which makes for an interesting study in contrast. Many walls aren’t square, nor are their floors level – but the exacting nature of the engineering is not what generates the appeal. These buildings give visitors a sense of history, and begins to impart a silent understanding of the city to its visitors. This city is resilient, as are its people.

3) Music - I told everyone that asked me about my upcoming trip to New Orleans that I was most excited about finding a blues club and enjoying the music with a glass of wine and a smoking cigar. Many of the clubs on Bourbon Street did have live bands, but they weren’t what I was hoping for. I thought for sure that off of Bourbon there had to be a place where I would recognize a familiar riff off a steel guitar, the warble of a harmonica, or the haunting melody of an organ. On Monday night, despite my exhaustion, Andy and Dennis talked me into delaying sleep to continue our search, and it resulted in the most memorable night of the trip.

We ended up on Bourbon Street, right at its start, at a watering hole called “The Blues Club.” We had had our doubts on previous visits, but when we walked in on this night, it was obvious that more locals than tourists were there, and they had come to hear “Rooster and the Chicken Hawks.” I don’t know anything about Rooster, and the club was dark, but I’m guessing he’s no younger than 75, and he was dressed to the 9′s in a powder blue, pinstriped, luminescent suit and pristine white leather ankle-high disco boots. My wine might have been in a plastic cup that night, but we were drinking the blues from a hose. If you’re ever in New Orleans, “Rooster and the Chicken Hawks” rock The Blues Club most Sunday and Monday nights.

2) Food - Andy should probably write this paragraph Andy is about 150 lbs and eats more than anyone I’ve ever seen. This was never more obvious than when we were in New Orleans. We ate gator sausage and crawfish remoulade  at “The Gumbo Shop” (although a couple in our attendance have had better gumbo elsewhere), we drank coffee and ate beignets at “Cafe Beignet“, filet blange and bananas foster at “Brennan’s“, pizza and calzones at “Angeli’s on Decatur“, and key-lime pie at “Crescent City Brewhouse.” All in all – the food here is decadent, and worth every one of the three-plus pounds we’ll all have to wrestle off at the gym.

1) The best part of New Orleans – the people. I have to think that the average living wage in New Orleans is far less than that of Seattle, but you can’t tell it from the faces of  the inhabitants. There are exceptions of course, but the people of New Orleans are either well-medicated or genuinely happy. There’s a sense of community here that we haven’t seen in other large cities – even more than what we’ve seen in most small towns. The cabbies all wave to each other, and you can’t walk down the street without seeing “Who Dat?” on a t-shirt or as graffiti on the wall. I have to imagine that enduring through an event like Hurricane Katrina and it’s aftermath will give an entire town perspective, and that a collective celebration of a recent Super Bowl victory might bring that same town some unity, but I think that what this town and its people share transcends an event or two.

Thank you New Orleans for being such gracious hosts to a bunch of real estate agents. Who dat?!

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Tags: fun, New Orleans, thoughts

After an intense (and fun) Pickett Street Properties retreat, I needed a bit of mind-numbing TV. In my search for something to watch, I came across the Food Network show called “Food Detectives.” It’s a show that does experiments with food—sort of an Alton Brown meets MythBusters.

On the night of my respite, they did an experiment on food and how it tastes based on presentation and flowery descriptions. Two groups of diners were told they were going to be reviewing a new restaurant and after their meal they were given a survey to fill out.

The first set of diners’ menus said they would be having “Green Salad, Fish, Green Beans, Potatoes and Chocolate Cake.” They were sat at tables with plastic table cloths, served New Jersey red wine in plastic cups, and their meals were presented on rather dated plates.

The second set had “Crisp Mescluin Seasonal Greens, Succulent Panko encrusted St Peter’s Fish, Hericot Vert, Potatoes au Gratin and Belgium Double Chocolate Cake.” They were sat at tables lit by candelight and adorned with linen table cloths. They were served a red wine from Nappa valley and the meal was presented on a classic plate.

Did I mention that the food itself was from a warehouse store and aside from the presentation, the food was the same?

The hypothesis is that people will be biased based on expectations and will seek to verify their expectations. In other words, if you think it’s going to be crispy or succulent, you will look for that. While I anticipated the results would show the better presented food would be the “winner,” I was surprised at the  difference in perception.

Plain Jane customers rated the food on average at 3.5 (out of 10) and would pay an average of about $10 for the meal. Some of the people were interviewed on camera and the comments were very critical. One person even said that they couldn’t finish their meal.

The second group with the better fancier menu names and nicer presentations rated the food an average of an 8 and would pay $38 – nearly four times as much as the first group!! One of the interviewee’s said that the fish reminded her of her childhood and it brought back lots of fond memories of eating dinner with her mother. Same frozen fish – many very different opinions.

The same is true in real estate. A home sparingly adorned will be thought of simply and sell for less money – the same home, once staged by a professional, can change the entire experience for a potential buyer. The results from Food Detectives reinforce the Pickett Street Team’s belief that a home should be professionally photographed, staged and promoted with excellent marketing copy.

Successful marketing is no more than managing perception. Choosing a real estate agent that understands this can mean the difference between a frozen fish and a memory of mom. Perception is a powerful thing – if Food Detectives is any indication, it might be more powerful than reality itself.