Enjoy your next trip around the sun!
Author: Tom Johnson (page 1 of 2)
Realtor, Peripatetic Iconoclast
A few years ago I sold a very small condo to an Albanian family who came here having won the immigration visa lottery. They showed up in Texas with suitcases and two daughters. Both the father and the mother worked to provide for the family. The mother worked in the housekeeping department at a large Hilton Hotel. The father worked in the Deli department at Wal-Mart. The two girls enrolled in public school and started studying. The first thing the girls needed to do was learn to speak English as there are no Albanian bi-lingual programs at the Houston Independent School District. The oldest daughter started her American schooling as a 9th grader not speaking English in a very tough high school.
I met the family when this daughter was a rising Senior. She was in the top 10% of her class.
US Flag image: http://www.patrioticon.org
About a month ago, I received an email from this daughter, now married and with child on the way.
Long story short- Inspections for the oldest daughter and her husband’s home are next Saturday.
I love a job where you can serve your heroes. Happy Independence Day.
If you are a Blackberry user, you can now access your Zestifarm on the go.
Thank you, Zillow! Blackberries are industrial strength communicators. They have the best keyboards and battery life in the business. Another reason I like them is that they have insurance available for the time when you drop it and it doesn’t dent the concrete. And one more thing… you can take a call and look something up on your phone without hanging up. That seems to be a big deal these days. Now you can see Zillow on a Blackberry as well. Are there any other happy blackberristas out there?
Warning : This post is purely REALTOR inside baseball
Around here, we live, eat and breathe marketing. Online reputation management and online publicity is what we do to get our clients houses sold and to find buyers who trust us enough to allow us to assist them in their home search. As a student of this stuff, I am flabbergasted by the news that a self anointed expert who in her own words, “started the Real Estate marketing revolution… and we are darn proud of it!” would attempt to extract money from a practicing REALTOR over 2,000 miles away who happens to use the same mascot, a Zebra. Now I understand that hard earned and promoted brands must be protected, but I really cannot see how Daniel Rothamel’s zebra mascot in Virginia, promoting Daniel’s real estate brokerage activity could in anyway damage The Lones Group in Bellingham Washington which uses a rainbow zebra on their website.
The Lones Group in Bellingham, WA and it’s owner, Denise Lones do not even perform real estate brokerage-they sell advice to those who do perform real estate brokerage. I am not sure I see how Daniel Rothamel, the Real Estate Zebra is damaging The Lones Group and their photoshopped rainbow zebra. I took a peak at the Lones Group website to see if perhaps they did business in Virginia and that was why they were picking on Daniel Rothamel, The Real Estate Zebra. Upon glancing at their testimonial page of happy customers, I only found clients in the Pacific Time zone, most of their clients were Washington REALTORS. I did note something peculiar about the Lones Group’s happy customers, as listed on their testimonials page. There are 28 testimonials displayed. Six of their happy clients had no website link. Six more happy customers of the Lones Group had links to… wait for it…dead websites. Now we find that the company that started the Real Estate marketing revolution has 25% of their happy clients who love the Lones Group’s work are not even linked to this powerhouse marketing firm and are hidden from potential clients. I may be Read more
BofA Settles GSE Buyback Requests for Pennies on the Dollar
According to this MND article, Obama appointee, FHFA acting director Edward DeMarco just handed Ally bank, formerly GMAC Bank and Bank of America potentially a total $300 billion windfall. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, wholly owned subsidiaries of the US Treasury Dept. are foregoing the opportunity to put hundreds of billions worth of mortgage backed securities back to these banks in return for $3 billion cash which, no doubt came from the TARP and shadow earnings as a result of regulatory forbearance. The mortgage backed securities have a refund clause by which the originator is obligated to repurchase the securities if there were specific deficiencies in the origination of the underlying mortgages. As we saw in “foreclosuregate”, even the chain of title for some of these securities is defective. I think we can safely assume that there is probably more than $3 billion of refunds to be had with aggressive defense of the taxpayers’ interests. Why does this matter? Bonuses, baby. Every dime coughed up by Ally or Bank of America reduces profits which shrinks the bankster bonus pool. Apparently the Administration cannot stand the idea of those nice banksters riding in last year’s Maybach. Especially after they made all those generous campaign donations.
Maybach Laundalet
Wells Fargo, CitiBank and Chase have yet to cut their pennies on the dollar deals with Mr. DeMarco. As the article points out, there are many purchasers of these same mortgage backed securities such as public and private pension funds and insurance companies who will probably go to the mat for a lot more than a couple pennies on the dollar. The pension trustees and the insurance companies have a fiduciary duty to recover as much as possible for their beneficiaries. It is a trillion dollar shame that the administration doesn’t take its obligation to the taxpayer as seriously. It will be interesting to see if there will be any Congressional oversight forthcoming in the new Congress regarding the Obama Administration’s magnanimous gift to the banksters.
The last time a lunar eclipse happened on the winter solstice was in 1638. What you you doing then? This just reminded me that we will make a complete orbit around the sun and meet here again next year. See you then. In the meantime,Happy New Year and have a safe and productive transit!
This just in. The photography in this film that commemorates the Space Shuttle program is stunning. Here is the standard for photography. Remember, our listings do not move and do not shed a ton and a half of mass per second. Here is a canonical archive of human ingenuity at its zenith. A million moving parts assembled by humans in search of splendor.
As Ronald Reagan said: “We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”
All you have to do is make water with a whole lot of human brain power, courage and a million moving parts.
Happy Birthday, Greg! I hope you have a wonderful day celebrating your next spin around the sun!
Everything you need to know about SEO.
Now have a great weekend.
No wonder B of A is accelerating foreclosures. They will need the cash from the sale of REO’s to repurchase about $47 Billion of bad mortgage bonds that were sold with, shall we say, less than pristine origination paperwork. This is where the robo signing mess matters. If the chain of title can be challenged and your friendly union pension fund can recover part of the loss on the investment, some one will be making up the loss. Any guesses who? Rest assured it will not damage the administration’s bankster contributors’ bonus pool.
Dig deep, taxpaying America.
Related articles
- Bondholders Pick a Fight With Banks (online.wsj.com)
How quickly our lives can change in just a short time. May you live in Splendor every minute.
9/2/2001
H/T our own Ira Serkes
9/11/2001
Let’s stay away from the #RTB(tab) crowd as industry lifeguard comparison, shall we?
Have a safe and relaxing weekend.
h/t Phil Martin
Dear David Gibbons: Around here we dance on bridges.
I rejoice that you are seeking splendor!
Someday, please teach us all to Diski Dance on a bridge!
Declaration of Independence
[Adopted in Congress 4 July 1776]
The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be Read more