Real Estate Views from St Pete

This week I had an e-mail asking whether the Dale Chihuly Gallery had opened yet in St. Petersburg. If he's wondering - perhaps you are, too.

The Dale Chihuly gallery was announced back in 2005 as part of the ambitious development of the Arts Center, including two condo towers, The Arts. Since construction on the condos has not started yet, neither has the Dale Chihuly gallery. By the way, each condo owner will receive a piece of Chihuly art.

Chihuly had a wonderfully successful exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts in downtown St Petersburg. People were lined up along the park for blocks waiting to get in. 

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area. 

September 20, 2007  Market Report  -  Downtown St Petersburg Condo Rentals

Many of the downtown St Petersburg condos have a few units available for rent. Most of these are rented annually, but a few might be available for as short as 7 months. Regulations on rental periods, pets, etc will vary by condominium association. Here are available rental ranges in some of the buildings:

Parkshore Plaza            $2,950/mo - $8,000/mo

Florencia                      $5,800/mo

Vinoy Place                   $5,000/mo

Cloisters                       $3,500/mo

McNulty Lofts                 $1,600/mo - $3,000/mo

The Madison                 $1,100/mo - $2,500/mo

Bayfront Tower              $2,300/mo

The Beacon                  $1,300/mo

There may be additional condos available through other sources - these are in the Multiple Listing System of the Pinellas Realtor Organization. 

 Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.

Pinellas County Florida has 35 miles of soft, white sand beaches, two of which have made the #1 beach in the entire US. Pinellas County also has some 20 barrier islands.

The St Pete Times has just published a special guide to our beaches. The Pinellas County Visitor's Bureau also has a Beach Guide. 

You can get lots of general information on visiting Pinellas County here.  

Pinellas County is on the west coast of Florida, about half way down. The nearest major airport is in Tampa. Just think, 30 minutes from the time you leave the airport you can have your toes in the sand, walking to the Gulf of Mexico. 

 Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.

Many of you have posted, What $400,000 will buy in ________ and given examples at various price ranges. I think that's great information for your web site and/or blog.

Some of you have also written Favorite Hotels in ______ or Favorite Restaurants in _______. 

Why not also post to your website and/or blog things to do in your area.

• How to Spend 1 day in ______ 
• How to Spend 2 days in _______ 
• What to do with 1 week in _________. 
  

If you can make a visitor's day enjoyable, whether they are here as a tourist or on a job interview, they may decide they want to live there - or decide that you're very knowledgeable about your area and will refer business to you. These would be a great section on your website, and would also be a good series of blogs for Localism or your own blog site.

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area. 

Often we want to make notes about restaurants we tried and liked, what we thought about hotels, or even which wines we liked. How do we store all this to be readily accessible? Naturally we could put it all on a flashdrive, but then we'd have to have a computer with us. 

Also, I don't like to add this to my contact management program and have to sort through all these when I'm looking at the As, Bs, etc. add bulk to the database.  Yahoo is easy to use for this - go to contacts.yahoo.com and see how easy it is.

Unlike Google Contacts, Yahoo Contacts gives you space to write notes. This is later easy to check by going online, either from your computer or from your iPhone. You never know when you'll want to reference these - whether to use yourself or to recommend to a colleague.

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area. 

Have you ever gone out of town with your cell phone and forgotten your charger? Brought your camera but missing the battery - or left the card in your home computer? Missing the cable to connect to high speed and have to buy one because the hotel doesn't supply it? Brought along accessories that you don't use that took up space and added weight?

The answer is to make a checklist and to USE it.  

List all the things you MIGHT want to take:  for me that includes

• Laptop
• Air card
• Internet connection cable
• Charger
• Electric plug-in
• Squid (to expand the number of outlets)
• Bose earphones for the plane
• iPhone
• iPhone charger
• Konika pocket digital camera
• Konika battery charger
• Canon digital camera
• Canon battery charger
• Extra media card
• Media card reader

Save the basic template, then print out a few before every trip. Check off everything when you're packing to go (put a N/A if you've decided not to take something). Use the blank ones for when you're packing for the next leg or returning home. 

Make separate checklists or a longer checklist for things like business cards, itinerary, tickets or boarding pass, drink tickets, passport, reservation confirmations, presentation materials, handouts, etc.

One for clothes and accessories.

What items to you have on your Tech Travel Checklist that I haven't mentioned above?

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.

Have you ever gone out of town with your cell phone and forgotten your charger? Brought your camera but missing the battery - or left the card in your home computer? Missing the cable to connect to high speed and have to buy one because the hotel doesn't supply it? Brought along accessories that you don't use that took up space and added weight?

The answer is to make a checklist and to USE it.  

List all the things you MIGHT want to take:  for me that includes

• Laptop
• Air card
• Internet connection cable
• Charger
• Electric plug-in
• Squid (to expand the number of outlets)
• Bose earphones for the plane
• iPhone
• iPhone charger
• Konika pocket digital camera
• Konika battery charger
• Canon digital camera
• Canon battery charger
• Extra media card
• Media card reader

Save the basic template, then print out a few before every trip. Check off everything when you're packing to go (put a N/A if you've decided not to take something). Use the blank ones for when you're packing for the next leg or returning home. 

Make separate checklists or a longer checklist for things like business cards, itinerary, tickets or boarding pass, drink tickets, passport, reservation confirmations, presentation materials, handouts, etc.

One for clothes and accessories.

What items to you have on your Tech Travel Checklist that I haven't mentioned above?

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.

Since I'm traveling on the West Coast, I'm not home to get my copy of the Florida Realtor magazine. When I checked my e-mail this morning, however, the google alert for my name brought up a post from Cyndee Haydon with a link to her post regarding the current issue which features three Active Rainers. Congratulations Barbara Jo and Stephanie!

I found it very interesting that google found and sent out the Active Rain post even before Florida Realtor magazine posted their issue on line. Cyndee's post reached the world with The Speed of Rain. Thanks, Cyndee, for sharing it.

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.

With so many of us using technology and the Internet these days, if we use a high speed internet connection in our hotel room, it's often a case of sharing it with our fellow traveller (daughter - spouse - friend - etc) which makes things take twice as long. There are even a few hotels who insist that each computer in the room pays a separate daily access fee! Sometimes, too, we're not happy to be tethered to the desk.

Linksys has now come out with a Wireless-G Travel Router. It's small, portable, and costs about $80. Plug your room's ethernet cable into the router and you can share the one (paid or included) connection with everyone in the room, wherever they're perched.  I'm off to buy one.

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.   

What color is a stop sign?  It's red (with white letters, yes).  What color is a yield sign?  It's red and white.

The ActiveRain commenters were far better at knowing that they the people I asked.  At the seminar, nearly everyone, including my husband and I, said Yellow. We were amazed to learn that yield signs haven't been yellow for

                                                     27 years! 

Our first impression lasted for 27 years!  I thought it might be age related, so when I got back to the office, I asked my 30s daughter and 40s son - both said Yellow.  Almost 100% of the people I encountered that I asked also said Yellow.

I think the real lesson is more for real estate than for safe driving (as long as we do Yield, it doesn't matter what color we thought the sign was). We tell our sellers how important a first impression is. Curb appeal is needed to draw the potential buyers inside. If a property is dark when the prospects first go in, that's their perception, and it takes much more to overcome that than if the drapes were open and the lights on when they first came in. Many people need a hook or a story to remember things, or to put an idea into perspective. Share the above questions with them if you think it will help.

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.

Once you get active in real estate, it's really hard to find TIME. So, if it's slow, work on your business plan, get back in touch with your clients and your COI or SOI. Better yet, learn more. It's a great time to work on a designation. If you can't travel, there are courses on line. You may have courses locally or within an hour or two's drive.

Better yet, travel to another location to take the course(s). You'll not only learn more by learning what's going on in another area, you'll also be far enough away not to be distracted by work, and most of all - you'll have the opportunity to develop new referral sources. You may even want to schedule a course in a location that is sending business to your area. Yes, I know, you can also schedule it where you have family or friends, or in a resort location.

You'll be getting new ideas that may boost your business, you'll get a time away and return energized, and you may have developed new sources of business.  All of these are far more significant than staying put and complaining about the business that isn't.

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.    

It's frequently said that agents all have the same inventory, that the MLS is available to everybody, so service is what makes the difference. That inventory is generally available on realtor.com as well, available to anyone who looks there.

What's different today? That Pinellas County has 9,844 listings to sort through? That the Tampa Bay area - excluding Manatee County where many Tampa Bay people live - has 33,104 listings to look at? No, it's the "hidden" inventory that makes the difference.  It's always been common for agents to have one or two pocket listings, ones that aren't actively on the market, or that are coming on the market. Today there are oh, so many more. People who had their homes on the market and got tired of months and months of making the beds and doing the dishes, only to have no one come and look. People who felt after a year or two on the market that they needed to give it a rest. People who have rented for a short time waiting for the inventory to decrease. People who want to sell their home but are waiting for prices to go up before they put it on the market. All these people are ready and willing to sell - and the agent who knows a lot of these may know the one that's just right for the client, even more right than all the others on the market. 

Working with an agent who has this "extra" inventory can add value to that agent. So can knowing lenders, appraisers, and stagers. An agent who has seen the fluctuation of the market over one or two decades or more, may have the creativity or ingenuity to get a transaction together, and to make sure it closes. Now, more than ever, real estate agents are NOT a commodity. Choose your agent well - there is definitely a difference. 

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.   

One answer is to do something different. Our team is often asked, "Do you handle rentals?" to which our response has been "No. We don't like property management." Then more of our sellers with unsold homes started saying they wanted to rent or sell, whichever comes first. Now, it's one thing to refer out rentals, but it's a bit more awkward if you refer out a "whichever comes first". 

So we've found some tenants and found some income for some of our homeowners. We've also found rentals for some clients who can't yet buy a house because theirs back in ---- hasn't sold. We've referred them out, told them we don't handle rentals, and then they've come back pleading for help. OK, we'll help.

While I still don't want property management, I have found some rentals that I enjoy and that are worth my while - condos in downtown St. Pete. We'll work with owners to find renters, or with renters to find condos. With a condo association taking care of landscaping and pool issues, and an insurance policy to take care of most repairs with a call directly from the tenant, it's not so bad. We can walk from our office to the condos, so we don't have lots of driving expenses. So, now I've added Downtown St Pete Condo Rentals to our offered services.

Are there some condos where the agent is offering a $50 or $100 coop fee? Yes. And some offer 25% of a month's rent, and one even offered half a month's rent. But we're solving a client's needs at not so great time or expense, and have a good lead and relationship for a future purchase. So, yes, I'll work with tomorrow's buyers today.

If you aren't selling houses  ...  ...  maybe you could stay in real estate and:

handle rentals

handle property management

offer real estate consulting services

provide research services for out of town clients (hourly $) 

learn about foreclosures and short sales and specialize in those

Every situation, every market condition, has opportunities. You just need to find it and capitalize on it.

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.  

This is supposed to make you a better and safer driver, we were told. Please answer the following (no, they aren't trick questions):

What color is a stop sign?

        _________________

What color is a yield sign?

         _________________
 

Please put your two answers in your comment.  Don't worry about what others say - I just want your answer. Tomorrow morning I'll tally the answers and give you the point of the questions.

Silly as this may sound - it was a huge lesson to me and I'll use it with my sellers. 

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.  

The majority answered Yellow, which is what I expected. For 2 out of 5 to get the correct answer was a huge percentage. Congratulations, Jayne and Kimberly, and good for you, Yolanda, to check it out. Yes, the yield sign is red and white.  Neal and Ashley - you answered exactly what I did.  Here's a link to Part II, which is why I think this quiz is so relevant to real estate. 

I'm constantly telling my retired husband that No, I don't want to go to that free Investment lunch. Recently I even pointed out to him an article in the local paper telling the large % that were giving bad advice, and the % that were outright fraudulent, so you know how I felt when he recently told me,

I've signed us up for Tuesday for a free lunch at the yacht club to hear about what's new in hearing aids. Since I have been wanting to get him to have his ears checked and get a hearing aid, I could hardly veto his first effort, though I did continue to remind him, we're not going to buy anything today - we have to compare.

Was I surprised - it was truly educational - we actually learned some things about hearing, as well as hearing aids, and my husband does have a consultation scheduled for this coming week. So some luncheons - investment, hearing aids, or real estate, are legitimate and do work.

Several years ago I tried holding wine and cheese seminars with a financial advisor for UK visitors, but never had enough response to justify the time, much less any expense.

Are you holding any successful seminars or luncheons?

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.  

Recently I described a problem I was having with the appraisal on one of my listings currently under contract. Today the buyer's lender called me to say that the second appraiser, one located here in St Pete, also declined to do the appraisal because he would not be able to come up to the purchase price. This morning the sellers had an appraiser come out to do an appraisal so that they could determine what to do if this transaction does not close. That appraiser did not seem to have a problem with finding comparable waterfront homes in other neighborhoods. We'll see how that comes out.

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area. 

This morning I finally posted a new profile photo, reflecting my 65 pound weight loss, and also posted a new team photo in the profile. Ron Gillis e-mailed me asking how I got the text to line up beside the photo. I know it's been covered before, but here it is again  (putting it in the profile is exactly the same method as doing it in a post):

Wherever you want to insert the picture, click on the tree icon   in the gray header line at the top of the text box.  You'll get a popup box with two tabs at the top:

Note the two tabs at the top, General and Appearance   

After you've uploaded your image, fill in the description and the title,  then - BEFORE you click Insert at the bottom, click on the Appearance tab at the top, and you'll get another window, like this:

and this is where you CONTROL your inserted photo.

The alignment box has a dropdown giving you various choices of where to put the text. Don't worry if you don't know what each one means, just look at the box below and you'll see the content change, reflecting how your drop down choice will look - left aligned, right aligned, text going all down the photo or just one line in the middle, etc.

The next choice is size. Keep the checkmark in the Constrain Proportions box checked (i.e., do nothing to it) and when you resize the photo it wiill keep its proportions.  You only need to change one dimension and the other will change automatically as long as the box is checked. Play with it a while and get a feel for the size you're comfortable with.

The remaining choices are optional - I usually put 2 in for vertical space and horizontal space.

When you're finished making choices, then click the Insert button at the bottom left, and it will appear in your post. 

Unfortunately, as far as I know, there's no edit - i.e., when it appears and you see that you forgot something, you'll have to delete the photo, and go back and start over.  (If anyone knows better, please let us know).

Hope this helps, Ron, and anyone else who's been wondering how to do it.

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.

Now we're where I intended to start -

we walked across the wide white sand beach from the Sandpearl Resort on Clearwater Beach Florida into the Gulf of Mexico. The water is warm, about 88 F.  We walk out along the soft, sandy bottom, beyond the breaking waves at the shoreline, to an area with gently rolling waves. As I enjoy the peacefulness, away from all the cares of business and life (my iPhone secure in the room safe, well beyond sound or thought), I think of Teresa Boardman's recent post 
on Business Hours and Rocks

and feel the silence and the rhythmic swells as they pass. Only an hour from home, this is a very different feel from the water behind my home.  

When I went to Teresa's blogs to find the link to her Rocks post, I came across two others that caught my attention, Silence and Attraction. Both seemed appropriate.

Sorry there are no photos yet, but when at one with the water, there's no room for a camera.  

Sharon Simms, Real Estate Agent selling homes in St. Petersburg, Florida, the Gulf Beaches and the Tampa Bay area.