The Scottsdale Real Estate Files

Classic risk aversion for the liability-phobic mandates that an agent make no actual referral to an auxiliary service provider in the course of a Real Estate transaction.  Need a lender?  Here are the names of three professionals.  Need a home inspector?  Sift through this stack of business cards and let me know who you choose to hire.  The very thought of shimmying out on a limb to recommend a capable practitioner sends shivers up the clenched backside of some in our ranks.  Cold anticipation of the potential commissionectomy that attends a referral gone bad trumps the tug of responsibility.

No businessman walks around looking for a financial colonic, but the very real potential for having his inner sanctum legally hollowed out exists in each and every transaction he undertakes.  As such, it has become customary for many to simply ward off as much exposure as possible by abstaining from any form of guidance that can later be labeled  malfeasance or conflict of interest.  Heaven knows, if the contractor you recommend for repairs screws the electrical pooch, any rabid attorney worth his salt will gleefully encourage the client to pursue the deep pocketed brokerage (and agent by proxy) as well as the contractor for damages.  Why put yourself on the line by recommending a home inspector when the potential for blow-back on a balky A/C unit can put you directly in the cross hairs?  For that matter, why even bother to attend the inspection if the due diligence can be misconstrued for interference?  Why attend closings if your review of the documents places increased responsibility upon your shoulders for their accuracy?

Because risk deflection is not my job. 

My job is to fulfill my fiduciary obligations to my clients to the very best of my ability.  That means recommending pros who have proven their worth to me countless times in the past, rather than crossing my fingers and hoping my clients receive competent service.  That means attending inspections to physically see any defects, so as to better advise my clients and argue their cases.  That means attending the closing to ensure that the settlement statement jives with the negotiated terms of the contract.

Doing the eeny-meeny-miney-mo thing with a referral does not serve the client, and neither does calling in “neutral” to the appointments that demand an ally.  Such laissez faire Real Estating is designed only to mitigate the agent‘s risk.  While it is understandable, given the litigious nature of our culture, it’s just not how I roll.  You need a lender, I give you the name of the best lender I know.  You need a home inspector, I give you the name of the most thorough one in the rolodex. 

I would argue that recusing oneself from the crucial junctures and decisions of a transaction is not only negligent, but self-defeating.   As the surest invitation for catastrophe is to stand aside and watch the transaction happen, the best defense is, and always will be, a good offense.  Fixing potential problems, rather than hiding from them, has kept my clients happy, and me out of legal hot water to date.  Active involvement serves the interests of all parties.

I wear my big boy pants to work every day.  I put them on with the knowledge that certain forces will always be beyond my control.  Secure in that understanding, I’d much rather stand behind the repercussions of my actions than my inactions.  Standing on the sideline, not attending inspections & closings, carefully avoiding opinions … seems to me that ascribing to the Caspar Milquetoast model of risk avoidance is, ironically, the surest route to the ruin that one would desparately scramble to avoid.  Decreasing the standard of care for the client is akin to an RSVP for trouble. 

And trouble never sends its regrets.

Need a Referral to a Local Professional?  Give me a ring.

Start your Scottsdale Property Search here!

What is it about the rain that brings the mischievous out to play? 

Real Estate sales is the type of racket that leads one to bump bellies with all manner of folk.  Over my years in the industry to date, you might say I’ve been sheltered.  For all of the horror stories that float about a brokerage regarding the customer from hell, or the underhanded agent that shafts a fellow colleague out of a deserved paycheck, the instances in which I have encountered such REALTOR kryptonite have been few and far enough between to defy instant recollection.  Challenges and difficulties, to be sure, but no readily recounted tale of woe regarding a true American consumer psycho.  Either the good people of Scottsdale, AZ are simply of good stock, or my conscious decision not to hand out business cards at the dog track every Saturday afternoon as a central component of new client acquisition was prescient.

When the downturn in the market that first became evident in 2007 gave way to a full-fledged nosedive, however, a bunch of loose cargo in the back of our plane and overhead storage bins unloosed itself.  Ending up in the aisles and on the laps of well-behaved passengers, we find ourselves wading through the cretinous stowaways in attempt to pull the decent home buyers and sellers from the acrid wreckage.  Wouldn’t you know those oily ne’er do wells always seem to reach the emergency exits first; whooping it up as they slide to safety wearing a stolen oxygen mask.  Don’t worry about granny in seat 46C.  She can hold her breath for up to 18 seconds at a stretch.

To answer a few of the more “creative” questions I have fielded recently, I figured I’d simply draft a response to which all such future inquiries may be pointed.

No, I will not help you tie up a property with a straw buyer until such time that you can amass your down payment and/or financing.  It’s a fraudulent offer, and one made in bad faith.

No, I will not write offers on 15 short sale properties at once for the same buyer.  Short sales are frustrating, but it’s not just a numbers game.  I will not grease the wheels to a seller's foreclosure by tying their property up with an offer you have no real intention of seeing to fruition.

No, I will not give you a guestimate on how long you can live in your house rent-free before your mortgagor initiates foreclosure proceedings.  There are more than enough homeowners in need of  loan modification or short sale assistance.  I cannot in good conscience help you game the system and further bog the process down for those in true need of help. 

No, I will not help you buy a property as a primary residence if I know that you have no intention of ever occupying it.  There will be many dubious, and potentially fraudulent purchases made in the rush for the tax credit, but I won’t be a part of any of them.

No, I won’t secure a tenant for the property upon which you have stopped paying your mortgage.  That “free money” that goes in your pocket until the bank forecloses and boots the unsuspecting tenant out carries a steep price.

No, I will not be party to any side agreement pay-out in a Real Estate transaction that does not appear on the settlement statement. 

Rationalize such schemes all you like, but a treacherous climate does not excuse treachery.  Not only does potential harm fall on specific parties, but on the greater good as well.  Don't look to me to make my own biological contribution to the cesspool we’ve been forced to bathe in for many moons now.  Moral and ethical constraints aside, for no deal is it worth ruining a hard-earned reputation and future livelihood.  This is how I feed my family.

Your shenanigans are not worth my license. 

Now, if you would kindly hurry up and slide into the waiting arms of the authorities below, there are good people on this plane who need my help.

You have something to say, some timely tidbit to impart, but don’t relish the specter of an ensuing dialogue.  You’re not interested in the entanglements of conversation, what with the awkward pauses, opinions other than your own and … gulp … small talk.    Too much commitment.  What you want is a one line fling.

<<Tell them 256k firm>>

A one-way communiqué is a powerful thing.  Authoritarian in nature, the modern day smoke signal of the text message is the chain of command envy of parents and military command alike.  Raw, unladen directive.  Dig it.

<<258K.  No home warranty>>

Who needs a tete a tete when a simple tete will do?  Time is saved, insubordinance averted and miscommunications only cropping up when you fat finger the occasional key.

<<257KK an homed warranty!>>

This really cuts to the quick as to why agents are necessary middle (wo)men in a transaction.  To take (and translate) such directives and finesse a meeting of the minds with someone of antagonistic purpose.  While we rightly prattle on about the years of experience and know-how that we bring to the bargaining table, our basic service is to take careful aim and coax out of the other party the terms that our clients shoot from their respective hips.

<<Ill do 257 but earnest money non-ref.>>

Haggling is easy when you don’t have to personally make the proposals.  No matter how outlandish a demand or ludicrous a price, the client never has to handle the delicate delivery of said offer.  Without the interpersonal drama inherent in a vigorous and ongoing negotiation, the principals are loosed to think only in terms of their own best interests.  The precise moment people sit down with their actual counterparts to talk turkey is when many start conceding too much.  An odd quirk of we humans is a tendency to sabotage long-term interests in the name of getting along, no matter how fleeting the temporal relationship.

<<hmm … I’ll make ½ the earnest hard after inspect>>

My job is to be friendly with the other agent so that you don’t have to be friends with the other party.  Aside from my counsel, the only thing driving your ship is the pursuit of the right property at the best possible terms.  Cold, clinical and ruthlessly ambitious in your demands, let me worry about how to peddle it to the other side.  Getting what you want without having to directly engage your counterpart in transactional Twister is both a financial and emotional boon.  Leading your own troops in battle is noble, but few field generals live to meet their grandchildren.  Put your feet up, send in the orders and let your foot soldier bring back the scalp you covet while you bounce that bundle of joy on your good knee.  When personalities get out of the way of the terms, positive things tend to happen.

<<Sold!!!>>

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About the author: 

Paul Slaybaugh is currently working on installing smartphone technology, capable of receiving and obeying SMS messages, within the cerebral cortices of his children.  The prototype has an auto-responder set to "Because I said so" for every articulation of the word "why."  Results, thus far, are ... mixed.

Boxing great "Hurricane" Peter McNeeley once famously warned a recently de-incarcerated Iron Mike Tyson that he was going to “wrap him in a cocoon of horror” during the course of their upcoming bout.  McNeeley, renowned knockout victim to a bonafide who’s who list of professional pugilists (as in, “who?”), proceeded to back up the chest-beating by sadly succumbing to an encapsulation of his own within 89 electrifying seconds.  For those first 88 seconds, however, the club fighter-turned-circus-attraction floated like a … well … he floated like a Buick and stung like a breeze.  And yet, he took his shot.  With a limited arsenal, he climbed into the ring with the most feared man of his generation not named Willard Huyck (Don’t believe me? Watch Howard the Duck.), and flailed like the drowning tourist he was.

It is tempting to consider only the likely consequence and not the potential glory when it comes to our own personal and professional aspirations.  We foresee the carnage of a half caved-in cranium instead of a hand raised in stunning upset victory.  Lest we forget that Buster Douglas was the original Peter McNeeley, sans the stark difference in outcome, anything can happen when we man up and step through the ropes and into the bright lights. 

No, David does not always slay Goliath, but each defeat paves the way for ultimate victory.  Fortunately, most of us are not tasked with warding off the advances of large humans intent on malice for a living, so the defeats are only painful to our psyches.  As we took turns waxing non-nostalgic and eulogizing the recently interred 2009 last month, pardon me for hopping back in line for another turn at the mic.  This time, however, I reserve the soliloquy for channeling all of that lingering angst and lament into actionable rededication.  No more sitting on the stool, waiting for the corner to throw in the towel.  No more hand-wringing over how all of our ails will be resolved, and by whom.

I may have a career year, I may get knocked upside the head.  Can't be sure which until the bout ends next December.  One thing is certain, however.  Somebody or something is getting wrapped up in a cocoon of horror before it's all said and done.  Believe that.

2010 … let’s do this thing.

By any measure, 2009 has been an ogre.  A lineal Shrek, if you will.  We probably all would have given it a miss had we heeded the decree of the Chinese calendar that it was to be the Year of the Killer Tomato.  Given the chance to hit reset on the impending culmination of 365 vexing days, however, I would not take it.  There are strengthening vitamins and minerals to be had in the juices of the very tomatoes at my feet that have pelted my face and stung my wide eyes.

There have been financial challenges, the likes of which were previously alien to me.  With the disjointed gyrations of an industry and market that represent a brand new dance to even the longest tenured vets, I have been forced to the brink of professional incineration for long stretches on end.  With seared toes and fingertips, however, I’ve held fast at the threshold to that fiery abyss. My Gen-X core becoming more pliable and durable all the while in paradoxical harmony.  A representative for a generation that is accustomed to having, to entitlement, I have learned the pain and honor of struggle.  Months on end to produce results that formerly took days or weeks.  Deals faltering where they had always stuck.  The size of the paychecks for those miraculous transactions that have beaten the odds to reach the closing table dwindling in numerical lockstep with the eroded property values in our midst, even as costs continue to rise.

Bill collectors unconcerned about any of it.

There have been personal challenges.  The year began with mortality staring unflinchingly into our faces.  Loved ones saddled with dreaded diagnoses and marching orders to treacherous corners of an unconcerned earth.  And loss.  There has been loss.  Both that which was not yet in our grasp and that which had been held in loose, complacent grip.  In our sorrow, we have found new strength.  Renewed commitment.  Stronger bonds that will never permit the tenuous clutches of the immediate moment to intrude upon the existence or color pallet of a promised collective future.  Deeper reservoirs of ourselves with which to nourish those who require infinite supply.

With a little less than a month remaining in this stanza, I am eager to turn the page, albeit wholly aware that no classic prose is free of drama.  That every resolution requires a conflict.  When all is said and done, and the metaphorical book of me is written, it will be this very chapter that stands out in full bas relief.  I needed 2009 to become who I am to be, and I wouldn’t give it back for all the rotten tomatoes in Shanghai.