Jose's Blog

I'd never actually heard of Sarah Palin until I heard John McCain chose her as his VP choice. I haven't made my decision on who I'll be voting for but I'm not sure this helped McCain in my eyes.

Do you think Americans would feel comfortable with Sarah Palin as our president in the event that John McCain could no longer perform his duties? How does everyone think this will effect McCains chances? I'd like to hear both pros and cons!

First impressions are important and I try to dress professionally, but will definitely ease it down once I've established a relationship.

It's hot here in New Mexico and I've made it a habit to wear sandals along with dress clothes (lol). I've always been back and forth on the dress up or layed back look. Funny enough, last month, the father of a client of mine went out of his way to mention how he noticed I wear sandals when we go out and view homes. I thought I was busted but oddly enough he said this shows him that I'm comfortable and confident enough to wear what I want which made him appreciate and trust me even more...  Hey, who knew!

With the accessibility and ease of technology, why is it that Realtors still add listings to the MLS without at least 1 photo? I know, it can be requested that we do not add photo's to the MLS but I've NEVER been asked this personally by a client. Is it a case of laziness or forgetfulness? Wouldn't they want to impress their clients by showing all they have done including taking photo's?

Now, what about those of us who do take photo's. Congrats!....but wait, why oh why do some Realtors take the pictures they do? Hey, I'm not a photographer but I always insist on taking clean well lit pictures. Why? So that the 80% plus buyers who begin their home search on-line get the best idea of the home I'm listing. Every time I log in to search for homes, I'll get images that are extremely blurred, taken in the dark, of a corner of a wall, of the cat in the house, half filled by the Realtors finger, multiple shots of exactly the same thing, or yesterday, one of the blue sky which had a caption saying "beatiful New Mexico skies". LOL, oh my gosh, that was too funny to handle, if your going to take a scenic shot, by all means feel free to do so, but please make it relavent to the home.

Seriously, most the clients I work with will immediately skip a home if there is no photo and that statement in itself should be reason enough to take a reasonably, viewable, relevant photo!

I've been using AR for just over a year now. I really hadn't used it much until the past 4-6 months when out of the blue, I received an email message from someone asking me to do a Listing Presentation for them. I really was somewhat confused because I'm not sure how she found me on AR or why she ultimately chose me. At that time I wasn't even on the first page under Albuquerque (the city I live in) and I really hadn't written too many blogs. Hey, I wasn't complaining though, I joined this in hopes of expanding my Real Estate business but never truly expected to receive any activity through it.

Recently I've been actively writing and responding to Blogs. I really enjoy doing this, and it's horribly ADDICTING! (Yes AR, you are both awesome and terrible. I love logging in and hate how much time I spend here...LOL!) But I'm really curious to know how others use AR and how they gear it towards aquiring new business.

How do you use Active Rain and what advise do you give to help make AR work better for me? Thanks in advance!

Why oh why do we do what we do?

My Broker was talking to me about a potential lawsuit that might be aimed at one of our agents. A large peice of land that one of our agents helped sell had come into question. The land (which had been sold 3-4 times before over the last few years) was ruled by the city that it could not be subdivided. I guess all sales prior, had up to now, had incorrect and inapproprieately authorized.

Anyhow, not get in to too much detail, when the current owner found out he could not subdivide the land (which is why he had purchased it), he no longer wanted the land and wanted his money back. He went back to the Title company as the city had advised,  and they admited to commiting the error. But check this, they advised him to go after the Realtor.... why... because he has E & O insurance.

Even though all the information that our Realtor collected both from the city and Title company show records that the land had no problems and zoned/authorized to be subdivided, the finger gets pointed to Mr. E & O. The client isn't even upset at the Realtor, he just wants his money back and right now the easiest path is through the Realtor.

Why oh why do we do what we do?

If you do not already know, the New Mexico RailRunner is a newer way to get to and from locations around Albuquerque and its Northern and Southern neighbors. Stations run down to Valencia County and also up to Sandoval County. Tracks are still being worked on for a new stop in our state capitol of Santa Fe.

I'm personally excited about that stop as it would be nice to take my bike, jump on the train and spend the day walking the Santa Fe shops and enjoying the good food and atmosphere. Apart from saving on gas money, you can sit back, enjoy the scenery or pull out your laptop and get some work done. (I'm not sure if it was implemented, but I had read that the stations and the train might have FREE WI-FI!).

Each Station has ADA boarding platforms, wind screens, passenger seating and bike racks. The also have information kiosks and some with electronic message boards with current information. For safety, they keep security cameras, night lighting and an Emergency Call button to access 911.

Pricing varies depending on how many "zones" you'll be passing on your trip.  For example, (use map on left) if I begin my trip Downtown Albuquerque and want to go to Downtown Bernalillo, I'll have to pay the two zone fee but if I want to go from Los Ranchos/Journal Center to Int'l Sunport, I'll only pay for one zone. Pricing is as low as $1 for a one way trip in one zone, with day passes, month passes and year passes affordable available.

For more information I recommend checking out the official website nmrailrunner.com. They have up to date information on the progress, events, schedules, pricing and anything else that's related.

Jose Cabrera

www.505life.com

I know we have all heard our fair share of horrer stories but it just really upsets me every time I hear about "fake clients" trying to take advantage of Realtors.

Last week my Board of Realtors posted a warning regarding a close call with a local Realtors. She said that her Broker called and gave her the name of a woman calling on a listing of hers. When she talked to her she informed her that she was in town and was looking to move back to our town. They agreed she would call her on Friday and they could go look at her listing and some other homes. When Friday came, she talked to the woman again, now it wasn’t just her looking to buy but another person with her. The woman wanted the Realtor to go pick her up at her hotel room. When she told her she would call her when she got to the lobby, she refused. She insisted that she meet her in her room. This lady refused to give her a cell number or her last name. Her broker and her decided it would be best for her not to go. When she called back to inform them that I would not be available, a male answered. He said he was sorry to hear that and wanted to know if there were any other "female" agents in her office that would be available.

I really don't understand how crooked some people can be. Who knows what could have happened if she had went to the hotel.

We should all take precautions when we go out to the field especially when we don't know them or don't have anything to go off of. Our office encourages that we have first time clients come into our office to meet with us first and we take photo copies of ID's when they come in. We also encourage our agents to request a call from our office manager when out with clients just to check in. We teach to have code words on this check up phone call, like "can you check my RED file" if we need help, or "its in the GREEN file" if everything is fine.

Feel free to add your tips and suggestions.

So I just recently experienced a scare when my laptop decided to stop working this week. This is the first time this has happened since I purchased it about 1 year ago. I consider myself very computer savvy but do not like having to cross my fingers and hope I can find and fix and replace "so called" corrupted files. Luckily, I have a friend who is kind enough and far more knowledgeable in computer repair who saved my laptop with no problems.

This however has lead me to think it's time to buy an External Hardrive and Backup all my files. I'd like something portable, preferrably with 300 + GB storage, and run power through a USB port. Does anyone know of any devices that offer automatic file updates. Lastly, any suggestions to online storage backups?

I'm open to just about anything but would like to see if anyone has some preferred suggestions!

Yes, as much as everyone keeps pressuring me to make a decision, I'm really not sure who I'll be voting for. To be honest, I wish I could have a fresh set of candidates to choose from but that's not going to happen so I guess I'll have to choose the best of what's out their.

We work in an industry that holds a strong foundation for our Nations success and I feel this issue could really impact our economy. I'm concerned about several issues (Oil Prices, Environment, Security, Relations, etc) but I'd like to know what people think in regards to which candidate will help our housing markets and us Realtors.

While cleaning out my bookmarks today I cam across a website I had intended on getting some feedback on. A friend of mine who seems to always stumble accross interesting sites pointed this one out to me a long time ago; www.rottenneighbor.com. He had pointed out to me that what really caught his attention was that there was a little RED "rotten neighbor" house where he lived. He showed me how he zoomed in and quickly saw that this little RED house actually sat on his neighbors home. When you click on the home a post pops up and the post read like this:

"this girl is possibly the rudest person I have ever met I don't know how many times I have greeted her with no response if you ask me I don't like her and I also think she is either a stripper or some kind of drug addict always leaving to work late at night "

Wow I thought. This site seems to give anyone the ability to pinpoint an post whatever the want. What's funny is that my friend said that the girl in this post is a very nice person and he's never had any complaint with her. Today when I logged in I checked back and say a reply. It read:

"I'm not a stripper or a drug addict, I just hate nosey neighbors. Why say "Hi!" to someone who likes to spread neighborhood gossip? How many posts do you have on here?"

I've noticed many updates since I last visited there site including sex offenders, and video posting to show proof of your "rotten neighbors". I'm not sure how I feel about this site. On one hand, there is a sense of curiosity that makes me want to see what people think about their neighbors, but then there is a part of me that thinks I might be better off not knowing.

Check it out and let me know what you think. I warn you, it might be addicting. www.rottenneighbor.com