This story always amazes me for several reasons. 1. It happened to us (and we're realtors). 2. We should have known better (because we're realtors). 3. The home inspector that we used should have known better ('cause he's a freakin' home inspector and he was charging me $400 bucks). 4. You never know what you might find in an old house ('cause it's an old house damn it!). When we purchased our house, we agreed that we could handle the mousedroppings, we could handle the rat's nest in the basement (no word of a lie), we could handle the cat urine smell (damn lazy cats too, with all the mice and rat parties that must have been going down in this dump

I thought I would just tell a super-quick story about reno-ing our own house. After pulling apart the ceiling in the kitchen and finding an incredible amount of mouse droppings, we were trying to figure out how old they were because we knew the previous owner had 8 cats and lived there for 22 years. In my books, that means the mice were too damn scared to ever set foot in the actual house so they lived behind the walls, frolicking in their own cheese-like periwinkels and causing the cats untold amounts of frustration. 

The cat urine stains told us that there was no way in hell a mouse had been in the actual living part of house for decades. 

They should hand out an award for realtors who have to deal with certain nightmare tenants who are simply NOT worth any amount of commission whatsoever. Here's one (two actually) of them. I was selling a home that had a two bed. basement suite.  Nothing unusual about that, I thought to myself as I first opened the door to the suite.  My nose recoiled and shrunk back into the base of my skull.  It was revolting.  I had been told that two skateboarders lived there, with no offense to the many skateboarders in this fine country who are respectable citizens.  The 2 skater 'dudes' who lived in THIS basement were two of the most disgusting

Interesting, isn't it, when the market slows down a touch and everyone takes one step backward.  With all the news exploding out of the US about the housing market, the folks here in Vancouver are certainly more leary of jumping on their latest real estate acquisition.  On the one hand, who can blame them.  On the other, the last few weeks have proven that the market often dips a bit and then recovers rather quickly to trudge along once again. 

For instance,  Kerrie and I had a slow August and yet rebounded to an absolutely crazy mid September to mid October...easily one of our busiest ever.  Our office virtually

(note:  I felt like writing something a little different on a recent trip to New York with my beautiful wife). I’m cool.  I’m definitely cool.   Maybe not on a day to day basis like I’d love…but this morning I’m cool.  I don’t even know if the word ‘cool’ is cool anymore but if it is, I’m it.  Max is cool too.  Truthfully, Max is way cooler than I am.   Maxi is, dare I say, ‘uber-cool’.  It could be because Max’s torso has a long, black sheen,  a colour infinitely cooler than the pasty, sunless white of my Vancouver body.  Max also has green eyes, which, when you combine it with his majestic blackness,

If people ever wondered what it must be like to run dozens of open houses and the literally thousands of people that a realtor meets in a year, this story should satisfy your curiosity.  

A slight play on the movie title though the virgin in question was not 40 years old. This story was told to me through a realtor who didn't have time to write it down but desperately wanted me to post it (I will do this for any realtors who are willing to tell me stories, by the way, please email me to tom@thinktom.com, it would be my pleasure). 'She' was having an open house a few years back and got to chatting with someone who had seen the advertisement for

One of the great things about being able to follow the market daily is that we (realtors) can view general numbers like new listings, sold listings and price reductions and can successfully approximate the current market.  As an example, today we had 55 new listings, 50 solds and 36 price reductions. 

From this I can see that we are still having almost as many solds as new listings, which means we still have a slight shortage of product.  However, we are also seeing quite a few more price reductions lately meaning that people are reaching too high on their prices and getting no interest.  Sure there are still multiple offers around

Well, it's happened twice today.  I warned my clients that their offer was far too low for this market but they just don't listen.  Too many courses by Carleton Sheets or something like that, I don't know, but I'm amazed how many people think that their lowball offers will be countered.  Now, I'm not talking about ten or twenty thousand off of a price but much, much more.  Only serious lowballers here.  Here's what happens.  The listing Realtor receives the offer and, realizing that his client will either freak out or refuse to pay his commission, he/she simply sends the offer back and walks.  No counteroffer... nadda...

Well, it's happened twice today.  I warned my clients that their offer was far too low for this market but they just don't listen.  Too many courses by Carleton Sheets or something like that, I don't know, but I'm amazed how many people think that their lowball offers will be countered.  Now, I'm not talking about ten or twenty thousand off of a price but much, much more.  Only serious lowballers here. 

Here's what happens.  The listing Realtor receives the offer and, realizing that his client will either freak out or refuse to pay his commission, he/she simply sends the offer back and walks.  No counteroffer...