Team DiMuria Katy Texas Blog: October 2007

The Katy ISD is considering rezoning children who are presently zoned to Beck Jr High School well east of the Grand Parkway out to the new Woodcreek Reserve Jr High School in the far western part of the school district. The idea behind the moves is to ease some of the children out of Beck and make sure we have enough children to properly open the new school in Woodcreek Reserve.

This is obviously a very bad idea and seems to be based more on ease of transition (only one school would be re-zoned rather than multiple schools) than what is practical and best for the students. We spoke with Linda Mathis (sec. for John Bailey who heads zoning) and she told us nothing has been set on this matter and the administration would be taking up the issue at the meeting on November 8th at the KISD administration building at 6:30pm. We let her know we expected a very large turn out for the meeting!

We appose this re-zoning not because we think the new school will not be a great school...to the contrary...based on previous schools we assume this will be a great school with wonderful teachers and technology. Our opposition come from the fact that based on distance the children will be required to take long bus rides after a long day of school, it will make extracurricular activities more difficult, and it will require our children to drive past three quality Jr High Schools (Beck, Beckendorf, and Cinco Ranch Jr High School) to get out to the new school many miles from home..all while taking them away from the friends they have in neighborhoods surrounding the move.

 A much better solution would be to move the children who attend Cinco Ranch Jr High but live in neighborhoods closer to the new school (like Falcon Ranch) and have the children who presently live in the neighborhoods surrounding Peek Rd east of the Grand Parkway to move to Cinco Ranch Jr High School (they already live closer to CRJHS than Beck). This would keep them attending school with the children they will eventually go to High School with.

Because we get some many page views and hits on our website we are always being asked how. Well, while we are not going to give away all our secrets we will give you a few pointers that should help.

1. Make sure your site has lots of "Calls to action." - make sure that when someone clicks into your site you leave them lots of potential ways to leave you personal info (like name, e-mail address, and telephone number.)

2. Do not require people to leave personal info to use your website. If you require they leave name, phone, etc...they will either give you bogus info or go to the next site...until THEY are ready. (do you really want to follow up on clients who are not ready yet anyway?)

3. Do not pitch how great you are...no body cares if you are number 1 or top producer...they only care about what you can do for them.

4. Although you can get listings from the Internet it is used best as a source for buyers...make sure you make your site friendly for them.

5. Think less, not more. Shrink your area of expertise...do not try to be everything to everybody. For your site to be successful people searching for what you have to offer need to be able to quickly find you. You would be better off being the Lower Manhattan Realtor...than the New York City Realtor...you can then refine your advertising to an area you can actually master.

6. Learn about Meta Tags, and Meta Language. Once you shrink the area you wish to master...your Meta Language should reflect that area!

Seven Meadows Annual meeting will be held at Seven Lakes High School 9th Grade Center on December 6th.

Candidate questionnaires will be mailed out by October 15th.

2 Board Directors will be elected at the meeting.

If you are interested in becoming a board member and are a Seven Meadows resident, fill out the candidate form by November 1st. You can find the form on the Seven Meadows intranet sight at:

http://www.sevenmeadowslive.com/communityhome.aspx

We all know the banking and foreclosure issues that have caused a slow down in the real estate industry are going to pass....at some point...but when?

We need to examine why these problems happened, whey they exist, and what will happen in the future because of these issues.

The foreclosures rates have gone through the roof because banks loaned money...lots of money to people who could not afford the homes they were purchasing. The assumption was that you could take out a loan on a home with a low adjustable rate mortgage and the home would be worth more money in 3 or 4 years (in some markets much more) so you would be able to refinance with lots of equity...or sell, pull out the equity and purchase another home with it. Based on the assumption that the market would continue to rise, the banks felt little need to worry about the foreclosure rate because if the buyer couldn't pay the home would be worth far more than the original loan amount and they would be able to sell and make a tidy profit to boot!

The problem with this thinking was it drove the market through the roof and buyers spent $600,000 on 1800sqft homes in South Florida that had real values only a few years earlier of $250,000. Because of the creative financing the payment for 3 years was about the same as the conventional 30 year mortgage would have otherwise been and it looked like a good solution to a buyer who assumed that $600,000 price tag would be $800,000 in a couple of years.

Above all this the faulty tax structure that forces all new buyers to take the brunt of the tax obligation added to the collapse!

This all leads us to when the correction will occur...and how. Our best guess is 12-18 more months. Our reasoning is the falling values are beginning to catch up with real value for the homes based on present income levels and the ability to qualify for a 30 year mortgage, add to this the fact that we have about another year and a half worth of 3 year adjustable rate mortgages to hit the market and correct into fixed rates or foreclose. Once this shake out reaches  its crest the problems will lessen and the market can begin heading up again...this time at a much more pragmatic rate.

We have been blogging for quite some time on activerain and we are noticing that many agents have lots of associations, and some have just a few. We refer quite a few clients around the Country because the Houston Metro area is such a large relocation market. We want to establish a network of Realtors to work with...especially in Denver, Florida, California (all areas) New York/New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New Orleans. These are areas that we have most of our relocation from. In terms of international real estate we relocate many clients from the Middle East and Europe. Those agents interested...lets associate!

The 2007 Rice Harvest Festival is coming on Oct 13th-14th. The festival which began in 1978 is the largest festival in the Katy area. Included in this years event will be the parade, food, crafts and entertainment. The related Wild Wild West Pageant will be held at the Club at Falcon Point. Go to the festival website for more information. It will give you a full breakdown of the festivities as well as a schedule for other related events.

http://www.katychamber.com/2007_RHF/parademain.htm

Here in the Houston Metro market we have been inundated with real estate agents the last 5 years. The HAR (Houston Association of Realtors) has grown from 18000 to 26000 Realtors it seems overnight. It seems that trend is turning around...and for the better! In talking with a couple of the large real estate schools the enrollment in classes for real estate have dropped 40-60%

My guess is the potential new agents are watching the same reports we are; the market is hurting and the days of "easy money" are over. Some are realizing the days of easy money really never existed and we hope the realization will set in that this is a job for FULL TIME committed people who believe in customer service first. This slow down and potential shake out may be the best thing that has ever happened to our industry. All the agencies claiming full service at a discount (while they throw out a lock box and a sign) are going to go the way of the dinosaur!