For those of you who insist on clinging to your newspaper, broadcast and glossy magazine marketing to find your way, here's a little reality check from the front......

Where are the marketing dollars being spent to promote your property? Big splashy ads in the Sunday paper are not what they're cracked up to be. Marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk has a few suggestions on the perception versus reality of what actually drives results in Today's New World Of Real Estate....and a LOT of other places.






Want to see how our federal officials are squandering our 'bailout/rescue' money? Mark Cuban has played a role in creating BailoutSleuth.com to watch the dollars roll out into the wind. One can only look at this every so often for fear of being totally sick to one's stomach!

Conversation Of
The Week:

Expired Listing Seller: "I'd like to speak with you about listing my home"

Me: "Certainly....tell me about your property's history"

ELS: "Well it's been for sale for a year with no showings and no price adjustments."

Me: "Are you aware of the available inventory, how many homes have sold in your price point and location?"

ELS: "No....but I built homes for several decades and I know what this property's worth."

Me: "Have you had an appraisal?"

ELS: "No....by the way you're not going to be one of those agents that keeps telling me to lower my price, are you?"

Me: "Why would I actually want to waste your time with nonsense about supply and demand, inventory absorption and silly little things like how buyers actually feel about your property?"

ELS: "Good....I think we're going to get along just fine...when can you come out?"

Me: "I can be there just after nine on Monday, July 21st, 2011...about the time the market actually recognizes your price. Looking forward to seeing you. One more question Mister ELS....are you aware that we're in the most challenging real estate market since the '70's?"

ELS: "No but I've got the entire Pable Cruise collection on vinyl. I loved the '70's!"

To think some people believe we Realtors are overpaid.

Questions? Comments? Donations? Greg@GregCooper.com or 317.848.GREG (4734)

UPDATE: Here is the 28 minutes (comercials edited out) of Greg's WIBC appearence on 10/13. Click here to listen.

If you're looking for the WIBC economic round table discussion from 10/6 please go HERE.

"My problem lies in reconciling my gross spending habits with my net income."
-George Bernard Shaw

What in the world is LIBOR?
The current overall economic challenges we're facing are broad. To boil it down to how the housing market is affected, one term we've all been hearing about in the last several weeks is LIBOR.

The LIBOR benchmark is a key rate that reflects how lending institutions loan money. It affects how businesses borrow money. It affects how people borrow money to buy homes, cars and just about anything else that requires capital. Right now the LIBOR numbers are very high meaning borrowing money is tough. It's high in part because so much money has disappeared from the stock market through many factors (corporate defaults, mortgage foreclosures, etc). In essence, lenders are scared. Hey, we're all a bit uncomfortable right now. But there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

One of the reasons that the LIBOR numbers remained so high is that the money agreed to in the economic bailout has not yet been put to use. It's not been used yet to help the current crisis because we passed a bailout bill in 10 days without really having any plan.

Uhhhhh.....Isn't this what we all feared?

The good news from those smarter than I on these things is that many people do have great faith in Henry Paulson and Ben Bernacke to get the right people and plan in place to use the bailout to help ease credit.

To keep this simple, if you look at LIBOR numbers for the next 30 days, they are still very high meaning borrowing money will still be tough. The 90 day numbers are much lower meaning the markets believe over the next three months money will be easier to borrow. IF...and it's a big if that does occur, car, home and business loans will be easier to get and we may see some progress in getting this mess headed in a better direction. LIBOR getting better is essential. Life getting back to normal (whatever that means) is essential. For all of our sake, let's hope we see some steps in the right direction between now and Christmas.

Questions, Comments , Donations? Greg@GregCooper.com or 317.848.GREG (4734)

A few thoughts for President Obama

On Monday night October 6, I sat in on a radio economic round table (listen) hosted by WIBC's Steve Simpson with a number of individuals who are far more versed at the bigger picture than I am. Denny Smith, a co founder of the Mutual Fund Store in Indianapolis; Linda Conti, vice president of wealth management of David A. Noyes company, business writer John Ketzenberger of the Indianapolis Star, Dr. Catherine Bonser-Neal of IU's Kelley School of business and yours truly were voicing our opinions on all things economic on 93.1 WIBC, Indianapolis. From the inside I must say it was a fascinating discussion. The summary of it all which I hope our next president hears through the noise that he will be bombarded with is this:

Don't raise taxes.

Don't raise taxes anywhere on anyone at any time during your first term if you hope to have a second. I understand you feel that high earning individuals should pay more. This is not a philosophical plea. This is factual, empirical, statistical, uncomfortable.

Don't raise taxes.

We can argue all day long about why we're in the mess we're in but one of the opinions that came through loud and clear last night from this very wise group of people for whomever the next president is was:

Don't raise taxes or you may crush our economy.

Senator Obama many people liken you to another charismatic leader we once had, John Kennedy. President Kennedy made a historic speech to the New York economic club in 1962 that still resonates today. His major point was this:

"The final and best means of strengthening demand among consumers and business is to reduce the burden on private income and the deterrents to private initiative which are imposed by our present tax system — and this administration pledged itself last summer to an across-the-board, top-to-bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes"

Please take a moment and read the entire text of one of the more prolific economic speeches ever delivered in our country. Senator Obama despite your desire to raise taxes as you've stated, we can only hope you will defer to the greater good of our populace and at the very least keep things where they are. There's going to be a LOT of pain over the next several months. Let's not add to it.

Questions? Comments? Donations? Greg@GregCooper.com or 317.848.GREG (4734)

Have We Lost An Entire Generation of Home Buyers?

I worry a lot.

This meltdown, crash, near depression or (insert your own apocalyptic adjective here) of our economy has got me wondering about the Y generation (you may call them millenials or echo boomers). I've been thinking for some time about the whole concept of our disposable society and the speed of change as it relates to home ownership. It has seemed to me that more and more there's a group of people out there who aspire less to have roots then to have an exit strategy.

It hit me in 2007 when I took a trip to Palo Alto to be a part of a California company's relocation to the Indianapolis area. I was a part of their town hall meeting when they were trying to emphasize the positives of their plant moving several thousand miles east. While one of the positives of the move was certainly housing affordability (Palo Alto is a rather ritzy end of the planet to call home compared to Indy), a number of the attendees were non plused. Yes, there was a lot of angst given that their lives were going to be uprooted. Yet, it was more than that. I got the sense from a number of their best and brightest that owning a home versus renting anywhere was an absolute 'who cares.' It wasn't that they didn't have motivation given the astronomical rent most of these people were paying to share a flat and a bathroom with several absolute strangers in their area. You would think that owning your own 1700 square foot home for HALF of what they were paying to rent with room mates would have appealed to them. It seemed that a number of them were simply not interested. These were bright , aggressive people many among them engineers and other highly educated professionals who had no predisposition other than owning a home was not a priority.

While that trip may have been the starting point, it's been out there a great deal lately and perhaps we 30 and 40 somethings are at least partly to blame. Our culture is more and more of the mindset that walking away from things when they wear out our interest. It's the norm rather than the exception. Spouses, jobs, personal property, economic responsibilities, pets - you name it. Any more if people are tired of it, out it goes. It seems that many of our current young adult generation has just skipped the middle man and decided to keep the fewest roots possible, just in case they get fatigued, like they do with the latest Wii game, with their surroundings.

The home ownership roller coaster started about the time the century turned. Getting a mortgage became like eating at a fast food joint. Place your order, drive around and voila! You're a home owner! Now the tide will flow at an even faster ebb away from ownership. That mindset may increase because we have raised an entire generation of people to dispose of anything they're tired of coupled with the fact that until recently they didn't need savings, a down payment or even significant job stability to buy property. This new world of home ownership is a recipe for a huge cultural, economic change away from said ownership.

Does this generation have the discipline, motivation or even the interest to get back to the future by changing it's ways and actually saving for a house as credit gets cranked down? Will they put off the flat screen TV and latest hot car long enough to think about owning real estate?

Fifteen and twenty percent down payments are a big commit from anyone...let alone a generation that's never really had to make that choice. In the end they ultimately may no longer be interested in doing so.

Questions? Comments? Donations? Greg@GregCooper.com or 317.848.GREG (4734)