Property Grunt

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Real Estate Chatter: Theft and other fun things.

The Grunt has heard on the wire that an elite real estate firm has been having kleptomaniac issues with one of their offices. Apparently there were some thefts in the office and one of them occurred in broad daylight. Items that were stolen included a cell phone, credit cards, cash and a strap on.

I am kidding about the strap on. I had to throw it in after I read this.

These incidents reminds the Grunt of the good old days of his first office where larceny hijinks were a daily occurrence. Thefts in that office ranged from cash, blackberries, a Nextel phone and enough bikes to outfit the Tour de France. No one was safe. Not even the manager.

It appears they are hiring at the Schvo Group. They seek the following.

Vice President, Marketing

Marketing professional with 7 to 10 years experience to guide day-to-day. Knowledge of the entire luxury marketing mix including advertising, collateral, website development, media planning/buying and production is necessary. Candidate should have strong managerial skills, per timeline and budgets, and be ready to enter an entrepreneurial environment that has helped raised the creative bar industry wide. Fashion, luxury and retail backgrounds are perfect fit.

Salary 115,000.00 - 125,000.00


So either someone was fired or someone decided to get the hell of dodge. Either way it is going to be somone’s else clusterf**k, I mean duty to sell those luxury apartments in this luxury unfriendly market.

Zillow has a rolled out a new feature allowing owners input in their own estimates of their property which real estate agents and appraisers are probably cursing. On the flipside this will probably provide more data for these professionals to put together a better set of comparables. It will also allow municipalities to get a better pulse on their tax base and make property taxes more profitable.

And while I am on this buzz kill of a rampage, I would like to talk about the Fed. Yes, they did not raise interest rates for a variety reasons. This of course provides more ammo to the anti-bubble chorus despite the fact that new homes sales are dropping quicker than summer vacations to Baghdad. There is one key factor that hasn’t been addressed which is the election. My suspicion is that Bernanke is pulling a Greenspan by trying to keep things as clam as possible because of the upcoming election. Greenspan did the same during the last presidential election and when Bush got approved for another term, he began to force feed the Fed with enough Viagra so it had a severe enough hard on to f**k the housing market.

My prediction is that the Fed will lay the interest rate smackdown once the smoke clears and we see who is left standing. And I applaud Bernanke for this move because things are just too f**ked up right now.