Mike Butson's Blog

As I read my E-mail Monday morning, I came across a "Request For More Info," which is the result of a person taking the time to fill out a form on my website and asking a question about a certain property. This person had been up late Sunday, as the time stamp read 11:30 P.M. I opened the mail ab...

I am in the process of preparing for my weekly meeting with the agents of my firm. At this time, our financial world has been battered repeatedly and with the help of the wonderful media, the end result is a nation, state, town and in our case--an office-full of fearful real estate agents.  A num...

Ah yes, Listings. "The name of the game," "It's your bread and butter," "The key to making money in real estate," etc. etc. Is that still true? Has anything changed in this volatile real estate market? Well...yes  it is still true--listings are the way to make money in real estate. Certainly thin...

Do you remember the old Tootsie-Pop commercials where the question was, "How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center?" Never could any of the kids, owls or other cartoon characters answer the question. Just as I did back then, they always bit through the hard candy shell to get ...

Wow, Anne Hathaway and her boyfriend problems seemed to get more press this morning than the pending bail out vote. Are the news feeds giving us dessert before the entree? With all of the focus on the economy, unemployment, natural disasters, plunging home prices and the like, I wonder how the av...

This new environment we find ourselves in has been a challenge. From REO sales that batter the values, to tighter standards of credit and all of the recent hubbub over the bail-out bill, which some fear will freeze (albeit temporary) most of the market activity. I did not grow up on a farm, but m...

If there is any good news from the failure of the initial bail-out bill to pass, it is the huge negative effect on Wall Street. So far, it demonstrates that drastic hits will occur to the economy. I just hope that we don't sink too far, before something is in place. This almost reminds me of the ...

Seems like the same things come up over and over again. Escrow is about to close and the excited buyers hop in the car with their agent for the final verification of condition. All of the promised repairs have been completed, including the replacement of the septic system. Only five more days, an...

I recently made a whispered promise to myself to post one blog per week, which will hopefully provide a way to get things off my chest and possible provide a means for others to relate. Due to a fitful night's sleep and a much too early wake up call, I find myself in front of the computer just tw...

I just returned home from a trip to Southern California. I hardly read the newspaper, didn't watch TV and avoided the computer like it was the plague. This morning I deleted all of my past E-mail news feeds and followed my usual routine of reading the days financial, local and world event stuff. ...