By Tom Branch, on January 14th, 2011  Copyright 2011 - Imaged2Sell 3 Bedrooms | 2.1 Baths | 2-Car Garage | 2319 SF/Builder
Plano TX Townhomes For Sale – Gorgeous new construction with stone exterior. Gourmet island kitchen with oversized breakfast bar, granite counters, tile back splash, stainless appliances, and gas cook top. Designer touches include art niche, bull nose corners, and iron balusters. Second living area perfect for game room. Enclosed patio with gas. Full service HOA for low maintenance living.
Current status, pricing, photos, and a virtual tour for this Plano TX Townhome for Sale.
Source: NTREIS
By Tom Branch, on January 14th, 2011  Copyright 2011 - Imaged2Sell 3 Bedrooms | 2.1 Baths | 2-Car Garage | 2319 SF/Builder
Plano TX Townhomes For Sale – Stunning new construction with stone exterior. Gourmet island kitchen with oversized breakfast bar, granite counters, tumbled marble back splash, stainless appliances, and gas cook top. Designer touches include art niche, bull nose corners, brushed nickel fixtures, and iron balusters. Second living area perfect for game room. Enclosed patio with gas. Full service HOA for low maintenance living.
Current status, pricing, photos, and a virtual tour for this Plano TX Townhome for Sale.
Source: NTREIS
By Tom Branch, on January 11th, 2011 While many people think that Texas is hot and dry, we do get a couple of hard freezes a year. For most people it simply means that the heat runs a bit more. However, if your house is vacant and the utilities have been turned off it could result in thousands of dollars in freeze damage.
 Copyright 2011 - Imaged2Sell I received an email from a client with a vacant house last week worrying about this issue because of a blast of cold arctic air that is supposed to drop temperatures into the teens and stay near freezing for a few days.
Rather than having him turn on the utilities, we suggested he have the property winterized. Locally, we often use Mark Kissee of Kissee Inspections to handle this process for our clients. Winterization usually costs less than $150 (a bit more if there is a pool or a really large house) in our market. This is far less than the time and expense of having the utilities turned back on.
Worried about your vacant house? Winterize it!
By Tom Branch, on January 9th, 2011 I’ve been meaning to write this blog for a while but I had forgotten about it. I was showing a home today and there was water everywhere in the laundry room at one of the properties. As I looked around I noted a small trickle at one of the laundry room washing machine faucets. The water was running down the wall soaking the sheet rock and puddling up on the floor. I made a quick call to the listing agent to let her know.
 Copyright 2010 - Imaged2Sell It reminded me of a listing I had had in Frisco. The owner had painted the house and put down fresh carpet so it would look nice and sell quickly. She had moved out of state and the house was vacant. It was a slow time of year and there were not many showings. I dropped by the house one day only to find the new carpet soaked in water! I traced the source back to a dripping laundry room faucet that day as well. Luckily we were able to have the carpet dried and suffered no real damage other than the several hundred dollar clean-up bill for the seller and several hours of my time making sure it was taken care of.
I used to recommend that sellers vacating a property cap off the laundry room and ice maker faucets. After that day, I started providing my sellers with the caps. I purchase them at my local hardware store and a set of three costs about $10. Not only is it an added service but it might just save the seller a bunch of money and myself a lot of time.
Cap those faucets before you move!
By Tom Branch, on January 8th, 2011 The phone rang in the office this morning. I had just walked in and grabbed the call. I introduced myself and asked the caller what I could do for them. “We saw the house you have for sale at 123 Anywhere and we want to place a bid on it” the caller stated.
 Licensed from iStockPhoto I ran through my usual questions:
“Are you working with an agent?” – “No, we don’t have an agent.”
“Have you seen the house?” – “No, but we want to place a bid!”
“Are you paying cash or have you been preapproved for a mortgage?” – “We’ll need a loan but we can take care of that next week.”
“Are you aware that this is a Short Sale property and make take some time to get bank approval?” – “It’s a foreclosure?”
I was holding a power-hour open house later, so I suggested they stop by and take a look. This house is priced well below market because it needs extensive work. Personally, I think financing is going to be a problem because of structural issues.
But none of this is what really got to me today. It’s the eBay mentality that appears to be taking over our industry. The only listings where I can place a “bid” are HUD Foreclosures. HUD Foreclosures are sold using a sealed bid auction format.
Every one of my 36 listings is “for sale” and I’m not running a reserved price auction. Yes, price and terms are negotiable but I expect buyers to make offers on a property by completing the proper contracts, being able to show reasonable earnest money, and proof of funds or a mortgage pre-approval from a reputable lender. When I’m working with buyers, I explain this to them if they talk about placing a “bid” on a property.
It’s not just the clients either. I hear Buyers Agents talk about placing bids on properties all the time.
Why do I think we need to make sure that buyers are not in “bid” mode?
While there are many issues, many buyers expect to be able to cancel their “bid” at any time without ramification. I had a buyer on one of my listings who decided to back out at the last minute. To make matters worse, the agent calls asking us to release the earnest money back to the buyer so they can use it for another property! This is not just a non-performing bidder email and a negative feedback situation. There can be serious legal and financial consequences.
How did we get here? Perhaps it’s a combination of the run-up mentality leading up to the melt-down in 2008 and a generation that has grown up purchasing things through auction sites. Regardless of the reasons, little real estate is sold in auction format and it’s critical to understand the implications of entering into a contract.
By Tom Branch, on January 8th, 2011 Gina and I attended a book release party a few months ago. Eve Mayer Orsburn was releasing her book titled, Social Media for the CEO – The Why and ROI of Social Media for the CEO of Today and Tomorrow.
 Licensed from iStockPhoto With more and more companies adding social media to their marketing campaigns, many CEOs want to understand how to go about setting up a social media campaign and how to determine the ROI. Eve explains why companies need to embrace social media. She outlines the simplicity of it and drives home the idea that it can have a huge impact on a company’s bottom line.
The main portion of the book is composed of case studies of companies, both large and small, setting up social media campaigns. Many of these are household names—The Mayo Clinic, Anheuser-Busch, Lane Bryant, and General Motors. In all there are 14 case studies presented in the book.
The single biggest take-away is called, “The Social Media Equation.” While I will not give it away here, Eve lays out a simple formula that anybody can execute.
Social Media for the CEO can be found on Amazon.com.
By Tom Branch, on January 5th, 2011 Growing up in the 1960’s and early 1970’s, I remember all the great Rock Bands—Aerosmith, 38 Special, Molly Hatchet, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, and Jimi Hendrix just to name a few.
 Live at The Lakewood in Dallas, TX The 1980’s may have been the best decade for rock with bands like Van Halen, Def Leopard, Whitesnake, Great White, Poison, Kiss, and Bon Jovi.
I went into the Air Force in 1979 and converted to Country for almost twenty years. I missed all of the 1980s rock! I came back to my roots in 2000 and over the past decade, I’ve been to see all of them and more.
Lately I’ve heard a return to the sounds of the 1970’s and 1980’s. Bands like Three Doors Down, Fuel, Seether, Dokken, Daughtry, Five Finger Death Punch, and Nickelback have all released singles that have that great 70’s and 80’s sound.
Seether covered Careless Whisper in 2009. They took the George Michael pop song and rocked it out. Five Finger Death Punch’s cover of Bad Company is better than the original in my opinion!
I think there’s a good chance that rock will stand the test of time.
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