Casey J’s BCS Blog

Recently my pastor asked the question, Do you live your life like your playing Monopoly or Uno. Is your strategy to acquire everything you can and end up with the most stuff? Do you keep score by buying more and better stuff. Do you feel like you have to have that house, that car or that bank account to win and feel like a success. Once you obtain that goal does your goal change to another one that’s even better or more exclusive. Just maybe it’s a loosing game, and no matter how much you have, their is someone else that has more and a better one of those thingamajigs. In reality we come into this world with no material items and we leave this world with none. Shouldn’t we be playing the game of life more like Uno. Trying to give as much as possible away throughout life so we can end up with the least possible. Should our goals be to have as much success as possible so we can help others succeed? Share the success and blessings with as many people as possible throughout our life. What if the object of life and the metric for success was to give as much as possible before your death. Instead of one really successful person with a lot of material stuff would we have an abundance of successful people that continue the chain of giving.  What if you knew that the more you gave the more you would get.  Sounds like a great life to me and it would make that last day of living a pretty sweet one.

I have to admit I love the idea of being greener with my choices when it comes to how we live. No matter if you believe in global warming or not it only makes sense to try to do things to help our earth. I’m not very good at it and I forget to do the little things that are very easy and does not take much effort. But all of the hoopla has done one thing. It’s made me think about it and it stays top of mind. The next house I build I’m going to try to incorporate more efficient products and use green techniques as much as possible. Some green products are not very cost effective but there are many things you can do that are. Well as usual my ADD is taking me in a different direction but I’ll come back soon with a blog on Green Building down the road. In the mean time you can check out http://www.greenbuilding.com

I think the biggest place we can make a difference is in the workplace. We all know there is a lot of waste in our workplaces and I’m always amazed how much paper we use. When I worked at Google we were very efficient but not all of us have a VP of Green on staff that manages a team of people that develop and implement these initiatives. Some days I do miss all of the free lunches (made by professional chefs), on site massage therapist, personal trainers, nutritionist, video game arcades, rock climbing walls, pet sitters, segways, scuba lessons …….. When did we have time to work. It’s good the algorithm ran everything. I wish I had one of those for my business. Anyway below are some tips for the work place in honor of Earth Day. They come from our friends at Ideal Bite. If you go to the link you can download a PDF of wall version for your office wall so you won’t forget.
Top 10 Ways To Green Your Office
1. Kick the Bottled Water Habit.
Every year, 1.5 mil barrels of oil go to making plastic water bottles used in the United States, and less than a quarter of those bottles are
recycled, so choose a reusable bottle instead.

2. Compute This.
Set computers to enter sleep mode after 5 min of idle time, and you’ll be saving energy during lunchtime and other outings. And shut them down at night – contrary to eco-myth, it’s better for the earth and your computer to shut them off before you head home.

3. Zap Your Phantom Energy Loads.
Plug your office electronics into a power strip so that you can easily turn them all off when you’re not using them - you’ll keep your devices from sapping “phantom” electricity loads when they’re off but plugged in. On average, 40% of the energy used in homes powers turned-off appliances.

4. Purify with Plants.
It doesn’t take a forest to clean the air in your office, only about one plant for every 10 square yards. Plants like philodendrons and peace lilies absorb airborne pollutants, keeping the air you breathe clean and clear.

5. Forgo Bad chems.
Standard keyboard cleaners contain toxins you definitely don’t want to inhale. Just one 10-oz can of chem duster has the same greenhouse gas- creating effect as burning 100 gallons of gas. Take CTRL: Just turn your keyboard upside down, give it a little shake, and slide a piece of 2-sided adhesive tape between the keys.

6. Dodge the Drafts.
Printer drafts, that is. Unless you’re printing something super important, save ink and paper by tracking your changes in electronic documents. If you absolutely need to print something, print it double-sided. Who could conscientiously object to that?
7. Pay the Piper Online.
You probably already do it at home for convenience, but lessen your paper clutter at the office too by banking and paying bills online. phone companies alone use 23,280 tons of paper per year just to bill U.S. residential customers for single lines of service.
8. Get Inked.
Ink cartridges can take up to 450 years to decompose. Recycle your old ones, and next time you buy, go with refilled
cartridges, which work just like conventional ones and cost up to 75% less than new ones.

9. Safeguard Your Lunch.
Baggies are piling up in landfills quicker than you can say “ziplock,” and toxins in plastics are no picnic.
Reduce waste by taking your lunch in reusable, safe containers. Some plastics, like PVC (#3), polystyrene (#6), and
polycarbonate (#7) contain hormone disruptors or other nasty chemicals. Stay healthy with plastics #1, 2, 4 or 5.
10. Climb Your Way to Green.
A surefire way to avoid awkward elevator silences and save energy? Take the stairs instead. No surprises here: Climbing
stairs burns up to 10 times more calories than standing in an elevator. And, depending on type, capacity, and usage, an
elevator’s yearly energy usage can equal the energy used to power seven homes annually.

We’ll we’re going into the second week of having our home on the market. We started all of this by preparing the house which even for a house that is only three years old is a big job. First we had to repair any small blemishes, as well as paint some area’s that had been marked up. We replaced any burnt out light bulbs to make sure the rooms were as bright as possible. We also stained our fence and placed new tile in the kids bathrooms and our extra bath upstairs. Originally we placed vinyl flooring in those rooms knowing the kids lived there. After looking at the market and the competition we decided to spend the money to upgrade those rooms so they would match more with the quality of the first floor. After the fixes it was time to do a deep clean. We hired a cleaning service to come in and perform a detailed cleaning. We also hired carpet cleaners to do the carpets as well as the wood floors. Once all of that was done the real work started. Staging is making your house appealing to buyers by making your home look decluttered and spacious. Your goal is to make it easy for the buyer to visualize their stuff in your house. I have a pretty good grasp of how to stage a home but next time I will hire a staging company to do it because it was a huge chore. You don’t realize how much clutter you have until you start decluttering. We moved many pieces of furniture to storage and tried to make the rooms show their real size. It’s hard for them to do that when there is a ton of stuff in their way. It also makes you rethink all of those purchases, since once you declutter you feel so much less stressed and life is just simpler and not so hectic. Maybe it’s just me but I’m digging our house now. In the beginning I was always trying to fill every wall and space. Now I just wonder why. The world is way to hectic why would we want our homes that way. So this job took us about a week. We filled many boxes with stuff and moved a lot of furniture, and the funny thing is I don’t even realize that it’s gone. In our current market staging is important and as more and more homes place signs in their yards it will be even more important. One last detail we had to figure out was our dogs. We have two chihuahua, Mole’ and Chuy. They are sweet little guys but they had to go somewhere so we made plans for them to be able to go visit their Mimi during the day and during any open houses. The other day I toured a home that as I stood examining the kitchen something started rubbing on my leg. It was a white fluffy cat. Now I love pets but if your selling your home wouldn’t you want to have an opportunity with the most buyers possible no matter how passionate you are about your pet. Not everyone likes certain types of pets and many people are allergic. If your goal is to sell your home you need to make arrangements for your pet during the hours when your home will be shown. It’s that simple.

Well we’re selling our home. I thought it would be great to blog about the experience of selling my own home. You can read all the articles on how to do it, but what would be better than coming along with me while I’m actually doing it. So over the next few weeks I’ll be including an additional post about the trials and tribulations of readying my personal home and the daily activities and learning’s that come with having it on the market. I hope this is a short series but we’ll just have to find out. So to catch you up to where we are today. When we decided to move back to College Station we were still living in Dallas and I was still working for Google. We had an advantage because we knew College Station well due to the fact that I not only went to College at Texas A&M University but also grew up right down the road in Rockdale TX. I also had some good insiders in my sister and her husband who had lived in the area for over 15 years. So we started looking around at options during our regular journey to games during football weekends. We narrowed the geography down to the South side of town where there was a lot of growth and newer homes to choose from. The area was also close to my sisters family who had lived in the Southwood Valley neighborhood for many years. One of the big factors was schools and we had heard of the great reputation of Pebble Creek Elementary so our search was narrowed to area’s in that school district. After living here for several years we now know, yes Pebble Creek Elementary is a very good school but there are many great schools in the BCS area. So wanting to be near Pebble Creek Elementary we focused our search in the Pebble Creek Development. We were not particularly looking for a new construction home knowing that eventually we would build a custom home in the future. We ended up finding a great home that was under construction by Smith Fine Homes. After three years of living in College Station and enjoying living in Pebble Creek we are now ready to start building our custom home on a larger piece of land out in the Eco development “The Villages of Indian Lakes“. So it’s time to sell and now that I’m in the real estate business you think it would be an easy thing. Well I guess we’ll see.

What do you want to be?  What are the dreams that you never realized?  Was the path blocked?  Did you not have the connections or resources?  Maybe the Internet can be your second chance.  Recently the Oscars were on TV and I have to say I was inspired by a woman that was a stripper only a year earlier.  I guess I wasn’t really inspired by her but by what she was able to do in such a short period of time, from a place that was far from where she ended up.  I’m talking about Diablo Cody who won the Oscar for “Best Original Screenplay” for the hit movie Juno.  You see one of my dreams has always been to make a film that wins an Oscar.  I placed my dreams on hold to get a “normal” degree, just to be safe.  Then once in the working world I was so busy trying to pay my bills.  The dream faded but was always still there.  What inspired me was the “Ah Ha” that the internet has made it possible for all of us to have a chance at our dream and try things we may have giving up on previously in life.  No matter how old you are you can use the computer as your brush and the internet as your canvas.  Over the past few years we’ve seen this happen with music artist that were discovered on You Tube, young tech millionaires that created things like You Tube out of their garage, kids that wrote best selling novels out of their bedroom.  There’s always been people that beat the odds and reached greatness in an unorthodox way but the door is much larger now.  Diablo Cody didn’t just place a screen play on the Internet that turned into a movie - she did that and won an Oscar in a very short amount of time.  In the past you had to know someone or spend years getting rejected.  I’ve been in Hollywood and went on auditions, stood in line for hours to say a few lines and spent days sitting around just to be an extra.  I couldn’t imagine doing that for years.  The Internet gives you an instant venue like never before and the opportunity to do it right here in good old College Station.  Maybe you won’t win a pulitzer or an Oscar but with such a large market with such open access you might just entertain someone or inspire many.  So get a blog and start writing your screen play, book, business plan and release it to the world.  You never know who’s at the other end of the connection.

I just returned from a week in Atlanta where I attended the Keller Williams conference.  It was an incredible time with close to 9,000 of my fellow real estate pros.  The keynote speaker was Seth Godin, marketing visionary, who I believe really gets it.  He is a “Purple Cow”.

On the way to the conference I picked up one of his books “The Purple Cow”.  The name of the book is the perfect example of what the content goes on to tell you about.  Godin describes a new world where the old marketing machine of TV, Print, radio etc. doesn’t work.   It’s way too broad and very inefficient.  As an example he talks about how when you walk into a pharmacy you can see an isle with hundreds of pain relievers.  Most people have solved their pain relief problem many years ago and most pick the same brand every-time no matter how many times they are bombarded with TV and print.  All of the brands are spending millions of dollars trying to sell the same thing with a different name.  The other problem is people mostly ignore the message.  In the information world we’ve become a very smart filter and flter out the majority of the messages.  The Internet and DVR has further complicated these methods and made them inefficient.  Godin writes that the essence of the Purple Cow is that it must be “remarkable”.  The book is about the why, the what, and the how of remarkable.  Something remarkable is worth talking about. Worth noticing. Exceptional, New, Interesting.  It’s a Purple Cow and all the rest are brown.  He says to stop placing all your energy and resources into marketing a product that has already been done and start placing those resources into building innovation and “the remarkable” into your products and services.  In the past you could take the same product and just be a better mass marketer but he believes those times are dead because people are no longer listening.  Most of the products out there are invisible.  We’re competing with our ad dollars vs. our product.  When I was considering starting my real estate business one of the attractive things about it was the opportunities to innovate and do things differently and better.  This book has fueled my thinking about my service as one of the many Realtors and find out what “Purple Cows” I have and how can I express them.  All of us in like industries need to look in the mirror and figure out how can we innovate and do things differently.  Why don’t we?  Godin says it’s all about fear and the fact that society pushes us to fit in, be average and get our piece of the pie while working within the system.  He goes on to say that small to medium businesses are the one’s that can and have taken advantage of this to compete with the corporations that are stuck in the old world.  They can’t move fast enough and most are not willing to change.  If your a business owner read this book and open yourself up to pushing your organization into areas you’ve never been and no one else has either.  Make your own boundaries and don’t just innovate your business but your industry.

http://www.sethgodin.com/purple/

Examples of some companies and brands that have utilized the Purple Cow.

CROCS - made a lot of money with an ugly shoe

Starbucks - was a Purple Cow but no longer.  They need to find a new way to make themselves stand out.

Jet Blue - Found a way to change pricing and service in a very brown cow industry.

APPLE  - enough said!  Always launching new Purple Cow’s like IPOD.

Amazon.com - carries books that Barnes & Noble can’t

IKEA - brought style and quality to inexpensive furniture

Best Buy - listens to customers instead of market research on what products to carry

Hummer - boxy and inefficient.  Goes against green trend and sells.

  In College Station we’ve been insulated from all of the crazy dooms day headlines we hear in the national media.  But we are faced with many uncertainties going into the big home selling season.  Will we be affected and to what extent?  Have we been affected and didn’t realize it because we’ve been in the low season the past few months?  Either way we know that things will be more “normal” than they have been over the past few years.  Even in the College Station area we’ll need to utilize all of the market data, expert advice and the latest marketing tools to sell your home faster and for more money.  Over the next few weeks I’m going to talk about the key factors that will help you sell your house in any market. 

The number one thing that it will take to sell your home is “Pricing It Right”. Your house is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it.  Many of us have placed a lot of work, sweat and money into our home and we see all of those expenditures.  Many of the things we did may have been worth it and we may have got a great deal.  I have a great theatre room with some of the top technology, 110 inch screen, HD projector and even speakers that lower out of the ceiling.  It’s awesome and I Love it.  I think it was a great addition to my home and my favorite room.  If I was a buyer and I saw that it might just push me over the edge on my decision.  But as much as I would like, everyone is not me and some buyers may see value and others not.  What I’m trying to get at is if your going to try to sell your house for $20,000 more because it has a $20,000 theatre room it might take you a longer time to sell the house.  Think about when your shopping for an automobile.  You know your looking for a four door European sports sedan with an automatic transmission.  At the price your looking at they all have about the same horse power, handling, etc. etc.  One has a navigation system that automatically pops out of the dash and it’s really cool.  It may also have Eddie Bauer leather vs.. factory leather.  Now would you pay considerably more for that car vs.. the others?  There may be one person out of 100 that would say yes!.  But many would not and the same applies with prospective buyers for your home.  It would be great if we could add up everything in our house and list it for that price.  But in reality it’s not about our house, it’s about the market.  What is the market?  Basically it’s what’s for sale and what has sold in your area that is similar in size and style.  In the 2008 market if you want to sell your home for the most money, quickly; I would focus more on what has sold. 

So when making the decision to sell your home you need to weigh how much money you feel you must have to sell your home.  If you don’t get it can you deal with keeping the home or are you in a must sale situation for financial reasons, a move etc.  Based on those decisions it’s best to price it right from the start.   The longer your home is on the market the harder it is to sell and your home can get an “Over Priced” reputation which means less showings and traffic.   If you want to see what homes have sold in your neighborhood to get a good idea of your homes value click on the Market Snapshot link below for your complimentary report.

Market Snapshot

One of the problems I wrestle with is looking back and playing the “what if” game.  I even dream about decisions I’ve made and how it would have been if I would have taken another route.  Even when, deep down I know I made the right decision and the positives outweigh the negatives, I still tend to retrace my steps and torment myself.  My one resolution this year is to not look back and try to stop playing the “what if” game.  In reality, you can learn from your mistakes or what you think were mistakes but you can’t go back and change them.  When I was a child I did this as well; “What if I had this or what if I would have done that”.  My grandmother always put a stop to it by saying “If if’s and buts were candy and nuts we’d all have a Merry Christmas.”  As a child I was not that impressed since I didn’t think an abundance of candy and nuts would make my Christmas any better but now I can appreciate what she meant.  It’s a lot easier said than done since our history has a lot to do with who we are, but again we need to learn from that history and embrace any good things that my have come out of those decisions.  This year I’m dedicated to starting where I am, looking at all the blessings I have, and moving forward.

In the real estate industry many people have their own “if’s and but’s” that are tormenting them this year.  That adjustable rate mortgage, building that house that was a little more expensive than you could really afford, waiting a little longer to sell your home; they all seemed like great ideas.  We now know things can change quickly and going forward no matter how good it gets in the future, we need to take that experience into our future.  What we can’t do is live within the problems and pain.  We need to step outside of it, accept where we are and make smart decisions to move forward.  The sooner we do that the sooner the healing will begin.  It’s easy to avoid moving forward and live in the past, but when we do that we fall further and it will take much longer to rebound.  Start now, file the past year and make a positive plan for ‘08 and beyond.  Reach out to trusted friends and advisers to help you get your plan together and put in place motivators that help you stay on track and accountable.  Instead of thinking about what might have been, think of what can be and focus on a new future that can be better than you ever imagined. 

I hope everyone is getting ready for Christmas and has all their shopping completed.  I always wait until the last week.  Not just because I procrastinate, OK that’s one of the reasons. but also because I like to do it all at once.  I don’t plan too much for each gift but I let my heart and creativity guide me.  I have in the back of my mind what people have asked for and what they need but I’ve found this approach makes my gift giving more creative and spontaneous.  In the movies you see people shopping on Christmas Eve carrying all the shopping bags throughout the mall.  That’s me, I don’t wait till Christmas eve but usually the week of Christmas.  I’m not good with too many choices so this also makes me have to pick a strategic shopping geographic area and just go for it.  People tend to love my gifts because they are unexpected and creative.  I also buy nice gifts and I try to relate them to the person or my experience with that person.  Maybe it will remind us of a time we spent together or funny moment in our past.  I believe gifts have become a necessary thing to do versus a fun thing to do that can not just fill a persons need for stuff but celebrate them and your relationship with them.  Being creative can also help you find unique things for less money.  If you stretch your imagination you can find all kinds of great gifts almost anywhere.  One time my wife and I had no Christmas budget and no time so on the way to visiting family we stopped at the one place we thought we could get gifts to fit the bill.  HEB, yes the grocery store.  We went aisle to aisle finding fun unique things related to each person on our list.  We had a blast doing it and my family still tells me to this day that those were some of the best gifts they received.  So whether you have a small budget or big one think outside the box, have fun, and make it personal.   Lets take some of the stress and work out of this great holiday so we can spend more time with friends and family like it was meant to be.

 Merry Christmas - see ya in 2008.

 Casey J

Sorry for the delay in my blog this time but I had a touch of the flu.  Feeling much better now and ready to roll.  This time I wanted to talk about something that is near and dear to my heart and very appropriate for this time of year.  Giving!  When I learned the concept and placed it in my daily life, it changed my life.

It’s the holidays and it’s a time of year we love to give.  Most of us are all givers during this time of year.  Maybe it’s the music, the lights or the mood but we love to find the perfect gift and see the reaction people have when we give them something they love.  We’re also more likely to give to charities and our church this time of year.  Maybe it’s guilt, more advertising or again just the mood we’re in this time of year.  Maybe some save up and choose this time to give.  What ever the reason it’s great that people give during the holidays.  But many times it is a controlled form of giving, we choose the people we give gifts to and the organizations we donate.  There’s nothing wrong with giving to your favorite charities and causes that you have a passion for.  One thing I would like to share with you that has made a huge difference in my life is opening yourself up to giving opportunities that come to you.  I used to give when I wanted and to who I wanted.  I felt that made me a giver.  It was like I was looking through binoculars and strategically zooming in on what would make me feel good and who I wanted to feel good.  With the binoculars on, you loose your peripheral vision.  It really cuts back on people or opportunities that could be right next to you, reaching out, but you can’t see them.  When you take the binoculars off it also allows people to see you and recognize your need.  Maybe you need to be on the receiving end of giving. 

I’m a Christian and that is why I started to place this principle in my life.  John 3:16 says “God so loved the world he gave his one and only son.”  Giving is a huge part of Christianity and my faith.  But no matter what religion you practice this can change your life.  When I started opening myself up to this concept I started meeting people I never would have met. My life has been filled with opportunities that these people have brought to me.  Start today opening your eyes to giving opportunities and allowing yourself to be given to.  It’s not just money, but your time and talent.  It can be as simple as a compliment in the elevator during that awkward time or in line at the grocery store.  You don’t know what that person’s life might be like or what they experienced last night.  One kind word could change their outlook into a positive one.  I  truly believe if we all consciously looked for these opportunities we could change the world.