Rich Cederberg's Albuquerque Real Estate Blog

I love Gmail. I prefer it to my TopProducer email because it's easier to use and because I can attach larger documents that won't upload on TopProducer. However, I always thought there was one big drawback to Gmail: the email signature.

Here's my TopProducer email signature:

Rich Cederberg, ABR, e-Pro, CDPE

Rich Cederberg, ABR, e-Pro, CDPE
RE/MAX Finest Realtors
(505) 750-1846 mobile
(505) 792-2255 office
Visit my Website at: www.BeautifulNMHomes.com
Visit my Blog at: www.NWAbq.com
http://twitter.com/ABQHomesforSale
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/ABQHomesForSale

I think that looks pretty boring, and everything gets a little muddled together.

Thanks to Brad Andersohn at the Denver RainCamp I think I've found a solution. It's called WiseStamp.com.

You can use Wisetamp to customize your Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOl Mail and Hotmail Signatures.

Here's my Gmail signature now after only a few minutes on WiseStamp,

Contact Me

I traveled throughout the snow all day yesterday to get to the Denver RainCamp.

The room is full of Realtors (the event is sold out) mostly from Denver and the surrounding area, but there are at least three New Mexicans here.

Eloise Gift, Gift Realty NM

Valerie Almanzar, RE/MAX Finest

Rich Cederberg (I'm the big guy in the middle) RE/MAX Finest

Ben Kinney has been giving us all kinds of great new resources and been talking about SEO (more on that later), and Bob Stewart has started to tell us why we should blog.

We're learning a lot and having a great time at Denver Raincamp!

I'm happy to playing with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra again this weekend. I get to play about once a month when the orchestra needs an extra player.

In my previous career I was a free-lance trumpet player in Chicago. I played with symphony orchestras, brass quintets and broadway style pit orchestras.

When I decided to make a career change and become and Albuquerque Realtor, I thought my new job would be very different, but in many ways selling real estate is a lot like playing trumpet.

For instance, when you play trumpet for a living, you spend a lot of time alone in the practice room, preparing for a performance. When you sell real estate, you spend a lot of time alone in an office, preparing for showings or listing presentations.

When you play trumpet for a living, you work mostly nights and weekends. When you're an Albuquerque Realtor, nights and weekends can be really busy too!

When you play trumpet for a living you blow a lot of hot air! When you sell real estate....we'll nevermind, you know where I was going with that!

Seriously, the point I want to make here is that being a good Realtor, just like being a good trumpet player, takes preparation and practice, and only those individuals who are the most serious and most dedicated get to be the best!

I was a first-chair trumpet player and now I'm a top notch Albuquerque Realtor!

If you're an older agent I want to know: Have you adapted to online Real Estate?

For those of you who are holding out on all these changes in online real estate, let me tell you about my daughter Allison. I am so proud of my daughter Allison. She made her first business cards today.

No, she's not following in her dad's footsteps and going into real estate. Not yet anyway.

Her new business is called "Groceries are Fun!" She even has a great tag line: "I'll carry your worries away!"

We're not sure exactly what services she is going to offer, because, you see, she is only 9 years old.

Can you make your own business cards online? Do you have the computer skills that today's 9-year olds are learning? If you don't, it's time to sail off into the sunset. Today's real estate is done online. The marketing that sells houses is online. The networking between professionals is done online. The information that consumers want about all aspects of real estate is online. If you're an older agent have you adapted?

Oh, and did I mention? Coming soon: My daughter's new website. No she's not desiging it herself. Her older brother is. He's 11 and oh, you know what? He works with HTML code! Do you even know what that is?

Move over dinosuars! Adapt or become extinct. Lose all the hairspray, the fancy car and the self-indulgent networking lunch and let the internet generation take over! We serve our clients so much better than you can!

Photos courtesy of Rick Meiers, Dry Heat Photography

From David Cramer:

Hi Everyone,

I’m writing to request your assistance. If you have kept up with the news on the status of wild horses throughout the western United States, you know that the Federal Government, and in particular the BLM, has been rounding up thousands of horses from managed wild horse areas. Now it looks imminent that the Placitas horses are soon to be rounded up. Placitans and supporters of the horses have worked hard to protect these animals and have tried to communicate their importance to our community to the local BLM office. As we have received little recognition, and the BLM has been secretive about their plans, another option has been to work with the State of New Mexico to develop an interest in creating a State Wild Horse Park. We have received signs of interest in this endeavor. There are several ways you can help us protect these animals from round up. Writing an email, and copying it to me, is the preferred first step. That provides us evidence of your interest, and can help in future negotiations. If you decide to also place a phone call, please send me an email detailing the call (whom you spoke to, date, topic of conversation, response received from their office).

1. If you live outside New Mexico and I have guided you to view/photograph the horses, please write an email to the following individual and express how much your visit to New Mexico was enhanced by the experience:

Jennifer Hobson, Deputy Secretary for New Mexico Tourism Department of Ecotourism
email: jennifer.hobson@state.nm.us
phone: 505-827-6674

2. Email the following individuals to express your desire for New Mexico to establish a Wild Horse State Park. If you live out of state, let them know how much you enjoyed visiting our wild horses.

Dave Simon, Director New Mexico State Parks
email: nmparks@state.nm.us
phone: 1-888-667-2757

Governor Bill Richardson
internet: http://www.governor.state.nm.us/email.php?mm=6&type=opinion
phone: 505-476-2200

3. If you are a resident of New Mexico, please contact our local federal representatives and ask them to assist in the following:
+ Please hold a mediation and include WHOA and all stake holders per WHOA’s request.

+ What did they knew about this round up plan.

+ What new proof does the BLM have that San Felipe owns these horses as they have denied it through the years.

+ Has the BLM used mining permits or other “incentives” to gain cooperation from the honorable San Felipe Pueblo?

+ Did the grazing permittee gain his new permit from the BLM in the middle of this BLM RMP by agreeing to “safe passage” of this secret round up across his property?

+ Will you please stop the round up at least until the BLM’s RMP is done and disputes are settled?

+ Ask them to request a delay in any attempts by the BLM to round up or relocate the Placitas wild horses.

Congressman Martin Heinrich (ABQ office)
internet: http://heinrich.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=72&sectiontree=7,72
phone: 505-346-6781

Senator Tom Udall (ABQ office)
internet: http://tomudall.senate.gov/?p=contact
phone: 505-346-6791

Thanks to all of you for your help!

Search Equestrian Property in Placitas NM

Are you doing repairs on your Albuquerque or Rio Rancho home? Make sure you keep your receipts!

Recently I was involved in a transaction where the seller had made repairs to some of the major systems on the house, but they hadn't keep their receipts. The roof had been replaced, the furnace had been serviced and the duct works had been cleaned out, but the seller had no proof of any of these repairs.

The sellers incurred extra costs for some inspections they might have been able to avoid if they could have produced receipts for the work done. It's not that the buyer didn't believe what the seller claimed, that the repairs had been done, but it was reasonable of the buyers to want to see some documentation too.

So keep those receipts and invoices! Keep any warranty information and product manuals as well, you can use then to help market your home. Here's how:

When I work with a seller I always ask for these items. I like to put them together in a binder and leave them out on the kitchen counter for potential buyers to see. More discerning buyers will definitely open up the book and take a look. They'll want to know what recent repairs have been made, but it also sends an important subliminal message-that you have been taking good care of your house. Such good care in fact, that you even have receipts for the work you've done.

Are you considering selling your Albuquerque or Rio Rancho home? Just fill out this form for an instant home valuation (free comparable market analysis or CMA).

Photo By Jim Gross

Here's a shot of the Rio Grande River Bosque taken from the backyard of my listing at 1024 Prairie Zinnia in Bernalillo New Mexico. 1024 Prairie Zinnia is located in Alegria, Bernalillo's 55 and older Active Adult Community.

Those are the Sandia Mountains in the background. In late afternoon, the Sandias to the east catch the rays of the setting sun in the west and reflect them which creates a special color of reddish-orange. You'd have to see to understand.

It sure is beautiful in Alegria, isn't it?!?

I decided I would take the plunge and sign up to do BPO's here in Albuquerque. I though it would be a good way to earn a little more cashflow, and besides, I might learn something. I figured I could knock my 'appraisal' out in an hour then submit it quickly. Surely the bank will be so impressed with how I nail the value and how quickly I turn in the report that they'll hire me again and again and the hourly wage will be pretty good!

Proceeding on with enthusiasm and a positive attitude (and perhaps a little naivete too) I was anxious to accept the first assignment that came through.

I accepted the assignment an began my work. I was going to search for comps, but oops, there's was no square footage on the form. That's OK, that's easy to fix, so I went to look for past sales or listings of this house. Nope, none of them either. That's OK, I'll just go take my pictures and measure the exterior of the house first thing tomorrow morning.

All this time the 48 hour clock was ticking.

Well, the next day it was snowing. In New Mexico, right? Surely this will clear up by noon like usual. Nope, it snowed all day long...

Extension requested and granted. So much for doing the job quickly.

Finding the house was a little confusing. The address wasn't the same on the order as it was on the hastily constructed construction sign. Oh, no exterior light fixtures, bundled wires hanging out of the side of the house and Pella posters still on the windows. Oh, OK, it's a new construction project. But it's not done, and I don't have access. How many good comps am I going to find for this?

So much for easily nailing the value of the property.

Telling myself this was still a good opportunity to break into the fun and exciting world of BPO's in Albuquerque I measured the house up. There were 22 wall segments to measure. Hmmmm....That's OK, I'm good at math, especially at Geometry, but geez, the time is really starting to pile up.

So much for the hourly wage being pretty good.

I would have been better off going down to McDonalds and flipping burgers.

Oh yeah, and that opportunity to learn? I learned I don't want to do BPO's (or perhaps I should choose a little more carefully).

Does anyone out there have a good BPO story they want to tell me?

Two last questions: 1) Are all BPO's like this and 2) "Would you like fries with that?"

I can feel it, somewhere an appraiser is laughing at me....

Today wasn't one of those stellar days I dreamt of when I went into real estate. There were no multi million dollar closings, there were no dream homes to see.

But there was a lot of paperwork, a somewhat boring Realtor tour (no offense to my wonderful new colleagues, I just wasn't into it) in the snow, more paperwork and inspections to schedule. Oh yeah, I learned a lot more about duct cleaning than I knew before and I got to watch a fabulous video of some of the dirtiest ducts I've ever seen.

The poignant part of the day happened earlier in the day, and really had nothing to do with real estate.

Yesterday we had a death in the family.  Bob was not someone I was super close to, but someone who other people in my family were very close to. When I was a little boy Bob scared me because he talked very loudly and with a very pronounced southern drawl. When I grew older, met him as an adult and saw him with my children, I realized he was a very nice man.

Then today, two other events reminded me about our fragility.

When I called to schedule an HVAC inspect the inspector said he could do it today at noon. I would have preferred tomorrow, but he said there had been a death in the family, so it'd have to be today. 

So I scheduled him-on very short notice-and when I called the seller. They said we'd have to pick another day. There was a serious family medical emergency.

~~~~~

So, no, it wasn't a stellar day in my real estate world, but I can go to bed thankful that everyone under my roof is safe and sound, happy and healthy tonight.

Maybe today was stellar after all...

I'm going to be gone for a few days, so I thought I'd let my loyal readers know.

I'm not actually going fishing, I'm going shopping. Shopping for homes all over town over the next 5 days.

Already, 2010 has been incredibly busy! I've met with several new buyer clients.

Sellers, if you are on the fence wondering if this is a good time to sell, the answer is yes! The market has never been hotter (in recent memory).

I'm hoping to be back on Sunday. Until then be safe and happy!

Photo Credit: Follow this Link

TTFN: Ta ta for now!