The Mission of the IHB

The mission of the IHB is to provide general real estate education, to analyze and report market conditions, and to help people buy and sell homes.

The IHB Story

The IHB story is about a community of real estate watchers and seekers who banded together to tell the Truth about housing. The community grew strong through an exchange of information and entertaining online interaction; it was fun.

Out of this community, and the bubble blog community as a whole, a consensus opinion emerged of when, how and why an epic price crash was going to occur. I became one of the community scribes documenting the disaster and ultimately writing The Great Housing Bubble. It is the entire IHB community through research and reasoned opinion that created a collective consciousness bigger than all of us.

The binding principals and wisdom of the IHB guided us in the selection of services Ideal Home Brokers provides.

IHB Services

We perform the following services: (1) provide real estate instruction and evaluation; (2) foster a community of like-minded educators, professionals and everyday people in the IHB forums; (3) supply unique property valuation reports to our clients; and (4) assist buyers and sellers without pressure, manipulation, or emotional appeals.

The IHB began as the Irvine Housing Blog in September of 2006. The scope of the IHB was expanded in May of 2009 when the Ideal Home Brokers was added to its acronym. In the summer of 2009, the IHB: Ideal Home Buying process was unveiled.

Educate People about Residential Real Estate

The IHB started as a hobby to vent frustration, evolved into a source of real estate education, and now serves as a source for many to communicate and learn about local real estate. When the IHB entered the scene, the misinformation in the popular culture was astonishing, and it culminated in a massive real estate price bubble. We at the IHB want to make sure this disaster of The Great Housing Bubble never happens again.

The education from the IHB is free to all. Everything written for the IHB—over 200,000 words in over 1,000 posts and numerous PDF white papers—is available in multiple formats on our websites, www.irvinehousingblog.com and www.irvinehousingbrokers.com. There are many topics under the broad heading of residential real estate that can be found at our two sites. Your education continues there.

Part of this service is our commitment to nourish a community of educators, professionals and everyday people who come together to share their knowledge and real estate experience in the Irvine Housing Blog community forums. We have attracted parties from many disciplines and all walks of life. The forums are quite active and visited by over 1,500 people a day. If you have a specific question not answered by this book or the writings on our educational websites, you are encouraged to visit the forums and pose your questions there or email an IHB professional directly. At the IHB, we are here to serve.

Provide Honest and Fact-Based Assessment of Property Valuations

The Ideal Home Brokers exists to serve the needs of buyers and sellers. We provide a unique value-added service with our proprietary pre-bid and pre-listing report. We provide an unbiased opinion of value and a conceptual framework to help people understand the negotiation they will be undertaking. We make this same report available to both buyers and sellers.

With our accurate valuation reports we help sellers better understand the market conditions, price their homes properly, and maximize resale value. When we represent buyers we use these same reports to educate them on current and potential future market values. We help them to analyze the cost of buying as compared to renting to make sure the buying decision is the right one. Moreover, we believe in honest information based negotiation. We strongly believe that our client’s success is dependent upon creating a win-win transaction in which both the buyer and the seller are happy. Both parties know that they have participated in a fair and honest transaction free of deceptive sales tactics and manipulative negotiation.

Only the Truth

The sale of real estate sales is marred by the deplorable sales methods of many of its practitioners. The education and training of many agents is marked by high-pressure sales tactics, outright manipulation of both parties through emotional appeals, and a lack of clarity and honesty in communication. Much of the writing of the IHB emanated from a deep personal disgust with these practices and recognition of the role they played in the inflation of The Great Housing Bubble. No sales representative of the IHB will use these tactics; we have a zero-tolerance policy for violations.

There are many honest and ethical Realtors in the profession who are as dismayed about these sales tactics as we are. We hope our presence and practices serves as a call to action to good Realtors everywhere. We make our methods known to all in the hope that these methods and practices become adopted by others in the industry.

The IHB treats all customers with respect and provides integrity and honesty (and even bluntness) that our clients find refreshing. We provide free education, value-added services, and service with integrity and honesty. We are here to serve you.

Thank you again for allowing us the opportunity to present ourselves to you in this manner. We look forward to working with you.

Sincerely,

Larry Roberts

When you are ready to buy or sell a home, we are here to serve you.