Happy Valentine’s Day!
Silly Little Love Songs — Paul McCartney and Wings
I have always liked Paul McCartney’s music. I like the Beatles, and I like his later solo work with Wings. I enjoy the video above because you get a glimpse of his life in the 70s. He was young, rich, and wildly successful. He was doing exactly what he wanted, and he was bringing joy to millions in the process. How does life get any better than that?
Erika Chavez over at the OC Register was taking a look at Irvine real estate this week.
Irvine’s best home bargains
She can’t get her mind around these prices either…
{book3}
And I thought people’s Christmas decorations were a bit tacky…
I hope you all have the joy of spending this day with someone you love.
{book7}
You’d Think That People Would Have Had Enought Of Silly Love Songs.
But I Look Around Me And I See It Isn’t So.
Some People Wanna Fill The World With Silly Love Songs.
And What’s Wrong With That?
I’d Like To Know, ‘Cause Here I Go Again
I Love You, I Love You,
I Love You, I Love You.
I Can’t Explain The Feeling’s Plain To Me; Say Can’t You See?
Ah, She Gave Me More, She Gave It All To Me
Now Can’t You See, What’s Wrong With That
I Need To Know, ‘Cause Here I Go Again
I Love You, I Love You.
Love Doesn’t Come In A Minute,
Sometimes It Doesn’t Come At All
I Only Know That When I’m In It
It Isn’t Silly, No, It Isn’t Silly, Love Isn’t Silly At All.
How Can I Tell You About My Loved One?
How Can I Tell You About My Loved One?
How Can I Tell You About My Loved One?
(I Loveyou)
How Can I Tell You About My Loved One?
(I Loveyou)
Silly Little Love Songs — Paul McCartney and Wings
From the OCR article 14691 Deer Park is listed at $499K. Its last sale was $730K in 2007. That’s over a 30% drop. Is it a bargain? If you love the sweet music of Culver it is.
This one is below the median of IR’s eventual bottom of $400K. Go ahead knifecatcher’s. Jump!
Ms. Chavez writes intelligently and I’m glad her work is getting noticed.
I am a frequent reader of this blog and am aware of your constant spell ckeck of the RE agents listings. I am not particularly fond of RE agents but your constant whining about there spelling is getting old. Everyone makes mistakes, even you (please examine your comments on the above tacky houses). Were you just to lazy to do a spell check today, no proofreader, no editor, for the life of me I can’t figure how you could misspell that word. You better just throw in the towel.
mike, I fully agree that all people make mistakes and nobody should be expected to be perfect. However, I think the point IR makes by showing all these spelling errors is how little time RE agents are taking to make sure their text is error free. Writing a listing for the MLS is not like sending a casual email to a friend; who cares if I make typos in casual text. But, if someone makes typos in professional content, that’s a big deal. What if the front page of a newspaper had misspelled words all over it? It’s highly visible and affects lots of people. With MLS listings where the seller is paying a *very large* commission to the RE agent, you should get very good quality work. So, it’s pretty lame to see agents spending so little time to check the quality of their professional writing. I stand behind IR’s repeated pointing out of typos and all-caps listings & calling that poor quality work from supposed professionals.
http://www.crackthecode.us/images/realtorspelling.jpg
… there spelling is getting old.
… to lazy to do a spell check…
It’s ironic.
Not to be nitpicky, but since you brought up the spelling issue today, spellcheck does not catch everything. For example, I think you meant to say “your constant whining about THEIR spelling” and “Were you just TOO lazy to do a spell check today”. I completely agree with Mattman. If someone is getting paid that much for something so simple, the least you one can do is put some effort into making sure the listing is spelled correctly and there are some decent pictures posted.
Oops, even I make booboo’s 😛
It’s “booboos”, not “booboo’s”. :^)
The apostrophe is not used to show the plural form of a noun, no matter how frequently it is misused for this purpose.
Expecting the same level of polish on an off-the-cuff blog comment as one would from professional writing is a fool’s errand. However, writing professionally with the same slight care one would give to an off-the-cuff comment shows neglect, or even disregard, as others have correctly pointed out.
This is potentially the biggest sale of someone’s life. Shouldn’t the agent at least spell check and grammar check the listing? I would demand that if my house were listed for sale. If a listing looks like a third grader wrote it, the credibility of an assumed professional goes into the toilet.
I have a fairly simple internal “troll check.” Whenever I read a comment, if my initial thought is “F@#% you,” then I know I am reading the writings of a troll. Whenever I have this reaction, I never respond to it until the anger has passed.
As I read the comment again, I too noticed the misuse of the words “there” and “to.” It is very ironic that the troll made the same error that I did in the post where I used a word “though” when I meant “thought.” Both words do pass a spell checker because they both are words. However, their meanings are very different. The irony of this error made me laugh, and my anger went away. At that point, I imagined the troll being another pathetic realtor, probably someone I made fun of in the past. Obviously, the anger toward me has been building up for a while. He finally got the chance to release it.
As other astute observers have noted, I am not going to make a five-figure commission on my writing. I do not have a staff, nor anyone else to proofread my work. When my spell checker does not pick up an error, and when my brain still reads the word I meant rather than the word I wrote, the error appears in a post. However, there is one big difference between me and all the realtors I make fun of: when I make an error, I correct it. People reading this post over the rest of the weekend will have no idea what this was about because I fixed the error. Now if we could just get realtors to do that…
You are having real trouble with that word aren’t you. You cannot hide that one unless you delete your post.
Funny how the brain works, or doesn’t sometimes…
I use wordperfect 14’s grammar check to make sure in my professional work that the words are right (i.e. their and there) and the grammar is OK. It actually catches 95% of them. Its worth checking out. WP 9 & 12 (my prior versions) also work really well. only problem is that WP is not compatible with the newest version of word. Or at least, i have issues.
Its worth checking out.
You left out the apostrophe….
While I did not pre-post my response in WordPerfect, I was not trying to imply that IrvineRenter is not professional. His occasional mis-use does not bother me. I was simply trying to be helpful. And no, I am not a realtor.
I learned about WordPerfect’s grammatik (that is what it is called) when I was in law school.
It’s not as though the author is sitting around looking to take a cheap shot at realtors as we all miss a word here and there.
The point is that the realtor is making a fairly nice commission for slipshod work.
It is the consistency of the screw-ups. Day after day, listing ad after listing ad – the typos and the mis-spellings of very commonly used words.
What it comes down to is are you getting what you are paying for? If your real-estate agent doesn’t care enough to make sure that they present your house in a professional manner then wouldn’t you be concerned? I would.
You misspelled “too”. It should be “Were you too lazy,” not “Were you to lazy.” The first properly insinuates a quality of laziness; the second infers there’s a comparison to be made.
People who can’t be bothered to write well shouldn’t enter a profession where good communication is a requirement, whether written or oral. If they’re too lazy to do a good job the first time, they’ll probably be too lazy to look out for their clients’ interests too.
“The first properly insinuates a quality of laziness; the second infers there’s a comparison to be made.”
Actually I’d say that both A AND B are correct…
http://www.crackthecode.us/images/SpellingBeeAwardMike.jpg
1st spelling bee I’ve ever won, thanks Dave.
I also think there’s no excuse for bad photos in an MLS listing. Or too few photos.
Yes, everyone’s human. And yes, English is sometimes a second language. But when I see a junky listing, I assume the property is junky, too.
Irvinerenter, also remember that the difference between your errors (though vs. thought) and those of others is that you know the proper usage of these words; you just inadvertently left out the t. It’s just a typo. Many realtors and others, though, genuinely DON’T know the difference between “there” and “their,” and “to” and “too,” and don’t know when not to use an apostrophe, etc. The lack of professionalism evidenced by listing descriptions is appalling. Some of these “professionals” don’t even have the skills to write a decent listing. That should be cause for embarrassment. Some 8th graders have stronger writing skills, for crying out loud. Don’t stop pointing out their errors!
Total change of topic (and potentially, off topic for this blog, but really interesting, to me anyhow). Since I seem to be forever priced out of Irvine for one or another reason, I looked at Aliso this weekend. Something struck me as VERY interesting. Check out the difference between listing and selling prices /sqft. Click on my name for this post or go to http://www.redfin.com/zipcode/92656. Lists are just above $300/sqft, sales are around $200/sqft! $100/sqft difference, WOW!!!
An increase in the bid/ask spread is a sign of a distressed market. In rallies, this spread is practically zero, and it can even go negative when people start paying over the ask.
When it gets up to 1/3 of the asking price, well… that is a major disaster.
Since tightening credit is going to prevent any meaningful increase in bid amounts, asking prices are likely to go down. In Aliso Viejo, I expect them to drop down to where the action is taking place. Either that, or houses will not sell.
I see that Irvine also has this spread but it is $100/sqft higher. What do you mean when you say “I expect them to drop down to where the action is taking place.” I didn’t understand that.
Asking prices will drop. The bids are where the action is.
I would also add that most realtors are writing something like one listing every month or so. IR is writing posts everyday, and they are longer than the typical listing. That means much more verbiage to keep track of.
However, grammar check in Word will catch a number of them. As simple copy and paste before posting will get a lot of “too” vs “to” kind of problems. I’m not sure what software IR is using for editing posts, but that might be an add-in or option.
these houses are so cute! 😀
IR often posts on ‘comp killers’, and just to show this isn’t a Irvine thing only, here is an interesting list of properties in northern NJ tagged at the NJ Real Estate Report
http://njrereport.com/index.php/2009/02/13/february-comp-killer/
Also of interest is an article in this weekend’s NY Times on a housing blog site dedicated to properties in Short Hills, NJ (think Turtle Ridge)..anyone who has ticked off this many RE agents is OK in my book
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/realestate/15njzo.html?_r=1&ref=realestate
Critics should lay off Irvine Renter. IR has been writing this blog for a few years, with no compensation for the lengthy time spent, just because he has a passion to help people understand the truth about the Irvine housing situation. Most likely any click revenue he receives doesn’t even pay for the cost to maintain the site.
If IR achieves some commercial success, it is because he earned it. And if there is an occasional spelling error in his daily posts, so what!
O.K you think you’re over-priced in Irvine?
Hah, I say double hah!
Look at this place in Escondido, Ca (North of San Diego).
400k discounted to 130k (and I doubt it’s worth that!)
http://tinyurl.com/clagpo
SUCH a troll-
wait that was a typo I meant tool
Sorry we offended you mister realtor
*I KEED I KEED!!!*
My six-year old just walked by and pointed out that a realtor is acting as your professional agent and charging you a hellaoutrageous fee for the job they do.
On the other hand, here IR is providing an inestimably valuable service for free.
*Bratty-ass kid. Wish I had a woodshed-*