Mars Hill Realty Group

According to a 2007 survey by Realtor.org, 84 percent of people use the Internet to search for their home. Many even purchase a home sight unseen, relying heavily upon the information and photographs they see on the Internet. It's no question that photography plays a critical role to the home buying decision-making process. It's not enough to have the prettiest home on the market, especially if the photos of your home are unflattering and give no compelling reason for anybody to look at your home, let alone buy it.

Most people can recognize an excellent photo when they see it, but achieving professional results yourself can be a challenge. Where do you start? The first place is with a high quality Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera. This is important not just from a photo quality standpoint, but also because you are going to need the ability to switch out your lens and utilize a wide-angle lens. A wide-angle lens helps the viewer of the photograph get a better sense of reality in smaller rooms, like bedrooms and bathrooms. For example, you can capture 3 or 4 walls of a room rather then just 1 wall (see picture on left - bedroom picture is really just a window). If you've ever seen a picture of a shower curtain, rather then the entire bathroom, you are seeing what happens when you take a picture using a regular "dinky" camera with no wide-angle ability.

I don't celebrate Halloween. There, I said it.

It's not because I don't like candy (I do). It just doesn't make sense for me to celebrate something that means absolutely nothing to me. Here are some other major holidays that I could really care less about:

          January 26 - Republic Day in India

          March 30 -- Muslim New Year in Indonesia

          November 12 -- Sun Yat-sen's Birthday in Taiwan

The list goes on and on. Basically, there could probably be a "major" holiday for every day of the year if you really did some digging. I stick Halloween in this group of holidays that have absolutely no meaning to me. Why celebrate something just because everybody else is doing it? Where do you draw the line? I have enough things in life to celebrate, and too much candy just makes you fat.

I do celebrate October 31st for other reasons.

On this day, 6 years ago, I was honorably discharged from serving 5 years in the US Army. That marked a new chapter in my life. It's the day that I changed into my civilian halloween outfit and the day that my family celebrates the way God protected me during my time in Iraq, and continues to protect our family today.

Today we're going to celebrate God's protection by going to Chuck E Cheese for the kids and then enjoying a nice family dinner at some restaurant. Autumn's been craving the Olive Garden salad and soup so we'll probably end up going there!

Your Best Choice for Georgetown Texas Real Estate and Finding Georgetown Texas Homes For Sale

If you're choosing a Georgetown, TX real estate agent to help you buy or sell a home, how do you separate the best from the average?

Most Georgetown, Texas real estate brokerages don't have a certain reputation for the way they operate. To the public, these brokerages are just "holding companies" for a massive amount of agents with varying levels of skill. The skill level of these agents can range from part-time, HGTV-trained hobbyist to a bona fide full-time professional. The focus of their training is to help their agents sell more homes and convert more leads instead of improving the skills that will directly benefit the customer. As a result, you have "multi-million" dollar producers who are great salespeople, but just average agents. Do you really want to settle for average?

Let us introduce you to Mars Hill Realty Group. We are a locally-owned real estate company located in Georgetown, Texas that is dedicated to the most important part of every real estate deal: Our Clients. Our training philosophy is to focus on specific skills that will benefit our clients directly. We would rather our agents be savvy at the negotiation table then be an expert at lead conversion and phone scripts. We believe that if we create value for our customers, our business will naturally grow. We accomplish this by focusing our recruiting efforts, company culture and training in attracting real estate agents who have a desire to master four core competencies: Social Networking, Negotiations, Analysis, and Photography.

You would expect the interest rates and terms for a commercial real estate loan to be following the downward spiral of the residential side of things. You would expect.

Last week, I decided to investigate how much money I would need and what my payment would be on my future real estate office building in Georgetown, Texas. I decided to take my daughter, Sabrina, with me and do a little Father/Daughter bonding at the same time.

The first bank I went to was Chase Bank in Wolf Ranch. I was pretty much handed a business card and told that I would need to get in touch with their commercial lending specialist. I haven't called him yet.

The second bank I went to was Capital One in Wolf Ranch. The moment I walked in I was greeted nicely and the branch manager brought me into her office. She took some information down and then told me to expect a call from their commercial lending specialist. I got the call a few days later with a follow-up email. As an added bonus, this bank has a little play area for the kids. Sabrina liked this bank and I think I did too.

The third bank I visited was Wachovia at the Rivery. They have a pretty high-tech looking bank, but no play area. Sabrina managed to get her hands on a dum-dum lollipop (her favorite) so this bank gets high marks. When we used the bathroom here, they had to unlock the door and allow us access into the break area. Kind of strange. Bottom line here: I was told I would get a call, but haven't heard from anyone yet. Bank seemed a bit too sterile.

I've started the search for Mars Hill office space on Williams Drive, the main business road in Georgetown, Texas, and have seen prices from $110/SF - $300+/SF! That's quite a range, considering this is a "soft" market for commercial. The thing that scares me, isn't over paying. I pretty much figured out what the values are for commercial property off Williams Drive. It's the unknowns that bother me. Asbestos findings, permit timelines and other variables that I have absolutely no control over that can cost me both time and money. So I'm going into this with lots of prayer, a good cushion of cash and a flexible mindset.

As soon as I figure out how to post video and pictures on this blog, I'll be sharing my findings with you.

Your Favorite Homeboy, Edward

11/14/09 Update

I have an accepted offer on 1627 Williams Drive.  Right now I'm in the inspection period, check out the video below!

Mars Hill is the English translation for the word “Areopagus” which is Latin for “the hill of Mars.” In Roman mythology, Mars was the god of war. So how does war relate to real estate? Simple. Every successful war plan must start with how well you can accurately predict the actions of the enemy based off historical patterns, known doctrine and other data. This is called predictive analysis.

With a war-proven background in Military Intelligence, our broker, Edward Lui, has been able to take his analytical abilities and apply these principles successfully in real estate. You'll never know what the other buyer or seller is willing to buy or sell that house for, but with due diligence and a comprehensive plan, our agents will make sure you have the advantage at every real estate negotiation.

If you're selling a home in Georgetown, Texas, that means pricing it accurately to begin with. Time is money, and homes that sell slower will cost the owner much more in holding costs, opportunity costs and emotional stress. If you're buying a home in Georgetown, Texas (or the greater Georgetown area) now you can relax. The #1 tool we bring to the table is the ability to educate you on the market trends and values so you're comfortable with every offer and counter-offer that comes your way. You can't find that on Zillow, tax records or from just any licensed agent. With our unique three-fold analysis approach, we give our clients all the leverage they need to confidently make an offer on their next dream home.

Read about the four core competencies that we believe make an agent revolutionary:

This is just one of the four core competencies we focus on at Mars Hill Realty Group: Photography. Sprucing up your landscaping and painting that front door red is great...but are you really making an excellent first impression if your photographs are lousy?  According to the Wall Street Journal, photographs are a primary part of advertising and poor photos can discourage potential buyers from looking at a home.

Unfortunately, many agents still don't get it. They take pictures of overexposed windows, tight bedroom spaces and other unflattering aspects of the home rather then showing off the strengths of the home and waiting for optimal lighting conditions. We believe that this skill is so important to our agents that a professional Nikon SLR is given to all of our agents as a company benefit and training is offered on a regular basis. It's no wonder that our homes sell three times faster then the average real estate agent in Georgetown, Texas. If you invest your efforts in photography, you're investing your efforts in jaw-dropping first impressions.

Read about the four core competencies that we believe make an agent revolutionary:

Finding a real estate agent with a high-level of skill is just part of the challenge.  The other part is making sure you enjoy working with him or her!  The real estate agent with the most listings, isn't necessarily the one that is the most personable.  On the other hand, neither is the agent who has the best marketing and the biggest ads.  Often times, you don't know ANYTHING about the agent that you've called, until you've started working with them!  By then, you might feel it's too late to back out of the relationship and you're "stuck" with another lousy experience.

But don't commit to ANY real estate agent without reading this first!

We want to be the first to let down our guard and show the public that real estate agents can be genuine and trustworthy. This is the only real estate company in Austin that requires all of our agents to let down our guard, even before you meet them.  We do this through social networking.  You will be able to find any of our agents on either a personal blog, Facebook, Youtube or any other type of social network available. This is a progressive way to market our properties and our real estate expertise to the public. Most importantly, it is a starting point where we can begin to earn your trust and get to know us on a personal level.

We have a deliberate process to gather accurate and insightful information to help leverage our client’s position during negotiations. The art of negotiations isn’t just a hobby we think about in our spare time, it’s a primary skill. Every one of our agents is required to become a Certified Negotiation Expert within their first 12 months of joining the company, and negotiation training is given on a regular basis to all of our agents.

Most real estate agents see the price as the only area of negotiation. This is an unwise practice called positional negotiation, which prevents proper communication between two parties resulting in a better win-win result. We believe that price is just one aspect of a buyer's negotiation strategy, and other terms, such as contract timelines, closing costs and repairs can be equally important. We do all of this and still manage to keep our offers under 96% of list price, beating out the average Georgetown agent in price reductions. We will negotiate for your home as though it were our own. If you’re looking for the most competent advocate for your next home purchase, your search ends here.

Read about the four core competencies that we believe make an agent revolutionary: