What did we talk about? Below is the Edited Transcript

You Dirty Rat

Hey there everyone this is John Schink from Deerwood Realty. I am the founder and the managing broker of Deerwood Realty and as of episode 4 I’ve actually got someone that asked me a question and that was, “Are you going to talk about the real estate market?

Yes, I will talk about the real estate market. The real estate market is great if you’re a seller and if you’re a buyer it’s absolutely terrible, absolutely terrible. On weekends nights I’ll go and I’ll drive buyers around who are fully qualified to buy a home we will drive to a house they will have some sort of notice that they will accept offers on Monday. So we will write our offer on Saturday or Sunday and then Monday we will get an email for the most part that says we didn’t get the house and we will then pick up off the floor and then go and start again the next weekend.

I’ve seen a lot of written things about what is going on in the market, if Blackstone is buying all the houses and all these things like that and I would just say that for as long as I’ve known there’s always been people in the marketplace that can afford to buy any house out there. A conglomerate, an LLC, some sort of investment group and I don’t really think that’s the reason why things are so so crazy right now. I personally believe that a lot of people were sittin, you know stuck in their homes thinking they might die, and going to work on zoom calls and there’s you know, four other family members in the house trying to live their life because everybody’s stuck in there. That people just decided that their house was too small, there’s no place to work, there was no place to do anything they maybe had one room for an office but then with two people out of work it didn’t do any good. I think that had a lot to do with it. I think low rates have a lot to do with it.

I think population growth should should have something to do with it. I mean in St. Louis, when I look at the moving reports every year it seems like Missouri never picks up. At least, St. Louis never picks up. People seems like they are always going out of St. Louis and they’re going down to Texas or Florida, they’re just not staying here. So where’s all this need for all this housing? So, it’s tough. Just as a, you know as an aside, some sort of philosophy. If you don’t have to buy a house right now don’t buy a house. It isn’t worth it. I mean, for what you sell it for you’re going to be paying extra for what you buy. Now, if you’re planning on moving to an apartment, downsizing, and don’t care about the finances at all then go ahead and buy. And sellers, you know, if you’re thinking about buying a house, I would strongly recommend that you look for a house first and have one under contract before you sell your house. Some of my clients are out, you know, a year or more before they’re going to be able to find a house. So that’s the market report. Is it more hot in Webster Groves than it is in Kirkwood? You know, No it’s hot everywhere.

One of the questions that people ask is, Well how much should I offer over asking price? Well, a hundred thousand dollar house ..you know, should you go five thousand over? And I want to just say that I think that’s the wrong question.

Your agent should have a comparable market analysis or CMA that shows you the houses that have sold in the neighborhood recently and relevant comps are key. Any idiot can press a button on a computer and get some sort of output but that doesn’t mean it’s a good comp or a good CMA. But when you see what’s been sold look for days on market. Look for things that everybody else wants on that house that sold. That should give you an indication about how much somebody else paid. Now does that mean that you should go do it? You should go ahead? You should go for more than what somebody else did? No, but my view is that real estate is all about right now. It’s about today. If you know ask the question, If i could afford this house what what could I pay for it today and if I got it, how would I have a clear conscience afterward? How could I sleep at night after purchasing this house? That’s the number you should go with. I don’t recommend, you know, I don’t recommend you go over something that you’re not comfortable with. The other thing is, you know, How do you know you should go over ask? I mean, if we’re just gonna sit here every week and just go over every time for a house that doesn’t warrant it, you know, why are we doing that? It’s just a waste of everyone’s time.

So, I’ve talked enough about that. If you have any questions give me a call. I wanted to say we got a new subscriber! We’re up to seven! If you would have told me last week that we would go from five subscribers that were family members to seven subscribers, meaning two of which aren’t family members, I wouldn’t have believed you. I’m totally amazed that that I’ve got two extra subscribers, but thank you whoever you are out there. If you like to talk about, if you like to think about real estate, HOA’s, neighbors, tenant landlord disputes, things of this nature then you’re in the right place

And then you know, How do we respond? How would you respond to to things that happen to other people? I’m so puzzled by it. There’s laws; you know we should all follow the laws, unless they’re unjust, but even then what’s the cost? Some of this stuff doesn’t seem to ever reach the level of a broken law. At the same time though it’s quite offensive to you and I think that’s the perfect transition to our story today. I’ll just show you the headline here “man charged for placing dead animals on neighbors property. Let’s go through that, It’s not a very long article this is in York county which I believe is in Pennsylvania, but don’t quote me on that if I miss it I’m sorry.

So, York county man was charged after throwing several… several dead animals onto a neighbor’s property. According to officials 61 year old was caught on video picking up a dead rat and throwing it onto his neighbor’s porch. The two parties admit to having ongoing issues. Approximately one year ago Miller threw a dead chicken on the neighbor’s property. Miller was charged with harassment.

And so, I have questions.

Some of my questions are, number one, Who thought this was a good idea? So I’m trying to get myself in the mindset of the people that are involved with this. So you said, so you’re walking down the street and you see a dead chicken and your first thought is to throw it on your neighbor’s porch? Like, Does it matter what animal?

I mean we see in the article that he’s been hit for doing that before… something before and what finally got him charged was throwing the mouse or the dead rat.

So, my thing is just, maybe it seems obvious okay? I’m not gonna lie, it seems obvious not to throw dead animals on your neighbor’s porch. Under any, I can’t think of one time when that’s gonna be a good idea, like none. So, I don’t know what what to say other than. And then charged under harassment? Can you think of any other charges that would have applied here? I mean it’s strange because, What did the other neighbor do? What other than call the authorities, and even then, I mean, he should be thankful that he had video. And that’s one thingI think we’ll advocate: not to spy on your neighbors or anything like that, but I think video is a good idea now in this day and age based on what I read and what I see, having a video [camera] focused on your front door like, I forgot what it’s called you know the one, The Ring? I think that’s I think that’s okay, I mean, I want to know when someone’s throwing a dead rat or chicken on my front porch. I want to know if someone’s cutting out the catalytic converters in the neighborhood or just casing the neighborhood.

I had a friend, a neighbor, maybe a couple years ago. And people came to her house in the middle of the night to purchase meth. The only problem is she doesn’t sell meth! There’s no reason for the people to be there. So the police escort them off the property, but without that video evidence, or without, you know, some sort of evidence, I think they might let that person walk. They may have let him walk anyway due to ridiculously light charging. Another thing I was thinking is is not the first time this has happened.

So, let’s think about this… so what do you do if your neighbor is constantly throwing dead animals on your porch?

It’s not a 9-1-1 call right? Is it an animal control problem? Here’s the other thing, How are these animals dying? Do we have do we have the makings of a serial killer next door? You know that’s something we have to be thinking about, and then what did you do in retaliation?

We talk about now that we want to have social workers go on criminal calls, police calls, and, in some ways I’m almost all for that, because some of these people; there’s got to be something wrong with them. There’s something mentally wrong with you if you’re throwing dead animals on your neighbor’s porch. I don’t care what’s wrong, I don’t. I don’t care what you think was the perceived slight that your neighbor did. You can’t be throwing dead animals on someone’s porch and think that’s totally normal.

I feel bad, I feel like 10 years from now someone’s going to come at me on the internet and tell me that that my views are outdated and that they’re they’re not politically correct. But seriously, Does anyone really think that’s a good idea to throw dead animals on someone’s patio multiple times? You know, as a prank, you got a couple guys you know, got in a car and they say, “you know hey, let’s go throw a dead mouse on someone’s patio or porch!” All right! But but a dead chicken and a dead rat and the chicken wasn’t the thing that got him arrested or charged! So other than that it’s just….how would you react? What would you do?

I don’t know if you can tell, I got my nice new overlay. You can send me an email media@deerwoodrealtystl.com. You can call me, voicemail 314-274-3964 and tell me what you would do if a neighbor kept throwing and I mean, obviously you know someone would say well I’ll shoot them. But, I think you’d be in more trouble than them and that’s another fascinating thing now, is the person that reacts is the one that normally gets dinged. Did you have a reason? Do you have a valid reason to be upset about someone throwing animals or dead animals on your porch? Yes, but if you try to do something about it, rest assured you’ll be the one that gets arrested first.

So anyway that’s what I’m working with today. We’ve had now two dead animal stories, a smelly dumpster, and then a house contractor situation that just, that’s just gone totally wrong

Have a great evening and I’ll catch you on the next one.