Open House: Ash

We added a few plants to the front walkway. I like how the colors pop against the gray brick.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-07-10.

We had our first open house at the Ash House today. Sue Ann promoted it on all our media outlets for a couple of days, but because I'm not the Social Media thinker, I forgot to mention it anywhere until it was over. Sigh!

Carol and I worked it, and we had a pretty good turnout that included a lot of our neighbors. One even followed Carol from where she put out the open house sign to the house! All of our neighbors were grateful for the project and seem genuinely enthused to help us sell it. This is one case where you really can pick your neighbor.

Another thing I love is Fredericksburg peaches. One of our neighbors gave us these to say thanks for fixing up the Ash House. I forgot to give Carol any. Wonder if there will be any left for the next meeting. Hmmm... Still life by Suna

We only had a couple of serious buyers, and one of them said the split level was a deal breaker. Even with only two steps, they were concerned about frailty and balance as they age. But they were really nice people who are looking to downsize and relocate to Temple. Carol may be able to help them with selling their home and finding the right place in Temple.

That’s one of the things I love about this business. You meet really interesting people if you take the time to learn their stories. There are so many ways to help others. Another thing is making the houses happy again. We had nothing but good comments on all of the selections. Preserving the character of this house instead of redeveloping it was the right choice. The most common comment was, "I can't believe how beautiful it is! Did you see it before?"

We learned that there is a fault line running through the neighborhood at the bottom of the hill. The neighbors all told us that the houses on top of the hill (like the Ash House) are fine, but all of the houses farther downhill have foundation problems because of the constantly shifting soil. I will have to understand the issue better and find a solution before we take on a project in the more mobile part of the neighborhood.

Finally, we also made a couple of good contacts. One of the neighbors is a probate attorney, and another buys furniture from estate sales. We find it rewarding to help families through the hurdles of probate and selling a house.

Philanthropy and Networking

This ad will appear in the playbill for every performance by the Milam Community Theater this season. Consider sponsoring a community group in your area. It is “doing good” that does good for you, too.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-04-02.

Sue Ann and I attended the Milam Community Theater’s (MCT) “Night on the Town” tonight. It included a nicely catered dinner of roast beast and veggies followed by MCT’s presentation of Agatha Christie’s The Unexpected Guest. I won’t comment on the play here, but Suna was asked to write a review for the local newspaper.

So why am I mentioning dinner out on a business blog? I wanted to point out the power of networking and advertising at these otherwise “social events.” For dinner and the play, we were seated with the Cameron city manager, the host of a local radio broadcast, and two other business owners. In the audience was our insurance broker, a real estate broker, a lawyer, and several other Milam County elites.

All of these local big wigs had at least one thing in common: we had all helped sponsor MCT’s season this year. And we got to mingle with them and revel in that commonality.

While this kind of networking inevitably brings about new business contacts, that isn’t why you do it. As our mantra says, “People first, profits seconds.” In large cities or small towns, relationships are how you get things done. You have to be nice to people first, and you have to be nice to them because they are people—not because of “who they are.” I actually enjoyed the company we were in and only mentioned our business when someone else brought it up. But now when people see my name on a permit application, they have a friendly face to associate with it. When they know someone who needs help selling or buying a home, they know someone who (I hope) made a good impression on them to refer.

And there is the sponsorship aspect. Our ad will appear in every playbill for the current MCT theater season. It is a very low cost form of advertising and networking.

Number Three

Temple (magenta circle) is pretty far north of Hermit Haus’s focus area (magenta glob).
 

Here is the house with the pile of ashes featured.

This post originally appeared on the Hermit Haus Redevelopment website on 2016-03-11.

My mentor Phill Grove always says, “Your Net Worth equals your NetWork.” Here’s an example.

A few days ago, I got a call from Dominic G, another redeveloper working in Central Texas. He was checking references on a General Contractor with whom I’ve worked for many years. As we chatted, we found out we have a lot in common, including the back office system both our companies use. Then Dominic mentioned he had a house under contract in Temple. Since Temple is well outside of his normal range of operations, he wanted to know if I would be interested in buying the contract from him.

Now Temple is also pretty far north for Hermit Haus to go. We don’t usually get much farther north than Georgetown. But the numbers looked good on the surface, so I said I was.

Last month, I met yet another redeveloper at the Houston Summit who has done roughly 20 houses over the last 20 months in the “Greater Temple” area. We’ve been chatting a bit, so I called Larry and asked if he’d like to JV (form a joint venture) with Hermit Haus to get the deal done. He did. We did an onsite evaluation with Larry’s lead contractor, revisited the numbers, and came to an agreement on how to proceed. Hermit Haus is now under contract to buy its third house since December.

We’re calling this project “The Ash House” because the previous occupants appear to have heated the house with a lovely wood-burning fireplace for several years. Unfortunately for the neighbors, they just dumped the ashes in a flowerbed until the pile is at least 36 inches tall and a couple of feet in diameter. One of the first items to clean up on the list!

Everybody wins!

Pop?

I didn’t have my camera with me, but the sign looked like this one—except that it had a blue background. At least this one’s in Austin, too.

Photo source: rutlo

This morning on the way to church, I saw a new billboard. It featured the new Pepsi logo as the “O” in the word “POP.”

Why am I commenting on this sign? Well, this is Texas. I’ll come back to this later.

The purpose of advertising is to arouse a desire to purchase the product. This sign attempts to arouse desire by equating the Pepsi brand with the product through being included in a community through the common use of pop.

The problem is that using the word pop in Texas defines you as an outsider. Pop is a sound, not something you drink—unless you’re from someplace else. Native Texans say “soda,” “sodawater,” or (despite litigation) the generic use of the trademark of Pepsi’s chief competitor. (Notice the careful circumlocution!)

So this sign is a classic example of a major corporation and its advertising agency not bothering to understand its target audience.

The tinfoil hatters might say this is part of a greater conspiracy to further homogenize our culture. But I agree with the wise words a friend once told me. “Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.” Unfortunately, I don’t know who first offered that advice.

Let’s hope our corporate leaders get a clue before all of our jobs move elsewhere.