Short Sales, Helmets and Earthquakes!

Homes for Heroes had some good and bad news today.. First the good news. 1. Homes for Heroes gained another affiliate in Lincoln Nebraska. 2. A police couple, who are also National Guard members with two tours of Iraq in their belts, got the final approval on their offer on a home from the bank and now it is down to getting all the t’s crossed and i’s dotted. The bad news is HFH had a deal fall apart with a long time client. This client put in a full price offer on a short sale property. What is a short sale you ask? A short sale is when the home is sold for less than what is owed on the mortgage. The mortgage holder approves the “short” sale primarily to mitigate losses over a foreclosure. So the client is out looking to buy a home, the price range the client is looking in has a lot of foreclosures and short sales. The client finds a home, through disclosure finds out it is a short sale. The price has been set by the bank/mortgage holder. With this knowledge and how the system works, the client puts in a full price offer. Now in the real estate world, when an offer is put in on a home the seller is expected to respond with in 24 hours whether they will accept the offer or not. But in the banking world they need at least 10 business days and HFH’s experience, it is usually 15 business days before hearing anything from the bank. Also something to keep in mind in the real estate world, full price offers are a good thing! Well the bank set the price, the client offered full price and the bank took a full 15 days to get back to the buyer only to inform the client that they were going to reject the offer!! They changed their mind on the short sale and will let the home go into foreclosure. Ironically, if the client was willing to wait a few months they could probably buy the same house for 10 to 20 thousand less that what was originally offered!! Yes dear readers this makes no sense. In the “real” world if a seller sets a price of $100,000 and then receives an offer for $100,000, the seller cannot reject the offer because the price was not enough. The seller can reject the sale for terms but not price. In fact the buyer in this case has a legal option of forcing the sale. But that is what the bank did. The banks are not regulated in this case. I can see an argument made that maybe they should. Buyers spend time and money (home inspections, appraisals etc) on a property then have the bank back out of the deal. I put this out there because this is happening more and more. Bank owned properties and short sales do not follow the normal real estate protocol. The banks operate as they see fit and for buyers it can be very frustrating. So beware of short sales, they can very often be a good deal, but to make sure you have a successful transaction, align yourselves with very experienced agents that know how to get these deals done. Our Homes for Heroes Realtor Affiliates are tested on this. They are required to experienced and be a good standing member of their own board and state agencies. Homes for Heroes gives large savings, but prides itself on top notch service.

Now that we got that out of the way, something the other day was mentioned and it reminded me of uniforms. Firefighters uniforms in particular. Oh now I remember, Firefighters will now be required to wear reflective vests if they respond to highway or roadway emergencies. I was thinking how cool the French Firefighters uniform are. Their helmets mostly. When we think of firefighters we envision the typical tan uniform with the big hat. French firefighters have this Darth Vader looking helmet and it is all chrome. So I was looking on line to put two pics up to show the contrast but I discovered there was many different styles. So here they are.

This next one is what our firefighters wore in 1896. If I was a betting man, I would say there were a lot of children that would cry when they saw a fireman in 1896.

What the heck is this?

I don’t think the communist spent all that much worry on safety. This one is a Communist Bulgarian Firefighters helmet. I wonder how many firefighters of communsit Bulgaria have photogenic faces or are still alive?

Not sure if I would let my kid wear this raking leaves!

We see a little bit of safety was put into the Yugoslavian Helment. Key word is little. Not sure if I could take them seriously if they were trying to rescue me.

Excuse me, could you direct me to the nearest Chemistry lab?

Has anyone ever experienced an earth quake? Well, I grew up in the mid west so until I joined the corps I never felt one. I went to San Diego for boot camp and during that sun and fun filled vacation I kept secretly waiting to experience an earthquake. I graduated from boot camp without being completely fulfilled. But soon after that I had another opportunity. I was stationed at MCAS Futenma in Okinawa. Anyone ever been to Okinawa? It is quite a beautiful place, Well I worked as an avionics technician, and our work space was a large metal box. Something similar to a semi trailer minus the wheels. Well these boxes are set on railroad ties. Well my first week there the gunny had me working on old altimeters. When I say old, they were Korean war era. Tubes and wires. No circuit boards whatsoever. Well after a few weeks I am sitting there testing a tube and the whole van starts shaking. Things are shaking on the shelves and my coffee cup is rattling. Well I run out of the van and ask if any one else felt the earthquake. Every one looked at me like I was some sort of nut. The gunny said that they always get small tremors so you get used to them. Now for the next three days I was feeling every tremor. They seem to be happening every half hour or so. No one else was feeling them. I was starting to get hostile, no one could feel what I was feeling. On the fourth day and after about the fifth earthquake I heard someone snigger. I got up and went out the back door of the van to have a smoke with the relief that I was being had. I had figured it out, these guys were feeling the same earthquakes as me, they were just messing with my mind. So as I stepped out a group of Marines started to run away laughing. Now I was just confused, so as I lit up the smoke, I leaned up against the van to take a drag and nearly fell over. The van was sitting on the railroad ties crooked and it would wobble when slightly pushed. NOW I had figured it out. These Marines were going out side at regular intervals and shaking the van while I was in it. Bastards!!! Well they were until the next new tech came and he had to start working altimeters and I was out there shaking the world with the rest of them.

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