Subzero Refrigerators, Granite Counter tops, BMWs, Property Taxes paid for a year: There’s been no end to the promotional giveaways that builders and agents have come up with to help move inventory.
We thought we had seen it all — until today’s special promotion caught our eye:
Real estate agent gives guns to homebuyers
A Texas real estate agent looking to add more bang to her business is offering clients in law enforcement a free Glock pistol if they buy a home from her.Julie Upton, a Houston-area real estate agent, spurned traditional buyer incentives like free gasoline cards or home improvement store gift certificates. Instead, she placed an advertisement offering a pistol with the purchase of any home worth at least $150,000 in the city police department’s monthly publication, "Badge & Gun."
The free guns are only for those in law enforcement, said Upton, who is married to a police officer.
Of course, it is in Texas! File this one under: "Well, at least they are trying!"
>
Source:
Real estate agent gives guns to homebuyers
Reuters, Tue Dec 12, 8:34 AM ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061212/od_nm/life_gun_dc
Who can afford a 150k+ mortgage on a cop’s salary?
Hmmm…any agent service disappointments could be met with a bang.
Who can afford a 150k+ mortgage on a cop’s salary?
Well, in CA, a cop’s salary can get you a 600k home.
i remember the old adage: “guns dont kill people. people with moustaches who cant make their first mortgage payment kill people”. Mr Agent: i’m giving u a 10-second headstart. now skedaddle!
It’s hard for me to grasp that kind of d/i ratio.
Just one more reason why I always say Texas is a wonderful state to be FROM. LOL
thanks Barry.
Let’s see. Since in southern cal, homes are “trading” at around 11 times income, the
cop probably has a salary around $55,000. And if interest rates go down as the standard of living in this country goes down, then his colleague can buy a comparable house at a higher price
so is the gun to be used when the ARM adjustment kicks in?
That sure makes brokers even more full service these days
How about giving them the casket and burial plot too.
I’d still rather have the BMW; a Glock pistol costs around $600-$800, on average. And the former’s easier to get a license for!!
Teddy: I’m being told in Santa Clara County, city cops after a few years of service can pull 6-digit figures when including overtime and various surcharges.
Cm, that sounds good because most are well qualified and have a tough job, but po-leeze, I’m talking about the MEDIAN officer’s income and the MEDIAN price of a home vs the MEDIAN income of the general population in southern cal.
What’s noteworthy is that thanks to its energy rich economy, the Texas housing market has held up well relative to the national housing market as a whole.
If Texas follows the national housing market, word is she’ll up the ante and give away a tank for every house sold.
I find this pretty commi liberalistic PCiology. Is that wimmin saying that common folk don’t have the right to defend themselves from terrorists? The idea that only cops should have guns belongs in San Francisco and other Al Qaida states not free American soil. She should be condemed as the Deomocratic sympathizer that she is, we’ve got to get unAmericanism out of America otherwise it’s not America.
I wasn’t born in Texas but I got here as soom as I could!
The gun can come in handy if you must:
a. keep foreclosing bankers off your property
b. threaten neighbors who want to sell their home for less than you paid for yours or
c. off yourself when your option payment adjusts
Nassau County Cops — 6 figure salaries are average for Police Officers —
And I say, they deserve it! They have dangerous jobs! They should be compensated for it! Those radar guns cause testicular cancer — its unfair to ask these fine men and women to risk such a dreadful disease. Besides, they have much better things to do then pull over people who happened to be driving too fast in overpowered sports cars just to see what if they can “get it into 6th” at 5:30am on a Sunday morning. Those darn radar guns are not only dangerous, but inaccurate! 120mph on the Roslyn Viaduct has to be a mistake.
There are certainly a lot of properties hitting the courthouse steps based on the latest figures, too. Some highlights/lowlights from the Mortgage Bankers Association stats for Q3 and RealtyTrac figures for November…
The overall 1-4 unit delinquency rate hit 4.67% in Q3, up from 4.44% a year earlier. Outside of the 4.7% rate in Q4 2005, which was likely due to hurricane-related DQs, this is the highest reading since Q2 2003 (4.97%). DQs hit a high of 5.35% in Q3 2001, when the U.S. economy was in recession
* Subprime DQs are rising fast — to 12.56% in Q3 from 10.76% in Q3 2005
* ARM DQs are, not surprisingly, rising faster than fixed rate DQs. More than 3% of prime credit ARMs were delinquent. Subprime ARM delinquencies are above 13%.
* The foreclosure rate popped up to 1.05%, the highest since Q1 2005.
* Foreclosures climbed 4.1% month-over-month between Oct. and Nov. What’s striking is the year-over-year surge — a whopping 68.1%. The company says 120,334 homes were in some stage of foreclosure last month, or 1 in every 961 homes.
I put a chart of the RealtyTrac monthly figures up on my blog:
http://interestrateroundup.blogspot.com
Too bad they only go back to early 2005. What’ll really shock people, in my view, is if the national DQ figures eclipse those we saw in the 2001 recession. I think there’s a better-than-even chance that happens given all the ridiculous lending we’ve seen in the past couple of years. We’ll just have to wait and see, though.
Hey,
That’s a great idea. Give someone a gun so when they can’t make their payment anymore, they have the vehicle to end their own suffering.
I’d recommend they cross market their idea with lithium, cyanide and Jack Daniels.
Michael C.
C’mon. Educational programming like ‘The Shield’ and ‘Training Day’ shows us that most cops have PLENTY of cash ‘available’ for important life purchases. . .
In my home town paper in Phoenix, the home builder DR Horton had an ad saying “clip this coupon for 2% off any spec home”. I can just see people bringing in their little coupon for this “smoking deal”.
Mike_in_Fl, what is the national foreclosure rate? When it goes over 1% nationally, that would be significant. In Texas and Arizona during the late 1980’s, I think it was over 5%.
Teddy — the national foreclosure rate is over 1% — 1.05% in Q3 vs. 0.99% in Q2. This is the highest since Q1 2005 (1.08%). Now don’t get me wrong, these figures aren’t VERY bad yet. But they are most definitely on the rise, and I anticipate that they will continue to worsen given all the reckless lending done during the boom.
For historical perspective, by the way, the foreclosure rate was as low as 0.32 back in 1980. After climbing steadily in the 80s, it spent most of the following decade (1986-2001) in the 1% range. It then climbed to a high of 1.51% in Q1 2002. I would rate anything above the 1.2% range as a big red flag, personally — and I think it’s only a matter of time before we get there, possibly as early as late 2007.
Great post Mike, thanks.
Wasn’t Texas invented to be kinda like Australia was for England? A place to send all the people they didn’t want to keep?
Texas is also energy self sufficient. This is why the bumper sticker on my new Porsche Turbo reads “DRIVE 120 AND FREEZE A YANKEE IN THE DARK”. ;-)
If anyone’s interested in police salaries:
Entrance and maximum salaries, and mean number of years to reach maximum salary, for police officers in cities with populations of 10,000 or more, by population group, geographic division, and metro status, United States, as of Jan. 1, 2003
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t169.pdf
Other available data on police salaries from the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/tost_1.html#1_ak
These salaries are base only, and as noted above don’t include overtime or moonlighting (or graft).
Thanks Paul. It looks like I was close enough to the correct answer. And to think that the AVERAGE end of the year bonus for Goldman Sacs employees was 10 times that amount or $622,000, unreal. Let’s hope that Congress does the right thing and puts all the CEOs and their employees involved in back dating stock options behind bars.
Yes…Texas… the place where they send bozos who would put bumper stickers on a Porche.
Find your Dream Home or make an investment
Find your Dream Home or make an investment.
http://www.property-rpinvest.com