Jim Klinge sighed as he made his way through a foreclosed home littered with empty bottles of rum and mattresses. It was 2008, and Klinge, a real estate agent, was filming a YouTube video for his blog documenting the housing crash in the cul-de-sacs and condos north of San Diego. As he opened a closet, daylight illuminated walls splattered with black mold spores, like a tie-dye project gone awry. “Oh, lovely,” Klinge said. “People were living in here like this, looks like. They were lucky to make it out alive.”
Five years later, Klinge’s videos tell a different story, one of limited inventory and jampacked open houses, bidding wars, and quick sales. When a buyer finds a good house in a desirable location, game on. “This part of the environment is just like 2003, when the frenzy was so big it all became about winning and losing,” Klinge says. In some ways, it’s like the bust never happened. “People forget about bad news,” he says. “They just forget.”
Klinge, who pronounces his name with a silent “e”—“like the Klingons, although they are a little better-looking”—has been selling houses since 1984, except for a brief hiatus during the California housing slump in the early 1990s, “when I learned the market doesn’t always go up.” He started blogging in 2005 and regularly posting his Jim the Realtor videos on YouTube in 2008. Camera in hand, he documented ornately sculpted McMansions (“When you see lions out front, you know you’re in for an interesting tour”), abandoned pot farms (“You can always get a good deal on a drug house”), and tract houses turned into virtual ATMs via home-equity loans and refinancings (“This guy borrowed $1.3 million from Countrywide”).
Thank you Karen! Read the full story here:
Here is my video of the experience:
Nice story Jim. Did you know your name in German means “blade” and the “e” is not silent? Pronounced “klinga”. Random fact.
The bottom line: As the real estate market heats up, Klinge says the lack of exotic financing will help prevent another nationwide bubble and bust.
Don’t tell that to Obama! He just announced he wants banks to start making ultra-low-down subprime loans again!
Yes, TJ, I get reminded every time I meet a real German.
I’m hoping KK can roll it into a marketing slogan/logo/jingle.
It’s so interesting how home prices are moving up nationwide, unemployment is dropping nationwide, the middle class recovery is pointed in the right direction, and the light can be seen again coming out of W’s dumb pit of mistakes, and some still rant illogical about our President Obama. Get over it, some Win, some Learn!
In Cambridge, Mass., two condos that could be combined into one large home hit the market two weeks ago for $800,000 each, according to Pat Villani, president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in New England.
“The brokers stopped taking names after the number of bidders reached 250,” she said. The winning bidder offered $2 million for both units.
http://money.cnn.com/2013/04/04/real_estate/bidding-wars/
Good article. Jim, you deserve all of the credit your hard work and energy has produced.
Just curious, which model Nikon are you using?
It is the Nikon D90 with a 18-200 lens.
It has taken thousands of listing photos and almost all of the 1,400+ videos seen here, and I haven’t learned to use it yet!
Had the boys look it over. They all agreed the link looks good on this one, Jim.
Daytrip
Link Squad
celebrity realtor!!!!! I’m going to notify TMZ and get you the attention you deserve.
Great work!! Keep the offers rolling in and don’t work with any lowballers. Lowballing is over.
I’m confused. I can’t tell if this post is written by you or by Karen from Buisnessweek.
You really should do something about the font to make sure we know the difference.
Heh….just messing with you.
I know this is entirely inappropriate, but she won’t see it, so I just want to say that Karen is looking good in that outfit.
Conservative glasses, ready-to-dance spandex. Nice.
Awesome article, Jim! I really do think of you as the “Hunter S. Thompson of real estate”. And that’s why I’ve kept coming back to bubbleinfo for years. But the #1 reason is I respect your outright integrity, 25+ years experience and hard work. Keep doing what you’re doing. I don’t think there are many in RE land like you…