A Griffith Listing

Real Estate Services by Jon Griffith

Arizona Real Estate Statistics

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I believe that over the next year we will continue to see steady growth in real estate sales. Buyers are finally loosening up their grip on their pocketbooks to wisely invest in a time where the prices are at or near the bottom of the price curve.

It is still a buyer’s market. If you have property, hold on to it, unless you have unique motivation to sell, as history shows that it will increase in value. Remember, when the world is saying the market is awful, it’s time to buy. When the world is saying the market is fantastic, it’s time to sell.

Ford Arizona Ironman Triathlon

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Brandon Stark, our good friend at New Valley Church, will be competing in this Sunday’s Arizona Ironman competition:

Timeline of Events – Note, due to unknown circumstances, we actually have absolutely no way to know how well Brandon will perform. So your best bet is to reserve as much time as you can to cope with parking, which will inevitably be a standard Tempe Town Lake disaster. [Read more…]

Ford Arizona Ironman Triathlon

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A triathlon consists of three events. Swim, bike, run…in that order. Triathlons come in many shapes and sizes and sometimes there are variations which involve only two of the three sports where one sport is repeated in the race.

Some triathlons are very small, with swim distances as short as 400 meters, 12 mile bike courses, and only 3 miles of running. Some are not. The most intense, grueling, and emotionally overwhelming of the triathlon is the Ironman Triathlon with the pinnacle of all triathlons occurring annually in Kona, Hawaii.

Brandon Stark of Arizona began his triathlon experience a few years back with what’s called a “sprint” distance triathlon. This is typically 750 meters in the water, 12 miles on wheels, and 3.2 miles on foot. Little did he know that he would become addicted to the thrill of success after crossing that finish line for the first time.

After numerous races, each increasing with distance and difficulty, Brandon set out to conquer the most intense of all triathlons, and it occurs this coming April 13, 2008 in Tempe, Arizona.

If you’ve ever dared to compete in any triathlon distance, you know the emotional gratification and sense of personal achievement one feels when completing such a feat. If you haven’t, you might consider living a little. Last year, I was challenged to compete in a triathlon and I took the challenge, and even though it was the toughest thing I had ever attempted, it was so gratifying, that I went back for more the next month, and doubled my distance. One day, I may also compete in a full Ironman distance…but for now, I will join my friend Brandon on the big day, bright and early in the morning, to cheer him on.

If you’re not a sports buff, it is a spectacle that must not be missed. I have added a view inspiring videos here that will hopefully touch you as much as they did me.

I hope you go.

Finding Perspective: Pricing Your Home

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Time and time again over the past year I have had conversations with clients and other Realtors about pricing a home properly.  The consensus among Realtors in this market is that the prices are just not realistic and sellers are asking way too much, because they have lost perspective.
In a world where housing values increase by an average of 7% long term, it just doesn’t make sense to expect to sell a home at 150% above market value.  In 2005, housing was out of control with unheard of gains.  History can show that this is completely unnatural.  History can also show that people tend to hold on to the idea that unnatural events become fixed patterns.  This simply isn’t true.

In 2003, I purchased my home in the heart of Scottsdale for $115,000.  In 2005, a neighbor purchased an identical unit for $319,000.  That is a 177% gain.  That is unheard of.  Should I put my house on the market today, only 5 years later, I could expect, based on historical values, to command  about $179,000, but I could probably get $219,000.

I consider a 7% return on my investment acceptable in many cases, and I can still sell at a higher gain than this.  So why would I choose to sell my home at a price that the market cannot bear?

Is it greed?  Are sellers still in denial?  It’s time to come to terms with more realistic pricing.  Understand that you have made tremendous gains in the value of your home, and if you choose to sell, consider yourself lucky to be able to leave with equity.  Home values have not yet rebounded and the reason they haven’t is because pricing is outrageous.  Lower your price, stimulate the economy, and the buyers will come out of the woodwork.

You’re going to make a huge profit as it is, unless you were one of the unfortunate who were taken advantage of by the mortgage industry.

Why put yourself and your Realtor through the wringer?  Price your home appropriately to begin with and take a more modest return on your investment.  There really is no other way to stimulate buyers, and that’s what we need.

Making Sense Out of your Blog

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Over the past few weeks, I have explored hundreds of blog pages, finding one thing in common. Most bloggers are not focused. How do I know this? I’m one of them. The challenge of providing unique content relative to a single purpose has eluded most of us because of the glitz and glamour of a long held misnomer called, “Get Rich Quick.”

Get Rich Quick doesn’t exist outside of inheritance or the lottery. Following get rich quick schemes can lend to complete confusion for your reader. Here are a few problems I am currently working out, and I’m sure some of you have the same problems.

I am tempted to write about everything which creates

Synchronization without Microsoft Exchange

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I only wish this article offered you a solution to the problem at hand.  Rather, it is a plea to those in the tech community to help the world find a solution when Microsoft Exchange is out of our reach.

The Benefits of Microsoft Exchange 

The combination of Outlook 2007, Windows Mobile 5.0 with Outlook, and Exchange Server makes a seamless, problem free e-mail and calendar and task and contact management system.

When I add a contact to my phone, shazaam! It appears in Outlook.  When I delete a message from Outlook, whabang!  Away it goes on my phone.  If I create an appointment in Outlook, bizong!  It’s on my phone.  Computer crashed?  No problem, you could try these out or just reconnect to Exchange and everything is there, except for personal preferences and signatures/stationery.

Exchange just makes my life without a day planner excellent.  I never forget anything.  Take that away and what do we have?

What Replaces Exchange for the Individual Business Owner?

I haven’t figured it out yet.  I abhor POP3.  I hate downloading multiple copies of my messages on different devices.  If I’ve read a message once, I don’t want it to remain unread in some other mail client.  I want it to be marked read on the server.

IMAP seems like it’s a great solution, but it doesn’t handle Calendar, Task, and Contact folders, so I’m back to manually synchronizing my phone to my computer(s) and at risk of generating duplicate information.  What to do?  Not to mention Outlook repeatedly crashes when I have it connected via IMAP to my hosting provider.  They’ve even come up with an application that runs as an add-on to Outlook that synchronizes Calendar, Task, and Contact folders.  The problem with this is that it’s yet another application I have to manage, and if I have a large number of contacts, it bogs the whole process down.

The synchronization tool even works on my mobile phone under windows, but again, it’s slower than crap, and I have to repeatedly manually initiate the synchronization.

So, this is a plea to all of you out there who know better than I.  I would love to maintain an Exchange Server hosted account, but I haven’t found one that won’t cost me more than it needs to, and unless I have my own server, I really have no creative control over how e-mail is managed on that server.  With that, I resort to something else, that I hope you can help me with.

My Treo 700W has turned out to be a pile of junk.  It’s missing 5 screws, which hold the phone together, and Verizon has offered no solution to fix the defect.  The phone crashes daily, won’t ring every time, and delivers messages a day late.  I find the iPhone to be the best bet, but AT&T service in this area is 10-years ago spotty, according to some of my friends.

I’m not sure why Google hasn’t solved this problem, and perhaps they have and I just haven’t stumbled upon the solution, nor the time to figure it out.

So my question is this:

If I have an iPhone and a PC, what tools are the best to use for e-mail, calendars, contacts, and tasks that will automatically synchronize without connecting directly to the computer and without using bluetooth?  When I add a contact to my iPhone (which I don’t have yet) I need that contact to show up on my computer and vice versa.

The key here is automation.  Does anyone have any thoughts on the best setup, or perhaps just insight on how you manage all of your inbound and outbound information?

I may just bite the bullet and move my MX record to a hosted exchange account provider…yish.  Any advice would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks for stopping by!