Commercial Real Estate in Memphis and our Galaxy

Thanks to Ryan Zaloudik for the link.

From the Tulsa World:

A rural Claremore man was in jail Saturday after shooting a man in the back twice.

Barry Burt, 37, was booked into the Rogers County Jail on one complaint of shooting with intent to kill, said Deputy Jeremiah Daniels.

Danels said Burt’s father was speaking with John Allred on Friday afternoon about placing a billboard on the Burt property just east of Claremore when Burt bolted from the home and told Allred to leave. Burt then retrieved a .22-caliber rifle and shot Allred twice in the back, the deputy said.

Allred was transported to Claremore Regional Hospital, then taken by helicopter to St. Francis Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition.

Read more »

Your favorite real estate developer/fat-chick basher is up to his tricks. From the LA Times:

DONALD TRUMP, who as far as I know is a lovely man and a gentle soul, is getting a star on Hollywood Boulevard’s Walk of Fame. I’m not sure exactly where…But one thing is certain: He paid top dollar for it, wherever it is.

When he receives his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Trump will no doubt look up and down the sparkling Boulevard with satisfaction. He, like Agnes Ayers, Wendell Niles and Ryan Seacrest, has made it. But he also will be bringing some pixie dust of his own to the famed Boulevard. He will be touching it with the Trump brand. And he will be opening up another profit center for the Hollywood Historic Trust.

And also: Rosie O’Donnell doesn’t have one yet.

The police are certain they’ve got the right guy in the Sarah Anne Walker murder. They’re learning more stuff about the creep now. From the McKinney Courier-Gazette:

North Carolina Public Safety and Corrections officials confirmed that 25-year-old Kosoul Chanthakoummane, the man McKinney police believe killed 40-year-old real estate agent Sarah Anne Walker, tied up and robbed two elderly women when he was 16 years old.

Union County Superior Criminal Court clerk officials of Monroe, N.C., said court records show Chanthakoummane pled guilty to two counts each of second-degree kidnapping and robbery with a dangerous weapon on Aug. 6, 1998, for which he received a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison.

I’m not a math major or anything Read more »

I got a little link love from the number one real estate blog in the Pacific Northwest, Seattle’s Rain City Real Estate Guide. It’s a small mention, but their heart is large.

They’ve also got a great list of real estate blogs going. If you know of one they should add, you should let them know or leave me a comment and I’ll pass it along.

The Dallas Morning News has had a few more stories about the murder of a real estate agent. The body was found in the model home by a couple that was house-shopping.

Killing shows risk for agents
…Between 1982 and 2000, more than 200 U.S. real estate agents were killed on the job, according to a safety report published by the Kentucky Real Estate Commission. Untold other agents were raped or mugged.

On Saturday, prospective buyers who stopped to tour a McKinney model home found Sarah Anne Walker’s body. She had been stabbed more than two dozen times. Police are sifting through clues to find her assailant…

There’s also video of an interview with Joan Malone, an agent who was attacked and left for dead. Disturbing stuff.

Another entry in the “gruesome” category from the Dallas Morning News:

A company put up a $10,000 reward Monday to help solve the slaying of a house saleswoman killed over the weekend in McKinney.

Schepps Dairy announced the reward as investigators continued to search for clues in the fatal stabbing of 40-year-old Sarah Anne Walker, who was found dead Saturday in a model home at The Hemingway at Craig Ranch community.

Police are investigating several theories, including the possibility that Ms. Walker knew her attackers, McKinney police spokesman Randy Roland said. Ms. Walker was stabbed 27 times on her upper body…

This from the Chicago Tribune.

Many real estate brokerage firms band together to set prices, a consumer group said in a report released Monday.

The brokerage firms work together to maintain commissions charged home sellers at 6 percent to 7 percent and to maintain control of multiple listing services of homes for sale, according to the report by Consumer Federation of America.

"Many traditional real estate brokerage firms, and their organizations, function as a cartel that tries to set prices and restrict service options," said Stephen Brobeck, the federation's executive director.

Point number one: What are you talking about?

"Cartel"? You can't throw that word around. When you hear that word, it's usually right after "Drug". Trade associations are not "Cartels". Watch your mouth.

Read more »

There's a column in the L.A. Times about an "urban farm" in the middle of Los Angeles that former somebody Daryl Hannah has taken an interest in.

Former mermaid Daryl Hannah said recently she didn't know there was a farm in South-Central Los Angeles until she got a phone call from a woman named Butterfly. This was back when Joan Baez was living up a tree on the same farm and singing folk songs, and I'd like to thank all of them for their contribution to the first paragraph of this column.

Hannah was being plucked from what may have been that same tree Tuesday as I arrived on the scene. Helicopters hovered overhead and there were enough police on hand to invade Mexico.

The writer, Steve Lopez, mentions Hannah is a "former mermaid". If you were born before 1970, I would guess you think of Daryl Hannah as the mermaid from "Splash" with Tom Hanks and Eugene Levy. If you were born after 1970, you think of Hannah (if you think of her at all) as the one-eyed assassin Elle Driver from Quinten Tarantino's "Kill Bill" movies.

C-List celebrities aside, the urban farm eviction story is pretty interesting. 40 People got arrested at the final showdown.

Read more »

Worldwide ERC and Primacy Relocation has put together their list of 2006's ''Best Cities for Relocating Families". This from their recent press release:

Worldwide ERC, the association for global employee relocation, and Primacy Relocation announced that Louisville, Kentucky; Evansville, Indiana; and Athens, Georgia, are 2006's Best Cities for Relocating Families among large, medium and small U.S. metropolitan areas. The two organizations worked with Bert Sperling of Sperling's BestPlaces to rate cities based on those factors - short-term and long-term - that determine the likelihood of a successful relocation.

They broke up based on the numbers of residents; Large (500,000+), Medium (250,000-500,000), and Small (50,000-250,000). Memphis was number 17 on the "Large" list.

Here are the Tennessee cities on the list:

Read more »

The best young lawyer in the Mid-South mentioned this blog in his blog yesterday.

Read Will Hicks' blog. He is a Commercial Real Estate Agent in Memphis, Tennessee. It's a fun look at Memphis and Real Estate. He also is single, loves watching "The Office" and "24," and taking long walks in Shelby Farms while drinking a caramel macchiato.

Those are all true, except the caramel macchiato. I'd rather have the five bucks.

What's great about working with Shaun Hair is that he's already realized that people are just people. Whether they're wealthy or not, destitute criminals or not, balding ex-SCUBA Instructors or not, people enjoy working with people who treat them with respect, but don't take themselves too seriously.