BILL CHERRY'S GREATEST DALLAS PARK CITIES REAL ESTATE BLOG: April 2008

You probably know about De Beers.  It's the privately held company that Cecil Rhodes founded in the late 1800s that virtually controls the exploration and mining of diamonds.  And by controlling their mining activity, they significantly influence the value of diamonds, including the one your son gave his bride-to-be for her engagement ring.

They employ nearly 25,000 and their revenues exceed $7 billion a year.

Recently they opened a small boutique gallery in Dallas' NorthPark very near Neiman-Marcus on the concourse to Barneys and Nordstrom. 

If you are in Dallas, you must schedule a trip to see it because its store design concept is what appears to be a halogen white-light show, white-light reflecting off of the teeny slats of mirrored blinds that hang across the show windows.  White-light strips that go up and down inside each interior show case.  And the store walls and fixtures of monochromatic black, gray, silver, etc.  Clerks dressed in solid black.

I love the store design.  Interestingly, though, it appears to be so intimidating that traffic is looking, admiring, then passing it by.  It'll be interesting to see if the public eventually shines up to De Beers' sixth U.S. retail store.

I hope it does.

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS

214 503-8563

Our 43rd Year Selling Texas

Copyright 2008 - William S. Cherry

There is no one more convinced than I am that staging must be a part of most re-sale homes at the time the listing is taken.  That is especially true during times when the housing market is drifting toward an increasing number of unsold homes.

In fact, I am considering making staging a requirement for me to accept a home listing.  I think all diligent Realtors should be evaluating this as well. 

Last week, my friends W. Neil "Doc" Gallagher, his wife Gail, and I asked one of my two favorite stagers, Barie Pinnell, to let us listen in on one of her consultations...a consultation for two of my clients. 

We all showed up about 7 PM, and Barie brought her voluminous and very specific presentation.  After she showed each recommendation to us and told us the "why rational," she then took my clients through the house to make certain they were comfortable with how the home would be rearranged.

Barie's figures show that the average number of days homes that she stages are on the market is about thirty-one.  Barie is an Active Rain member, by the way, and serves the Dallas-Ft. Worth Metroplex through her WRE interior consulting firm.

<<<===The Home - 3150 Stone Creek, Grapevine

<<<===Gail and Doc Gallagher

(Doc Gallagher is known as the "Money Doctor")

                                                                               Barie Pinnell, ASPM, Instructing Clients

The staging has now been completed.  I'll let you know in a follow-up how many days transpire before we get an acceptable contract.

Finally, let me add one more comment.  Staging is NOT interior decorating.  Staging is visually showing the prospective buyer how their furniture can look swell in the home.  Interior decorating is showing how swell YOUR furniture looks in the home.

In my opinion, a home decorated for the taste and convenience of the homeowner is a huge hindrance to selling that home to someone else.  The more expensive the home, the more of a hindrance this becomes. 

BILL CHERRY, REALTOR

214 503-8563

DALLAS

MY 43RD YEAR SELLING TEXAS

Copyright 2008 - William S. Cherry

The primary resource for the information needed to determine not only how to adapt an old center to a revitalized one but who your prospective tenants will be, is membership in the International Council of Shopping Centers.  It's almost always called the ICSC. 

Landlords, management companies, all sorts of applicable vendors and tenants themselves are members.

Conventions are held annually, often times in Las Vegas at its huge convention hall.  The Spring convention this year will be there and runs from May 20th thru May 23rd.

In addition to attending the conventions and the various conferences, the most important by-product is meeting and making personal face-to-face contacts and then nurturing them. 

Secondly comes the membership directory.  That's where you are kept up to date as to exactly what prospective leasing tenants are looking for space-wise and who the leasing representatives for the tenants are.

Some of my most favorite people have come from those I've met at ICSC conventions.  Former Phillips-Van Heusen Attorney Bob Silverstein and leasing genius Shelly Gravino come to mind as do former Mikasa official Norman Higo and Pier 1's Marvin Girouard and Louise Spencer.  And there was the resurrection of an old college friendship with Donia Garlington.  But my Rolodex is full of ICSC friends -- friends that became longtime friends.

It is virtually impossible to properly revitalize and re-tenant any center of 300,000 square feet or more without active membership and attendance in the ICSC.

Apparently most who find themselves involved with centers with large vacancies and outdated architecture have ignored this very important resource.

BILL CHERRY REALTORS

DALLAS

214 503-8563

Copyright 2008 - William S. Cherry

All rights reserved

In a recent piece, I mused at the number of shopping centers, mostly built in the ‘60s and ‘70s that were so ill-conceived that within less than their half-life they had fallen on hard times.  Massive vacancies surrounding a handful of sub-class tenants.

Oddly, knowledgeable investors, investors who understand the dynamics of centers, have not snapped up the huge number of them that could not only be viable but bring an enormous return on investment.

There are several tried and true generic formulas that if properly put into place all but guarantee the success.  To begin with, the facades must be changed so that the center isn't a collection of walls that are chopping up several connected perfect rectangles.

Drive by one or more of the derelict centers in your town or neighborhood, pull into the parking lot and dream what could be done to bring the center back to life. 

In a couple of days, I'll tell you what we recommended as consultants that revived several centers.  But before that, I'd surely like to hear your thoughts.

Of course my team can easily be gathered together again to do market study and center revitalization recommendations, as well as actually bring in the new tenants. For information about us: Bill Cherry, Realtors

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

DALLAS

214 503-8563

Copyright 2008 - William S. Cherry

When I was a child, Barneys New York was a very exclusive men's store, and by reputation, it was where the finest dressers bought everything, even their socks.  As the store found itself challenged by competition, it did what it should have done: it added courtier clothing for women, and it increased its number of stores.

            Readers of the blogs I have posted here know that I have frequently expressed criticism of Barneys ownership and management because their maverick and often times silly window and store displays at their Dallas North Park Center location lacked merchandising logic and, therefore, did not encouraged enough customers to even begin to attain critical mass.

             All in a town and in a similar location where they had had a prior store, a store that had performed so poorly that they had elected to close it.

            Yesterday I saw that they had just, by far, installed the best window designs in the center.  That encouraged me to tour the store.  Bingo!  They've finally figured it out.  I hope they continue in this direction, and that it's not too late for shoppers to explore the store.

             Dallas men and women who demand and require their clothier not to have jammed racks and tight aisles, and to have one-on-one assistance in exploring selection possibilities will enjoy Barneys New York.  In NorthPark about the center of the Neiman's-Northstrom concourse.  Go look.

Copyright 2008 - William S. Cherry

Many investors and developers fell into developing various configurations of strip malls, beginning forty years ago.  Rather than retain experts in retail center design, leasing and management, they assumed there were no particular tricks to any of it. 

Prospective tenants didn't know much better, so leasing went smoothly and that further validated for all involved in the development and leasing that they were right - there was no need for experts.

Then the centers' retail sales began to fall, tenants moved out, sales failed further.

Well cities are full of these failed centers.  Some have a handful of marginal tenants; others have no tenants at all and are for all practical purposes, boarded up.  Dallas and the surrounding area are full of them.

Unless the neighborhood demographics and the drive by traffic have changed dramatically, almost all of those centers could be redesigned and remodeled to accommodate and attract appropriate tenants.  Oddly, few if any are being addressed, so it appears to me there are some real bargains to be had for new investors.

Over the past twenty years, several of my associates and I have joined together to consult the redevelopment of entire old downtowns and neighborhood centers.  Our projects were all successful.  And we're available to do others, anywhere in the U.S.

Meanwhile, over the next couple of days, I plan to post some of the items that shopping center leasing agents and managers must address if their projects are to be and remain successful. If you're involved in the commercial side of real estate, you may find these will be good check lists. - Bill Cherry

BILL CHERRY, REALTORS

Our 43rd Year Selling Texas

9936 Windlake Circle, Dallas 75238

214 503-8563

Copyright 2008 - William S. Cherry

All rights reserved

I'm tired of phony credentials.  This stuff is rampantly permeating every discipline, even the real estate sales business.

For an example, it has always been a mystery to me how few of the religious leaders sporting doctorate degrees actually have completed the academic studies from accredited universities.  And even worse, how many of them are honorary and how many of the honorary ones are from non-accredited sources?

I read in this week's New Yorker about a program at a Chicago church on Good Friday where seven ministers each gave a sermon.  Each spoke on one of the "seven last words of Christ."  Every one of them had the title "doctor" following "The Rev."  I couldn't help but wonder their academic sources. 

There was a family of three that sang on a number of the Gaither Gospel Homecoming TV shows.  I was interested in knowing more about them, so I searched and found their web site.  The vitae of the leader showed a doctorate degree from a school I had never heard of, somewhere in one of the southern states.

I called the school and learned that the school 1) was unaccredited 2) did not even have a doctoral program 3) that this fellow had never completed his undergraduate requirements for a degree and 4) that they thought they may have given him an honorary doctorate but they had no record of it.  If it had happened at all, the dean told me, it had probably been one time when this family had performed there. 

And then there is a famous poet who changed both her first and last names, who has no earned college degrees at all, but who uses the title doctor (one of several honorary doctorates) and is able to teach at a well-known university because of the honorary doctorate(s). 

I find all of this so interesting, and here's why:  Those who have studied and worked so hard for their academic degrees are willing to grant and honor phony ones...especially when they primarily show up in the ministry and in universities.  One would think they would be protesting.

DALLAS, TEXAS

214 503-8563

OUR 43RD YEAR SELLING TEXAS

I'd like to visit with you today, whether you are a home buyer or seller, or you are a licensed real estate professional.

Attorneys have for years taken the position that their service to their clients is as the client's advocate.  The attorney's job is to prepare and substantiate as best he can, your argument that your position is the correct one; that your adversary's is the incorrect one.  And he presents your argument to the court within the rules of evidence.

And that is exactly how attorneys justify taking the cases of clients whose positions they know in their hearts are incorrect.  It's how they justify defending a murderer or the child beater when they know he's guilty.  They are the bad guy's advocate, not his partner.

Real estate professionals are advocates, too.  Our job is to advance our clients' positions and to make certain that how things turn out for them as a result of our representation is 1) thorough and the best we can do 2) that they fully understand and approve each facet of our representation as we work our way through the negotiations and closing process, and 3) that we be willing to challenge the title company, mortgage broker, their attorney, or anyone else when our knowledge seems to indicate that those professionals' positions are not in the best interest of our client.

I am personally tired of the excuse that we need to steer clear of being our clients' advocate because it might be perceived as our practicing law without a license.  That's utter nonsense.  I can't tell you the number of times one of my client's attorney has given incorrect or insufficient advice.  The same is true for their accountant and the building inspectors. 

My job is to raise the issue with the accountant, lawyer, etc.,  and the client.  I'm the real estate professional.  I'm my client's advocate.  I have never cowered because someone might want to charge that I might be practicing law without a license, or that I'm not a CPA.  And I never will. 

If you're a real estate professional, in my view you shouldn't cower either.  Your job is not to see how passive you can be throughout the dealing, then collect your check.  Instead it's to proudly look after your client's interest to the very best of your ability.

If you are a client and you suspect your real estate agent isn't aggressively representing you as your advocate, you should consider changing agents because you aren't getting what you're paying for.  And there's a lot of your money at stake.

GOD Blesses!