Did your family grow up coming to Myrtle Beach and spending hot summer days at the Pavilion? Although the oceanfront amusement park landmark is no more, several of its rides have a new home at Broadway at the Beach, near Jimmy Buffett’s Margaritaville. And fans who want to take a ride down memory lane can enjoy “The Last Ride: Memories of the Myrtle Beach Pavilion,” a 30 minute documentary next month on South Carolina’s public television network, ETV.

Burroughs & Chapin Company, which owned the park, plans to build a mix of stores, restaurants, lodging and attractions there, but is reportedly waiting until the Myrtle Beach Downtown Redevelopment Corp. begins the planned boardwalk stretching from Second Avenue to 14th Avenue North.

Price & Company Realty clients who may not have access to South Carolina ETV are welcome to contact us and request a complimentary copy of the documentary.

We’ve all heard - or experienced - things going wrong between the time we execute a contract for sale and the close of escrow. But I’ve finally found the perfect example of what happens when unsuspecting folks try to manage a complicated half-million-dollar transaction by themselves… but what makes this story so compelling are the contracts, emails and other supporting documents included as proof. Click Here to read this FSBO-Gone-Bad Case Study.

It’s Friday the 13th. Big deal, right? Well, actually… it is such a big deal that nearly $1 billion worth of commerce won’t happen today, because people are afraid to fly, travel, and shop.

But you’re not one of those people, right?

Maybe you are. Many people do things every single day because, know it or not, they’re a little bit superstitious.

When you yawned this morning, did you carefully cover your mouth? Probably so. It’s what we do to be polite. But there’s more to it than this–people used to think that your soul would rush out of your body if you issued an unprotected yawn.

But Friday the 13th is special. Maybe you never thought of Friday as unlucky. Fridays are payday for most working stiffs. It’s the start of the weekend. There’s even that “TGIF” restaurant. Friday is also the Muslim Sabbath and is the day for religious gatherings.

But Friday also carries negative connotations. For starters, Eve is rumored to have given Adam the apple on a Friday, according to Donald Dossey, founder-director of the Phobia Center in Asheville, North Carolina. Jesus was supposedly crucified on a Friday. And on which day of the week are the most pink slips handed out? You guessed it.

The number 13 has been feared for a long time, too–except in Italy, where “Fare tredici!” or “To make thirteen!” is the slogan of the national lottery, where, if you get a thirteen, you win.

Would you have purchased or rented your house or condo, if it was number 13? Did you know that more than 80 percent of elevators don’t have a button for the 13th floor? The U.S. Navy won’t launch a ship on Friday the 13th. And, as a former flight attendant once told me, many people just won’t fly on the 13th, unless they’re headed to Las Vegas. Apparently, the unluckiest day has an opposite effect when you’re gambling.

We usually think superstitious people just don’t know any better, but that’s pretty snobby of us. Superstitions are so common that sometimes we don’t even recognize them for what they are. Is it really bad luck, for example, for the groom to see the bride before the wedding? Why do brides wear something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue? Superstitions, all of them.

Ten years ago this fall, I got married with something blue in my bride’s pocket. So far, it’s been a great marriage. Knock on wood.

Real estate agents are in the middle of an ethical debate surrounding their use of creative license in their MLS listings. Property sellers and real estate agents looking for that elusive “edge” are skirting the ethical boundaries of the law by airbrushing property photographs before posting them on the local MLS or their websites.

The National Association of Realtors says that 83% of home buyers search the internet before buying. Given that most of these net-savvy buyers can look at a huge number of listings very quickly, they can just as quickly rule out many properties based on what they see in the pictures. And as internet users continues to increase, airbrushed or retouched photos are becoming ubiquitous.

Two years ago, Jonathan Miller, a Manhattan real estate appraiser, bought a house outside New York City. Shortly after the sale, he looked up the listing on the Web site of the seller’s agent and noticed something unusual: The utility lines running over his house were nowhere to be seen in the listing photo. They had been airbrushed out of the picture. Although he would have bought the house anyway, Miller says, he was annoyed by the falsified photo.

“We physically saw the property, and therefore the utility lines, before buying, but did they really need to modify the photo that much? It didn’t really seem right, either legally or ethically.”

Miller posed this question on his blog, and agents and graphic designers across the country debated the ethics of altering photos to show homes in their best light. Some saw no problem with it; others said it crossed a line. “I was really surprised by the debate,” Miller says. “But it seems like what happened to me was one of the least-harmful examples.”

Home photos for real estate listings are taken by agents or professional photographers. Some agents rely solely on photographing the best angle. Other agents upload photos into a software program such as Photoshop, where they can crop, edit and visually enhance the images. It’s still a gray area about how much “Photoshopping” is too much. The National Association of Realtors’ code of ethics requires agents to provide a true picture, although some touching up is allowed. So it’s up to each agent to decide what the limitations are.
Before & After

Randy Cohen, who writes “The Ethicist” column for The New York Times Magazine, calls it unambiguously unethical and deliberately deceitful. “There’s no such thing as an objective photo unless you take it from all angles. You might photograph the backyard from a particular angle to emphasize the view of the waterfall, and no one would quibble. But if you deliberately remove a bush to get that view, you’re definitely crossing the line. Deliberately obscuring the fact that there’s a landfill across the street is not ethical.

“Sellers should set a slightly higher standard and give potential buyers a clear understanding of what the house is like. To do that, you should select a certain view of the room, yard or house and present that to the public. The more you deviate from that, the less ethical your conduct.”

Bart Wilson, chief marketing officer of Voyager International, a firm that does photo and video graphics for real estate companies, says, “It’s kosher to Photoshop out a garden hose mistakenly lying out on the front lawn or make a sunset look more colorful. It’s another thing to remove trees and make the neighbor’s house look 4 acres away instead of right next door.”

Others will alter a photograph and then put a disclaimer on it or nearby, stating that the photograph has been visually enhanced.

For now, it’s best that you ask your Realtor up front. Sellers should confirm whether their Realtor will doctor photographs; buyers should ask their Realtor to confirm with listing agents the absense of (or the identity of) any doctored photographs.

For the record, Price & Company Realty does not permit the publication of any altered photographs in any of our listings.

In today’s market, what can you do to stand out from the crowd and make your offer irresistible to a seller? The biggest fears many sellers have today stem from the media circus surrounding the real estate market. Specifically, sellers are worried that:
1. My property will sit unsold for months and months.
2. My property will be tied up by an offer that can’t be financed.

If you can allay these fears, a mutually beneficial agreement can’t be far behind! A reasonable offer becomes irresistible when combined with the promise of easy financing and a quick close. Notice that I did not use the words “lowball offer.” Your offer must be fair and reasonable. If it is, the single most important thing you can do is to show the seller that you have already been pre-approved by a lender to buy the seller’s property!

Pre-approval is a different animal than pre-qualification. To be pre-approved, you’ll be asked for more documentation than basic credit information. If you have great credit, you may be able to be pre-approved for a loan that does not require asset and income documentation. Once you are preapproved, you may be able to negotiate a lower purchase price! The seller has confidence in your ability to make the deal happen. Many sellers are counting on the sale of their home to pay for the purchase of a new home, and a buyer who can’t qualify could cost them a lot of time and money. You might also use an expedited closing date to your advantage, helping the seller avoid having to make another mortgage payment. Do you think this might help you in your negotiations?

One last thing. Being pre-approved takes much of the guesswork out of buying real estate. You’ll know exactly how the lender views your ability to pay, and you probably won’t have to jump through endless hoops just prior to closing. You might even enjoy the process!