There’s always something to howl about.

Author: Scott Schang (page 1 of 1)

Mortgage Systems Samurai

Is exposing your own weakness a good power play?

lessons learned from a difficult home buying experienceI’m am not entirely sure what made me think that this would be a good idea, but now that i’ve taken the leap I received exactly the response that I anticipated by telling this unflattering story to my database of over 9,000 consumers.

Let me back up for just a second here and shape the battlefield for you.

Business has been absolutely crazy this past month with a surge of files from buyers trying to get in under the wire for the $8,000 federal tax credit.

Our staff is pushing maximum capacity and to top it all off, the rates have significantly dipped in the past couple of weeks.

Now, let me set up this particular situation, share with you how I dealt with it (publicly), then I would like to get your feedback.

Close of escrow is scheduled for May 29th.  The borrower is using a CalSTR 80/17 purchase money loan which allows for a free float down if the rates drop during first 45 days of the lock.

Rates dropped and we combed through our pipeline looking for opportunities to “knock the socks off” buyers by making the “I know we’re closing next week and I can lower your rate today” phone call that everyone loves to make.

We had a mix-up, a miscommunication between the loan officer and the processor (processor processess float down) – the result was that we accidentally floated down the rate of a buyer before we called them to communicate the option and the opportunity.

As it turns out – that was a fatal error in the buyer’s mind.  The $27 a month savings paled to his concerns about closing his escrow early or on time.

This miscommunication compounded by a plethora of other miscommunications and mistakes by escrow quickly snow balled into a series of emails from the buyer, expressing exactly how he felt about the situation he was thrust into.

These emails were directed to me as the branch manager and “homeownership educator” of the office.  I thought long and hard about how to make this a positive experience because it got kind of ugly, which you will see for yourself.

I decided to Read more

WP Cache plugin creating firesavez7 Virus Zombie?!

If you have no idea what i’m talking about, you’re one of the lucky few!

This weekend my sites were attacked by a virus trying to install maleware and redirecting visitors to URL that started with firesavez7.com/ and then a long line of characters that led straight down a path to virus hell.

I have enough computer prophylactic mechanisms in place that I did not download anything but the job of cleanup is just beginning.

I was out of town at a conference this weekend and was unable to be in front of my computer, but while frequently checking my analytics with my iPhone app I noticed my daily traffic, bounce rate and time on site were WAY down.  Like almost non-existent!

My sites are hosted at Bluehost, and with a little research discovered that they were indeed a victim of this attack along with many other providers.

The Solution was not that bad

To initially resolve the problem, I had to restore my entire public_html directory to a previously backed up version from about a week ago, this was Sunday night.  That seemed to solve the problem.

I went the entire day yesterday with no occurrence of the dreaded redirect notice and anti-virus alarm.  Site traffic, time on site and bounce rate (vitals) were normal….whew, that was close.

But the dead rose to feed again

Tuesday is my marketing day.  The day that I send an update to my entire consumer and agent database (9,100 recipients of this email update) to notify them of the articles I wrote this week about claiming California’s tax credit.

Initially, there were no issues….and then it started.  One, then two, then three emails came rolling in warning me that I was sending out a virus!  HOLY S%&T!  This isn’t happening.  I saw my reputation being flushed before my eyes.

I screamed through my site with absolutely no challenges, no virus, no warnings, no redirects….what the hell was going on?!

I jumped on the phone with the smartest and nerdiest guy I know, Ryan Hartman.  He mentions that it’s common for viruses to attack your .htmaccess file in WordPress – so we look at it.

Ryan saw some stuff in there Read more

What if Twitter and Facebook go Away – Do you have an Exit Strategy?

Chris Pearson is a pretty smart dood.  He’s the developer of the Thesis theme that I use on all of my blogs.  It’s a pretty cool premium theme…but I’m not here to pitch WordPress themes.

Yesterday I received and email announcing some proposed changes in the next version of Thesis and in this email it included a link to a Video interview with Chris Pearson.

For the first 3 minutes, most of the talk is about changes to the Thesis theme….and then it gets interesting.

He starts to talk about the future of Twitter and Facebook and poses some very interesting hypotheses.

Here’s the video (can’t embed the vid for some reason, so check it out and come back) – go ahead and jump to about 3:08 to get to the good stuff.  Then, let’s talk about it.

Chris Pearson Interview - The future of Twitter and Facebook

Ok, so Chris brings up some pretty interesting points right?  I mean, think about how massive of a push there is for the RE.net to jump into the almighty Facebook Fan Page and Twitter stream life rafts to float safely to the shores through turbulent real estate seas.

Do you think that Facebook and Twitter care how or why you contribute content?  No, they could care less.  These are popularity contests to see who can get the most groupies.  Once these communities gain celebrity status, they are finally in a position to execute on their end game…..find an investor.

What is an investor going to do?  Use the traffic to the community as leverage to sell advertising or sell subscriptions to generate revenue.  Do you think either of these sites will ask you first if it’s ok if they use their platform for this reason?

Remember when Facebook tried to change their terms of service to say that all of the content on the site was 100% owned by them and could be used any way they see fit?  Do you really think that just by changing the verbiage in the terms of service that it changes the way they view your content?

I know there are hundreds of Twitter and Facebook snake oil salesmen out there crafting the next great real Read more

My “Jim Casey” take on the FHA’s Policy to Address Risk and Strengthen Finances

“Before I knowed it, I was sayin’ out loud, ‘The hell with it! There ain’t no sin and there ain’t no virtue. There’s just stuff people do. It’s all part of the same thing.” – (Preacher) Jim Casey / Grapes of Wrath

Here’s my take on the FHA 1/20/10 press release and the 1/21/10 Mortgagee letter as posted on my blog on January 21st, 2010:

FHA ANNOUNCES POLICY CHANGES TO ADDRESS RISK AND STRENGTHEN FINANCES

PRESS RELEASE: January 20th, 2010 – Deciphered into (highly biased and subjective) English by me on January 21st, 2010.

I basically cut out a lot of the stuff that doesn’t matter and tried to just talk about what will affect you. If you really want to torture yourself, here’s the original release.

The FHA statement in italics – My translation looks like this…easy to read. Ready? Cool, let’s get down to business then….

New Measures Will Help FHA Better Manage Risk, While Maintaining Support for the Housing Market and Access for Underserved Communities

FHA is hemorrhaging cash due to fraud, rapidly rising defaults and basically because the sleazy sub-prime guys ran around announcing that FHA was the “New Subprime” when everything collapsed in 2007 after Wall St. decided to take the stance that it wasn’t a good idea to allow brokers, lenders and loan officers to give away loans to people that couldn’t afford the payments (even though they started the whole damn thing in the first place).

Who would have though that would come back to haunt them huh? (file this under “ya think?”)

WASHINGTON – Federal Housing Administration (FHA) Commissioner David Stevens today announced a set of policy changes to strengthen the FHA’s capital reserves, while enabling the agency to continue to fulfill its mission to provide access to homeownership for underserved communities. The changes announced today are the latest in a series of changes Stevens has enacted in order to better position the FHA to manage its risk while continuing to support the nation’s housing market recovery.

Ok, blah, blah, blah…We’re making changes to FHA to make it more expensive to get an FHA loan so that less Read more

They are Smarter than you, Better than you and they Know More than you

I’m a mortgage guy.  Mortgage guys (and gals) will often talk about how highly they regard and respect the professionalism and expertise of Real Estate Agents, and they paint thise adoration with a very broad brush.

Real Estate Agents have a big ‘ole brush as well as they sing the praises and glory of how efficient, communicative and quickly Mortgage folks do their job to ensure a speedy and worry free transaction.

(The sarcasm should be about waist deep by now)

And you know what? (this applies to both groups)  They are Smarter than you – at marketing to their services to thier prospects, they are Better than you – at doing their job, and they Know More than you do – about their business (most of the time!).  Here’s the kicker….we have the exact same clientele.

Here’s a question: What can you learn from someone that’s not in your line of work that will make you better, smarter and cause you to innovate?

A couple of years ago I read a book called the Medici Effect that quite effectively makes the case that true innovation is realized at the intersection of different disciplines.  There are no new ideas, only new ways of looking at things that already exist…maybe just not in your world.

If you think about it, mortgage types and agent types are different disciplines.  Some people can pull off both and make a good living at it, for the most part however, these are two different personality types.

The very best in one field of the Real Estate profession is rarely the very best in the other field as well.  We’re not talking about having competence in either discipline.

I’m talking about being cutting edge, innovative, kick-ass, gonzo marketing fools.  This isn’t vanilla agent or loan officer stuff we’re talking about.  I’m talking about raising the bar and being a thought leader in your market.

For the past few years I have belonged to Vistage, an Executive Coaching and Business Leadership group that promotes “better leaders – decisions – results”.

My group is made up of 12-15 CEOs  from different businesses and industries and we meet once a Read more

Unchaining a Bloodhound Pup

It’s funny, I am almost never at a loss for words. I have an opinion on just about any topic and am usually a passionate conversationalist….but put me in the yard with the Big Dogs and I’m feeling a little puppyish (you’ll find that I like to make up words).

To introduce myself I want to tell you about the path that led me here.  I found BHB right as things started to really get hairy in the third and fourth quarter of 2007.

I have to admit I had trouble understanding much of what I read here about technology, SEO and Greg’s passionate dissertations that seemed like they were written in Greek (come to think of it, maybe it was Latin).

I could not resist being drawn to this incredible community of creative, innovative and free thinking professionals sharing openly their trials and their triumphs as they searched for answers when we really didn’t know exactly what the questions were, or what they would be.  It was a true mastermind of master minds.

When I found out about Bloodhound Unchained in 2008 I spent every cent that I had to buy a plane ticket and book a seedy hotel to be there.  I still remember, the cheapest hotel I could find was about a mile and a half from the Heard Museum.  I grew up on a farm in Michigan and figured “a mile and a half, no problem – i can do that in my sleep!”…and I don’t recall any mention on the announcement for Unchained about Arizona heat.  Even in April it was about 109 degrees!

So I showed up every day, lugging my $300 Fry’s laptop that someone lent me the money for, soaking wet, looking like I swam to the event like that dumb Michael Phelps Subway commercial they keep playing during the football playoff games.

I had already read about, and implemented fully without completely understanding,  long tail SEO strategies posted by Greg on the blog.  I was almost blinded by the innovation in the conference and found solace at a time when everything seems like an uphill battle….we’re talking Everest Read more