There’s always something to howl about.

Month: May 2009 (page 2 of 6)

Show Me “Paint the Fence”

I have a confession to make:  CRM isn’t as complicated as people tend to make it.  Take a look at an app like Salesforce and they purposely build the interface to look like you’re piloting a 747 jet when in reality all you’re looking to do is deepen a few hundred relationships and organize your life.  We CRM experts like to try and look a lot smarter than we actually are.

Over the next few weeks, I’d like to share some easy action items that will make managing your database a snap.  WARNING: I’M FLORIDA EDUCATED SO I TEND TO KEEP THINGS AT A 7TH GRADE LEVEL.  GREG SWANN: INITIATE LOBOTOMY NOW.

Lesson #1:  Paint the Fence

Remember when Mr. Miyagi made poor Daniel Son paint the fence?  And wash the car?  And paint the fence again?  If we’re gonna make you a black belt database manager, you’re going to have to suck it up too.  One must not deliver kick to opponent family jewel without proper training.

The most common problem I notice when consulting with mortgage/real estate professionals:  the quality of your data sucks.

  1. Lazy Data Entry:  If you’re populating data from an internet form, expect respondents to take as little time as possible getting to the goodies you’re dangling.  No less than 50% of your data will come in with capitalization, punctuation and other grammatical errors.  There are some automated ways to help clean this data, and I’ll leave that for another day.  But in the meantime, I’m asking you to make a habit of cleaning data as you go.
  2. Incomplete Data:  For the belly-to-belly folks:  I have my salespeople take the extra 120 seconds to visit a new prospect’s website as they enter data into our CRM system.  When I find records with just a name and email address, I get pissed.  When you take the extra time to dig for granular data on a contact, you’re in essence learning more of their story in the process.  Did my prospect give me a fake phone number (easy to learn if the the phone number on their website is different than the one they gave you!)?  How Read more

The Secret to Success (part 372)

Want to know the secret to becoming a wildly successful, top producing, charismatic, healthy and attractive real estate agent?  Want to feel ten pounds lighter and ten years younger?  Want the whole thing in one easy to swallow pill?  Me too.

I know all of us want to make money – some more than others.  But our ultimate goals: security for our family, a peaceful sense of happiness, a worry free future – they are much more than just money, aren’t they?

Earlier this week I was driving my two boys to school.  The older one piped up and asked what day it was.  “Wednesday” I replied.  He was ecstatic with that answer; bouncing on the back seat and just as excited as a nine year old can be on his way to school.  I asked him what made Wednesdays so special.  “On Wednesday we have PE,” he explained.  “That’s like an extra recess!  And on some days we play ‘anything-goes.’  Those are the best days ever!”

I started wondering: when was the last time any of us scheduled an extra recess?  Hell, when was the last time any of us scheduled a regular recess?  Can you remember the last time you found yourself enjoying a game of ‘anything-goes?’  May I suggest that when you finish reading this article you go directly to your calendar and schedule yourself an extra recess.  I’m not talking about some quiet time where you can get caught up on your paperwork!  I’m talking about a long lunch or a long walk.  Maybe going down to the beach or the park and bringing a picnic.  How about meeting your husband or wife at a hotel near their work for a romantic afternoon?

Schedule yourself an extra recess; preferably involving a little ‘anything-goes.’  I guarantee it will do wonders for your business.  You might even have “the best day ever.

The End of No-Cost Mortgage Loans and Other HR 1728 Concerns

The H.R. 1728: Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act is a problem that all mortgage and real estate professionals need to pay attention to.

My first rule of blogging has always been to avoid political discussions, especially if I’m not an expert on every angle of the topic.

So, with my second post to the BHB, I’m breaking all of my rules…. I guess this means that I’m starting to get the hang of things around here.

The difference with this post is that I’m putting my self-consciousness and ego aside for a moment.  I believe that there is way too much at stake for me to wait around until I’m comfortable putting my neck on the line.  I’m taking Greg’s 70% approach and running with it

If I’m wrong or barking up the wrong tree, I humbly respect that the Hounds of this community will set me straight.  Matter of fact, I’ll do my best to encourage any type of discussion, rant, or other demonstration of disgust, as long as it helps us get closer to the truth behind HR 1728.

Here’s the deal, friends – HR 1728 has passed the House, which means it still has to go before the Senate and then pass Obamanomics before it becomes a law.

I’ve spent a significant amount of time reading, researching and writing about how mortgage originators can battleback against this new Mortgage Reform bill.

I’m either missing a beat, presenting the wrong info, or not yelling loud enough, because it doesn’t seem like there is much talk online about how this new Anti-Predatory Lending bill will impact our industry.

Obviously, HVCC is getting some reaction, probably because people are already feeling the pain in their wallets.

However, a lot of us may have to turn to online gaming and selling weed to make a living if H.R. 1728 makes it through the Senate without our voices being heard.

What are the main bullets of HR 1728 that I care about?

  • Mortgage brokers lose the ability to use their YSP (Yield Spread Premium) to offer No-Cost mortgage loans.  Banks, on the other hand, still don’t have to disclose their same (SRP).

Trulia – A search engine?

Quote from Rudy Bachraty on REBarCamp Denver’s announcement that he will be speaking there: (my emphasis added)

“Trulia is a real estate search engine and online community where you can find homes for sale and detailed local real estate information.”

This is the second time in recent days that I have seen Trulia refer to itself as a search engine. In my opinion that is no accident. So time for me to offer some clarity.

Ummm…OK…calling yourself a search engine is a nice little attempt to muddy the water in our little blissfully ignorant vertical and blur the differences between a scraper (which your site started as–more references available upon request), a third party listing aggregator, and a search engine. There are huge differences between them. Google is not a scraper. They are a search engine. They index data that resides on other peoples servers. You, on the other hand, pull the listing data onto your own site for the purposes of monetizing it.

Let’s see, how can I explain this the easiest way…perhaps a video:

You see, Trulia? I know search engines.

Search engines are a friend of mine…

and Trulia?…

You’re no search engine.

Is NAR Criminal or Clueless? What difference does it make?

I  read the give and take between Greg and Mike DiMella (full disclosure, Mike is a client) with interest, because I respect them both, and it is always interesting when smart people agree to disagree and do so with civility and eloquence and without resorting to the ad hominem.

When that single MIBOR director derailed a policy change that went against them, even though it was unanimously approved by the NAR’s own technology committee, we were all left to discern a motive.

Was this the result of a long-standing “criminal conspiracy” (Greg)? Is this an attempt by some local MLSs, who see Google’s handwriting on the wall, to remian relevant by competing with their own members (me)? Or was this a consequence of the realities of trying to pull coherent policy from the collective mind of a large membership organization in a timely fashion (Mike)?

Its an interesting question, but the answer, it seems to me,  is irrelevant in the discussion of what to do next.

One thing we all agree on, I think, is that the MIBOR director used his knowledge of  NAR parliamentary procedure to work the system to MIBOR’s benefit and to the detriment of brokers and agents.

The prima facie evidence is that, at least for the next 6 months, Paula Henry is still being forced to dis-allow Google from indexing her site.

That means the damage is real.

Yes, it is contained to Indianapolis for the moment, but will it stay that way? My guess is that MIBOR will be huddling with other MLSs who share their control fetish over the next 6 months, and our friend the objecting director from Indianapolis will have a quorum come November.

Now that NAR has proven itself to be subject to the whims of directors who are nostalgic for a paper-bound MLS that brokers kept behind their desks, modern brokers and agents need to aggressively defend their own interests because, clearly, the organization that is supposed to do that is not.

I see signs of this happening now, with people getting fed up enough to get involved with their boards at the local level, but is that enough?

Perhaps Read more

News from the right side of the number line: Graphene, a possible replacement for silicon in computer chips, and a DVD-sized storage device that can hold more than a thousand DVDs

One of the paths to the singularity, and the one that is mostly readily plausible given the current state of physics, is nanotechnology. Here are two new nano-entities ready to break out of the laboratory.

First, how would you like to store your entire movie collection on one DVD-sized disc?

A DVD that can store up to 2,000 films could usher in an age of three-dimensional TV and ultra-high definition viewing, scientists say.

The ultra-DVD is the same size and thickness as a conventional disc, but uses nano-technology to store vast amounts of information.

Scientists believe it could be on sale in five years and say it will revolutionise the way we store films, music and data. 

One disc could back up the memory of a computer or record thousands of hours of film.

The breakthrough comes from Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia, where scientists created a prototype using ‘nano rods’ – tiny particles of gold too small to see – and polarised light, in which the light waves only flow in one direction.

Professor Min Gu, whose findings appear in the journal Nature, said: ‘We were able to show how nano-structured material can be incorporated on to a disc to increase data capacity without increasing the size of the disc.’

A DVD can hold up to 8.5 gigabytes of information, enough for a movie, several special features and an alternative soundtrack.

Blu-ray discs, which were designed to replace them, can store 50GB, enough for a film and extra features in high definition.

But ultra-DVDs will be able to store ten terabytes – or 10,000GB.

Of much greater moment, consider Graphene, a perfect carbon structure one atom thick.

Eight MIT researchers, along with colleagues at Harvard and Boston University, have just received a major U.S. Department of Defense grant for graphene research. With this five-year grant, Palacios says, MIT and its collaborators “would become one of the strongest multidisciplinary teams working on graphene in the world.”

Its unique electrical characteristics could make graphene the successor to silicon in a whole new generation of microchips, surmounting basic physical constraints limiting the further development of ever-smaller, ever-faster silicon Read more

What would it take to reform the National Association of Realtors, to turn it from an anti-consumer cartel into a steadfast defender of the right of American citizens to own, use and enjoy real property?

Joe Loomer: > what could and should NAR do to dispell your views of it as a criminal enterprise?

In very broad outlines:

1. Stop writing and lobbying for legislation devised to churn the real estate markets.

2. Work tirelessly to eliminate all laws that serve to advance the interests real estate brokers at the expense of consumers in general as well as other people who might want to broker real estate for compensation.

3. Eliminate all coercive membership requirements.

4. Work with lenders and HUD to eliminate the co-brokerage fee so that buyers can obtain — and pay for — true, honest, untainted representation.

5. Work tirelessly to eliminate all laws impinging upon the right of each citizen to buy, own, use, enjoy, profit from and sell real property without interference.

For what it’s worth, I think number 5 is the greatest betrayal of the American people by the National Association of Realtors. Zoning? The NAR is for it. Eminent domain? The NAR is for it. Expropriation of ancillary rights such as water rights? The NAR is for it. At the national level, the grand poohbahs might issue a toothless snarl about Kelo, but at the local level, the Boards of Real Estate that make up the NAR are always working hand-in-pocket with governments and developers to rob ordinary citizens of their right to own their own property.

Soldiers are to be found everywhere in history, but freedom is won and held by citizen soldiers — which means a soldier who has his own land to return to when the fighting is done. By undermining the right to own real property, the NAR works — insidiously, corrosively — to undermine American liberty.

And, for what it’s worth, if the NAR were to apply itself and achieve item number 4 on my list, none of the rest would matter. More than anything else, the NAR and the MLS are made possible by the co-broke. Get rid of that and the rest of this ugly mess will crumble to dust in due course.

It’s not an EOD

I am stealing from myself in this posting, which I believe is okay because the message just never seems to ring loud enough for me.  Some years back I met a Marine and his wife while showing homes.  What follows is my recount of meeting them.  It’s an account I hope some of you will follow with your own stories about perhaps your own EOD encounters.

U.S. Marine Corps


I took a young couple out looking for homes today. First time we had met, and our initial introduction had been through my web site and a couple of emails.In the course of our meeting I engaged in my usual convivial chatter, finding out in small snippets where they were from, what they were dreaming, and of course, what they “did for a living.” Now an old philosopher, Soren Kierkegaard, once wrote “if you label me, you negate me”, and being not quite that old, but old enough to remember and revere the 60’s, I always ask “what do you do” hoping it creates something that really takes me to the core of that person, not just to the superficial meaning of his or her life as labeled by a job.

So today I asked “what do you both do?” She said, “I’m ex-military, and he’s still on active duty.”

“What branch?”, I asked.

“I was in the Air Force”, she said, “and he’s in the Marines.”

We’re here in Oceanside, California, home of Camp Pendleton, and some of the finest young men and women in the whole world. I myself served as a Marine many years ago, but continue to find that meeting and interacting with young service people always makes me glad I live in the San Diego area where so many opportunities arise to do so.

“What do you do in the Marines?”, I asked.

“EOD’s,”, he said.

I’m looking at him, and he’s a young guy who clearly loves his gal, his country, and is not a big talker like me. So I ask him, “EOD’s….what are they?”

“Explosive Ordinance Devices,” he says. “You know, Read more

$8,000 Tax Credit Advance Friend or Foe?

I have been following the $8,000 Federal Tax Credit with great interest this year. Currently it is the most talked about topic that I am discussing with potential home buyers. There is a lot of interest in receiving $8,000 when a first time buyer files their taxes for 2009. Now that many states (Washington being one of them) are discussing ways to use the $8,000 tax credit as a way to help first time home buyers get into their homes through bridge loans the discussions have really become spirited. When HUD announced that they would allow the $8,000 tax credit as collateral for “bridge loans” to cover the down payment on FHA insured mortgages the pot literally boiled over with opinions.

Currently it seems on a daily basis that the $8,000 tax credit advance is in the news for one thing or another. Yesterday the Arizona Republic announced that the tax credit would be ineligible for down payment. Later in the afternoon the Seattle Post Intelligencer announced that the Feds still plan to allow use of tax credit for down payments.  Today the Arizona Republic reports the HUD bridge loan program hasn’t been killed. So what exactly is going on with the $8,000 tax credit advance? It would appear that nobody even HUD and FHA really know. I am sure that by the time I actually publish this post there will be something new to report.

What I want to know is what the readers of Bloodhound Blog think of the $8,000 tax credit and in particular what you think of allowing the tax credit to be used towards a buyer’s down payment?

I will go on record that I feel that this makes sense in some particular situations and with some additional requirements on the borrowers.

  • Potential home buyer has the income to cover the complete cost of home ownership out of their current income. The ratios must be well within the FHA guidelines.
  • The credit score of the home buyer is greater than 675. There is no need to allow marginal credit worthy buyer’s even easier access to borrowing money that they Read more

What’s the best way to use ALT Tags on a web site?

I usually use a dozen or more photos for EACH neighborhood, and want to include neighborhood name in each Alt Tag:

For Instance: Berkeley 4th St “what it is”

Berkeley 4th St Spenger’s

Berkeley 4th St Peets Coffee

Berkeley 4th St Amtrak Station

Will the repetition of “Berkeley 4th St.. ” in the beginning (or end) of the Alt Tag be considered keyword spamming if EACH of the 12 photos on that web page has an Alt Tag starting (or ending) with the same expression?

Ira

No more free lunch! Understanding the National Association of Realtors — all the way down to your bones…

Michael DiMella wrote the remarks quoted below in a comment, but I’ve extracted them and my responses to him into a separate post.

The meta issue is this: Is the NAR a criminal conspiracy against consumers, and, whether or not it is, is there nothing else good about it?

Michael DiMella: > you seem to have a thorough unwillingness to learn what NAR actually is and does.

That’s astoundingly false. I have written more about the NAR’s criminality than anyone, ever. You may not want to focus on that, but criminality is NAR’s sole reason for being. Everything else it might do is window dressing devised to fool the public — and gullible patsies within the NAR.

> That doesn’t make you a bad guy, but I, for one, would appreciate a modicum of respect.

Good grief. I will offer you and the NAR the oath of respect Fiorello LaGuardia paid to a similar criminal mob when he was inaugurated as Mayor of New York: “E finita la cuccagna!” (“No more free lunch!”)

> To [eliminate mortgage interest deductibility without comprehensively revising the tax code] would be careless and have a major negative impact on a majority of Americans.

False. The deductibility of mortgage interest is a handout to the rich. I’m opposed to all taxation, but it is absurd to argue that the wealthiest Americans cannot afford to bear their own economic weight. In any case, as is discussed below, using tax policy to favor one group over another, thus artificially to churn the markets, is vicious and wrong no matter who is hurt or helped.

The next argument would be that, in a condition of pressure-group warfare, to lay down arms is suicidal. That’s as may be, but, in order to make this argument, you must first argue that there can be circumstances in which you feel yourself justified in expropriating other people’s property — stealing, that is — for your own benefit. Are you an advocate of theft? Did I hear you say something about wanting respect?

> I would say NAR’s support of the MID is well intentioned to protect consumers

The sole purpose of the mostly Read more

NAR midyear: They’ve got a lot of what it takes to get along

Did midyear throw you for a few loops? Why?

We real cool, but for all our coolness, our cutting edginess, our self-important bellowing, we belong to an enormous *ahem* trade organization. So step back a moment and let me break it down for you.

A trade organization exists to represent its members.

All decisions it makes will be in the best interest of the majority of its members. Why? Because a trade organizations exists to represent its members. The end.

If you are not in the majority then your edgey place represents one of two things to a trade organization: Something to be ignored, or something to be absorbed. There are no buts.

“But they twitter!”

“But they leave comments on my blog!”

“But I met them at REBC and they were nice!”

They represent their members. They speak on behalf on their members. You may wish and hope and want to believe that things are different, however, facts is facts. It is what it is.

Meanwhile, how about those “Transaction Fees“? I don’t pass transaction fees on to my clients. I would hate it if it happened to me. So as the NAR creates a song and dance regarding Busby v. JRHBW Realty, Inc. (members only, sorry) thereby protecting the majority of its members, here’s a little toe-tapping number dedicated to the wackadoodle world of the NAR. Appropriately, she’s singing in pig latin!

What’s the HVCC and what does it mean to Loan Officers, Realtors and Consumers?

Okay, first, I have a confession to make.   The bank that I work for chose to be proactive and we began implementing the Home Valuation Code of Conduct on mortgage applications taken on or after January 12.   Why did we do it so early?   I’m not going to attempt to read the minds of the corporate people on that one.

I am going to share what I’ve learned about the Home Valuation Code of Conduct and what it means for lenders, Realtors and consumers.   Please remember this is not a formal analysis of the rules of the HVCC, this is strictly my personal experience of what it means:

The Five Most Important Things About the Home Valuation Code of Conduct:
1. For consumers – it means that the cost of an appraisal has gone up.   6 months ago, a standard appraisal in my area would cost between $275 and $300.   Now, that same appraisal is going to run $375.  What does the consumer get for his additional $75?  Basically, he gets one thing.   He gets a bit more comfort that the appraiser isn’t necessarily a friend of the Realtor or the lender and he doesn’t need to be as concerned that the appraiser is being pressured by someone to “meet a number” so the deal gets done.

2. For Realtors – it means that they can’t rely on “a friend” to get the deal done.   The days of working with the local appraiser who knows pretty much the entire market are over.   Now they have no impact on who does the appraisal.  So what does that mean?  It means that they are probably going to be getting some appraisers who don’t know the market as well.   What does that mean?  It means the Realtor has to not only know the market, they have to have the data available and be able to pass that information quickly and easily to the appraiser.   I don’t believe that it would violate any rules if the Realtor were to look up what they feel are the 6 best comparables, print the information and have it waiting at the house Read more

Nothin’ New Under The Sun — Especially If I’m Involved

I learned early on in my career I had no problem whatsoever taking others’ ideas and running with ’em like a thief out of a 7/11 carrying a paper bag full of ones and fives. I’m BawldJapan — I can take your idea, tweak it for my uses, and most of the time make it work to some degree. Ideas don’t have to be new, or even perceived as cool — they just have to work. What a concept — excuse me a sec while I write that gem down.

For the record, often times epiphanies for me are just empirical evidence I may have arrived at grammar school via the little bus. I’m reminded of my never ending irritation with the various business magazines aimed at entrepreneurs. Two lifelong best friends succeed wildly with a Mexican restaurant in their hometown, and are interviewed by Peter S. Small of Entrepreneurs and Stuff.

“Tell me guys, to what do you attribute your wild success?” “Well Peter, one day we were lamenting the dearth of high quality, affordable Mexican restaurants in Southern California. Then it came to us like a flash! We’ll do our own, and we’ll do it right. The rest is history.” You KNOW you’ve read those interviews too. You can’t swing a dead cat in SoCal without hittin’ an affordable Mexican restaurant with good food.

I’m now about to take what I’ve been saying here for quite awhile to house agents, into what I do. The concept of hyper-local has been cussed and discussed into oblivion. This isn’t about that exactly. This is about taking something that’s traditionally been done on a much larger scale, and narrowing it down to its lowest common denominator. Or something like that. It’s nothing new, and you may have even tried before.

For years I generated impressive business volume using direct (mass) mail — it was always successful, once we figured out the winning formula. From 1987 ’till around 2004 or so, no letter sent out yielded less than five figures worth of closed escrows. A few resulted in six figures. Then it stopped Read more