Month: June 2009 (page 3 of 4)

June 10, 2009

If You Will Not Assist Us With the Shrubbery, We Will Be Forced To Say “MORTGAGE!!”

by Mark Green

Database Marketing Expert

Oh, what sad times are these when loan originators can say such words as “Free” and “Mortgage” at will to their contact database?!?!

For if thou doest seek thine Holy Grail, or at least a decent shrubber, ye shalt best consult thy Book of Armaments here before lobbing thine Holy Hand Grenade of Drip Email upon thy database.

In Addition to Nee, Pang and Nuuuwon, Ye Shalt Also Avoid:

Okay, enough of the silly talk. I’ve got actual work to do.

1) Free + ________: Permission Marketing proponents love giving free stuff away. Make it a point to avoid this evil word your email subject lines.

2) Mortgage: Perhaps the evilest word of them all! How do you avoid this one if you’re a loan originator? I guess you could substitute nuuuwon. Or you can just make it a habit to check your subject lines for keyword spam infractions before sending. Either will do.

3) Low Interest Rates: Not that we have a problem with that right now. So I’m announcing a temporary hunger strike until rates drop back below 5%. Or at least until dinner.

carrot-top-steroids1 Hey, you’ve been a great audience. Now I’ll turn the stage over to not a good friend of mine who definitely has not been doing any steroids or performance enhancing drugs. His jokes sucked before he looked like this too.

June 9, 2009

Don’t Look At The Explosion, Just Focus On Your Mission.

by Chris Johnson

Instigator, anthill kicker.

One of my favorite Hollywood staples is the bad ass hero that blows something up and doesn’t need to look back. He’s already won the battle, and he’s done his damage, and he’s walking away towards the next thing on his todo list. Jerry Bruckheimer seems to use this 3 times a minute in his flicks. I think of Jack Bauer and not caring, the explosion happened, so what, moooooving along now.

The only thing that matters is the mission. The explosion is in the past. Cool guys never look. What you do next to accomplish your mission is the now. So many times I’ve either:

Admired my past successes. (Hey, pin a trophy on me, I sold a house)
Looked at the things I screwed up. (I lost a customer today)
Been distracted with red flashy nonsense. (Oooh, what will Inman do next)

All of it’s rubbish. Our job is simply to lead by example. Move more product. Get them to sign on the line that is dotted. Do it honestly. Do it to the best of our ability and know that that will always improve. Know that the job we do today isn’t gonna be as good as the job we can to tomorrow. Do better. Don’t sweat the screw ups, and don’t laud the victories.

Don’t look at explosions.

I see politics as an explosion. Yes. Obama wants our money. SHOCKER. So did Bush, who was all to eager to fire up the bailoutmobile. The government is a parasite. TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW. We can pour energy and tears into politics. Or, we can look at the landscape, get into an OODA pattern, and figure out…what to do next. We cannot moan ineffectually about the loss of our freedoms, blaming Obama on our faulures. I mean, we CAN, but dude, setting a good example amidst the chaos.

Learning the laws first isn’t whining about them. Creating a business that can survive HVCC or whatever BS the power drunk Ivy Leaguers can do…and not whining that we’re not surviving. THATS the play of the day.

Sure things changed, and more obstacles were thrown Read more

June 9, 2009

Those Who Can Not Remember The Past Are Condemned To Repeat It

by Doug Quance

Associate Broker

Add This 1934 Cartoon To The “There’s Nothing New Under The Sun” List:

Click image for larger version

If you think the housing market is bad now – just wait until these economic policies drive interest rates up… and don’t kid yourself – they’re heading up NOW.

George Santayana knew what he was talking about.

It’s a good time to buy real estate – while you can afford it.

June 8, 2009

The mortgage situation for nonresident buyers

by Phil Hodgen

International Tax Lawyer

Tom Vanderwall chimes in here on BHB regularly and helpfully about the mortgage situation. I look forward to his interpretation of the spins we get from DJ Bernake and crew.

I handle foreign real estate transactions and here’s what I’m seeing right now. What follows is all buyer-side stuff, because of course they’re the ones looking for financing.

War story. (In progress).

I have a buyer from the Middle East. Extremely solid person, extremely *ahem* solid balance sheet. Wants to buy a house in the $5 million range. No one that I have found (and I have tried mortgage brokers from Florida to California) can put an offer on the table for a sane mortgage. Even at 50% loan-to-value.

He banks with one of the brand name international banks and ordinarily you’d think that they would do something for him, if only to protect their customer relationship. (Considering the other business the bank gets from him and the family business, you’d think . . . .) But no.

So we keep looking. Most likely solution is either an all cash purchase or my buyer will do a margin loan against an investment account outside the U.S.

War story. (In progress).

Family from outside the U.S. is busily buying up rental properties by the handful somewhere in a State that isn’t touched by ocean. Let’s just leave it vague like that. Putting in enough money so the properties will be cash flow positive. Can’t get a single lender interested in taking a look at the portfolio of properties. At any “reasonably close to market” terms.

Again they will leverage offshore assets, borrowing short term. They’re buying all cash, basically lending to themselves (via a nifty “Bank of Me” structure I set up for them), and hoping that in 6 – 12 months they can find a bank that is willing to look at lending against 25 properties all cash flow positive.

War story. (In progress).

Right now. East Coast. Condo purchase, around a quarter million. Same thing.

War story. (In progress). Read more

June 7, 2009

Name of My New Band: Best Efforts Are For Cowards

by Jeff Brown

Real Estate Investments Broker

It wasn’t until I was past 30 when it came to me, much like the cliché bolt of lightning. As is the human condition, I sometimes allowed circumstances to dictate my thoughts and actions, instead of rational thought dictating even more valuable thought, often followed by ever increasing productive action. Once I realized this, the lightning struck.

It’s been put a myriad ways, but my favorite has always been the one aimed for the mind’s jugular.

Simply put — those who endeavor to generate any result, immeasurably small or life changing, with the attitude based upon trying their best — are cowards, pure and simple. Sound harsh? Who among us doesn’t see examples of their lives in that truth?

In my recent post about handling change and adversity I alluded to this axiom. In essence it says — There are those who try, and there are those that do. In my experience, there’s no middle ground I’ve ever witnessed. The so-called ‘journey to success’ hymn is nice balm for those who never really succeed, but succeeding is a fairly easy concept to recognize when we see it. Succeeding clearly involves a journey, but when there’s consistently no ‘Point B’ to the infinite journeys on which one embarks, success hasn’t been attained. The journey as balm is nothing if not a substitute for actually getting something done.

“I’m gonna run a marathon.” Yeah, right. Can’t tell you how many times it took me ’till after the 20th mile to pass some 60-something year old guy who never once tried to run a marathon in his life. He just ran it. Come to think of it, one of my favorite running memories is coming in ‘3rd woman’ in my age group in a 20K race. 🙂 Go figure.

I’ll quote someone who stared right through me as he said: “Don’t make excuses Brown, make good.” Lest anyone miss the deadly heart-piercing arrow in that admonishment, I’ll translate.

Triers make excuses while Doers succeed. Still don’t quite see it? Life doesn’t reward those who try. Real estate offices are almost completely populated with triers. Ouch!

Possibly Read more

June 7, 2009

Is Rice A Roni Really a San Francisco Treat?

by Thomas Hall

Realtor, Rabble-Rouser

Just think about my disappointment when I entered a prominent San Francisco eatery seeking the most coveted food stuff, only to find it was neither a specialty nor an item on the menu!

Yet again, I was bamboozled.

What ever happened to truth in advertising?

Perhaps my San Francisco mishap taught me to be perhaps a bit less gullible. When I see a claim, even a statement of fact, I figure it might be important to do some more digging.

Let’s take NAR’s recent press release regarding Pending Home sales, up 6.7% from a year ago last year. Sounds encouraging – and let’s face it, we all could use encouraging news. But what does the increase really mean?

Let’s take a look at the data behind the aggregated index of 6.7% that NAR published:

NAR Pending Home Sales Index

While 6.7% sounded encouraging, I am not necessarily convinced that it means we are anywhere near out of the woods. Why? Because if you look at the seasonally adjusted for the West and South, areas that have the highest concentrations of inventory and loss of value, the numbers don’t seem to be telling the same encouraging news.

Here’s why. Take Las Vegas for example:

Single Family Home Inventory in Las Vegas per Altos Research

There are about 15,661 properties on the market in LAS VEGAS as of June 07, 2009.

How about Phoenix:

Single Family Home Inventory in Pheonix per Altos Research

There are about 7,816 properties on the market in PHOENIX as of June 07, 2009. Definitely making progress, but still a fairly long way to go.

What about Miami?

Single Family Home Inventory in Miami per Altos Research

There are about 8,450 properties on the Read more

June 7, 2009

Mr Inman, less advertorial content please!

by Eric Blackwell

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Ok…I have tried to stay off of this topic for a LONG time, but I keep seeing stuff that brings me back. Brad, errr..Mr. Inman? I have never met you. I know you have a lot of power in the real estate news sector, because InmanNews reaches many agents and brokers.

Here’s the deal. I see SO much advertorial content and self promotional crap in the real estate space that it is hard to keep up with it all. Then I see this little gem. Seriously…please go look at it before reading further.

Even in the comments people are chiding Joel a bit for it being an advertisement. So Joel does have a disclosure in there saying that TurnHere is owned by Inman.

Then I went to WHOIS and found out that this blog Future Of Real Estate Marketing is OWNED BY INMAN.

Anyone want to tell me that this blatant self promo was NOT an advertisement? I really am willing to listen if someone wants to make that case.

Joel, you said that how this came off was 100% your bad. Ummm, can you argue that you have 100% editorial control when it isn’t your site? Methinks not. Since the site is owned by Brad Inman, my request is to him. Please tone down the advertorial content. Also, a more complete disclosure as to who owns the site would be far more transparent. If this was totally Joel’s bad as he says in the comments, perhaps some editorial control (on a site you OWN) is in order, but I really don’t think that was the case here.

I hope I am wrong.

Responsibility for content lies with the owner of the domain.

Thoughts?

June 7, 2009

Unchained Melody at Heaven’s Gate

by Teri Lussier

Rust Belt Realtor

I’m spending time in a hospital as the mother of a patient, but this is not about transparency. You can send a good thought or well-wish in our direction, and I will truly appreciate it, but I’m not here to petition for sympathy or prayers, and I’m not here to share my personal life.

So much of my life includes a musical soundtrack of some sort or another and I’m always selfishly sharing them here mostly because I often struggle with words- music can say what I cannot, so I’m posting a remarkable clip from a movie that is about property rights, but also about independence and passion for life- it’s very appropriate for this real estate blog. Bloodhounds know about living life with passion: Purposeful life as defined only by our independent selves, and I find that life in a children’s hospital is very similar: Raw, painful, staggeringly beautiful, and always remarkable.

Today is Sunday, a day of the week that might have you contemplating higher thoughts, or the meaning of life, or might have you preparing to conduct serious business. Today, for four minutes, a break from real estate, a respite from the hard times in life, to give yourself over to an unbridled celebratory lust for life.

June 6, 2009

Are Our Customers EnTitle-ed To Better Fees?

by Brian Brady

Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL

Admit it. You’ve wondered if there was a lot of fat in title policies, didn’t you? I mean, how many claims does a title company REALLY get in this “nobody trusts anyone” market? We order a title commitment and the title company:

performs a detailed search of the property’s chain-of-title
mitigates most any risk
insures the title and earns an insurance premium.

One would think that this highly-regulated, extremely commoditized business would file premiums within cents of each other, right?

I received a direct mail piece from EnTitle Direct today. They are a national title insurance company (the old Guardian Title):

ENTITLE DIRECT is the only title insurance company that markets and sells directly to consumers at 35% savings. We combine 30 years of experience and stability with a consumer-friendly approach and provide you with significant savings on title insurance, the ability to control your own closing, and transparency throughout the closing process.

I was curious so I got a quote for a $400,000 refinance transaction:

$500.00 escrow fee (about $100 more than the local folks)
$357.50 for a title policy (endorsements not included)

I ran the CLTA Title Wizard to comparison shop. Local escrow fees are about $400.00 so the locals are winning, at this point. Let’s see what the locals offer for title policy premiums:

Commonwealth $1, 045
Ticor $1,045
Placer $675
Orange Coast $625
Stewart $675
Provident $800
Old Republic $800
Chicago $1045
FATCO at $605

What am I missing here, gang?

I think someone may have just figured this game out. Any comments or experiences with EnTitle Direct are appreciated.

PS: EnTitle Direct claims to be a member of the Read more

June 6, 2009

Why Real Estate Agents Should Stop Playing Loan Officer

by Mark Madsen

Las Vegas Mortgage Blogger

I wasted a few hours this week cleaning up the messes that real estate agents created for their first time home-buyers.

End result – loan officer still looks like a jerk, but now the borrowers are really confused about who to trust.

I’m going to combine about five separate scenarios and conversations that I had this week into one rant just to get my point across.

First of all, the mortgage industry is changing very rapidly.

True mortgage professionals are paying attention to things like: HVCC, concerns of HR1728, Mortgage Insurance companies changing their guidelines, Fannie’s new condo rules, FHA fico score requirements, Loan Level Price Adjustments, new FHA appraisal guidelines, adjusting interest rates in an unstable market, and a constant stream of mortgage Twitter chatter that only adds to the noise.

For those of us primarily working with FHA First-Time Home Buyers, we’re also keeping tabs on the $8000 Tax Credit being used as a down payment, as well as how long the Fed plans on purchasing Mortgage Backed Securities to keep rates lower.

Just as real estate agents are learning about short sales, bank owned properties, and transparency, mortgage originators have a full-time job keeping up with industry news so that we can lead our clients down the right path.

I don’t think that I need to throw another 9 links in this post to demonstrate that there are a lot of things real estate agents and loan officers need to understand before we can express with confidence to our clients that we truly have a handle on their unique scenario.

Imagine what the effect would be on a first-time home buyer if puked all of this overwhelming information on a them in the first 10 minutes of the initial phone call?

I had to do this all week just so that the agents and borrowers would understand why I wasn’t able to issue a quick pre-approval letter and GFE simply based on a 15 min phone call and credit score.

We’re in a tough market, and I totally empathize with the hard working agents who are competing for new business by giving the highest levels of service possible.

However, Read more

June 5, 2009

Swiss Accounts, Condo Developers, and an Open Door

by Phil Hodgen

International Tax Lawyer

Americans who hide money offshore have a almost mystical belief in foreign bank secrecy laws. Whether it is Switzerland or the Carribean they believe that these countries’ laws and bankers will protect them from the U.S. government’s investigators and tax collectors.

Secrecy has crumbled. You wouldn’t know it from the people who come to my office looking for advice. They have faith that their bearer shares and banking arrangements will stay invisible to the IRS. They believe that the U.S. government is pursuing the Swiss bank UBS. They don’t have their money in UBS, so they think they are safe.

There is no such thing as secrecy. The likelihood that the IRS will find Americans with hidden offshore bank accounts increases with each passing day. Let’s look at recent history.

In early 2008 it was revealed that the German government had paid an informant 4 million euros for stolen information about “safe” accounts in Liechtenstein. This information was passed on to other governments. Including the USA. One hundred U.S. taxpayers were caught in this net…so far. Bribery by the German government put U.S. taxpayers in the cross-hairs of criminal charges.

What about resentful ex-employees doing dumb things? Rudolf Elmer worked at Bank Julius Baer, a prominent Swiss bank. He lost his job. The normal legal back and forth followed. Except that in a fit of pique Mr. Elmer released hundreds of internal bank documents on the internet. Including the names of bank customers.

Now the elephant is dancing. The U.S. Department of Justice is pursuing UBS, trying to get UBS to turn over the names of as many as 50,000 names of U.S. account holders. A UBS executive was arrested, pleaded guilty, and is cooperating with the U.S. government.

I’m guessing that more than a few of BHB’s readers have clients with offshore bank accounts. Asset protection trusts. Etc. People whose tax strategy is “How will the IRS ever find out?” Especially condominium developers. 🙂 As sure as night follows day, construction defect litigation by homeowners associations will follow the successful completion of that condominium project. And Read more

June 5, 2009

Please Help Me Welcome NAMB President Marc Savitt To Web 2.0 – Action Step Requested

by Mark Green

Database Marketing Expert

I wrote an article at Lenderama yesterday. Here’s the deal:

I’m a card carrying NAMB Basher and have been for several years. And I’m hardly alone. The other day, I had a 10-minute phone conversation with NAMB President Marc Savitt. The conversation inspired me to write the article you’ll find on Lenderama.

If you’d be so kind to read that article, and if compelled, please leave a comment letting Mr. Savitt know that if he engages us, we’ll respond – and above all that you appreciate his efforts. Now, more than ever, the mortgage industry needs to come together as one. Brokers, bankers, supply chain… all of us.

Please help me give Marc Savitt a warm welcome to the world of Web 2.0. Thanks in advance.

June 5, 2009

“Search Overload” = Toenail Fungus

by John Rowles

IDX Search Entrepreneur

Bing! I’ve decided that following big pharma’s TV marketing playbook to launch a search engine that is supposed to compete with Google is an idea so dumb, it could only have been approved by whoever thought that Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates walking around a mall would make people think Vista doesn’t suck.

Apparently, there is a condition called “search overload”. I didn’t know it existed until I saw the Bing commercial last night, but now I think I might have it.

According to the commercial, symptoms of “search overload” include feelings of being blind-sided by what’s happened to the economy, high gas prices, and anger that Google didn’t tell me that housing prices don’t always go up.

I feel compelled to ask my doctor about Bing.

You see, unlike regular search engines, Bing doesn’t just give you what you ask for, it helps you to make decisions – it’s a “decision engine” (uh-huh) and using it to make decisions for you makes your life better.

(Bing isn’t for everyone: People who know how to use a search engine may actually feel themselves getting dumber while using Bing.

If you thought the Bing ad was the funniest thing on Conan O’Brien’s Late Show last night, be sure to mention that to your Doctor when you ask about Bing.

If blaming Google for the economic collapse makes sense to you for more than 4 hours, proceed to the nearest Verizon store and purchase a Windows Mobile device.)

June 4, 2009

Why I read Ibsen

by Greg Swann

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

[I grew up in a grimy little industrial town called Danville, Illinois. It wasn’t until I was four years old that I stumbled onto an atlas and discovered why I had felt so much out of place from the day of my birth. I graduated from Danville High School two years early — and left town the very next morning. My sister was in that same graduating class, but she has never felt herself to be anything but comfortably at home. She got as far away as the University of Illinois in Urbana, forty miles west, then came back to teach Shakespeare to the college-bound minority of Danville High School. She throws in one Ibsen play a year, and I wrote this essay as a hand-out for her classes. This is madly off-topic, of course, but it’s in keeping with what’s wrong with American education. Plus which, it’s been a while since we’ve had some refinements around this joint, and I’m hearing from clients that they like the deeper-reading bits. So: For the wandering professor, Don Reedy, and for my homebody sister, let’s go for a dip in the fjords. –GSS]

The latter half of the nineteenth century was a time of amazing progress for the West. Average life-expectancy doubled. Infant mortality was halved. The fruits of science and industry were spreading to even the poorest of the poor — hygiene, sanitation, bountiful harvests, rail and sea travel, the telegraph and the telephone, abundant cheap fabrics from the much-maligned mills of England and America. The simple innovation of gaslight, precursor to Edison’s bulb, effectively extended human life by half. The year of 1848 was the year of triumph for the Enlightenment, and monarchies fell all across Europe. The ideals of Voltaire and Jefferson were everywhere ascendant and humanity emerged, dazed and wan, from the prison of tyranny, seeming to dance in the clean, sweet air of liberty.

The latter half of the nineteenth century was a time of joy and beauty and purpose in life and in art, and this is one of the best kept secrets in the history of the West. Read more

June 3, 2009

HVCC Petition

by Tom Vanderwell

Mortgage Officer

And to quote one of my all time favorite movie characters, Forrest Gump, “And that’s all I’m going to say about that.”

Check out HVCC Petition at www.hvccpetition.com

HVCC

Month: June 2009 (page 3 of 4)

If You Will Not Assist Us With the Shrubbery, We Will Be Forced To Say “MORTGAGE!!”

by Mark Green

Don’t Look At The Explosion, Just Focus On Your Mission.

by Chris Johnson

Those Who Can Not Remember The Past Are Condemned To Repeat It

by Doug Quance

The mortgage situation for nonresident buyers

by Phil Hodgen

Name of My New Band: Best Efforts Are For Cowards

by Jeff Brown

Is Rice A Roni Really a San Francisco Treat?

by Thomas Hall

Mr Inman, less advertorial content please!

by Eric Blackwell

Unchained Melody at Heaven’s Gate

by Teri Lussier

Are Our Customers EnTitle-ed To Better Fees?

by Brian Brady

Why Real Estate Agents Should Stop Playing Loan Officer

by Mark Madsen

Swiss Accounts, Condo Developers, and an Open Door

by Phil Hodgen

Please Help Me Welcome NAMB President Marc Savitt To Web 2.0 – Action Step Requested

by Mark Green

“Search Overload” = Toenail Fungus

by John Rowles

Why I read Ibsen

by Greg Swann

HVCC Petition

by Tom Vanderwell

Search BloodhoundBlog

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