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Category: Group Therapy (page 61 of 81)

September 4, 2009

Jobs Report – did I call it wrong?

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

Okay, so far this morning, the market has reacted in a very volatile but not significantly changed manner to the jobs report.   Essentially the jobs report came in pretty much where the market expected.  

So, did I call it wrong by recommending a shorter term lock and a long term float guideline yesterday?   I don’t think so for a couple of reasons:

  1. We’ve passed the major economic hurdle for the next few weeks without any news that is going to significantly lower rates.   Between that and the fact that the new Reg Z rules essentially require locking in your rate at least 1 1/2 weeks before closing, it makes sense, if you are closing soon, to grab a rate and be done with it.
  2. One of the “big guys” at PIMCO was on CNBC this morning talking about how this is a “sugar high” rally that is based on inventory and cost control and stimulus funding (isn’t that what stimulus is supposed to do?) but that it won’t last.    When reality hits, the stock market will adjust and the adjustment won’t be pretty.    That has two potential options:  1) It would force money into the bond market driving down rates, or 2) It could cause money to jump to cash (remember last fall?) and everything would be really ugly.   So I expect there is still some lower rate potential in the next 60 to 90 days.

Have a good weekend!

Thanks!

Tom Vanderwell

September 3, 2009

Speaking of Liberty

by

Realtor, Renaissance Man

Author website

For months now I have watched the political field of action, players, on-lookers, naysayers and pundits. Is there no clarity?

My highest regard for that clarity sometimes springs from this very site, its authors, contributors and readers. So today, I introduce again a contributing voice to the clarity that originates from reason, Ayn Rand.

Watch her eyes throughout this. She understands what is to come in the form and substance of the questions, and when given the opportunity, she is clear, resonant and reasoned. Oh, and she’s right by the way.

September 2, 2009

Love in the Time of Obama: Life after the Cybersecurity Act of 2009

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

-Amazing Grace, I once was lost, but now I’m found. This was a goner in the meltdown and for some reason I didn’t keep a copy. Thank you, Cheryl Johnson for finding it in the Google cache. It’s not brilliant writing, but it is something I’m pleased with, so, I’m reposting. Thanks for your indulgence.  -TL

A letter to Brian Brady, sent via private courier since the government has seized control of the internet.

Dear Brian-

So sorry to hear Maggie didn’t get into the college of her choice. It’s okay, though. I’m sure the government school she’s in will give her the education she needs to function well in our new society. Never forget we need highly-skilled workers, Brian.

I don’t know if you are aware, communication being dicey right now, but we have moved to some acreage in a remote part of Ohio. Like so many Midwest cities, ours went bankrupt, was taken over by the State and our neighborhood was rezoned as a Construction Reuse Reclamation Area under eminent domain. Thousands of our brick homes were recycled for government buildings and stimulus projects. We were given free homes within the city of Dayton as part of it’s Vacancy Infill Plan, but we chose to move elsewhere. We can manage as a small self-sufficient farm and are hidden from the road, since our carbon offset tree plantings are located there. We’ve begun bartering with neighboring farms, and use horseback to travel, as our carbon emissions quota is limited and we need them for our farm equipment, and our cows keep farting. I won’t complain, though. We get to see the land this way.

The only problem we have is when the Czarina of Food Safety shows up to our farm. I know she thinks she is doing the right thing, but the problem is that she grew up in southern California and never set foot on a farm until she was Gulaged decommissioned relocated here to be an inspector. I’m not sure, but it feels like she is unhappy living in Ohio farm country and takes it out on us. I guess when she Read more

August 21, 2009

REBarcamp: It’s not just for Realtors anymore

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

Got any thoughts about REbarcamp? I’m not even sure how to spell it. But I went to REbarcamp in Columbus OH-I-O, and had a mahvelous time. The venue was nice, clean, easy for the navigationally challenged to navigate, no waiting lines at the Ladies Room. What more could we ask for? It was well-organized, and the organizers were accommodating.

A question came up while I was there: Would I go to another rebc? It gave me pause. I like to meet people, so I would certainly be looking for another opportunity to do that again. But rebc? I’m not so sure. I really dislike conferences in general, and on the drive home, just like I did after BHBU, I pondered what I would do to improve my rebc experience.

I did get it wrong about rebc sponsorships, btw. No one pays any attention to who is sponsoring anything, so that is a total non-issue. If you are using sponsorship as advertising, well, um, yeah. Of course the highlight was meeting people I only know online. Meeting face-to-face is one of the best reasons to go to most real estate functions, and rebc is no exception to the rule. What was so wonderful about rebc/OH-I-O is that the vast majority of people there were corn-fed Ohioans, just like me. My people. We have a common bond, we speak the same language, there is an ease and familiarity that follows. I really loved that more than I can express, so I would look for opportunities to get together locally and share ideas- that’s all barcamp is about, right? So here’s where it gets a little sticky to me. What is the big deal?

Call it Midwest practicality, but it’s local Realtors. And we are talking about local real estate. Think about it. When did this become hoopla-worthy? When did you need a name, an umbrella organization, a fancy venue, a nearby hotel, a website, a logo, sponsors, organizers, nationally known speakers, in order to share ideas about local real estate?

And so. Come with me to a little meeting with Jesus. I want to get together with Read more

August 13, 2009

The Fed Translated – and why it isn’t good for interest rates…..

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

My apologies for taking almost 24 hours after the Fed to get this up.   As I’ve done in the past, I want to go through what the Fed said yesterday and give some insights into what I think it means for the housing and mortgage markets.   You can find the entire FOMC statement at Federal Reserve.gov.    As usual, my comments will be inserted inside the statement and will be in bold and italics.   Here goes:

For immediate release

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in June suggests that economic activity is leveling out. I think it’s important to notice that they didn’t say things are improving, just leveling out.   The Fed never uses any words without a reason. Conditions in financial markets have improved further in recent weeks. Household spending has continued to show signs of stabilizing but remains constrained by ongoing job losses, sluggish income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit.  I think that what they mean by household spending is stabilizing is that people have slashed and burned their budgets down to the minimum and aren’t cutting back further.   However, if you look at the Retail Sales Report this morning, it raises a question of whether household spending is stabilizing. Businesses are still cutting back on fixed investment and staffing that’s a nice way of saying jobs are still being lost but are making progress in bringing inventory stocks into better alignment with sales. inventory in better alignment with sales – what that really means is that the jobs that “make things” are still being eliminated. Although economic activity is likely to remain weak for a time a time – that’s a nice way of saying we’re in for a long slow climb back, the Committee continues to anticipate “continues to anticipate” is that sort of like, “Please, please please, I really really want it?” that policy actions to stabilize financial markets and institutions, fiscal and monetary stimulus, and market forces will contribute to a gradual resumption of sustainable economic growth in a context of price stability.  They have had this sentence in there for a Read more

August 9, 2009

From The Gift of Fire, by Richard Mitchell: Who is Socrates, Now That We Need Him?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Quoted from Mark Alexander’s wonderful Richard Mitchell web site:

 
When Benjamin Franklin was hardly more than a boy, but clearly a comer, he decided to achieve moral perfection. As guides in this enterprise, he chose Jesus and Socrates. One of his self-assigned rules for daily behavior was nothing more than this: "Imitate Jesus and Socrates."

I suspect that few would disagree. Even most militant atheists admire Jesus, while assuming, of course, that they admire him for the right reasons. Even those who have no philosophy and want none admire Socrates, although exactly why, they can not say. And very few, I think, would tell the young Franklin that he ought to have made some different choices: Alexander, for instance, or Francis Bacon.

Jesus, just now, has no shortage of would-be imitators, although they do seem to disagree among themselves as to how he ought to be imitated. But the imitators of Socrates, if any there be, are hard to find. For one thing, if they are more or less accurately imitating him, they will not organize themselves into Socrates clubs and pronounce their views. If we want to talk with them, we will have to seek them out; and, unless we ourselves become, to some degree at least, imitators of Socrates, we will not know enough to want to seek them out. Indeed, unless we are sufficiently his imitators, we might only know enough not to want to seek him out, for some of those who sought Socrates out found reason to wish that they hadn’t. Unlike Jesus, or, to be more accurate, unlike the Jesus whom many imagine, Socrates often brought not the Good News, but the Bad.

Nevertheless, people do from time to time come to know enough about Socrates to be drawn into his company, and to agree, with rare exceptions, that it would indeed be a good thing to imitate him. The stern poet-philosopher Nietzsche was one of those exceptions, for he believed, and quite correctly, that reasonable discourse was the weapon with which the weak might defeat the strong, but most of us often do think of ourselves as weak Read more

August 4, 2009

Should Realtors “Interview” Lenders?

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

I got what I thought was a very interesting and thoughtful e-mail last week from Jessica Horton, a Realtor down in Georgia, who I’ve gotten to know.   She and I have chatted a bit both online and over the phone about the markets, the dynamics of today’s lending rules and the ins and outs of structuring deals.   Oh, and we are both authors on the Bloodhound Blog.

I’ve taken Jessica’s e-mail and my response and turned them into a post.    I’ve eliminated a few minor conversational tidbits but I’ve left the majority of our e-mail conversation intact.

Why am I reposting this?

For three main reasons:

  1. I’ve been in the mortgage business for 21 years now and I have never seen as challenging of an environment as we have now.   Yeah, we’ve had ups and downs and economic slow times, but a combination of falling property values, rising unemployment and tightening underwriting guidelines have made this the most challenging market I’ve ever been in.
  2. The days of assuming that any lender can get a loan done and that anyone can get a mortgage are over and they aren’t coming back any time soon.
  3. I found it very refreshing that a Realtor is taking a good hard look at who they want to recommend to their clients and not looking at it only from the standpoint of “who’s going to buy me lunch.”

I found it very refreshing that Jessica was talking to a number (I don’t know how many) lenders and was attempting to understand better how they work and what their processes and procedures are for making sure that things go smoothly.    With the HVCC and the new MDIA and the pending changes from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the rate a lender offers will always be important, but their ability to get things done is more important than it has ever been.

Take a few minutes and read through the exchange.   Jessica’s questions are in “normal” print and my answers are in bold and italics.

Tom

Jessica,

See below.   Thanks for giving me this opportunity.

Tom Vanderwell

From: Jessica Wynn Horton [mailto:jessicahorton30292@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2009 1:58 PM
To: Tom Vanderwell at Straight Read more

July 31, 2009

What Lessons Have We Learned From Past Hard Times?

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Most of us can remember a time, sometimes even a specific moment when our spirit was so beat up it seemingly had to look up to see down. I’ve had those times. They come and go for all of us, and come in so many different forms. It can be financial, health, family, or a combination of all the above. Although in my head I’m still roughly 22, and even though I’m healthy as a horse, very fit, blah blah blah, I can remember bad times like they were last week.

I was first licensed in a recession — went full time after school was done in a recession — saw my first child born in a recession — see a trend there do ya? I’d be the last guy to claim having lived a hard life, though I’ve had my fair share of, um, challenges. In our minds we tend not to step back and extract the lessons life so generously offers to teach us. But we do learn from our times in the barrel, don’t we?

You’ll not meet many folks more private than I, on that you can bank. I tend to keep to myself, though paradoxically I’m gregarious and outgoing by nature. Today I had one of those moments when it seems everything goes into super slow motion, and you begin to ‘see’ things you musta been missing. I’ll keep the subject matter to myself as it wasn’t directly about me, but suffice to say I was both emotionally and intellectually moved a great deal.

It reminded me of the lessons I’ve not only learned about life and living, but about myself — many of which were learned in the pressure cooker of desperate straits. I’d love to hear what some of you have learned when things in your life went to hell in a hand basket, but fair is fair so I’ll tell you some of what I learned in some of the darkest hours from my past.

I learned no matter how much family support there is, no matter how many friends there are, in Read more

July 26, 2009

The Part You Give Away

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

Waits sings about The Part You Throw Away, and I did plenty of that once, but today, it’s about the part you give away.

For many reasons, I’ve been hesitant to discuss this except in the most general terms. It feels both invasive and self-indulgent to discuss my personal life here, but this post is about the part you give away.

I have a child who has been in and out of the hospital most of the summer, and she’s back there again. I’m not sure which is more strange- having a child in the hospital or, knowing exactly what to pack for the stay, and getting it packed in 20 minutes.

Things happen. We deal. And we deal. And we deal. And each time we deal, we grow stronger.

A mother becomes tempered steel, because she’s given away so much of herself that what is left, perhaps all that is left, is the very best. She’s dumped all the baggage, everything worthless, useless. What’s left is her essence.

I am now inside out. Stronger than I was two months ago, reduced and forged to my very essence.

I don’t want pity. I don’t want anything really, except to show you, and myself, that the part you give away is the part that creates the most strength and beauty in life.

 

July 22, 2009

Americans and Hard Times

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Born in the summer of 1951, I’m one of those Boomers who’ve lived the transformation from simpler, more innocent times, to the hi-tech, everything’s gotta be in the fast lane, in your face 21st century. 1951? Possibly the best debut year in post WW II Major League Baseball, as both Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays broke in that year. I grew up watchin’ both of ’em in their primes, as they played at levels normal human beings could only daydream about.

America was a country in transition. The big war victoriously concluded, albeit at horrific cost, the Korean ‘Police Action’ about done, and Boomers were being born by the dozens everywhere you looked. So many paradigms were shifting all at once it seemed. The GI Bill was sending thousands of young men and women to college — folks who before the war would only have fantasized about affording a college degree and the life it promised. Suburbs entered our vocabulary. Home ownership begin to grow at prodigious velocity. Cars became a must have item.

It all sounds pretty cool, doesn’t it? It was, but it wasn’t all Channel No. 5 and Willie makin’ basket catches.

My memory really only goes back to around 1956, when I turned five, started kindergarten, and got to attend ‘regular kid’ Sunday school at Dad’s church. Of course, it wasn’t ’till much later in life that I realized why I had such a good time with the older kids — duh, I was the preacher’s kid, but wasn’t anything in the same zip code as a goody two-shoes. Yeah, even back then.

Ironically, like many in my generation I learned how Americans handled hard times by listening to my grandparents tell about the Great Depression. Once you’ve heard enough of those stories from folks who lived through it as teens and emerged as adults of tempered steel, you tend to shy away from self pity when hard times come knockin’ at your door — hard times hardly in the league about which they talked.

Grandma was the oldest of eight kids who were born and raised Read more

July 21, 2009

All is Well… (A Tin Foil Hat Production)

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

Quick check on the current status:

  • Goldman-Sachs reports RECORD earnings during the worst recession this nation has seen since the Great Depression.  Shortly after repaying $10 billion in tax-payer bailouts, Goldman trounced analysts’ estimates and continues to reap billions in profits trading in derivative markets.  (Actually, they trade in unregulated tertiary derivatives – that’s a derivative of a derivative of a derivative of something that actually exists, for those of you keeping score at home).  In the mean time, CIT – a company specializing in loans to small businesses and entrepreneurs – apparently serves no national interest to the Fed and has been told:  “Enough is enough.  No more bailouts”  (No soup for you!)  and is desperately searching for funding while on life support.  In related news, keys members of the Treasury, the Fed, the administration’s key economic advisers and the principles of Goldman-Sachs have all agreed on a new Read more
July 12, 2009

Halfway Through The Year (And Then Some) What Next?

by

Instigator, anthill kicker.

Author website

[[Crm notes: OK, I’m not gonna give a green light to Infusionsoft, not yet.  I HAAAATE the interface. But… there are triggers & action sequences that do a lot.  It might be the real deal.  This said, especially since they are ditching or have ditched most of their upfront fees.]]

So we’re smack dab in the middle of july.  5.5 months left in this year.

How’s it going?

Making enough?   Was talking to Tim and Alexis McGee the other day.  They tell me that loads of Realtors are not chasing dreams and in are survival mode.  But, that they don’t wanna leave the business that’s not making enough anymore.

Look, 5.5 months are left.  165 days.  120 workdays.  Tick Tock.

Time is the enemy right now.  And not go go all Purcell and Brady on you, but is it gonna be EASIER, EVER to build wealth than it is today?  Tick Tock.

How many closings have you had?  If you double it, is it enough?  If it’s not, what will you do differently to get more business in the door?   Tick Tock.

Most of the industry, like it or not, makes it harder to do deals past Thanksgiving.  There are 137 days till then.  And only 106 work days, based on a 5.5 day workweek.   Tick Tock.

Now, I’m saying this because we gotta be cognizant every day that it’s go time.  Time is finite.  It’s every one’s tendency to spend some time, “planning to get ready.” Tick Tock.

Now is ready time.

Every month has an excuse not to do jack in real estate sales:

  • January- “All my clients Just got over the holidays.”
  • February- “All my clients Waiting for the spring rush.”  (Deus ex machina).
  • March- “All my clients are getting their houses ready.  Mmm doggie, summer’s gonna RAWK!”
  • April- “All my clients are waiting for summer.”
  • May- “All my clients are priced too high.”
  • June- “All my clients are expecting a deal that just doesn’t exist.”
  • July= “All my clients are on vactation.”
  • August= “None of my clients want to take their kids out in the middle of a school year.”
  • September- “You can’t get ahold of anyone around labor day.”
  • October- “This fall is unseasonably cold.”
  • November- Read more
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Welcome to BloodhoundBlog, the national real estate industry marketing and technology weblog written by, for and about real estate professionals. Better yet, welcome to the wired world of real estate. We are busily inventing Real Estate 2.0 – technology, marketing, service and salesmanship. Like all Bloodhounds, we are smart, frisky and fiercely independent. We've built a spot on the earth – beloved over all – where each one of us can be who we are, no matter who that might be. We are committed to an idea of excellence that will flush the bums, the con-men and the crybabies out of the real estate industry. If you yearn to have your failures excused, your moral lapses absolved or your boo-boos kissed, seek elsewhere. But if you are sick to death of mediocrity – welcome home. Read all about us, subscribe to our feed and steel yourself for the hunt. We work hard, we play hard, we learn everything we can – and we bow to no one.

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