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There’s always something to howl about.

Category: Group Therapy (page 62 of 81)

July 12, 2009

Sunday Morning Musings

by

Realtor, Renaissance Man

Author website

Try not to forget the simple – the majestic – the pure

My wife and I recently learned, though we had very strong suspicions before, that Beth’s dad has Alzheimer’s. He’s forgetting everything now. Not just things mundane, but things that I’m pretty sure he desperately would never want to forget.

David McGregor is his name. You’ll forget it, of course, in just a matter of hours. His life was exemplary up until now by most standards. Farm boy. World War II navigator in the Pacific. Shot at. Emotionally tried. Grown up before the full bloom of youth had passed. Husband. Father. Engineer. Farmer. Christian. Words that we only really come to know by watching men like him live their lives. Men we only come to know by watching them fail, sin, prosper, behave like saints and embrace life.

So I was musing this Sunday. Wondering what I’ve forgotten, who I’ve forgotten.

The disease we call Alzheimer’s will no longer be a stranger to either Beth or myself, just as other diseases are no longer strangers in your own homes, families and friends. Amongst the Bloodhound men and women are these very same quiet bearers of either a disease or the weight of sharing that disease with a loved one.

So I was musing today, this Sunday, and I wanted to stop for a short time to let all of you, anyone reading who loves and bears and carries a burden know….

I won’t forget. Not on this Sunday morning coming down…..

July 8, 2009

San Diego dogs: When BloodhoundBlog Unchained comes to San Diego during the NAR Convention, will you be ready to stand up and howl?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

When we wrapped up BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix, Brian Brady and I were already talking about doing an event in San Diego during the National Association of Realtors Convention. Since then, we’ve both gotten really busy, which makes planning for anything difficult.

But: We’re both bursting with lots of new ideas. Brian was regaling me on the phone tonight with some incredible viral conversion ideas. I know that Teri Lussier wants me to talk about persuasive copy, but right now I’m more interested in the persuasive power of the elephant in the room. Plus which, there are a lot of Bloodhounds we can call upon to talk to us about what they’ve been doing.

As with last year’s Unchained in Orlando, the NAR has attempted to lock up every possible meeting space, and, as with last year, they’ve failed to lock us out.

My question is this: When we come to town, who is coming with us? What we’re going to do is a one-day event, an all-day marathon of ideas. I’m inclined to support freedom-loving people everywhere, so we might also stage an adhocratic mastermind session while we’re there — partly a scenius, partly a demonstration of the intellectual mettle of this little apartnership we have going. When the Bloodhounds howl, criminals and cockroaches run for cover.

This is just running a flag up the pole to see who salutes. The price is $100 for the one-day event, and, if you make the commitment, we’ll give you a $100 break on the price of our next full conference in Phoenix. If you want to join us, click the PayPal button below.

Click on the PayPal button shown below to get your $100 ticket for BloodhoundBlog Unchained in San Diego on Friday, November 13th, 2009


















Here’s a real kick in the head: I will turn 50 years old that weekend. If you’re in town with us Friday, we’ll cut you a piece of birthday cake.

July 2, 2009

Rotarian Socialism in action: Taking lessons from the NAR and the NAMB, Wal-Mart is using compulsory health insurance as a weapon to destroy its smaller competitors

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Today is July the Second, the date of the actual drafting of the Declaration of Independence. By now the United States is just another National Socialist oligarchy, a savage jungle of predatory pressure groups, each one looking to plunder the national treasury at the expense of all the others, each one hiding behind an elaborate camouflage of high-blown rhetoric.

Whatever the putative purpose of some piece of legislation, the actual purpose is to advantage some pressure groups to the disadvantage of others. The putative purpose and the high-blown rhetoric are for the children — for the dumb-ass voters, that is — while the legislators and the lobbyists know that its all a matter of getting in enough snout-time at the public trough.

Freedom means freedom from government — nothing else. We trade our freedom away a drop at a time, like a never ending blood transfusion, never pausing to think that the pigs at the trough might not stop at just a little blood, might not stop at the replacement rate, might not stop until every drop of blood, every dollar of excess production and every last liberty of the American people are completely exsanguinated.

The American patriots bellowed, “No taxation without representation!” We have since learned that this actually means, “We yearn to be fools and jackals in our own behalf!” And the cackle we deliver up to black humor is a premonitory death rattle. For it is obvious that the man being taxed is not represented, and the man with his snout in the taxpayer’s trough is represented in ways you know nothing about.

Consider this atrocity of Wal-Mart’s, a company once deserving of great respect, brought to us by Cato @ Liberty:

A couple of years ago, I shared a cab to the airport with a Wal-Mart lobbyist, who told me that Wal-Mart supports an “employer mandate.”  An employer mandate is a legal requirement that employers provide a government-defined package of health benefits to their workers.  Only Hawaii and Massachusetts have enacted such a law.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  Wal-Mart is a capitalist success story.  At the time of our conversation, Read more

July 1, 2009

It’s A Wonderful Life – A Eulogy from California

by

Realtor, Renaissance Man

Author website

If you check out any of my social media profiles you’ll come to find that “It’s a Wonderful Life” with James Stewart is my absolute favorite of all time. Sure, I’m a Star Trek fan, a Dirty Harry fan, and lots’ more, but this movie captures the heart and soul of both an individual man, his family, and the community in which he lives. It is simply a great piece of art.

Usually I don’t think about “It’s a Wonderful Life” until December, since that’s when the movie usually plays on TNT, or the mainstream stations. But today, after seeing a clip from a financial news show with a colleague, I was suddenly dumbstruck with something that just has to get out of my head now.

It so happens that today is the first day of California’s umpteenth failure to pass a balanced budget, so it’s not as if I haven’t lived through this before. California’s budget, like those of the counties and cities that make up this Golden state, have been turning putrid for quite some time.

Some thoughts and insights have fomented and seethed in me for over a year now, and perhaps using “It’s a Wonderful Life” as an example, I can at least unleash the demons that beset my thinking on this recurring and repulsive problem.

Take seven minutes and watch the America I grew up in. It’s a wonderful piece, with a message we’ll talk about down below.

Sorry, I had to wipe some tears again. I’m a real softy when it comes to communities, straight thinking, generosity and courage.

What stuck to my craw this morning when I was forced to think again about California and its problems was the fact that our sense of community is almost gone, forfeited by years of greed, selfishness, NIMBY’s and the pervasive idea that “I’ll take all I can get, when I can get it, from whomever I can get it.”

Teri, not Dayton, of course.

Here’s the heart of my heartbreak. With schools about to lose and children losing more, medical care being shut off, community programs Read more

June 30, 2009

Real estate duets: Looking for some advice from seasoned partnerships

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

I am able to generate business- both real and potential business, but I find myself in a situation where I want to team up with another Realtor. I’d like to partner with someone to share the work load, and keep transactions running smoothly.

To that end, I’m asking the Bloodhound family: What advice can you give me? How do you create a partnership? Formally or informally? Do you have a clear distribution of tasks and jobs each person performs? Is everything delegated ahead of time? And even as I write this, I’m answering my own questions, so perhaps better questions are these: What do you know now that you wish you knew then? What were the best mistakes you learned along the way? What one thing do I most need to prepare for?

I want the real dirt about partnering in real estate. If you want to email me privately, I’d welcome that. I can keep a secret. 🙂

June 27, 2009

The “cap and trade” bill is full of outrageous proscriptions on private property rights — so the NAR is campaigning against honest appraisals instead of fighting the growth of the nanny state

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

If you had your blast email spam from NAR President Charles McMillan, you know what’s important to the Grand Poobahs: Appraisers are all of a sudden just too dang honest, and that’s bad for business. Meanwhile, the so-called “cap and trade” bill that narrowly passed in the House of Representatives last night is full of nightmare provisions impinging on the rights of private property owners to do what they want with their land and structures. Where was the NAR? Elsewhere, of course. Where else?

From JammieWearingFool:

Beyond what it will do to our economy, at the end of the debate House GOP Leader John Boehner took to the floor and started reading from the 300 page amendment that the Democrats drafted and dropped on the legislatures at 3 AM, there was literally hundred of items to impose federal control over your life. Here are some highlights.

Want to replace a window? Not so fast. First you must pay for an appraisal of your house to measure its energy efficiency and receive calculations of both before and after the proposed change. Hey, it may be a great excuse for those guys trying to avoid putting in that big bay style window that the missus has been bugging you about.

Are you having a new house built? Back up, Skippy. This bill includes language that tells you exactly where you can put your electrical outlets.

Did you know that for one sort of appraisal service related to determining energy efficiency there is only one company you can use? Yup, it is right in there along with the name of the company. How is it that this one company managed to land the only contract to service 300 million Americans? Who is this company?

I wish I could answer those questions, but all of those provisions and more, Rep. Boehner went on for almost an hour citing them and still didn’t get through the whole 300 pages, is not available. You see because of when the Democrats dropped this amendment at 3 AM the text of it is not available. So much for that transparency. The total bill runs on Read more

June 26, 2009

Vultures to the Rescue – HOORAY!!!

by

Database Marketing Expert

Author website

Here's the email - I added the red boxes

What the hell is a Forensic Loan Audit you ask?

According to the SPAM email (above – I drew the boxes for emphasis) that landed in my inbox last night, a company called National Loan Auditors provides a service that:

1)  Markets to loan originators with the purpose of providing loan file audits that

“expose federal, state, county and statute violations, along with any unethical predatory lending practices.”

2)  So mortgage professionals can

“leverage [their] company or firms ability to assist [their] past and present customers, helping them negotiate better mortgage rates and terms with their existing lender…”

3)  Oh, and by the way the mortgage professional can also

“earn up to $1,700 on each case file”

Um, so what you’re saying is that I can market to my past clients, identify errors, omissions and fraudulent activity that occurred when I originated their loan AND pocket $1,700 in the process?  Seriously.  Am I reading this incorrectly?

Our company used to provide loan file audits to our clients too.  [If we could have made money doing it, we still would be.]  The purpose of our audits was to help identify these same types of errors and omissions.  The difference was in our motivation:  our clients used our feedback to improve their compliance scores on future originations.  From experience, I can tell you that even the cleanest and most ethical shops had compliance errors in their files – most of which were innocent, victimless mistakes.  For example, in the State of Georgia, an originator is considered to have taken a Loan Application when collecting any financial information from the borrower – and of course a Good Faith Estimate is required to be sent within 72 hours of the loan application.  This is a common mistake originators make (both banker and broker by the way) – one of many easy to make errors.  There are 20 other similar examples I could point out here but let me get back to the point…

Now you have these vultures performing similar audits with the malicious intent of leveraging even the most benign of errors into strong-arming banks into loan modifications.

Does this type of value proposition help illuminate why the large Read more

June 18, 2009

Hectoring Rian from the iPhone 3G 3.0

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Yesterday I upgraded my iPhone to version 3.0 of the operating system software. So far, a pretty big yawn. Typing is plausibly easier, though still not easy. Cut and paste were not on my list of must-haves. Zillow upgraded its app to allow push notification, so your phone can tell you if one of your saved searches has popped up a new candidate. Okay…

I wasn’t unhappy with the iPhone before — quite the contrary! — but I don’t think I have any new reasons to be happier from this upgrade. Safari 4, by contrast, is totally killer, and I could not be more pleased with suddenly-faster-everything on my iMac.

One thing I played with right away on the iPhone was the new voice recording app. Not that impressive. It records losslessly at 44khz, which means the saved files are huge. They can be transferred only by email or hard-wired sync — no BlueTooth, no WiFi — and almost everything is too big to move by email. This is the kind of dumb, useless software I expect from Microsoft, not Apple, so one may hope it will get better in future versions.

Anyway, as a test, this morning I made a short little audio greeting card for Rian Lussier, who is about to undergo surgery. The file is a monstrous 25 megabytes, and it took over an hour to sync to my iMac (no hope of emailing a file that large).

Even so, the recording quality is not awful (there’s a buzz in places from me speaking too loudly), and the sentiments are what they are.

Godspeed you well, Rian.

June 18, 2009

To Catch a Theme: The NAR can’t evolve, but that shouldn’t stop you

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

I’ve had reason to be contemplative for the past few weeks and it’s given some small inklings an opportunity to germinate and link together into bigger ideas. Given the nature of BloodhoundBlog, I’m hoping a couple of bigger brains who read and write here, will help me get a better grasp on what is still a bit foggy in my mind- help me fill in the gaps.

My brain has made a leap of sorts, into the future of the business, and I think we are getting it wrong. That is, what we think about, if we think about the future of the real estate business at all, may not be quite right.

First, the real estate industry is a bit behind, no offense, but I’m thinking that we bluster and bellow about stuff that really isn’t relevant, or, by the time we grasp the idea, another idea has pushed that idea into the past. What am I talking about? I’m talking about information and how it’s driving us to change the way we do business. Here’s what I’m thinking: We are not in control of information, I believe information is in control of us. That is, we are becoming conduits for information- I don’t know how else to describe what I see happening, but maybe a few examples.

Remember transparency? Transparency has nothing to do with pulling down your boxers. It’s simply about information. But not information about you. See, it’s not about you. And it’s not personal, so don’t panic, and it doesn’t matter if you like it, don’t like it, wanna share, don’t wanna share. Nope, none of that matters, because what is happening is that with or without you, information about how we do business, everything about how we do business, is about to be shared. Again- it’s not about you, it’s just information, but it’s all about information, and we are not in control of information. We are conduits, pathways, carriers of informational memes. That’s all, and it’s not about you personally.

Except. It is about how valuable you are at sharing information. How expert you are at giving away Read more

June 14, 2009

Getting a $15,000 tax credit when you purchase your next home could be as easy as stealing candy from a baby…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link):

So we started with a $7,500 tax deduction for first-time home-buyers.

But that didn’t juice the real estate market enough, so we bumped the number up to $8,000 and made it a full-blown tax credit. If you owe $8,000 in taxes next April, your slate is wiped clean.

But even that didn’t juice the the real estate market enough, so this week Republicans — the alleged party of fiscal responsibility — proposed bumping the tax credit up to $15,000 and making it available to everyone — including billionaires.

How cool is that? You buy a $150,000 house, you get 10% back when you file your taxes. And you can file an early return to get the money now. And you can even finance the tax credit now and pay it back when you file your return.

You can’t — quite — use the tax credit as your down payment, but that “reform” can’t be more than inches and hours away. And a $15,000 down payment on an FHA loan buys you a $428,500 house.

Unfortunately, that’s more than the FHA limit for metropolitan Phoenix, so that limit will need to be “reformed” as well.

Paying people to buy houses would be insane if we actually had the money to back up our promises. But, since we don’t, these “reforms” are the mark of true statesmanship.

I’m helping an ambitious young couple buy their first home right now. We’re late to close, a common enough situation.

They just had their second child, an event mere bureaucracy cannot delay. Their baby boy — his name is James — is sweet and beautiful, healthy and smart, a perfect specimen of incipient humanity.

They’re taking the $8,000 tax credit, of course, as they should. The government doesn’t become less insane if you shoot yourself in the foot.

But it is sweet little Baby James who will pay for that tax credit, and for millions of others, and possibly for millions more at $15,000 a pop. Our economy runs on theft — and we’re running out of people to steal from.

June 10, 2009

Green or Beige?

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

This afternoon, the Federal Reserve released their Beige Book.  What’s a Beige Book?  It’s their report based on observations and comments from people inside the business world on the state of the economy.    I’m going to walk through some “highlights” and “lowlights” of what’s happening.   My comments are in bold and italics……

“Reports from the twelve Federal Reserve District Banks indicate that economic conditions remained weak or deteriorated further during the period from mid-April through May.”

No surprise there, at least not for me.  So, if conditions remain weak or deteriorated, then where are the gree shoots of recovery that people are talking about?

“However, five of the Districts noted that the downward trend is showing signs of moderating.”

So, let’s think about that.   5 out of 12, that’s 41% show that the pace of downward trend is slowing down.  Is that a good thing?   Well, let’s look at a couple of other numbers.   According to this, 100% of the districts show that they are slowing down.  59% of them are slowing down at the same or faster paces than they were previously.

“Manufacturing declined or remained weak in most Districts.”  

Given the shutdowns in the auto industry and the related industries, this certainly isn’t a surprise.    What’s going to be interesting is what that shows as Chrysler (and hopefully GM) get back to work after their “furloughs.”

“Nonfinancial Services – Districts reporting on nonfinancial services indicated that for the most part activity continued to decline………In contrast, San Francisco reported a substantial pickup in real estate services such as title insurance due to an increase in home refinancing.

Ooohhh, that illustrates the trouble that we’re in.  One of the biggest “improvements” in the non-financial services is the title insurance industry because of mortgage refinancing.   Guess what’s not going to last very long due to rising rates…..

Consumer Spending and Tourism
Consumer spending remained soft as households focused on purchasing less expensive necessities……   Several Districts reported that discounters have seen their sales increase, while purchases of luxury goods continued to weaken. Respondents from Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Atlanta, St. Louis, Kansas City, and Dallas expect soft consumer sales to Read more

June 7, 2009

Name of My New Band: Best Efforts Are For Cowards

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

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

Unchained Melody at Heaven’s Gate

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

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.

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Inventing Real Estate 2.0

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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