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Category: Group Therapy (page 64 of 81)

May 19, 2009

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

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

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!

May 18, 2009

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

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

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

May 17, 2009

Earth to NAR: Drop dead — and try not to stink up the place while you’re doing it

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I haven’t paid any attention to this MIBOR business, and I’m grateful to John Rowles for keeping us up to date. Anyone who is dismayed at the way things worked out should be sure to sit at my table when we have a BloodhoundBlog poker tournament: You’re my kind of sucker.

The fact that the NAR is composed of clueless morons should come as a surprise to no one. The fact that they think they can buy off their intellectual superiors by kissing their asses should astonish no one who reads here: I’ve been telling you for years that the dinosaurs pretend to take you seriously in the hopes of compromising you in their corruption. Of course, no one will learn a thing from this experience, which suggests that the dinosaur strategy might well be sound, even though it is absurd on its face. They reason that a grand pageant of being lied to and pandered to makes people feel important, and the evidence suggests they’ve got a good bead on their designated spokesmannequins.

But none of this has anything to do with anything. Whatever combination of cluelessness and collusion motivated this MIBOR clusterfrolick, it’s just a side effect. The NAR is a criminal cartel. Its purpose is to deploy legislation at the federal, state and local levels in behalf of real estate brokers and to the detriment of consumers (and, secondarily, real estate sales people). If you despise the NAR because it is technologically inept, you’re hating it for the wrong reasons. The right reason to detest the NAR, and to seek its extinction, is because it makes war upon the free market in order to expropriate unearned wealth for brokers.

Who pays for the tax deductibility of mortgages? The 70% or more of us who don’t qualify for the deduction. Who will pay for the $8,000 first-time home buyer’s tax credit? Your grandchildren — and it will cost them quite a bit more than $8,000 in interest costs. Thus do the vampires in the NAR make make vampires of us all.

If you want to grouse or joke about how stupid the NAR Read more

May 15, 2009

Unchained Freedom “Friends Keep Friends In The Business”

by

Las Vegas Mortgage Blogger

Author website

As I was driving back to Las Vegas after a full week of hanging out with the Bloodhound crew at Unchained, my mind was racing to get a grasp on all of the new real estate marketing possibilities that I could achieve by the end of the year.

The confidence I gained through the relationships built at Unchained was all I needed to fully execute my online marketing plans.

I believe that everyone is an expert at something, and we all have a ton to learn from each other.

The Scenius sessions at Unchained were a great example of this concept:

  • After a full day of building blogs, Eric Blackwell, Ryan Hartman and I stayed up until 3 am discussing some SEO strategery for Battleback.com.
  • Greg showed me how simple it would be to syndicate my mortgage content on all of my real estate agents’ blogs with just a little bit of technical savvy.
  • Brad Coy and Brian Brady helped me figure out how to easily integrate a Twitter or Facebook presence into my weekly relationship building routines without having to spend too much time being social.
  • Al Lorenz and I talked about the benefits of owning the social media platforms that our clients and referral partners participate on.
  • Sean Purcell’s brainstorming session over a $100 casino chip got me excited about top of mind sales and branding tools.
  • Kerry Melcher’s “Small Town Phoenix Living” reminded me of how important it is to connect with the emotional needs that may impact our clients’ decisions to do business with us.
  • Scott Cowan and I compared our local markets and shared similar opinions about how much online social networking really matters in the long run.
  • Scott Schang and Mark Green opened my eyes to the power of holding online webinars for the purpose of building a loyal database.

I could go on and on about all of the great conversations that I had at Unchained.

My main objective for that week was to fill in a few technical gaps with my blogging skills.  As Greg has mentioned many times, real estate professionals have a publishing problem.

There are so many ideas that I haven’t been able to Read more

May 14, 2009

How we say_What we say_Is important

by

Realtor, Renaissance Man

Author website

This is actually a post about transparency, but as you’ll see, I am not a big fan of the ‘word’ itself. The idea of belaboring a word all of you seem to take for granted came about as I was talking with Scott Schang a few days ago. We were just enjoying each other’s company, doing real work, a lender and real estate guy talking about the industry, our own ideas, sharing and laughing, scribbling notes and taking stock of the ideas that just never seemed to quit coming.

For me transparency is about saying what you want to say, showing what you want to show, sharing what you want to share, and doing it in a manner and method that is most likely to allow the reader or listener to understand. In order for that to happen the writer or creater of thoughts and ideas, facts or fictions, must decide up front HOW they will present the information.

Let me give you some examples.

Greg Swann

“I write well. I’m a tough read here, but I can be much, much more difficult to read. I understand grammar the way other people understand cars or football or cooking, and I can build perfectly valid sentences in English that almost no one can understand, much less diagram. The English language is like Jazz to me, and it ripples and rolls through my head all the time, making connections like lightning strikes that take many paragraphs to explain to other people.

Brian Brady

“I posed this question at Unchained Phoenix ‘09 and you would have thought I asked the REALTORs to walk on coals…at first. A few bright agents listened to my reasoning:”

Geno Petro

“When I awoke from my dehydrated coma and rack focused my blurry vision toward the general direction of the deactivated alarm clock on my night stand, the numbers 7:07 burned my retinas digital red. I jumped up in a virtual panic, threw on a suit and Hermes noose, splashed on a handful of Bulgari, gargled a Red Bull and Diet Coke highball and flew out the door in search of my car. Alas, God was looking Read more

May 13, 2009

FHA and the $8000 Tax Credit – what I know and what I don’t….

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

It has amazed me how many people (mainly Realtors and lenders) are already out there proclaiming that you can now go back to the days of the “No money down” loans with FHA and you can do it right now.   Well, that’s not quite the whole story.    Let me explain:

What I know:

  • I know that FHA is now allowing a borrower who qualifies for the $8000 tax credit to use that tax credit as the downpayment for purchasing the house.
  • I know that they can’t get any cash back – if they need $7000, they can only get $7000.
  • Government agencies and non-profits can do second liens against the house for the downpayment.
  • The payments on that second lien need to be counted into qualifying rations.   In other words, if you are going to borrow the $8000 so you can use it for your down payment, you need to be able to pay that amount back.  Gee, there’s a novel concept.
  • FHA approved mortgagees can do a “bridge loan” against the tax credit.

What I don’t know:

  • I don’t know whether any FHA approved non-profits are going to be willing to do second liens in situations like that.
  • I don’t know whether any FHA mortgagees (such as my bank) are going to be willing to do a bridge loan against a tax credit.   Typically banks don’t like to do unsecured loans and I’m not sure how you can secure a loan against a tax credit.
  • I don’t know what fees and rates will be charged for such a bridge loan.

Personal feelings:

  • In today’s volatile market, if you aren’t able to come up with 3.5% for a downpayment on a house, maybe you should continue to rent for a while.
  • The “tightest” 12 to 18 months that a home buyer typically has is their first 12 to 18 months when they are getting used to the house payment.   Do we really want to add the cost of having to pay back a bridge loan on top of that? 

So I guess my recommendation is essentially this:

  • Take a deep breath.
  • Wait to give the financial institutions the time to sort this all out.
  • Once we Read more
May 12, 2009

The essential importance of criticism to my mental functioning

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I hate the idea of belaboring this topic, because I think it should be obvious. But it keeps coming up, so I wanted to take a moment to shoot it down. If the headline seems really boring to you, that’s only because you’re right. Feel free to make your exit while your faculties are still unbenumbed.

In response to my post this morning on the sartorial elegance of Todd Carpenter, Dave Gooden says:

I don’t understand your need to pile on people like this.

I never pile on anyone. Piling on is done by groups of people, generally speaking fairly stupid people. I always stand alone in everything I do.

But: That’s beside the point.

Without piling on, John Kalinowski adds:

I can’t understand for the life of me why you waste time insulting others publicly, which seems to happen often on this site.

Both comments are specious, in the sense that I wasn’t insulting anyone. I was tweaking Todd Carpenter for a comical photo of the most un-besuited person I know wearing a suit.

But I’m willing to entertain these questions, if only because these kinds of complaints come up fairly often, and it’s plausible that I can help people better understand how I use my mind.

I will say first that I consider rebukes like these to be unconscionably rude. I am chastised — to my face, in public and behind my back — for being some sort of paragon of bad behavior, but I would never in my life consider it good character to presume to remonstrate my host while I am a guest in that man’s home. If I have a big-enough problem with your behavior, I will certainly take you to task, but only on my own property, never on yours. In this respect, I am regularly amazed that people would seek to address minor issues of style while committing an outright betrayal of my hospitality.

In the same way, it would never occur to me to tell someone else how to write. Your mind is your property. Do what you want with it. I will tell you now — and I’m sure I’ve said this Read more

May 11, 2009

Free IDX from Realtor.Com!

by

Retechulous...

Author website

In response to the juicy IDX discussion going on over at Agent Genius, I figured I’d take a stab at misappropriating some property data featured over at Realtor.Com.

After 10 minutes, I had 100 of the latest Indianapolis properties listed for sale posted to my website and indexable by google.

Here’s a look at the results: Retechulous.com/Category/NAR-BLOWS

If you have a minute, check out the article over at AG and if you can find a way to get involved, please do so. I guess you could say this little scraping stunt is me contributing in my own obnoxious way. That, and I’m also now looking for a non-NAR Pa broker to hang my license with….

May 9, 2009

The goal of the BloodhoundBlog Unchained training conference is to push the bums out of the real estate business

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

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

We publish a national real estate industry weblog called BloodhoundBlog.com. There are 42 contributors from all over the country, each one an expert in his or her own right. Together we talk about real estate marketing and technology, lending and investment. If you want to know what Realtors and lenders really think, BloodhoundBlog is your keyhole into the industry.

The blog is all about the wired world of real estate, how the participatory internet is changing age-old paradigms of real property and mortgage marketing. When we started three years ago, the Web 2.0 idea of online interaction was still very new. By now, it’s hard to remember a time when these technologies were not ubiquitous.

BloodhoundBlog’s mission is to help Realtors and lenders keep pace with internet tools. In service of that objective, we produce an annual conference called BloodhoundBlog Unchained. Real estate professionals come from all over the country to learn how to market their services in what amounts to a post-marketing marketplace.

This year’s conference ran last week from Tuesday to Friday. We encamped in a hotel near Skyharbor Airport and worked all but continuously for 72 hours. Our world is changing so fast that we felt we had to work that hard, just to learn everything we need to know.

What’s all this to you? BloodhoundBlog is all about promoting excellence in every conceivable way. We do everything we can think of to train Realtors and lenders to provide a better-quality experience by every means attainable.

My objective, expressed baldly, is to chase the bums out of our business. Licensing purports to do this, but it has not. Trade organizations like the National Association of Realtors should do this, but they don’t. But if we can educate consumers to demand better service, better information, better representation, then the bums and the crooks will go get jobs. That’s the way free markets work, when they’re working properly.

Meanwhile, real estate professionals are just catching on to the idea that consumers can see everything we do. Drop in on BloodhoundBlog and keep an eye on us.

May 8, 2009

Query: Should the Bloodhounds write a book?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I can’t believe I’m writing this, at this hour. My weariness from this week hasn’t had a chance to overcome my leftover weariness from last week. Sooner or later I’ll make enough money to check into a rest home!

But: Brian Brady, Richard Riccelli and I have been talking about this all week, and I thought I’d run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.

So:

Should the Bloodhounds write a book?

If so, what book should it be?

I’m the worst anti-dead-tree snob there is, but the Gary Keller books have proved that print still has legs. We want a way to get through to the 99% of agents and Realtors who have but barely dipped a toe into the Web 2.0 waters. It seems clear that we have to carry the word to them in a format they can (literally) grasp.

So how would you advise us? I know what I want, and I know what Brian wants and what Richard wants. What do you want? What would you want if you were a punter on the sidelines wondering if the topics we take up here are worth worrying about? What might you want if you were a consumer, not someone in the real estate business?

I’m interested to hear where your thoughts run.

May 7, 2009

Home Prices and “The Rest of the Story.”

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

In case you haven’t been able to tell, I’ve been a little frustrated (okay a lot frustrated) with the markets lately.   Why?   Am I asking for bad news?

Nope, I’m looking for straight talk and reality and I don’t believe we’re getting that right now.   I don’t believe that:

  1. That the government is telling us the whole story in terms of the health of the banking world.
  2. That the statistics that supposedly show the market is recovering are truly that.   Since when is a “slowing of the pace of decline” a sign of recovery?   Bad at a slower pace doesn’t mean it’s good.
  3. That the true story on the devastation that the bankruptcy of GM and Chrysler is going to mean to our economy is truly being acknowledged and prepared for.   Preparedness is essential and we’re missing the boat on that one.

I’ve spent 20 years trying to help people manage their money and their real estate investments wisely and it’s never been more challenging than it is now.

So, I’m going to keep preaching the world the way I see it.   It isn’t pretty and it isn’t nearly as pretty as the main stream media would like you to believe.

Ask yourself this, when it comes to analyzing and understanding the economy, who would you put more confidence in?   Brian Williams and Katie Couric or Paul Krugman and Nouriel Roubini?

I’ll be on Paul and Nouriel’s side every time.

Tom Vanderwell

U.S. Home Prices May Be Lost for a Generation: John F. Wasik – Bloomberg.com

We might be looking at a lost generation for U.S. home values.

Far too many analysts are calling a bottom to the housing market after home prices in 20 metropolitan areas declined at a slower pace in February, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Index.

Don’t be blinded by the glint of optimism in headlines about rising consumer confidence and slowing price declines. Demographic and market realities tell a more sobering story.

You won’t see a widespread housing rebound in an economy in which 600,000 jobs a month are lost and foreclosures ravage the most overleveraged areas. These are just the visible barriers to a recovery.

Mortgage lending has Read more

April 30, 2009

The Fed Translated….

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

Yep, it’s that time again.    The Fed met yesterday and today and came out with their announcement this afternoon at 2:15 pm.   I promise that this one won’t be as long as the last Fed Translated was.

As usual, my comments are in bold and italics…..

April 29, 2009

For Immediate Release:

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in March indicates that the economy has continued to contract, though the pace of contraction appears to be somewhat slower.  The downhill slope is less steep than it was.  Household spending has shown signs of stabilizing but remains constrained by ongoing job losses, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Weak sales prospects and difficulties in obtaining credit have led businesses to cut back on inventories, fixed investment, and staffing. Although the economic outlook has improved modestly since the March meeting, partly reflecting some easing of financial market conditions, economic activity is likely to remain weak for a time.  We aren’t going to see a substantial turn around in the economy soon.  A weak, ambivalent turn around, probably, but not a strong return to growth.  Nonetheless, the Committee continues to anticipate 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. What else could they say but to say that they anticipate that what they are doing will eventually work?   Would the markets be happy if they said, “We don’t have a clue whether what we’re doing is going to work?”   Nope.

In light of increasing economic slack here and abroad, the Committee expects that inflation will remain subdued. They don’t say for how long, but I’m going to say that I think we’ve got 12 to 18 months until we start seeing a rapid spike in inflation and a rapid jump in interest rates.  Moreover, the Committee sees some risk that inflation could persist for a time below rates that best foster economic growth and price stability in the longer term.  Let’s look at that for a minute.   They think that inflation would Read more

April 24, 2009

Unchained Melodies: Here’s what our world sounds like to me tonight…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Everything I see lately of what was once so decisively “our world” just looks to me like intramural patty-cake. That’s as may be, by now. It is what it is. I am not in it. I am not of it. And I am quite a bit less interested in it than I was when this was still an avoidable fate. But I know — and in a year’s time everyone will know — that BloodhoundBlog is what’s left outside the walls of the Praesidium. We are free because we understood that chains can be forged from burnished gold and not just pig iron.

But I am a rude dude in a rude mood, tonight more than most nights. We’re four days away from BloodhoundBlog Unchained, and I am profoundly inspired by all that we are going to do. And I look around me and I realize that “our world” is what it has always been. It doesn’t matter who chose to kneel for those “glittering prizes and endless compromises.” All that matters — all that ever mattered — is who didn’t.

Here’s what our world sounds like to me tonight.

April 21, 2009

Feeling Overwhelmed? Turn To Ayn Rand

by

Instigator, anthill kicker.

Author website

Again, I found this:

Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours. -Ayn Rand

If your reading this, chances our, the world is yours.  Don’t get discouraged by the losers, mediocrities and mealy mouthed pieces of excrement that want to homogenize the best among us.

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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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