BloodhoundBlog

There’s always something to howl about.

Category: Real Estate (page 55 of 266)

June 14, 2010

The NAR Backs the FHA… Who’s Backing You?

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website
Late last week the House of Representatives passed H.R. 5072, the so-called FHA Reform Bill.  One of the major components of that bill (you can read the text of the bill here), raises the monthly insurance premium for all FHA buyers.  What does that mean to your bottom line?
 
Currently, the FHA monthly premium is .55% and the new legislation Congress is looking at will raise the premium a wopping 272% to 1.5%.  What does this mean to your buyer?  If they are at the limit of their eligibility on a $300,000 purchase price now, they would have to lower their interest rate by over 1.25% to still qualify for that house.  In other words, if the current market rate is 5.00%, it would have to drop to 3.75%!  If you think you might have trouble locating a lender who will do 30 year fixed loans at 3.75%, don’t worry; you can also lower their purchase price to bring them back into eligibility.  Their new price would only have to drop 10%!  A buyer looking at $300,000 today will be looking at $265,000 to $270.000 as soon as this bill passes. Does that change your market opportunities for the better… or the worse?
 
I understand why the NAR supports this, it keeps FHA alive and well, doing sub-prime loans for people who can’t afford to buy a home, which in turn keeps dues paying agents busy and coughing up their fair share.  But why do agents support it?  It’s going to have a devestating affect on your clients, and therefore on you.  Do you support it?  Have you let anybody know?
June 14, 2010

How Mortgage Originators Will Be Compensated By Borrowers Under The Financial Regulatory Reform Act of 2010

by

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

Author website

Want to “finance your closing costs” but are confused about the disparity in offered mortgage rates?  You might have to thank the Financial Regulatory Reform Act of 2010 (H.R. 4173) for limiting your ability to structure your loan fees.  Read pp 1486- 1490, specifically Section 9903 of the Bill; Prohibition on Steering Incentives.

I’ve explained that Yield Spread Premium in a way for consumers to reduce upfront closing costs by accepting a higher rate:

Discount Points are upfront interest to the borrower .  Along those lines, so are closing costs from third-party providers.  This means that we figure in those costs as the true COST of credit to the consumer and measure it as an annual percentage rate (APR). There are 2-3 good arguments about why APR is an antiquated measure but I’ll leave them for another article.  Borrowers pay points to lower the rate.  A common term is to “buy down the rate”.

Did you know that mortgage brokers get money at a wholesale cost?  It’s how we make profit. Just like your local Nordstrom’s, we buy at wholesale and sell at retail.  The only difference is that we, acting as a mortgage broker have to tell the customer three times what we expect to profit on their mortgage transaction:  First, within three days of an application on a good-faith estimate, at the bottom of the itemization (bottom of page 1 of the California MLDS), second, within three days of drawing loan documents (same disclosures), and finally, on the HUD-1 Settlement Statement as a paid outside of closing (POC) item.

That profit, paid by the lender to the broker is called yield spread premium or YSP. You can understand it as “negative points”.  if a consumer “pays points to lower the rate”, why can’t they “receive points to accept a higher rate”.  Instead of paying upfront interest in the form of a discount point, they receive upfront interest in the form of a “YSP”.  That receipt of upfront interest defers the mortgage broker’s fee!

In the beginning of 2010, the industry adopted the 2010 good-faith estimate.  The purpose of that Read more

June 14, 2010

Video Killed the Real Estate Star…

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

I love marketing.  I love the opportunity presented by a brand new marketing campaign to be creative and stand out from the day-to-day noise of everyone else.  Unfortunately, most agents don’t share my zeal for marketing.  At least, I assume they don’t; how else to explain the mind-numbing dreck I see every day.  Whether by email, on Twitter, over Facebook, online; even on flyers! (When there are flyers.)  Most agents seem to have attended the Detective Joe Friday school of marketing: “Just the facts, ma’am.”

Video affords us a new form of communication.  It includes multiple modalities that can reach – and interest – many more people than an equivalent, uni-dimensional form of communication.  Some people are predominantly visual, some auditory and some kinesthetic.  An email loses two of those groups, so does a radio spot.  But with video we can reach out to all three groups; we can create terrific visual, we can add sound and we can tell a story that creates emotion.  But even with all that going for it, there is still a limit on effectiveness: us.  In the computer world there is a maxim: garbage in, garbage out.  That can be true of video marketing too, but let’s give it a positive spin.  Here’s the maxim I suggest:

CREATIVITY IN, CASH OUT

I expect some might find that a little too crass, but never forget: the ultimate goal is skinnin’ cats.  In any case, my point is creativity.  Believe it or not, a marketing piece for a listing does NOT have to include all the details; that’s what the single site is for, right?  A marketing piece, and especially a video marketing piece, has as its purpose one real objective: TO STAND OUT FROM THE NOISE!  Be memorable, make someone laugh; if you’re really creative: go viral.  This serves the dual purpose of generating interest in what you’re marketing AND generating interest in you – the best damn agent that viewer has ever met.  Now that’s getting bang for your marketing buck.

Neither of the following two videos is about real estate.  Nor, really, are they much about their product.  But they are creative, they are memorable and they are viral.  Look at what Read more

June 10, 2010

If the National Association of Realtors were to back the repeal of the mortgage interest tax deduction, it could do three very patriotic things: It could reduce the debt load on all Americans, help consumers make wiser use of their money — and get itself off the dole!

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I had thought I had said my piece yesterday about the move to repeal the mortgage interest tax deduction as a means of reducing the federal deficit, but today I feel I have not said enough.

Here’s what I would add: The National Association of Realtors should lead the charge to rid the nation of the pestilential subsidy. Very far from being a good thing, it is an undiluted evil.

How so? Two reasons. First, it rewards homeowners by raising taxes on everyone else. This is true of every sort of tax deduction, tax credit or direct subsidy, but the mortgage interest tax deduction is especially pernicious in that it tends to reward the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Frankly, any sort of governmental favoritism is vile, but the NAR is doubly vile in this instance, since poor people are being despoiled not even to benefit the rich, but to benefit Realtors themselves.

Consider this, written in response to a defense of the tax deduction:

Defending mortgage interest deductibility (based on the current tax establishment) is very much in my favor as a consumer.

This is the seen and the unseen, classic Bastiat. You see a tax deduction and regard it as being to your immediate pecuniary advantage. You don’t see all the other taxes that are raised to make up for that deduction.

Worse, you don’t see that the NAR is not seeking your interests but its own: The deduction causes you to value housing above other investments, contrary to market forces, which results in your buying a home when you could and probably should be making more productive use of your surplus income. The goal? Commissions for NAR members, not your interests at all.

Still worse, you don’t see that the recession we are going into was caused, fundamentally, by overvaluing housing as a market good by means of tax deductions, credits, exclusions and deferrals. In five years you could be walking around shoeless, dining out of garbage dumpsters, but at least your mortgage interest will be tax-deductible.

In other words: You are a consumer in your every economic transaction, not just when you are Read more

June 9, 2010

What if they reduced a tax deduction hardly anybody gets? If you’re the the National Association of Realtors and you’ve been spinning lies for decades about mortgage interest deductibility, your whole make-believe world just collapsed…

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Kicking this back to the top. It’s news again. I wrote this post more than a year ago, but, per The Hill, the tax-deductibility of mortgage interest is back on the table:

The popular tax break for mortgage interest, once considered untouchable, is falling under the scrutiny of policymakers and economic experts seeking ways to close huge deficits.

Although Congress last year rejected the White House’s proposed cut to the amount wealthier taxpayers can deduct for home mortgage interest payments, the administration included it again in its 2010 budget — saying it could save $208 billion over the next decade.

And now that sentiment has turned against all the federal red ink — and cost-cutting is in vogue — Democrats on President Barack Obama’s financial commission are considering the wisdom of permanent tax breaks such as the mortgage deduction and corporate deferral. Calling them “tax entitlements,” senior Democratic lawmakers have argued they should be on the table for reform just like traditional entitlement programs Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid.

Nothing has changed in my response to this news, so let’s dial the wayback machine back to February 26, 2009:

    The bay-trees in our country are all wither’d
    And meteors fright the fixed stars of heaven;
    The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth
    And lean-look’d prophets whisper fearful change;
    Rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap,
    The one in fear to lose what they enjoy,
    The other to enjoy by rage and war:
    These signs forerun the death or fall of kings.
        — William Shakespeare, Richard II

I was out showing this afternoon and came home to find that President Barrack Obama has proposed giving the NAR’s cherished mortgage income tax deduction a very small haircut. From The Wall Street Journal:

The tax increases would raise an estimated $318 billion over 10 years by reducing the value of such longstanding deductions as mortgage interest and charitable contributions for people in the highest tax brackets. Households paying income taxes at the 33% and 35% rates can currently claim deductions at those rates. Under the Obama proposal, they could deduct only 28% of the value of those payments.

The changes would be phased in gradually over the Read more

June 7, 2010

Apple HTML5 demo: “Standards aren’t add-ons to the Web. They are the Web.”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Last week, Don Reedy talked to us about the cool stuff Apple is doing with HTML5 on the iPad. Unchained alum Scott Gaertner followed up with me to talk about the possibility of doing the kind of content we do as single-property coffee-table books, only expressing that content on the iPad like the issue of Sports Illustrated Don had cited.

Take a look at this Apple HTM5 demonstration site. In seven very quick demos, Apple illustrates all the cool things that can be done on the web using only HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript. The photo above was clipped from a live virtual-reality demonstration.

I’ve been talking to Cathleen a lot about the computer science paradigms behind this technology shift. It’s a big deal, actually, but Apple has been careful to sugar-coat it. Perhaps I’ll make a short video detailing what is going on.

The HTML5 demo requires the latest version of Safari, either desktop or mobile. Windazoids can play, too, by installing Safari. The rumor is that Safari 5 will be released this week, so there could be some more cool technology still to come.

June 6, 2010

Another Life Lesson Courtesy of MLB

by

Database Marketing Expert

Author website

I love sports.  My wife – well, she pretty much despises them.  Why, she’ll ask, do I so often waste my evenings watching a game between two teams I barely care about?  I typically reply with “Sports are the ultimate in reality TV”.

It seems every week or two we’re dealing with another example of athletes making complete shit storms of their lives.  Tiger Woods.  Ben Roethlisberger.  It’s a long list.

However, this week something happened that inspired me.  It was a complete injustice – a robbery.  Detroit Tigers pitcher Armando Galarraga did something no other Detroit Tiger has ever accomplished.  He threw a Perfect Game.  Heck, the feat has only been accomplished 20 or so times in the history of Major League Baseball.  Only, on the way into the history books, something happened.  In case you haven’t seen it, you can find the video replay here.

The story, however, only begins when Galarraga’s foot steps on the first base bag.  The juicier – and more compelling – story comes out of the aftermath.

Photo: from nbcsports.com

Jim Joyce, the umpire who missed the historic call was devastated when he saw the TV replay:

“It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the [stuff] out of it,” Joyce said, looking and sounding distraught as he paced in the umpires’ locker room. “I just cost that kid a perfect game.”

No excuses.  No attempt at rationalization.  It was a bang-bang play that routinely gets botched by first-base umpires.  If this happened in the 3rd inning rather than with two outs in the 9th, we wouldn’t even be talking about it.  And the wonderful life lesson wouldn’t have been shared:

1)  Jim Joyce owns up to his mistake.  He then offers a sincere and heartfelt apology to Galarraga and all Detroit Tigers fans who were broken hearted that evening.  Not two weeks later, but immediately.

2)  Armando Galarraga accepts the apology and takes the high road.  “I have a lot of respect for the man. It takes a lot to say you’re sorry and to say in interviews he made a mistake.” said Galarraga.  Here’s Read more

June 4, 2010

Took a Poll – What Do Clients Prefer 10-0 Over ‘World Class’ Service?

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

The oft used phrase, World Class Service, has become as meaningful as the word ‘great’ used in virtually any sports context. As in, “Yeah Jerry, that was a great catch by a great center fielder.” How worthless is the awarding of greatness upon sports figures nowadays? The same ‘experts’ who rightly called Mohammed Ali one of the greatest fighters, if not THE greatest of all time, called Mike Tyson ‘great’. How can the steaks at both Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Denny’s be great?

The point is that words mean things, or we’re all screwed. The concept of ‘winning in real estate brokerage through world class service’ has a fatally flawed premise. Do you know what it is? Your client sure does, which is why he’s with someone else now, regardless of your superior service.

Fact is, he didn’t come to you for service, though many consumers out there make that mistake, falling on the petard created by the same false premise. Ironically, the #1 criterion used in choosing their agent/broker was definitely not service. I know, cuz new clients tell me this all the time. One newish client put it the best way I’ve heard in quite awhile:

“I learned the hard way that much of the time, getting the best service possible meant I got everything I wanted from the relationship, except for the achievement of my primary reason for hiring the agent in the first place.”

BawldGuy Axiom: Surveys show conclusively that my stellar results trump your ‘vastly superior’ service every time.

The false premise assumed by both agents/brokers and consumers is that superb service automatically means equally superb results.

Let’s don’t just do a drive-by with that statement. Let’s look at an example, someone we all know. Let’s pick Greg Swann.

There is much on which Greg and I don’t agree. He insists on doing everything himself. I prefer to ‘call the guy’. He’s crazy knowledgeable AND effective when it comes to applying technology to his real estate practice. I’m a TechTard. He works (though he’d surely say ‘plays’) 5,000 hours yearly. Though I rarely log less than 2,000 myself, it’s Read more

June 2, 2010

Calorie-free Purple Cows

by

Mapping Technology Entrepreneur

Author website

I am speaking at BuzzRE in Portland tomorrow. Why? I’m not exactly sure: unlike nearly every company at the conference, we don’t sell anything to real estate agents.

The subject of my talk is Seven Ways to Convert Online Leads Better… And to Be a Better Agent. I hate the word lead – it commoditizes people in a way that is only detrimental to customer service – but I’m using it in the talk because I want to talk about service as marketing.

The talk is a response to myriad win-lose or win-neutral lead conversion talks that I see pitched at conferences like these (the consumer is on the neutral- or lose-side of the equation). I’ll describe seven things I think agents can do to actually work with more clients while providing better service. I want to create a win-win.

We’ve posted a preview of the underlying theme for the talk on the Estately Blog. In an industry where service should be king, the industry’s focus on a shallow interpretation of the purple cow allegory is a waste of energy and resources. Agents should primarily focus on beating the competition through superior service.

June 1, 2010

Dear National Association of Realtors: How about you fetid, rotting pusswads do something patriotic and get off the taxpayer’s tit…?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

To say the truth, I’m kindasorta liking the Tea Party movement — as far as it goes. I don’t think we’re at a turning of the tides — although I can at least hope that we might be before too long. Any sort of discussion of individual rights is a good thing, but it doesn’t do, I don’t think, to expect too much philosophically from these folks just yet.

Consider: The self-anointed “progressives” were committed, knowing Marxists who developed an incremental strategy for razing individualism in the United States and raising collectivism in its place.

By contrast, the Tea Partyites seem to me to be largely unconscious Marxists promoting a grab-bag of unconnected tactics generally aimed at temporarily delaying the “progress” of the “progressives.”

In other words, the true Marxists know what they want and the (sad-to-say) clueless Marxists portend, at least thus far, to be nothing more than a flat tire on the road to mass extermination — the unvarying end-consequence of Marxism.

That could change, but only if the Tea Party folks engage their battle philosophically and not just tactically.

How will we be able to tell when they’ve done this? One quick bellwether would be for them to get their hands out of the public till, to the extent that they can. I do understand that many people have so mismanaged their finances — at the behest of the “progressives” — that they can only remain alive by sucking on the taxpayer’s tit. That’s sad, and I would follow a different course in the same circumstances.

But many of the Tea Partyites accepting government checks could easily do without them. We’ll know they’re serious — are you listening Drs. Ron and Rand Paul? — when they publicly refuse to accept even one penny that has been stolen from innocent taxpayers.

That’s a debate for another day, though. Here’s a little something closer to hand. Today I was spammed by the professional sucktits at the National Association of Realtors entreating me to help them rape the taxpayers — again. Apparently, all human progress will be stopped cold if we do not continue to reward Class-A morons Read more

May 31, 2010

A Month With the iPad

by

Raleigh Criminal Lawyer

Author website

I got the iPad – 64gig 3G enabled – about a month ago. Unfortunately – or fortunately given how busy I’ve been – I haven’t had enough time to truly explore the possibilities.

Here’s my set-up. My MacBook laptop has been retired to serve as my home computer. I got an iMac (1 TB, 4 gigs of RAM) two weeks ago to serve as my desktop computer. And I have the iPad for the in-between use. The iPad serves as a light-weight mobile computing device.

Why this set-up? First, I needed to get something that could support Windows since all of the major bankruptcy software runs on Windows. (This software is maddeningly bad and looks like it hasn’t been updated in functionality since 2002.)

My MacBook had only 2 gig of ram, which would not adequately support a virtual machine. So I’m running Fusion’s VMWare on the iMac, which is awesome. With Mac’s Spaces, I can put Windows XP into a different window, and press Command-1 or Command-2 to move from Mac OS to Windows XP.

Second, the MacBook is actually not a very light computer, and not a very durable piece of hardware. The less I have to move it around, the less opportunity for it breaking or falling out of my bag.

The iPad is, of course, very light as a mobile computing device, and, in its case, seemingly durable, though I haven’t put it through a rigorous test. I’ve dropped it twice, and no scratches or defects have emerged.

Since typing on the virtual iPad keyboard is fine for limited tasks, but not fine for writing a document, I got Apple’s smallest, lightest bluetooth keyboard. The pairing works quite well. I’m typing this post on the iPad at the same speed I’d work on a post if I were at a laptop or desktop computer.

What is the iPad really good at?

Reading and presenting documents and other information. With Apple’s MobileMe ($99/year) system, I’m able to sync all of my documents on all three devices. Read more

May 28, 2010

Carolyn Capalbo – a REALTOR needs our help

by

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

I have been buried in 18 hour days lately. My frist inclination towards anything that comes my way has been. “I’m buried. Leave me alone.” or “I will get back to you on it.” But this story tugged at me a little. Enough for me to take action.

See, back in the day here on BHB, Brian Brady put up a post about Ashley Dupree, the person who made headlines with Elliot Spitzer, the then governor of New York. It was more of a lark than anything, seeing how much irrelevant traffic could be generated from a post and from Greg’s being in good graces with Google. Brian’s post proved the power of serch marketing pretty handily.

It is wild to see how this story would affect the life of a fellow REALTOR.

Carolyn Capalbo is a fellow REALTOR in Northern Virginia who shares her name with Ashley Dupree’s mom. Can you see where this is going? Online Reputation Management Trainwreck. Let me have her tell it to you in her own words. You can see at the bottom of the post that she is asking for anyone to help her regain her credibility in Google. Every time someone Google’s her name right now in relation to a real estate deal, they get stories about Ashley Dupree…and pictures. Nice.

RealEsetateWebmasters started an Online Reputation Management contest to draw awareness to the issue. I have had my head down working on code and did not see it until an email crossed my desk. I am far more interested in simply doing a good deed for this fellow traveler than worrying about the contest. (Morgan did throw in some huge prizes to get it going – nice work!). I decided to throw in a prize or two of my own for anyone showing up on the top three pages of Google.

so the goal is REALTORS UP – SMUT DOWN. Pretty straighfordward (grin).

I did put together a Carolyn Capalbo post on EricOnSearch. It is sitting right now at #11…I will be working on that. 😉

So now I am seeing more than a few bloggers start to post entries Read more

May 27, 2010

Like bugs trapped in amber, take a close look at Rotarian Socialist cockroaches and the pusillanimous pissants who make them possible.

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is from today’s Arizona Republic:

Businesses that send employees door to door through Phoenix neighborhoods have jumped into the discussion over whether the city should require peddlers to be licensed before ringing doorbells.

Phoenix is the only major city in the Valley that does not require some sort of business license for door-to-door solicitors. In the past year, council members have been getting complaints about bad behavior by people who sell door to door.

On Tuesday, about 25 residents and business representatives gathered at the Phoenix Public Library’s main branch for the first of seven public hearings the city will hold on the issue.

Of course we need a new law. Why should fully-grown adults be expected to confront and respond to “bad behavior” without Big Brother to scare away the bad guys and Big Mother to kiss their boo-boos?

But wait. There’s more.

About half of those attending represented areas that are fed up with solicitors. The rest represented businesses that had a range of opinions on regulation.

This is a fact: Business “regulations” are written by and for the businesses putatively being “regulated.” They put the Rotarian in Rotarian Socialism. Hide and watch:

“We are in favor of regulation and monitoring of door-to-door solicitors,” said Magnolia Lee, who described herself as business consultant who represents a small group called Sales, Solicitation and Distribution United.

“There needs to be some sort of standard for professional and courteous conduct,” she said.

What’s the standard? Me-and-mine, not thee-and-thine. The “regulations” will advantage Lee’s clients by disadvantaging their competitors. This is the objective sought by all “regulation.”

But we’re not done yet:

Marc Scher, government relations director for the Phoenix Association of Realtors, said his group favors licensing people who ring doorbells to sell products but wants any new law to exempt real estate sales people seeking listings.

“Realtors have been going and knocking on doors and introducing themselves to their neighbors,” he said. “There has to be a differentiation between selling a product and a relationship.”

This would the the anti-dog-eat-dog rule, straight out of Atlas Shrugged. Steal the other guy’s dinner, but keep your mitts off mine! Makes you proud to be a Realtor, Read more

May 26, 2010

So Simple Even a Realtor Can Do It? – Fishing In Wells

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

“So simple even a Realtor can do it.”

Our old friend Russell Shaw wrote a post recently in which he made use of that quote. It comes from the well known Gary Keller book, Millionaire Real Estate Agent. Though I’ve not read it, that quote alone got it on my to-do list, if only to see what other nuggets might be lurking within.

I understand the sentiment. Even if we assume the expertise and knowledge it takes to produce results for buyers and sellers, without the ability to get yourself in front of folks who have the option of tellin’ you to stick it, all your skills will go unused. The best fisherman in the world won’t catch fish #1 casting his line down a well. He tends to prefer plyin’ his talents where the fish are likely to congregate. Go figure.

We humans tend to pull the wool over our own eyes. Having a plausible, even credible sounding reason for consistent abject failure is key to maintaining our perfect record of failing for very solid reasons. You know, we may fail, but it’s never due to anything we’ve done or failed to do, right? Right.

Beginning last week I began knockin’ down dominoes launching my company’s new infrastructure/marketing/return to San Diego. I ‘left’ SD almost seven years ago, as income property there was for those who either didn’t know what they were doing, were unaware of outa town options, had simply given up — or all of the above. My assessment back then, and until recently, was that it was akin to fishing in a well — it might be relaxing, but you were still gonna be eatin’ beans for dinner.

One of the dominoes knocked down this Monday was reintroducing myself to the local Board of Realtors (gulp) and the MLS. I was pleasantly surprised to learn they’ve followed Phoenix’s lead and become Mac friendly. Also, don’t know when this started, but one must now click a fob to access the MLS now. I joined again cuz I needed other fishermen to know where my fish can be found. Read more

« Older posts Newer posts »

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.

Media Contacts