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December 6, 2008

Making the Scenius scene: I’m prepared to share an entirely new style of blogging with you — but you have to hold up your end

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I wrote last week about the Scenius blogs we’ve been playing with. The concepts we’ve developed constitute a new style of blogging, a hybrid of the best features of link-blogging and RSS feeds with much better control and with none of the defects.

A Scenius blog called “Switched-On Marketing” is riding in our sidebar, along with some other real estate blogs. I have another one called “Phoenix Area Headlines” running on our client-focused real estate weblogs.

That last sentence is important: I maintain one Scenius blog for “Phoenix Area Headlines”, but I can echo it wherever I want it to appear. And it comes in like a blog, not like a feed or a widget, with full control over the appearance and with all the links behaving as expected.

Why is that important? Because I now have a reliable source of keyword-rich dynamic content that I can share with other Phoenix-area weblogs. Other Phoenix real estate webloggers are free to use it, but I’m much more interested in hanging around the sidebars of weblogs run by my clients or future clients.

The “Phoenix Area Headlines” Scenius blog is composed of content that will be interesting to readers of any weblog in the Phoenix area. It’s a regularly-updated supply of new content for any weblog that hosts it.

The “Phoenix Area Headlines” Scenius blog is rich in keywords that will cause the blogs that host it to score well with search engines. I’m giving my neighbors content and also boosting their SEO.

The “Phoenix Area Headlines” Scenius blog consists of highly dynamic content. There are new posts every day, and old posts scroll off the bottom every day. What this means is that search engines will see new unique content on every page they spider, every time they spider, if those pages are echoing my Scenius blog.

And the “Phoenix Area Headlines” Scenius blog links back to BloodhoundRealty.com. I’m using sweat equity to buy a place on your sidebar. Your readers win, you win, I win — everybody wins.

The “Switched-On Marketing” Scenius blog does the same sorts of jobs for real estate and marketing weblogs: I give you interesting Read more

December 6, 2008

Seriously, who’s a better risk for a mortgage than someone who has already lost a home to foreclosure?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

 
Seriously, who’s a better risk for a mortgage than someone who has already lost a home to foreclosure?

We talked last week about credit flexibility among merchants as they try to find ways around the banking crunch. The flip side of the same coin is how the credit marketplace will react, going forward, to home foreclosures.

You’ve heard all your life that a foreclosure is second only to a bankruptcy in the way it will ruin your credit. This is still true, but “ruin” may turn out to be an adjustable calamity.

Here’s why: A lot of people are going through foreclosure. Ninety percent or more of homeowners are unaffected by the wave of bank repossessions, but that still leaves millions of people who are going to have a foreclosure on their credit for the next seven years.

What’s going to happen to those folks when they go to the furniture store or the jewelry store or the car dealership? They might end up paying a higher interest rate, but they’re still going to get financing.

I have been advising my investor clients for months to ignore recent foreclosures on credit reports. Past performance on every other sort of credit account matters a lot. But if landlords refuse to rent to folks who have lost their homes, they will be turning away half or more of the tenant population.

My take is that, right now, a recent foreclosure is like hospital debt: If everyone else was getting paid before, during and after the financial catastrophe, you just have to look past the elephant in the room.

And here’s the funny part: I am sure this will apply to home loans in due course, also. If mortgage money remains freely available, lenders will find a way to overlook recent foreclosures in order to underwrite new home loans.

We can hope that, this time, interest rates will reflect the true risk lenders are taking on. But this country runs on credit. Just because a borrower recently defaulted on a six-figure debt, that’s no reason to withhold the unlimited boon Read more

December 5, 2008

Speaking in tongues: Revising my universal contact form for real estate weblogs — e-paging support and friendlier coding

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

About eleven months ago, I built a universal contact form for real estate webloggers. Just lately, I’ve revisited that code to add support for e-paging and other kinds of hyper-brief email-based messaging. Getting a form emailed to the office is a nice thing — unless you’re out previewing or inspecting all day. The new version will find you wherever you are.

The revised contact form will email you your prospect’s contact information (to as many email addresses as you like) and, also, optionally e-page you with a very brief form of the information (again transmitting to as many e-page addresses as you choose).

The e-page will give you the party’s name, email address and phone number (the latter two are clickable if your phone supports this function), along with as much of the message as will transmit. The form imposes brevity, so you should be able to puzzle out what is wanted. Everything in the e-page is sent in the briefest practical form to maximize the amount of space left for the message.

Nothing has changed in the form of the user interface — and the UI should inherit its appearance from your CSS specification. But I’ve changed the way the software works internally and the way it installs, both to make it easier to deploy and to avoid conflicts with your ISP’s tech support team.

This contact form is built for WordPress.org weblogs only. It might work in other blogging platforms — and it will certainly work in any static PHP page — but that’s not what we’re talking about right now. You can install the contact form in your sidebar, provided you know how to edit the theme file called sidebar.php. If you have a PHP plug-in installed in your weblog, you can install the form on a WordPress Page, perhaps adding a “Contact Me” button on your sidebar.

Nota bene: There can only be one “Submit” button per page in HTML, so, if you install the contact form on your sidebar, your search button is no longer going to work. If you have to kick something off the sidebar and onto a WordPress Read more

December 4, 2008

Unlocking the scenius of BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix, a hands-on, step-by-step, learn-by-doing guerrilla marketing boot camp

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

This came in by email, but I’m answering it publicly because I expect the question is fairly common:

I am a member of the Cyberprofessionals group. I was unable to attend the session in Orlando and therefore missed your presentation. I have read the materials about the upcoming event in Phoenix and I’m not entirely sure what it’s all about. From what I can see it’s going to be about blogging, and that’s great, but I have perhaps a more broad interest in social networking as well. I know some of the people involved may be experts in that. Could you give me some idea as to the time that is going to be devoted to each of the subject matters.

For a start, let me say that everything I’m saying right now is subject to change. We have some of this ironed out in detail, but much is still to be determined. Moreover, we’re pretty flexible in the way we think. The world we live in upends itself entirely every 15 months or so, and we’re always prepared to turn on a dime. Even so, BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix is going to break out something like this:

First, as I’ve said, the event is going to be a hands-on, step-by-step, learn-by-doing guerrilla marketing boot camp. Our students will be with us for 72 hours total, and out of that time, we could end up working 54 or more hours. We are going to take on every aspect of your marketing praxis, and we’re going to rebuild as much of it as we can in our time together. If you do the prep work your instructors are going to recommend, and if you come to Phoenix prepared to work, you’ll fly home exhausted but with a completely overhauled marketing profile — online, in the social graph, in print and face-to-face.

That’s ambitious, but we can pull it off because we intend to work like no other marketing conference you’ve ever been to or heard about. You are literally going to do the actual work you are learning about — as you learn about it. It Read more

December 4, 2008

What If The Divine Was Merely…Mortal?

by

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

Author website

I must admit that I agree with Barack Obama.  I’ve been trying to keep my chin up and look for the positive aspects of his Presidency.  I remember thinking, on election night, that he would have an awfully tough time governing from the center with the Pelosi/Reid Politburo pressuring him.

Why is governing from the center important?  Well, that’s what Candidate Obama promised and that’s what 3 out of 4 of the voters wanted:

On the other side of the argument are the exit polls showing the Americans who voted Tuesday described themselves as 44 percent moderate, 34 percent conservative and only 22 percent liberal. That would seem to portray a center-right nation.

Here’s his first test:

Democrats are growing impatient with President-elect Barack Obama‘s refusal to inject himself in the major economic crises confronting the country. Obama has sidestepped some policy questions by saying there is only one president at a time. But the dodge is wearing thin. “He’s going to have to be more assertive than he’s been,” House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., told consumer advocates Thursday.

Make no mistake about it, Barney Frank is a member of the Pelosi/Reid Politburo.  He is at the center of the everything is fine with Franklin controversy that eventually blew up in our faces.  Today, Frank and others want to divert funds appropriated for banks to the auto industry.  Their colleagues aren’t buying it.  What happens when the Politburo doesn’t have the support of the Faithful?  It turns to its Messiah…but the Messiah is just a man… and that man doesn’t want to dirty his hands with axle grease.

Presidents-elect typically spend the transition period assembling their cabinets, their White House staff and preparing to take the reins of power. But this transition is occurring at an extraordinary time, with bad economic news mounting by the day and with one of the country’s major industries begging for a hand to keep from collapsing.

Two Democratic senators involved in trying to salvage the auto companies have said Obama could help move the process along and should become more engaged.

“The Obama team has to step up,” Sen. Christopher Read more

December 4, 2008

Latest Findings From the Buyer, Seller Profile

by

CEO, PA Association of Realtors

Author website

Good stuff from Greg’s Rotary Club…

Who are today’s buyers? Sixty-one percent are married couples, 20 percent are single women, 10 percent are single men, and 7 percent are unmarried couples. Learn more about who’s buying homes today and what they’re looking for in a sales professional in an NAR Research analysis based on the latest NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.

December 4, 2008

Rustling up some Frontier Spirit in the old midwest

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

From The Wall Street Journal’s Op-Ed page: America Needs Its Frontier Spirit. Daniel Henninger spells it out. And quite nicely, I might add. An excerpt:

The greatest danger in the current economic crisis is that the United States will lose its historic appetite for risk. The mood now is that risk-taking got us into this mess. Risk, though, is the quintessential American trait that built the nation — from the Battle of Bunker Hill to the rise of the microchip. If we let risk give way to a new ethos of commercial reserve and regulatory restriction, the upward arc of the U.S. ascendancy will flatten. Maybe it already has.

By “we” I mean the policy makers in Washington who will write the new rules of finance, our stunned bankers and businessmen, and the average Joes of Main Street who with reason have lost confidence. If all lose faith at once in the American idea of risk, refinding it when the recession ends may prove difficult.

This is the moment for Americans to rediscover the “frontier thesis” of Frederick Jackson Turner. In a seminal paper delivered in 1893 to the American Historical Association, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” Turner argued that the U.S. found its identity as it pushed away from the Eastern seaboard and crossed a series of frontier “fall lines”: the Allegheny Mountains, the Mississippi, the Missouri, the plains, the Rocky Mountains and California.

Every American absorbs the frontier experience from reading biographies of great Americans or from movies. Frederick Turner, however, made it clear that with this effort to transform the wilderness the Americans broke decisively with what he called, believe it or not, “old Europe.” “Here is a new product,” Turner wrote, “that is American.”

“From the conditions of frontier life,” Turner believed, “came [American] intellectual traits of profound importance . . . coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy, that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil.” Read more

December 4, 2008

Stirred but not Shaken

by

Chicago Broker Owner Realtor | RE 2.0 Blogger

Author website

There’s probably no pressing need to own up to this right now but I’m isolating in front of my laptop at 3 AM and anything but Facebook and internet Texas Hold ’em seems like a heart healthy idea. So I peck away into my imagination. There’s a dull pang of ungratefulness sticking in my side this holiday season. Wait… better make that a thorn. No, a twinge. A twinge of Fate. (Or should that be a twist?) A twist of Fate. No, that’s Dylan. Man, all the really good sayings are already taken. Anyway, here’s what I’m copping to; my short, snapped-off end of the turkey wishbone:

As a kid, I never daydreamed about growing up to be {whisper}… a Realtor. There, I said it—almost out loud. Scurrying about my parents’ postage stamp backyard from bush to tree and back again dressed in full army combat uniform, cowboy boots, football helmet, with Secret Agent Man attache case tucked safely away under the old National Geographics (and pictures of half-naked female Aborigines) in the work shed, I was always a little whimsical about which distant star I might hook my future prospects on to. I didn’t start daydreaming about growing up to be a Realtor until I’d already been in the Insurance business for 15 years and one dark day discovered myself scurrying about my own postage stamp backyard as a salesman with almost nothing tucked away except some nickel and dime house equity and no naked ladies of any kind to be found. And an insurance salesman, no less. A life insurance salesman…(I think I’ll stop there.)

I wanted a career where I could ditch the suit and wear boots everyday if I cared to. And shave my already mostly bald head. And stay at home whenever I pleased. And never have to say “God forbid” unless I really meant it. It pretty much boiled down to those few requirements plus, of course, the potential to make some decent dough and drive a Mercedes. And when choosing a path to comfortable living based on such thin orders, symptoms like Read more

December 3, 2008

Treasury may lower mortgage rates?

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – The Treasury Department is contemplating a proposal that would cut mortgage rates for new loans for homes, according to the Wall Street Journal.

The plan would employ Fannie Mae to offer mortgages with rates as low as 4.5%, roughly 1% lower than current rates.

The measure is under consideration as part of the Treasury Department’s continued effort to limit foreclosures, which has been at the core of the financial crisis. The plan would seek to revitalize the financial market without bailing out homeowners and lenders, the Journal reported.

As part of the proposal under consideration, Treasury would buy mortgage securities backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in addition to those guaranteed by the Federal Housing Administration.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee a significant chunk of all new mortgages in the United States.

Treasury may set mortgage rates at 4.5% to boost sales – MarketWatch.

Okay, not to rain on everyone’s parade, but let’s take a logical look at the numbers and the statistics behind it.

  1. What’s the only way possible that I’m aware of to lower mortgage rates?  By raising the price of mortgage backed securities which lowers the rates on them.   Lower rates on mortgage backed securities equals lower mortgage rates.
  2. How do you increase the price of mortgage backed securities?  The only way that happens is by increasing the demand for them.
  3. How do you increase the demand for them?  Have the government step in and buy a HUGE (I’m talking many many many zeroes!) amount of mortgage backed securities off of Fannie and Freddie.
  4. How is the US government going to come up with that money?   All joking about printing presses aside, in reality, they are going to have to borrow the money.
  5. How do they borrow the money?   By issuing a LOT of US Treasury bonds to finance their purchase of mortgage backed securities.

So, what happens with the price of US Treasuries if suddenly there’s another $1 Trillion on the market?

  • Demand stays the same
  • Supply goes way way up because the government is flooding the market with more debt.
  • Price goes up down because there is more supply than demand.
  • Rates go up.

(Thanks Sean for correcting my Read more

December 3, 2008

BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix will be a hands-on overhaul of your online and offline marketing – enroll now to be sure you get a seat

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

We’ve got the dates for BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix: April 28th to May 1st, 2009.

We’ve got the location: The Radisson Phoenix Airport Hotel North, 427 North 44th St, Phoenix, AZ 85008.

And we’ve got the game plan: A three-day Guerilla Marketing Boot Camp during which you’re going to completely revise your marketing profile — in class. We’re not going to tell you how we work. We’re not going to show you how we work. We’re going to work with you, hands-on, step-by-step as we overhaul your marketing strategy from the ground up.

What are we missing? You. Skip ahead if you’re ready to register for the most intense real estate marketing conference you will ever attend.

Got questions? Here are some BloodhoundBlog posts discussing Unchained in Orlando and anticipating the scenius to come in Phoenix:

Want to know even more? Why not. We’re in the marketing business, after all.

Who should come to BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix? If it’s part of your job to attract and convert new business, we have what you need. On BloodhoundBlog, we talk a lot about Social Media Marketing, but in our own businesses, we work with Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Direct Marketing and good old-fashioned belly-to-belly sales. We also work directly with internet-based tools from PHP to RSS to CSS — acronym soup.

Why should you come? We’ll be going through every bit of this at BloodhoundBlog Unchained in Phoenix. Not lecturing as you race to keep up in your notes, but actually doing the work, hands-on, on your own marketing materials.

How will you benefit? Not only will you completely overhaul your existing marketing profile, you’ll learn how Read more

December 2, 2008

It’s not the singer nor the song. It’s the audience.

by

The Real Estate Group, Virginia Beach and Chesapeake VA

Author website

One of the most amazing things about scenius scenes is that they change your outlook. Often permanently. After enjoying two of these experiences lately, one at Swallow Hill at BHB Orlando and one Thanksgiving morning via email (more on that one in a later post), I was thinking over some (of the many) things that I learned from Sean Purcell and Brian Brady. These guys have well developed sales skills where I am a technology guy who likes to teach, but needs to sell.

While I was ruminating on some of their wisdom, up popped this post from Thomas Hall. I asked myself: Do you know REALTORS like this in your office? Of course. We all do, I think.

Do you know people who are making money using Facebook and other social media? You need to spend a little time with Brian Brady. Seriously. Beg. Borrow. Steal. Do what it takes to pick this guy’s brain. As intrigued as I was to listen to him as we talked ABOUT what he does, what fascinated me was watching him DO it, while Sean called out the play by play. And the ideas flowed in bunches. It was seriously cool stuff.

I mean it. Whatever it takes to watch him do what he does. That hour you grab with him at BHB Unchained in 2009 may well MAKE 2009. Here’s a little insight that I just gained…weeks after the scenius…that finally soaked through this thick skull of mine.

I was with Brian as he met people in person. and connected with his audience.
I listened while he worked on the phone from the house at Swallow Hill. and connected with his audience.
I spoke with him in front of an audience. And he connected.
I watched him work Facebook, Active Rain and other social media platforms.and he connected with his audience.
I watched him connect with Bloggers. again his audience.
I read his post “Pick up the damn phone!” again, connecting with his audience.
And I have watched many successful REALTORS do exactly what Thomas Hall describes. These people are EFFICIENT and EFFECTIVE at building their sphere by networking to where folks Read more

December 2, 2008

Not All Dinosaurs Are Extinct

by

Realtor, Rabble-Rouser

Author website

I know an agent with big hair – she used to drive a Cadillac – she traded it in for a Lexus.

She likes to lunch – alot – with friends, clients and colleagues.  She started selling real estate when I started high school – basically ALONG time ago.

She’s not on Facebook.  She twitters only in the office – face to face – with friends, clients and colleagues.  She’s not on MySpace – Her space is the desk in the office – overwhelmed with a prodigous Rolodex with cards falling out.  She emails, but her assistant does the typing.  Funny thing is – she seems to always be on the phone.  Talking.  Offering well-wishes on birthdays, engagements, job promotions, new children arrivals and even new grandchildren arrivals.

I think she may be working on the third generation of her first clients.

I’ve never heard her ask for business – often times the phone calls are incoming, not outgoing.  She’s busy, but not overwhelmed.  During a casual conversation regarding a recent property showing, she shared some very valuable insight regarding the unit – you see, she’s sold it twice before.

When she tells me she knows everyone in the business, I believe her.

She’s social – but not of the media type.

In comparison, I believe I am more social, but perhaps too much of the media type.  I like technology.  I believe that technology can and will transform how real estate is transacted.  Through observation, however, I have learned that even in the absence of technology, real estate is transacted – quite successfully.

December 2, 2008

Investor Sues to Block Mortgage Modifications

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

The battle over the mass modifications of troubled mortgages has begun in earnest. On Dec. 1, William Frey, a private investor in mortgage-backed securities, filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court alleging that the proposed modification of some 400,000 home loans originally underwritten by the defunct lender Countrywide Financial is illegal.

Investor Sues to Block Mortgage Modifications – Yahoo! News.

At first glance, you’re probably thinking what I was (well, maybe not…) but seriously, why would some mean hearted investor want to prevent Bank of America from helping 400,000 home owners stay in their homes?

Let me attempt to explain:

  1. Countrywide wrote the loans and sold them on the secondary market.
  2. When they sold them, they didn’t sell them in 1 piece, they sold sections (called tranches) to a multitude of different investors and investment companies.   It’s actually possible that parts of one mortgage end up being owned by 30 different “parties.”
  3. The parties who bought these loans bought them as contracts that had a prepayment risk but didn’t buy them with a modification risk.
  4. When a loan gets modified, it changes that contract which inherently changes the value of the investment.
  5. The investors who are suing to stop it are saying that if you start changing the contracts, you are going to effectively ruin the secondary mortgage market because suddenly the value of the loans that are sold becomes an unknown.
  6. If the secondary mortgage market dies, then the housing market dies.   It’s just that simple, without mortgage money, the party is over.

Are the investors saying that the loans shouldn’t be modified?   No they aren’t.   What they are saying is, “I didn’t buy this investment with the thinking that it could be modified going forward.”   So if you, Mr. B of A, want to change the terms, that’s fine, buy it back and change the terms.

The investors are, it seems to me, hoping for one of two results:

  1. That Bank of America will buy the loans back (with our help of course).
  2. That they take their chances with foreclosures.  Given the report that the National Association of Realtors issued earlier on Mortgage Modification Defaul Rates of 50%, that’s not Read more
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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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