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Archives (page 81 of 372)

July 13, 2010

So what if lenders are lousy at judging character? Who can’t identify fat people when they’re sitting on the other side of your desk?

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Who says all academics are mindless time-wasters? A pair of brave scholars have demonstrated a correlation between obesity and mortgage defaults. A bad credit report is good evidence of insufficient thrift, but a good credit report is evidence of nothing dispositive. A bulging waistline, on the other hand…

We show that obesity is an economically significant predictor of mortgage delinquencies at the county level. In practice, however, loan contracts do not incorporate easily verifiable health risk factors such as obesity. The discrepancy between theory and practice suggests the existence of substantial cross-subsidization and misallocation of funds in the loan market. The potential for business opportunities and policy implications warrants further investigation of our results with more detailed, albeit costly data.

This is pretty dumb, practically speaking, but it’s nice to see that the idea of pre-existing conditions might have a future, now that it’s been outlawed where it actually makes sense, in the health insurance business.

As an aside, our own Tom Vanderwell makes a cameo appearance in this “study.”

July 11, 2010

A guest post from Jim Klein: “Owing on earth.”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

My friend Jim Klein has been hanging out with us here at BloodhoundBlog for the past few months, gently tossing rhetorical hand-grenades into our discussions where he thinks they might do the most good. I met Jim fifteen years ago on Usenet, and we’ve been philosophical allies ever since. I love having him around here, because I trust him to tell me when he thinks I’m wrong.

I’ve been working to flesh out SplendorQuest.com so that I might, sometime soon, move our more-ornately philosophical discussions there. Jim will be writing with me there, and possibly some other folks, as we go forward. My own plan is to use SplendorQuest to document everything I know about philosophy. There is a lot that I do that is original in the world of discourse — Jim can tell you better than I can what qualifies as being original — and I want to make sure I document what I’ve done in a thoroughgoing way before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

This post — our very first guest post — consists of Jim thanking me for challenging his preconceptions in an enduring way. At the time he’s taking about, I was beyond grateful that I could get anyone at all to listen to what I had to say, so my take is that the debt runs the other way. In any case, I am very proud to be able to show Jim off, both at BloodhoundBlog and at SplendorQuest.

With that, I give you Jim Klein:

[This was written for genuine Bloodhounds. Please check your chip!]

I always start simple. Then I try to stay there. This post is no exception. I even cut it in half, to keep it as simple as possible. The main question I seek to answer here is, “What is owing?”

You see, I owe Greg Swann. No, not for anything he sold me, nor because of anything he expects, let alone demands. He did do some software work back in the ’90s, but I paid for that. BTW his code is used to this day, making Read more

July 11, 2010

Cinderella’s memories of the zoo

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story

Cinderella was in a snit, and who could blame her? She was an orphan swarmed by a family of strangers, accidental intimates, pushy and intrusive and unwelcome. And the most distant stranger of all was the original Prince Charming, the man she had expected would always be beside her.

Physically distant, too, for he led the little brood, prancing on the balls of his feet, ostentatiously trying too hard, while Cinderella dragged her small feet at the rear, palpably punishing Prince Charming. Once he flounced back and tried to jolly her into joining them, into becoming one with them, but she blew him off with a furious shake of her head, horse-whipping him symbolically with her imperious, impetuous, long brown hair.

And something tells me it’s all happening at the zoo. I was sitting on a bench watching the Galapagos tortoises fornicate, a surprisingly delicate, amazingly time-consuming process. The post-modern delegation from the Brothers Grimm came trundling up the path, and they made a fine exhibit, too.

Only a fool would call them a family. They were a composite, an ungainly grafting of two diseased trees. If you keep your eyes open you can spot them all over, whisper-shouting through clenched teeth at the mall, squabbling over dinner at Denny’s, caucusing in sub-groups at gas stations and national parks. He’s responsible for his kids, if he has any, and she’s responsible for hers, and the children, ultimately, answer to no one. Very sad. Very stupid. Very common.

I didn’t pay them any mind, not then. If you’ve seen one tragedy, you’ve seen one too many. But I caught up with them again on the Zoo Train, a sea serpent’s idea of the ideal golf cart, designed for people who would rather sit than see the animals. And I didn’t go looking for trouble, neither; I was sitting peacefully, placidly, blessedly alone when they invaded me. I was waiting for the train ride to begin, and they tumbled into the row of benches ahead of mine, puncturing the quiet with random and raucous thrusts of sound.

The Wicked Stepmother was not the loudest Read more

July 10, 2010

Are Old Blog Posts Useless?

by

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

Author website

“How much traffic could you reasonably expect from blog posts that are a couple of years old?” asked Kaiholo Hale, a Maui vacation rental expert.

My answer?  A bunch of good traffic if the blog post is relevant.  I’ll show you two of my little workhorses:

  • Google “Apartment Loans San Diego” and you’ll see that my post from December, 2006 is ranking second or third.  I’ve funded about ten loans, most of them second mortgages, in the past 3 years from that blog post.  I only make about $1,000 from each loan but they’re really easy to do.  Few mortgage brokers have access to the capital I have to make these loans.
  • Google “Short Sales and PMI” to find that I rank first for that term.  The information on that post is some 10-12 years old so I need to update it.  Still, this post generates about a dozen inquiries every month.  I had to figure out how to make this post pay me so I built an opt-in email list for people who sold their homes via short sale.  That led to another list for people who lost the home through foreclosure.  Last fall, I stratified the lists by sale date so that I can “tickle” them as we approach their qualification date.  Over 200 people have signed up for these newsletters but only s few dozen are still reading them.  I add about five each month and expect that only one of those five will be “with me” in 2-3 years.

Two little work horses should produce $50,000 annual GCI for me in 2011. I can do much better than that. Greg Swann once remarked that you can return to old blog posts and “polish them up”.  You can update them, double check your grammar and spelling, and try to add some conversion tools or calls to action so that they can turn into GCI for you.  Let’s see what I might do with my two:

The apartment loans post is a quick conversion.  People landing on that page want a loan and they want it quickly.  I think I can add some Read more

July 9, 2010

Re-Entering the Real World of Real Estate Brokerage

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

As many of you know, I stopped doin’ business in my local market, San Diego, at the end of 2003. Since then I’ve done two transactions here, both as listing agent — both gettin’ the sellers Outa Dodge, so to speak. I haven’t bothered to market here cuz, well cuz I thought the prices were gonna keep falling, which they did, big time. Since I avoid short sales and REO’s like the plague, that pretty much ensured I’d not be doin’ any San Diego business. How dumb is it to buy income property in San Diego even now? You can see an example — where I present my answer to those whose only reason for holding on to the crappola they call income property there, is “I gotta be able to drive by my investment properties”. For the record, that example uses the lowest priced duplex in the neighborhood, and I used high projected rents.

My response to local real estate investors when they’ve called or emailed objecting to my stance, is to ask them, “Well now, how’s that whole ‘drivin’ by’ thing been workin’ our for ya lately?” The ongoing market correction, and there’s more to come IMHO, has reduced well located duplexes that sold in late 2005 in the neighborhood of $550-600,000 to hoping to find a buyer while now asking $300-400,000.

And their numbers still suck like a turbo-charged Dyson.

In spite of these empirical facts of life, I’m makin’ my official return to the San Diego investment market next week. Office is set up, except for the internet connection which will go hot by Wednesday. Yet it didn’t feel real ’till I picked up my new cards and letterhead this afternoon. Haven’t had either for many years. There’s literally been no need. Everything I’ve done since 2004 has been out of California, and everything sans referrals since July of 2006 has come from my 2.0 efforts.

It’s a good thing, cuz I had no other choice, unless it was to return to selling local homes to owner users, something I’ve happily abstained from doing since Carter’s Read more

July 9, 2010

Active Rain Says TANSTAAFL To Founding Members’ Uproar

by

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

Author website

The Active Rain Real Estate Network is charging a fee.  I’m not surprised.  The network has been trying to find ways to monetize its business since inception.  It tried a referral network and advertising and now it’s faced with the hard decision of pay-for-play.

Lani, at Agent Genius reported that one founding member deleted all of his content in protest:

This week, Active Rain inadvertently makes for heated conversation again by going back on their promise to founding members (the first users of the service) that they would never have to pay to participate because they evangelized for free and promoted the service making it what it is today.

Real estate blogger Jay Thompson, one of Active Rain’s original users and long time advocate of the brand noticed along with many other bloggers today that despite ActiveRain’s promise to grandfather in “founding members,” he was asked to pay an annual fee before he would be allowed to continue participating.

ActiveRain allegedly fudged notifying founding members and moved forward by only allowing active members to be grandfathered in. Thompson’s argument is not only one that he and others did not receive proper notification, but he and others comment frequently and despite being on a points based system tied to each user’s account, it is not considered to be “participation.”

Thompson’s response? He deleted all of the content he had ever written and I suspect he and others will no longer refer to ActiveRain in their frequent seminars, courses and speaking engagements.

I don’t know if I would have chosen to delete my content there.  Like any advertising model, it might have been useful to really analyze the costs and benefits.  I can think of three benefits to paying for membership in the network:

  • Back links to my home site– I can’t quantify what that benefit is but I know it helps my SEO
  • Traffic- I get some 200 visitors monthly from Active Rain URLs
  • Conversion- I receive 1-2 GOOD inquiries monthly, directly from the Active Rain contact forms.

This isn’t too hard to quantify.  The Read more

July 8, 2010

Proud Papa

by

Instigator, anthill kicker.

Author website

roobs.jpg

I could not be more proud.   Last night, at the dinner table, my (just) 2 year old daughter, Ruby…of her own volition…made an unsolicited offer to trade with me.

She wanted some of my coke, “a sip” and I am not generally big on either drinking Coke or giving it to my kids, I couldn’t resist when she offered me some of her chips.   After declining to give her a sip, she said, “You can have my chips.”

Now, the truth was that the chips were soggy, they had the dregs of her burrito on them, and they only had value because her brother wanted to eat them.

But, I had to complete the exchange and so she got to taste coke for either the first or second time.

Here’s to a long life of equally successful trades.

July 7, 2010

Reasons to be cheerful, Part 3.1.2: Redemption is egoism in action, so do the world a favor and catch your self doing something right.

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I hope I don’t seem to be a scold.

It suits my ends to poke around in the trash can inside your brain, but I’m not doing it to be mean — nor to induce you to feel bad about yourself. I know a whole lot about the interior mental processes that motivate the pursuit of values and disvalues — and about the subsequent and secondary consequences of those mental processes — but it’s not as if I can actually read your mind.

So how do I know so much about how your mind works? I don’t, not by any means except inference. What I know about is how my mind works. We are alike as things — we are ontological equals — so I know that your mind works the same way mine does — no less than and for the same reasons that your heart works the same way mine does. Moreover, I can look you in the eye and tell you the truth of your life in excruciating detail, working from nothing other than past experience with myself and other people. Our differences make us unique and beautiful, but our similarities make us comprehensible to each other.

So without intending to scold you, I need to say something to you in the gentlest way I can:

You’re getting everything wrong!!

Wrong, wrong, wrong. All the time, for all your life. Everyone, everywhere, for all of human history. Wrong, wrong, wrong — always and everywhere wrong — with wrong heaped upon wrong in twisted, corrupt dogmas of wrongness.

Do you want proof?

It could be you’re all hunched up in resentment at being called wrong. Or maybe you’re folded in on yourself in guilt, revisiting all of your past perceived sins. But here’s how I know that you’re wrong, and that you’ve been wrong about nearly everything, for almost all of your life:

Because being wrong doesn’t matter. Being right is the only thing that matters.

We all tell lies, the worst of them to ourselves. We all shirk our responsibilities, crafting sullen silent soliloquies to justify our laziness. We all hurt other people, and we are all Read more

July 4, 2010

Reasons to be cheerful, Part 3.2: Yuppie love: The egoist’s guide to mastering the art of frolicking naked with the one you love.

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Here’s an eye-opening item from the news feeds: Up to four out of five women are faking orgasms, at least some of the time. Last weekend, I was incredulous at Camille Paglia’s lamentations about sexlessness in the middle class, but, even though I’ve read — and doubted — all of the claims about anorgasmic women, still, I have never been prepared to lend any of this any credence.

And, yes, I’m talking about adult subject matter. If you’re still a giggling pre-teen, you might giggle off elsewhere. I intend to approach this as philosophy, but, if anything, that will just bring out more self-induced juvenility. The actual reason that normal adult Americans have bad sex is because they refuse — very probably in every realm of their lives — to take joy seriously. But we can’t even get that far without a commitment on your part to stop blushing and start thinking. If you won’t do this, what I plan to do here will be a waste of your time.

And must I also defend this as real estate? If you want to learn every new vendorslut trick for not making money while you betray your own soul, get thee to Agent Shortbus or any one of a hundred other sites. If you want to learn how to be a whole soul, to be the highest and best person you can be — at work, at home and in the privacy of the bedroom — let’s talk. But the only subject that matters to me is being alive as a self-conscious human being — and being good at it — and this post is 100% on-topic for that theme.

Are we down to nothing but adults who are prepared to be serious about human joy? Let’s start with a very basic premise: Normal, healthy adult human beings who love each other romantically should have great sex together virtually all of the time. Disabled? That could be a problem. Disabled in the mission-critical hardware? A bigger problem, but not an insuperable one. Stressed? Distracted? Drunk? Your timing is bad. Not in love? You’re screwed — Read more

July 3, 2010

PACE Solar Program Slows Chances of Economic Recovery

by

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

Author website

Residential real estate finance is ill and getting worse.  I cautioned that the elixir that got us into this mess should be removed for a robust private market solution but the mix makers upped the dosage.  It’s gonna make us even more sick.

Last year, I saw an opportunity to finance energy efficient improvements, specifically solar panels.  My motives weren’t a political demonstration but rooted in financial analysis.  Often, an investment in a solar panels installation returns as much as 15% annually through cost savings.  Prescient building contractors reworked business plans to meet the expected demand. The global warming religion heightened awareness to self-produced energy systems and California consumers want in.  The challenge is that little if any home improvement capital exists in the mortgage market; that spelled opportunity for me.

I taught some of these contractors how to structure, price, and make junior loans, to finance their work.  Armed with my database of investors, I started a small secondary market for these “solar loans”.  The contractor would make a loan, hire me to sell that loan to an investor, and pay me a  fee for arranging that sale from the proceeds.  The loan was cross-collateralized by the subject property and an assignation of tax credits to the lender. The loans averaged $25,000 and I intended to build up a servicing portfolio, earning a fee to collect payments and remit them to the investors.

What I didn’t realize was that I had a competitor, a competitor that had a lot more money and influence than I did.  This competitor is able rewrite laws to its advantage, so that it had a first lien position, which is assumable by a purchasing homeowner.  My loans were junior liens with a due-on-sale clause.  That competitor is the PACE program, armed with $150 million of Federal money and the borrowing power of states and municipalities.

That’s a formidable foe for a small-town mortgage broker and his retired golf-buddy investors.  Needless to say, I abandoned the idea last month.  Today, there’s hope for my little venture.  The PACE program forgot that the existing secondary mortgage market doesn’t take kindly to Read more

July 2, 2010

Reasons to be cheerful, Part 2.9.5: Carrying a concealed firearm is the first step to reclaiming responsibility for your own self-defense.

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Arizona State Senate Bill 1070 — the “Welcome to the Hotel California” legislation that has drawn so much attention nation-wide — will take effect on July 29th, 2010. Two other bills that will become law that day are more interesting to me, if not to TV-camera-mugging know-nothings in other states.

First, it will be lawful in Arizona for citizens to carry a concealed weapon without applying for a state permit. Arizona has always been an open-carry state, and, until now, a concealed carry permit required nothing more than a small fee plus 16 hours of instruction. With or without the legal requirement, the instruction is not a bad idea. But what will change on July 29th is the attitude of bad guys. Unlike thugs in, say, Chicago, criminals in Phoenix know there is a high degree of likelihood that ordinary people will be armed. As Robert A. Heinlein said, “An armed society is a polite society.”

Second, firearms manufactured and sold within the state of Arizona will not be subject to the Federal Brady Law’s national firearms database. It’s not a big deal right now, but it is plausible that there will come a time that the Feds — or their surlier successors — might try to confiscate every gun they know about. Having weapons Johnny G-Man knows nothing about might turn out to be an important advantage, if the shit hits the fan.

Look at this:

Isn’t that a sweet little pistol? It’s a Ruger LCP, specifically designed for concealed carry. It’s a .380, six rounds in the grip, one in the chamber, so it’s strictly a self-defense weapon. But it’s just a little bit larger in all dimensions than a pack of index cards, so it is very easy to conceal on your person. You can get a belt-mounted holster for it that looks like a camera case.

That’s a Realtor’s gun, a salesperson’s gun, a weapon for people who go to a lot of places they’ve never been before and don’t know what to expect. Less than ten ounces, and no one knows you have it until it turns out to be your Read more

July 2, 2010

On Independence Day 2010, look around you and fill your heart: O’ What a Beautiful Morning!

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

There are songs that better describe America and patriotism, I suppose, but I can’t think of too many other songs that mean independence to me more than this song. I’m biased, of course, living as I do in the Great Midwest. Some people love the ocean or the mountains. They look out at miles of water or towering peaks and feel something. I’m not one of those people. I confess I love acres and acres of plowed or planted fields standing as a proud testament to someone’s hard work and tenacity. When “the corn is as high as an elephant’s eye”, and “the cattle are standing like statues”, I find this magnificent, thrilling even. The earth itself is abundant and I see that most in evidence on farmland. On a quieter level though, sitting on my modest suburban patio on a sultry summer Ohio evening, I know that “the sounds of the earth are like music” because I hear that particular song in the thick, humid air alive with insects and birds, the crickets and toads operatically calling for a mate, or the delicious evening thunderstorms that bellow across the sky, and I’m here to tell you that this music is a love song. “O’ What a Beautiful Morning” is an American love song and I am enthralled with the ideas represented: being in love with a another person, in love with life, in love with the possibilities for independence that present themselves to you every single morning.

I leave a lot of musicals here, I know. I’ll not apologize. My heart often sings out and I’m compelled to share those songs, and our gracious host is obliging enough to humor me. Oklahoma though, is my favorite Broadway musical because it is so very American. Not only the cowboys and the ranchers, or the aw-shucks Americana. Oklahoma is wonderful because it freely shares that American idea of independence: The idea that simple people can own land and work and produce from that land, independent of the government. This is America, perhaps the one American thing I love most of all. This Read more

July 2, 2010

Happy 4th of July Weekend.

by

Realtor, Surfer-in-Training

Author website

I wanted to take a brief moment to extend a Happy 4th of July greeting to all in the BH community.  I was born and raised in El Salvador in the midst of an infamous civil war (infamous for its use of children as pawns in the war machine), migrating to the US in my teen years and becoming a citizen while serving in armed forces.  I have had the opportunity to travel the world for work and leisure and I can wholeheartedly say that there is no other country I’d rather call home than the good ol’ US of A.  Regardless of what cynicism is thrown out there about American greed, blah blah blah, I believe and embrace the principles and values on which our nation founded.  Have a Happy Independence weekend.

american flag

July 2, 2010

Declaration of Independence

by

Realtor, Peripatetic Iconoclast

Author website

Declaration of Independence

[Adopted in Congress 4 July 1776]

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be Read more

July 1, 2010

The Magic Words – “What You’re Sayin’ Is Makin’ a Lotta Sense”

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Regardless of how someone may have found you, one day you get an email or a phone call from them. Assuming they’re not a referral, you’ve already developed a modicum of credibility in their eyes — why else would they be talkin’ with ya? So the first phone conversation begins with them introducing themselves and the reason for the contact. They’re serious campers, but haven’t decided which pro, if any, they’d like to use.

How does that first chat usually work out for ya?

This was the question with which I was pounded daily as a newbie, and one I often ask of those I occasionally mentor.

Those conversations, in my experience, are what makes or breaks real estate agents/brokers. If that first conversation doesn’t gain traction with the potential client, it’s highly unlikely a second chance will present itself. So, what approach do you take? Are you Zig Ziggler using 1,001 closing questions? You realize cars don’t have carburetors any more, right? (And the first 20-something who asks what a carburetor is gets booted.) 🙂

I has a suggestion — try makin’ some sense.

How are you comin’ across to potential clients — like every other ‘TopProducer’ they’ve been bored by the last 10 days? Folks come to pros for one main reason among many — they want you to have forgotten more than they know about the subject at hand. Most of what passes for intelligence from the typical agent in these ‘dialogues’ is exactly what Charlie Brown heard when his teacher was talkin’ — blah blah blahdy blah — BS BS BS.

It’s not about us. Everyone says that, but from where I sit, and what new clients actually tell me, is that the agents with whom they’ve spoken simply haven’t walked that talk.

It’s about the hands-on difference we can make when the Firestones hit the pavement. Most of the time, early in my career, I was embarrassing myself more than I can possibly imagine, and I thank the Lord I was blissfully unaware. “We’re the best” “We sell SO many homes…” “Our ad budget is ginormous” And 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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