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There’s always something to howl about.

Category: Dirty Laundry (page 2 of 9)

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September 15, 2010

At What Point Does an Agent Become a Criminal?

by

Real Estate Renaissance Man

Author website

I wrote an offer for a young couple who wished to purchase the home they were renting.  The buyer and seller had already discussed a price of $400,000 before agents got involved.  (The seller thought it wise that both parties be represented, which is when I came into the picture along with an agent for the seller.)  I comp’d the home and the area: $400,000 was a stretch. But the buyers liked the property, wanted an extra large master bedroom (which this home had) and wanted to avoid the cost and hassle of moving.  Fair enough; I’ve fulfilled my responsibility of providing accurate and professional counsel regarding value and the buyers have made an informed and justifiable decision.

We wrote the offer for $400,000 with 3% seller concessions for the repairs that the seller had already acknowledged.  The listing agent scoffed.  It seems she had advised her client the property, with a little cosmetic improvement, would sell for the mid $400s.  Brilliant.  Real Estate is by no means rocket science, but the ability to properly value a property and understand comparables is a skill and not every agent is adept.  I sent along a 3 page analysis of comparables and pricing to buttress our offer.  Seller came back at $410,000 with $10,000 in concessions.  Once again I advised my clients that, in my professional opinion, the price was greater than the value, but the mitigating factors were enough for them to justify accepting the contract.  Which they did.  I agreed to a 2% commission as my work load was less and the listing agent admitted to me that she was working for only 1% as her work load was greatly diminished.  And we all lived happily ever after, right?  No…

In California, the standard contract calls for the loan contingency to be removed in 17 days.  (This bit of paint-by-numbers idiocy came about during the hey-day of real estate when anyone with a pulse could get a loan.  In the current economic market, it’s only purpose is to expose which agents are inexperienced and clueless enough to put their clients at risk.)  The buyers needed roughly three weeks for their funds to fully season so Read more

August 13, 2010

Blood, sweat, and fears

by

Rust Belt Realtor

Author website

Once upon a time, maps were marked HIC SVNT LEONES to denote unknown territory. Hic Svnt Leones means “Here are lions”. Scary. Uncharted territory is scary.

I’ve been paying very close attention to how I accomplish things: What I do and what I don’t do. Why some things are easy and I embrace them and why are somethings harder and I avoid them. I’m trying to improve my business and my productivity so it’s kind of nice useful critical to understand what makes me tick. Or tock. I need to figure out the internal roadblocks that keep me from achieving my goals. I want to recognize them immediately so I can overcome them as quickly as possible rather than letting them pile up to barricade levels.

There is stuff, for lack of better word, that I dislike doing, but when it’s up to me to do everything, and in real estate it often is up to me to do everything, I have to learn to just get on with it. I know this but still, there are things that I don’t like doing so I begin to waste my own precious time, using procrastination as motivation. An epiphany: It recently occurred to me that I would be furious with anyone else who wasted my time the way I so carelessly waste my own time.

Some of the habits I have fallen into are now clear even to me as red flags that I’m avoiding something. Twitter of course, is one example. What? Is it that obvious? Okay, so I use social networking to avoid doing some things that I find difficult. I recognize it now so I can overcome it, and that’s the thing. I once thought this was pain avoidance, but now I see it as fear. Of the unknown. As in Hic Svnt Leones. What is going to happen if I do this thing? What unseen beasties lie in wait to pounce on my soft under belly? I have a very fertile imagination and sometimes it grows weeds in the garden of the mind, but the only way to pull the weeds Read more

July 23, 2010

Gettin’ Listings Sold – Playin’ Hide the Pea

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

I’ve never really cared much about the infinite number of sites ‘marketing’ listings for real estate agents. It’s always struck me as oversold at best, and a con at worst. I’ll let you gentle readers gimme your experience in the comments section. I have done a kinda sorta poll in the last 10 days or so. The question was — How many sold listings do you attribute to any of the various sites that do that sorta thing? Mostly I was greeted with a whole buncha silence, though some immediately admitted not knowing.

This question began to bug me about 18 months ago as I was headin’ towards the return of my firm to our local San Diego market. I’m gonna be a lister for the most part — can’t help it, it’s in my DNA. My dad always said it was one of the ways to keep my ManCard. 🙂 Actually, those who know me assume I won’t be showing houses, as my son will be representing buyers who can’t get started in investment property, but can own as cheaply as they can rent — another post altogether. I’m more than happy for him to be on the road. 🙂

As I was sayin’, in January of 2009 I was wondering how effective these sites really are when the Firestones kissed the pavement. The answers most agents finally gave me were exactly what I’d expected — they use them to get listings. Potential sellers are impressed like Little Leaguers at their first big league game when they see that Larry Lister from TopProducer Real Estate will be putting their home on 3,058 different sites — and by Saturday to boot. Boy, does that guy know how to market, or what?!

Um, I opt for ‘what’. This declaration of implied marketing savvy, also implies the agent is a techie of the first degree. Geez, does he leap tall buildings in a single bound too?

Wanting to find out for myself, I did a little experiment with the first local listing I’d taken in about six years. No sign — no fancy stand-alone websites Read more

July 22, 2010

Some Observations From a Crappy Blogger Who Can Barely Spell SEO

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

Though most of this post won’t necessarily be tech related, it’s probably wise for me to credibly establish by TechTard credentials. I’ll do it quickly by tellin’ a story on myself back when I was a beginning blogger. My marketing guys said, “Hey, this blogging thing looks to be real. You should do it, cuz you know stuff. Can you write?” And a blog was born. My first post was published, quickly followed by my first ever comment. It wasn’t really a comment though, as some of the text made my cursor turn into a hand. What the hell?! It was a trackback (ping?) from none other than Greg Swann at Bloodhound Blog. I literally was in a panic cuz I thought I’d been hacked. How did they get into my blog?! Betcha my marketing guys from back then are still laughin’ their asses off.

I know a bit more techie stuff these days, but not much more. So there you have it — I’m a legit, card-carryin’ TechTard.

OK — Let’s start with SEO, if only so we can leave it first. 🙂

I use key words in my posts mostly cuz I need to in order to make the damn thing readable, not for juice. Check out my page rank, then tell me, cuz I don’t have a clue what it is, nor do I give a damn. Most decent bloggers readin’ this draw traffic orders of magnitude more than I do. They also, most of ’em, get more comments on their average post than I do in 10.

Please tell me how much money real estate bloggers earn per comment, I’m curious. How much more do they earn with 10,000 readers a month compared to the guy who doesn’t average 1,000? 10 X more? Go ahead, make my day, say yes. 🙂 What a buncha hooey. Does SEO work to generate more ‘traffic’? No doubt. When driving, don’t we avoid traffic? 🙂 Those extra cars don’t get us to where we’re going any faster, do they? No — they’re just traffic muddling up our commute. They don’t care where we’re 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 4, 2010

Is exposing your own weakness a good power play?

by

Mortgage Systems Samurai

Author website

lessons learned from a difficult home buying experienceI’m am not entirely sure what made me think that this would be a good idea, but now that i’ve taken the leap I received exactly the response that I anticipated by telling this unflattering story to my database of over 9,000 consumers.

Let me back up for just a second here and shape the battlefield for you.

Business has been absolutely crazy this past month with a surge of files from buyers trying to get in under the wire for the $8,000 federal tax credit.

Our staff is pushing maximum capacity and to top it all off, the rates have significantly dipped in the past couple of weeks.

Now, let me set up this particular situation, share with you how I dealt with it (publicly), then I would like to get your feedback.

Close of escrow is scheduled for May 29th.  The borrower is using a CalSTR 80/17 purchase money loan which allows for a free float down if the rates drop during first 45 days of the lock.

Rates dropped and we combed through our pipeline looking for opportunities to “knock the socks off” buyers by making the “I know we’re closing next week and I can lower your rate today” phone call that everyone loves to make.

We had a mix-up, a miscommunication between the loan officer and the processor (processor processess float down) – the result was that we accidentally floated down the rate of a buyer before we called them to communicate the option and the opportunity.

As it turns out – that was a fatal error in the buyer’s mind.  The $27 a month savings paled to his concerns about closing his escrow early or on time.

This miscommunication compounded by a plethora of other miscommunications and mistakes by escrow quickly snow balled into a series of emails from the buyer, expressing exactly how he felt about the situation he was thrust into.

These emails were directed to me as the branch manager and “homeownership educator” of the office.  I thought long and hard about how to make this a positive experience because it got kind of ugly, which you will see for yourself.

I decided to Read more

May 27, 2010

Ubiquitous Bloodhound finally makes his break

by

Realtor, Peripatetic Iconoclast

Author website

All of us, proprietors of this kennel included, have known that Odysseus was destined for the big time. Well, he finally got his break! Look for our pal anywhere a gorgeous face is needed.

It's midnight. Do you know where your Bloodhound is?

True confession: I was hiding in the bushes at a webinar (name withheld to protect the perps) and discovered PhotoFunia while waiting for the inevitable “buy today! Special deal just for our attendees! Super special deal if you get your broker to bring more lambs agents  to the slaughter!”  Well anyway, I found PhotoFunia at this webinar.  It is free and it is fun. There really was a pony in there!  I hope you enjoy.

February 23, 2010

Now I’m Beginning To Get It – The Missing Brick In The Wall

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

My favorite Uncle, Fighter Pilot Dick, sent me this video the other day. I was flabbergasted, which is hard to accomplish lately. I then sent it to a couple of folks for whom I hold much respect, to gain their takes. Both of them are fellow Hounds, Brian Brady and Tony Gallegos.

I thought Brian’s most cogent reply to me during a little back and forth emailing, was the following: Note: The link in Brian’s quote was added by me. It goes to the original video. The embedded video here is the same, but has some CNN commentary up front.

I know the FDIC went out of its way to issue a Press Release, denouncing the guys at Thing Big Work Small.  I know those guys fairly well (had a few beers with them at the CAMB convention this summer).  The FDIC denounced the video as “factually incorrect”, a day after it came out…then…

One West Bank, who bought the IndyMac portfolio for $1.55 Billion, earned 1.57 billion in its first year of operation.  Now Jeff, youi’re a bright guy…what kind of bank earns 100% ROI in one year?

This video explains a whole lot, though I suspect I may be late coming to this party. Considering the reply received from Tony, who said he didn’t know the details of the transaction, I’m thinkin’ maybe we’ve all been missing this particular brick in the wall.

Though CNN doesn’t bollix it up too much, the really good stuff starts around 1:45 on the video. Would love to hear your take.

February 17, 2010

Fraudulus: Money for Nothing, Tax Credits for free!

by

Realtor, Media Mogul

Author website

Incredibly, the IRS cannot do a lot to stop you, or anybody, from cashing in on the stimulus tax credits.

According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the IRS is “unable to verify eligibility for the majority of Recovery Act benefits at the time a tax return is filed.” That doesn’t mean they can’t audit you, but only a small portion of filers are audited.  If audited, you would have to correct any mistakes and you might face penalties.

Understand that the IRS prefers that you file electronically for efficiency reasons.  They rely on taxpayers to provide accurate information.

For example, the inspector general recommended that the IRS require taxpayers to provide documentation to verify first-time homebuyer credit claims, but the IRS said no. Such a requirement, officials said, “would be burdensome and would potentially exclude as many as 2 million taxpayers from electronically filing.”

It wasn’t until the Worker, Homeownership and Business Assistance Act of 2009 was signed into law on Nov. 6 that additional documentation was required for the credit and the IRS was given additional authority with respect to returns that did not include that documentation.

Moreover, the IRS did not have math error authority – meaning that officials are not authorized to check calculations – to stop payment of erroneous credit claims. In essence, the IRS relied on taxpayers to be honest, didn’t require hard documentation and could not check the math on certain credits.

That same article quoted above has a sidebar titled “Getting money you don’t deserve.” It goes through a hypothetical scenario of how the First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit can be scammed for extra benefits.  The limitations of e-filing do not allow the IRS to transfer paper documentation to electronic format.  So, there is a level of trust in the system.  There is a level of trust in the system that the 73,799 taxpayers who are suspected of not correctly claiming the tax credit as of last July do not justify.  Those suspected incorrect claims may total $504 million.

Expect more news of fraud as this version of the Homebuyer Tax Credit, and other stimulus credits, wind down Read more

February 11, 2010

I wanted to say, “Let’s hear it for the dogs!” — but before I can, I need to say: “Let’s clean house for the dogs…”

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Here’s a true fact of BloodhoundBlog life: This is a very busy place. It always has been, but this one site — BloodhoundBlog — has been a huge resource hog virtually from day one.

We started off on a shared account at GoDaddy.com, but our traffic and our RSS subscriptions were killing us, so we had to move to a semi-dedicated server at HostGator.com.

Not long after that we had to move again, this time to a dedicated server. We ran all our domains off of that one box, but it was BloodhoundBlog that created all the headaches.

Since we’ve been on the dedicated server, we’ve had to go into both the server software and our WordPress configuration again and again to try to squeeze more performance out of the hardware.

As you will recall, we had a huge crash last summer, losing days of data and hundreds of comments. At that time, we moved to a different dedicated server — having smoked the first box to death.

And guess what? Here we are again. We’ve been redlining this server for months. In the past few weeks, we’ve been running from 30% to 75% of capacity for twenty hours a day. Surely you’ve noticed the sluggishness of service while waiting for posts to display or for comments to post.

So we’re moving yet again. Sometime tonight (I hope), we will be upgrading to much more robust hardware, a much faster server with four times our current hard disk footprint. I wish I could say that this will be our last move, but I’m sure it won’t be.

Unlike the server swap last summer, we’ll be moving to new IP addresses, which will entail an update to all the Domain Name Servers in the world. What that means is that the BloodhoundBlog you see over the next few days may or may not be the new server. If you land here by way of a non-updated DNS server, you will be landing on the old server. When I can, I’ll post a note to the new server to distinguish the new one from the old one.

Practically speaking, a DNS Read more

December 30, 2009

Unchained Melodies: A sublime mash-up of William Shatner’s cover version of Common People

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I have time to write software today for the first time in a while — which is well because we need it. While I was working, Radio Paradise (commercial-free semi-hip music for middle-aged white people) played William Shatner’s cover of Pulp’s Common People, and it made me so nuts I had to go out and find a clip.

Glad I did, because this mash-up is just perfect. I grew up in a grimy industrial town in downstate Illinois, way over on the wrong side of the tracks. I was lucky to have school teachers who were old enough to have pre-dated the unionization of compulsory illiteracy — but that just means I know how to tell you to go have safe sex with yourself in all the best dead languages. If you’ve never bought a steak without weighing the cost, this song is for you.

December 29, 2009

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas

by

Mortgage Officer

Author website

and all through the country, people were paying more attention to Christmas than they were to the government and to the financial mess that is making our country struggle.

So what did the Treasury do?   They did two things:

  • They expanded the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from $200 Billion each (that’s $200,000,000,000) to an unlimited amount of funding.   In other words, the US Treasury just handed their checkbook to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
  • They did it on the day when no one was watching and they did it 9 days before it would have required congressional approval.

How nice and how timely.

Nothing to see here, move along, move along……

Tom Vanderwell

Heard on the Street: Fannie and Freddie – WSJ.com

That was a nice holiday gift to taxpayers.

As expected, the Treasury on Christmas Eve increased the amount of money it can plow into Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to keep them solvent. Before, the U.S. had pledged up to $200 billion to each. Now, over the next three years, the Treasury can spend as much as is needed to prevent their net worth going negative. Such a change would have required congressional consent after Dec. 31. Given that each U.S. household had effectively committed $3,800 to both firms, the Treasury should have waited till the New Year so the people’s representatives could have had their say.

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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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