BloodhoundBlog

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Month: April 2007 (page 4 of 8)

April 19, 2007

HARD MONEY LENDING: Defined

by

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

Author website

Ardell over at Rain City Guide has been posting some good, consumer-friendly stuff about lending. It’s refreshing to see an agent work through the lending process.

In an earlier post, Ardell and I exchanged comments about hard money lending where she claimed ignorance; that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.

Ardell wrote a consumer post about pre-payment penalties. In the third and fourth paragraphs, Ardell explains the essence of private mortgage lending.

It really is that simple.

April 19, 2007

When Banks Compete, You Lose

by

Mortgage Banker

Author website

Brian Brady wrote a great series of articles on how to obtain the best mortgage loan by shopping for a mortgage originator first, and then the loan second. His brilliant advice is a bit counter-intuitive but dead on. If you are considering shopping for a mortgage by using the internet, keep his advice in mind as you read the rest of this post.

My company primarily uses internet leads for new business. Of our approximately $12 million a month in loan originations $4 million comes from repeat and referral business and the rest comes from new business originated by internet leads. We spend about $30,000 per month on internet leads and get about 4 to 1 on our marketing dollar. I like to think we’ve figured out how to win business while competing with other banks. We use the big boys like LowerMyBills.com; but have stayed away from LendingTree.com — we don’t want to have to pay the lead provider off the HUD at closing.

There are a lot of misconceptions about internet leads both from the consumer and the industry side. We’ll focus on consumers in this post. For more in-depth information on the subject please read my Zillow Real Estate Guide article on 6 things you should know before shopping for an interest rate online. To summarize here the 6 things:

  1. Plan on getting a lot more than 4 calls from the 4 lenders that are supposed to compete for your business — get ready for a ton of calls.
  2. Plan on drinking from the mortgage information “fire hose” while different lenders pitch their products and expertise.
  3. Be prepared to spend some serious time on the phone.
  4. Don’t just go for the best up-front offer, keep some contingency offers in your back pocket.
  5. If an offer is too good to be true, it probably is.
  6. Know who you are working with.

But even before you read these 6 things, read Brian Brady’s post. When you shop online for an interest rate and fee quote INSTEAD of shopping for the mortgage professional first, you are opening up yourself to be the victim of bait and switch tactics. Think Read more

April 18, 2007

Idle chatter of idle neighbors to be outlawed in Arizona: Appraiser’s job protection act passes Arizona State Senate

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Little Pink Houses dug up the smoking gun: The State of Arizona is trying to make it illegal for anyone without a state-issued license to express opinions of value about real property. Oh, there is an exception: You will be able to express an opinion about the value of your own property.

This law, if ratified, is only one court case away from being quashed.

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April 18, 2007

Brokers & Agents: How Do You Answer Prospect’s And Client’s Questions?

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

It’s shameful the way I used to answer questions from prospects or clients. The excuse of age is available, as I was only about 27 or so. But even youth, or having just transitioned from homes to investments doesn’t wash as an excuse for my pitiful performance back then. It’s truly a blessing there were no hidden cameras or recorders in the office back then.

Clients would ask me if the rents in the area would tend to rise during the holding period. And I’d answer yes. The problem? Most folks asking questions want the answer, of course. But what they really want is the ‘why’ or ‘how’ behind your answer. Back then it irritated me no end that they wouldn’t just accept my answer as if I was quoting from the missing third tablet Moses forgot on the mountain. 🙂 I knew the answer. Why couldn’t they just take my word for it? What a moron I was. I could have been more full of myself back then, but I’m not sure how.

That’s about the time I was blessed by the teachings and example of Chuck Chatham. As far as I’m concerned Mr. Chatham was absolutely the best teacher and practitioner of real estate counseling. As the title of his seminar promised, The Art of Real Estate Counseling, (also the title of his book) he was indeed a master artist. One the subjects near and dear to his heart was how we, as professionals, dealt with questions from our clients, or those pondering becoming a client. He was especially sensitive to young upstarts like me and a few others in his seminar one day.

You first have to imagine a smallish older guy with what appears to be several centuries of experience. He literally oozed authority. I remember his face as having an eagle’s beak nose, and a patrician like stare, that when focused on you, was both chilling and assuring at the same time. Figure that one out.

Anyway, he’d been talking with some of us whipper-snappers during breaks, and was not happy at either our attitude or demeanor. Don’t get Read more

April 18, 2007

Ask the Mortgage Broker: How Do I Become A Hard Money Loan Broker

by

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

Author website

Brian Brady of World Wide Credit Corporation will be offering a free conference call and presentation:

“How to be a Hard Money Loan Broker “

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

4:00PM Pacific Daylight Time (7:00 PM EDT)

SIGN UP IN THE COMMENTS SECTION (8 spots available) . Make sure that your e-mail is correct when leaving a reply in the comments section. We will be using Go To Meeting technology. I will e-mail you the conference call phone number and link on Monday evening.
Topics Covered will be:

1- What is “Hard Money” ?

2- Who are these new “hard money lenders” ?

3- What is trust deed broking?

4- How do I find investors for private mortgages?

5- What is a California mortgage pool ?

6- How do I price my loans?

7- How do I market my new private mortgage product line?

April 18, 2007

Casting a wider net: Hungry iPods crave content

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

Russell Shaw held his second Sales Success Seminar last night. For the moment we don’t know if there will be a third. So far, we’re sitting on about seven hours of new audio and perhaps four hours of new video. All of this will be released in bulk, but its primary purpose will be to spark Russell’s creativity in making a series of Q&A podcasts, a sort of Russell Shaw Sales Success FAQ.

This will be organized in FAQ-like form, with an index page of questions, each one linking to the podcast of the answer. You’ll be able to read the index to look for specific questions. Or, if you like, you could just start with the first question and work your way through the training course, one podcast at a time. And, catching the tiger by the long tail, organic searches will lead people who hadn’t even known about the course to particular podcasts.

As Russell mentioned last night, you should email him with any questions you might have. In very short order, he’ll start answering them one by one and we’ll start building the FAQ.

In the mean time: I had email about where to go for more information- and inspiration-rich real estate podcasting content. I confess to ignorance on the subject. Cathy has an iPod, and now Russell has one, but I don’t. I have about 12 days of unique content in iTunes, but it’s all music. I’ve listened to a few real estate podcasts in the iTunes store, but they’ve seemed pretty spammy to me.

So: Tell us where to go for good real estate podcasts, video or audio. If we can unearth some treasures, I’ll build a link page so that others can find them more easily.

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April 18, 2007

JOIN SAM WERCINSKI, THE NEW REAL ESTATE COMMISSIONER, ON THURS., JUNE 21, 2007

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

Regarding the success seminar tonight (Tuesday), it was wonderful to meet Brian Brady in person, and to see Jay Thompson and the other familiar faces (Matthew Hardy & his lovely bride) but a special thanks to Allen Butler and Greg Swann. Also, I need to mention that Greg and his bride, Cathy bought me a wonderful surprise gift – a video ipod. Totally unexpected, and a delightful and much appreciated gesture. (now I can see and hear myself more!:-)

It looks like we now have a direction for the future. I would like to use what we have as a base and in addition get any questions anybody has and respond to them via a direct video recording. We can have the responses indexed via the questions and anyone who wants to hear / see the answer to that question can watch that video. Allan can direct me regarding any needed equipment and Greg now has the web space to host all of this. Feel free to fire away with questions – I won’t
be able to get to all of them at once, but we can get started with the video postings soon.

____

I received the following via email. The panel will most likely consist of me, Jo Ann Calloway, Walt Danley and Mike Mendoza. If you aren’t from the Phoenix area those names might not mean much. If you are – you will recognize each of their names as leaders in the industry. I am really looking forward to meeting the new commissioner, as I have heard only really good things about him. I am posting this now, as I suggest you make your reservation early – this will be standing room only.

___

Hi Russell,

It was a pleasure to speak with you last week about being on our expert panel at the event being hosted to provide Sam Wercinski with a professional forum to explain his future vision of ADRE. As we get closer to the event, the message below will be altered to include the names of Read more

April 16, 2007

Open Letter to Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors Regards RMLS Ruling 13

by

Mega-Producing Realtor

Author website

The following was sent to me by Steve Westmark. He was the very first agent interviewed by Howard Brinton for what is now known as Starpower. He is a very nice man, who spends a great deal of his time (and money) working for Habitat For Humanity. He and the other agents using the term “MLS” in their URL got a very raw deal from the shortsighted people who sit on the Board of Governors for the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors.

___

Open Letter to Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors

Regards RMLS Ruling 13

My name is Steve Westmark, a long-time agent with Counselor Realty and prior to my resignation September 2006 a long-time member of the Board of Governors at the RMLS of MN (the “Board”). Because I am, and have always made my living as a practicing Realtor, I can say that my goal while serving on the board has been to protect the interests of “practicing Realtors” as my 1st priority (not necessarily for brokerage “owners and operators”). In July of 2006 I made a very difficult decision to resign my position on the Board in a last resort protest of Rule 13 because I believe the Rule is not in the best interest of Realtors.

I have spoken with many of you (my fellow members), there seems to be a number of misconceptions for my resigning from the Regional Board of Governors of the RMLS, and the ensuing lawsuit protesting Rule 13. I am writing the open letter in hopes that you will better understand why I believe Rule 13 is a detriment for all Realtors.

My History

I served and was Chairman of the MAAR MLS Committee for nearly a decade. I was involved with the task force to bring the Regional MLS into existence. As a Governor for RMLS I have served on the Technology Sub Committee, Executive Board, been involved with vendor selections, task force for bringing on new executive, but most of all wanting to be a representative for the real estate practitioner whose day-to-day use of the term “MLS” is vital and the main source for information for Read more

April 16, 2007

Zillow.com at the Dawn of the Age of Abundance: Working for free is not a crime, trying to forbid it is . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

I read a lot of science fiction when I was a kid (more INTx evidence). One of my favorite books was Voyage From Yesteryear by James Hogan.The plot turned on the conflict between an economy like ours, based on scarcity and hoarding, and a radically different economy based on abundance and sharing. At the time the book was published, the latter economy would have seemed wildly utopian to a lot of people. But there were others who saw the Singularity on the horizon and understood that Hogan’s vision was one way it might play out, in the near term.

By now, of course, Hogan’s ideas don’t seem very radical at all. There are still a great many economic goods stored behind lock and key. But we are seeing more and more goods, especially intellectual values, delivered at no cost, often with no form of “monetization” at all. I wrote about this in my first BloodhoundBlog post and later in a post about disintermediation in the for-pay information business.

The interesting question I asked then is even more interesting now:

How much future is there in a job that millions of very smart people are willing to do for free?

This is a question that Zillow.com’s new Q&A feature asks, and it’s a question that seems to be uppermost in the minds of members of The Arizona Board of Appraisal.

But here’s an angle that may not have occurred to you: When Zillow.com introduces a potential buyer to a Make Me Move seller, it is engaging in the essential act of real estate brokerage. Why isn’t this “illegal,” much as the Board of Appraisal is attempting to claim that Zillow’s Zestimates are “illegal” appraisals?

The answer: Because Zillow is not accepting or anticipating compensation for engaging in real estate brokerage. The Babbitts who wrote the real estate laws did so in the hope of creating a cartel, with correspondingly higher fees, by forbidding non-licensees from listing and selling real estate for compensation.

This is a criminal conspiracy against the consumer, the use of the coercive power of the state — guns and prisons — to forbid consumers and vendors Read more

April 16, 2007

The Carnival of Real Estate . . .

by

Suburban Phoenix Real Estate Broker

Author website

…is at Renthusiast, in London. The affair takes on an international flair, but, for good or ill, real estate weblogging is still largely an American phenomenon.

Top prize went to China Law Blog for “Real Estate Investments in China Seminar.” BloodhoundBlog scored somewhere in the middle of the pack with Russell Shaw’s presentation at the StarPower Summit.

As a reminder, the Russell Shaw Sales Success Seminar is tomorrow night. If you’re anywhere near Phoenix, this event could have a profound effect on your income.

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April 15, 2007

The Future of Realtor Data Management

by

Realtor, Real Estate Investor

Author website

Following on the heels of Greg’s write-up on web technology for blogging, I thought I’d share with everyone a relatively recent technology discovery of mine…one that is quickly transforming how I as Realtor organize and manage all the information I come across with in my work.

For whatever reason, going to college in Microsoft’s backyard made me very anti-Microsoft. Perhaps in my youthful, idealistic mindset I didn’t like their apparent lack of innovation. Instead, they just bought everyone else’s ideas (think Powerpoint, Hotmail, Frontpage, Visio) or copied the idea and threw a ton of money at it until they overtook their competitor (think IE vs Netscape). This mindset of mine has gradually changed over the years as I realized that’s just what businesses do (why re-invent the wheel) and also Google has shown that a small player can challenge and beat the big MS. But anyway, I was introduced to a relatively new product from Microsoft by a client of mine who works for them: Microsoft Office OneNote. Probably, in the consumer market, the first really innovative product I’ve seen in a long time from MS…and it’s really not all that complicated…just really smart!

MS OneNote

I don’t know how other people manage their data but I’ve been basically using a combination of my computer, a binder, folders and lots of tree-killing paper. I don’t like this system since the data is not centralized anywhere. Some of it is on my computer, some of it is loose sheets in folders or my binder. However, it’s been working for the most part. All of that has changed in the few weeks I’ve been using (or learning to use) OneNote.

Think of OneNote as a spiral-bound, tabbed notebook, where each page is as long and wide as you want and you can have an unlimited number of pages. It’s free-form so there is no set way to organize your tabs or pages. You’re given 3+ layers of organization: Notebooks, Sections and Pages. (I say 3+ because within Sections you can create another layer Read more

April 15, 2007

Designations — Real Education — Marketing — Give Me A Break

by

Real Estate Investments Broker

Author website

I apologize in advance for the War and Peace length of this post. And also to those who, even though my intent is good, will become offended at the thoughts offered. My intention here is to offer real clarification to real estate investors as to what is really required in order to give them advice.

For those who may think I feel threatened by this newly acquired knowledge being acquired by mortgage brokers, think again. Michael Cook is just 26 years old. Most mortgage brokers with this 18 hour designation could study real estate investing for another year and wouldn’t know what Michael has already forgotten. Real estate investment brokers/advisors will more likely be cleaning up the messes made by those who think they’re qualified to give advice in that arena. The other day Brian Brady wrote a thoughtful post on Certified Mortgage Planning Specialist — CMPS. Before I continue what is sure to be a full scale Dennis Miller rant, I want to make two things very clear.

Brian Brady does know about the subjects taught in the 18 hours marathon of education they offer. He spent six years on Wall Street before entering the lending industry. You can’t fake it through six years — at least not on that street. 🙂 In fact, it’s my contention Brian could teach most if not all the 18 hours offered in return for this new designation.

Though I don’t take the designation seriously, I certainly don’t extend that opinion to the folks who earn it. They mean well. Brian had it right when he said there are many pros for whom he holds respect and admiration who either already have a CMPS or are headed that way.

Speaking only for myself, it boggles the mind how these folks think they can hand out real estate investment advice with 18 hours of education. That couldn’t possibly make them qualified to even be my assistant.

Is that too harsh? Too bad.

Here are just three of the subjects on which they will be advising their borrowers:

  • Real Estate Equity Management
  • Real Estate Investment Planning
  • Real Estate Taxation Concepts

There are more. And the 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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