via youtube.com
Make money over the phone!
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Monday, July 26, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
12 Years of Business Lessons in 12 Minutes (OK more like 5 mins)
12 Years of Business Lessons in 12 Minutes (OK more like 5 mins)
Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur.
Once a marketer, always a marketer.
Looking back, in not only my own life but in the lives of almost every other entrepreneur I am privileged to meet, there is a common thread that connects us all – and you know what that is? Its the reoccurring story of how they where “that kid” that always had a knack for how people work and how to get the resources they needed for the projects they were determined to complete – often with the dismay of hard-working parents that firmly believed they should sit down, sit still, and do there math homework assignment.
If your grinning in remembrance of how “you showed them”
than please accept my virtual high-five and bright grin back.
Here are 2 classic ways “we showed ‘em” Back to memory lane – eh.
1. Approximate age em 3-6 years old. You figured today is a holiday and its hot, really hot. What do my friends and I always want when its hot? – I know an icey cool drink. AH HA, smart mini-entrepreneur munchkin to the rescue. You round up the other neighborhood kids during the smothering 4th of July parade, shack up a 10 cent per cup lemonade stand with a crooked sign and watered down pixie drinks from the 4 hour old ice cubes that melted. Biz Stats — 500 visitors, 350 no’s 150 yeses = $15 richer.
2. Approximate age em 7-12 years old. You figured out that Mr. Thomson is occupied 10+ hours a day soooo he doesn’t have time and he is a frugal saver (tight wad that uses his coffee filters twice) soooo he doesn’t like to spend a lot of money. AH HA, smart mini-entrepreneur kid to the rescue, a few supplies wrangled up, walking your stubby legs up to 20 different homes on 5 Cul-de-sacs with the same pitch “hi ah ma’am/sir I got some paint brushes and paint and I can fix up your door for just $20 in 15 minutes, whadda ya say?” Biz Stats — 20 houses, 15 no’s, 5 yeses = $100 richer.
For me…
My entrepreneurial journey began at the age of 11 creating the flyer “jobs, jobs, jobs” What was your story (tell me in the comments below)
The 12 Lessons you’ve been waiting for…. drum roll, please
- Your first business most likely won’t be the one that you “hit it big with” – try business shot number 3rd,4th,5th or even 10th
- You can be a “successful” business person before you personally have a check written to your name for your first 20K month
- Relationships * TRUMP * tricks and tools any day
- There ain’t no – Automated – money system that you pay for and money comes popping out. But, there is a thing called effort = results aka do the work
- You don’t give yourself enough credit – your your biggest critic
- Ugly, tacky, messy, and “unprofessional” direct response marketing kicks pretty, shiny, and perfectly designed marketings ass all day long
- You are NOT your customer… and yet you ARE your customer
- Better to admit your “I suck at” points than to pretend you know it all
- Never let “bad” grades, low test scores and lack of Bachelors diploma keep you from your deserved wealth and big dreams
- Your Story sells yet don’t BE your story
- The whole over-promising strategy to get more customers and sales ONLY works in the short term, and sabotages you in the long term
- There is no easy way, your not going to find a one-quick fix magic pill, (and honestly would you really want something that easy – we grow the most when we are OUT of our comfort zone aka when we are challenged as hell)
Aloha all. I love and respect all my fellow entrepreneurs!
via kdchurchill.com
This article kicks ass...
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Borrowers Suffer From the Tyranny of the Credit Score - NYTimes.com
Credit Score Is the Tyrant in Lending
By JOE NOCERA
The other day, a mortgage broker named Deb Killian called me, more or less out of the blue. Ms. Killian has been in the business since 1994. She and her husband run Charter Oak Lending Group, a small firm based in Danbury, Conn., that they founded in 1996. She is a member of the board of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers. By her estimate, she has closed more than 3,500 loans during her career.
Ms. Killian was calling because she was upset about one element of the mortgage underwriting process that, in her opinion, had gotten completely out of hand. That element was the borrower’s FICO score — in other words, his or her credit score.
Essentially, she says, a person’s credit score has become the only thing that matters anymore to the banks and other institutions that underwrite mortgages. Yes, the banks all mouth pieties about how credit scores are just one of many factors that go into their underwriting decisions. But every day she receives notices from banks and other lenders showing just the opposite: as they fiddle with the terms for one or another of their loan products (something they do constantly, by the way), invariably, the credit score is the dominant — and sometimes the only — criterion mentioned. Most of the time, needless to say, the minimum credit score needed to get the mortgages has been increased.
To make matters worse, she says, clients are having a difficult time just maintaining their current credit scores — even when they have done nothing to merit a downgrade.
“This is the example that drove me over the edge,” she said.
A woman seeking a mortgage had a credit card with a $3,000 limit. She had $1,500 worth of debt on the card, which meant, in industry jargon, that she had a 50 percent debt utilization. The client had moved the balance to a different bank, and that bank immediately lowered her credit limit to the amount she had borrowed: $1,500. Without taking on an additional penny of debt, the woman’s debt utilization had suddenly jumped to 100 percent.
Which, as Ms. Killian knew only too well, the FICO algorithm frowns on. Once that information made its way to the credit bureaus, the woman’s credit score dropped. And because it had, the interest rate on the mortgage she hoped to get increased. Ms. Killian had a hundred stories like that.
Yes, she told me, she knew that underwriting standards had been way too lax during the bubble. But to her mind, the mortgage lenders had swung too far in the other direction, depriving perfectly creditworthy borrowers of the chance to get a mortgage at a reasonable rate. “If the loan criteria says you need to have a 700 credit score, and you have a 699, you don’t get the loan,” she said. “It makes me nuts.”
Was I interested, she asked me finally, in writing a column about this problem?
I most certainly was.
•
“Mortgage brokers,” said Craig Watts, the head of communications at FICO, with a tone of bemused exasperation. “Some of them are kind of cranky these days.”
The mortgage brokers, he went on to say, were seeing things only from their own narrow perspective — the perspective of someone who wouldn’t get a commission if their clients couldn’t get a mortgage. Thankfully, from his spot high on the mountaintop in FICO-land, Mr. Watts could give me a broader, more sophisticated take on the topic. Thank goodness for that.
A FICO score, he patiently explained, is merely a tool that lenders use to help manage their risk; criticizing it is akin to criticizing “a saw because the construction job turned out badly.” With big banks making thousands of credit decisions every day, they couldn’t possible do it without some standardized benchmark; a credit score provided that benchmark. Over the years, he added, the algorithm had gotten very good at predicting the odds of a borrower defaulting.
In fact, FICO scores are not the best predictor. The amount of equity a person has in his home, his debt-to-income ratio, his job stability and his cash reserves are all better predictors than credit scores, according to Dave Zitting, the chief executive of Primary Residential Mortgage, a leading mortgage lender. And yet, he said, “The credit score has become the line in the sand for the banks.”
It is easy enough to understand why, I suppose. During the bubble, Wall Street used credit scores to decide which subprime loans it would buy and securitize. The lower the credit score, the better, because Wall Street needed risky loans to generate yields that would entice investors. They pushed lenders to make loans to people with low credit scores, which became shorthand for risky loans.
In the aftermath of the bubble, credit scores have remained shorthand for a borrower’s creditworthiness — except that now borrowers need to have high credit scores instead of low ones. And yet, credit scores are no more accurate than any other risk model. There are people with low credit scores who are quite creditworthy. There are people with high scores who aren’t. Treating credit scores as if they were infallible — which is what the banking industry is now doing — is beyond foolish. It is hurting the recovery.
The two most important credit score hard-liners are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which of course are currently wholly owned subsidiaries of the federal government. Because Fannie and Freddie are practically the only entities willing to buy and securitize mortgages, they have enormous clout; most lenders simply won’t make a loan if Fannie or Freddie won’t buy it. Their bottom line number is 620 — the company will buy mortgages only if the borrower has a credit score of 620 or above. Which means, given the current state of the mortgage market, that anyone with a score below 620 can’t get a mortgage. Even if that score is 619.
But the difference between a 620 score and a 619 is utterly meaningless. The credit scoring industry likes to make it sound as if their results are scientific; they’re anything but. It is not FICO that comes up with a borrower’s score — it just sells the algorithms. The companies that do are the big three credit bureaus, TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. They gather input about the prospective borrower’s lending history from various lenders like credit card companies and auto dealers, plug them into a formula and derive a credit score.
You would think, given the critical importance of an accurate score, that there would be rules about the information that is submitted to them. There aren’t. Lenders can submit information about your credit history to one of the bureaus, all of them or none of them. Some of them turn over information right away; some take months; some don’t do it at all. Some are sticklers for accuracy; others are sloppy. The point is that the credit score is derived after an information-gathering process that is anything but rigorous.
Or, rather, I should say, the three different numbers that are derived. Almost always there is a difference — sometimes a big difference — in the credit scores generated by the three bureaus. (Which, when you think about it, is another indicator of how haphazard the process is.) What happens then? I found a Web site called lendingart.com, which listed every big mortgage lender’s credit score requirements. The lenders all said that if two credit scores differed, they took the lower score; if there were three credit scores, they took the one on the middle. CitiMorgage, in its description, said that if a borrower had one score of 691 and another of zero, zero was the operative score.
Let’s go back again to that borrower trying to qualify for a loan that conforms to Fannie Mae’s criteria. Suppose one credit bureau has given him a score of 625 — which means he qualifies — and another gives him a score of 618, meaning he doesn’t. Then he doesn’t get the loan. Can someone explain how that constitutes sound underwriting?
And that doesn’t even get into the question of whether the prospective borrower is someone who once had credit problems and has now cleaned up his act — and his score is improving — or someone whose credit is in decline. The credit bureaus are incapable of tricking out that kind of nuance. Actually, they don’t really care. Nor do they take into account examples like the one Ms. Killian mentioned, where people’s credit scores are being hurt by credit card companies that are cutting back their credit limits.
And finally, they don’t take into account the many, many mistakes that are found in credit reports. My own credit reports, which I looked up for this column, are a case in point. Although my score was O.K. — the low 700s — the reports themselves were full of unpleasant surprises. They listed credit card accounts I didn’t have, and failed to list at least one big one that I did have. Two of them noted that five years ago, I was late on a car payment. (I was?) My daughter’s old Brooklyn address was listed as my former address. According to Experian, I was still writing for Fortune magazine. It said I no longer lived in a house that I just bought two months ago. TransUnion, meanwhile, listed The New York Times as my former employer. Currently, TransUnion said, I am an employee of Rite Aid.
Rite Aid? I know, I know — it is supposed to be up to me to catch their mistakes (which is also why they don’t have to care about the mistakes.) But what I find incredible is that we have imbued credit scores with these magical predictive powers — and yet the companies coming up with the scores can’t even get the borrower’s address and employer right. It would be funny if it didn’t matter so much.
This was the week, of course, that President Obama signed the financial reform bill into law, which calls for the establishment of a new consumer financial protection agency. The credit scoring business would certainly seem to be a worthy area for the new agency to dive into.
Wouldn’t you agree, Professor Warren?
via nytimes.com
Really good article here!
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Forbes.com - Magazine Article
Grand New Party
Will Your Children Grow Up To Be Servants And Nannies?
07.23.10, 6:00 AM ETWill large numbers of today's children grow up to become servants and nannies in the homes of the digital bourgeoisie? There is good reason to believe that the answer is yes.
The most pressing issue of the day remains sky-high unemployment. There is, however, almost no consensus about how to think about the the depth of the problems facing the U.S. labor market. Many believe that the staggering unemployment rate is purely cyclical. Karl Smith, an economist at the UNC School of Government, has written a post on "the myth of structural unemployment," arguing that "the structure of the American economy hasn't changed that much in the last 24 months."
Yet one wonders if the last 24 months are the right place to look. In Wired for Innovation, MIT economist Erik Brynjolffson and Adam Saunders of Wharton offer an insightful portrait of how the U.S. economy has evolved over the last decade. Their analysis strongly suggests that the shift toward a more IT-intensive economy will lead to even more polarization of the U.S. labor market. Brynjolffson has dubbed the "Great Recession" a "Great Restructuring," adding gravitas to arguments advanced by thinkers like Jeff Jarvis and Richard Florida who've argued in a similar vein. "As growth resumes," Brynjolffson writes, "millions of people will find that their old jobs are gone forever."
via forbes.com
Yikes!!!
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Friday, July 23, 2010
6 Steps to Generating Free Leads on Craigslist | RISMedia
6 Steps to Generating Free Leads on Craigslist
RISMEDIA, September 25, 2009—After years of trial and error using Craigslist, I finally created a system for consistently generating quality leads for my business and I’ve decided to share the steps in this article.
Step 1: Create An Account
This is the easiest step by far, but is critical to getting the best results and to track your results as well. All you need to do is go to Craigslist.com and click on the login button, then on the next page if you don’t already have an account, you’ll click on the area that says “Don’t already have an account”. You just fill in your information, name and email, and you’ll be sent an email to confirm. Once you receive the email, click on the link in there and voila- you have an account you can start to use.Step 2: Pick Your Campaign
Here is what I mean by picking a campaign. If you are going to generate leads on Craigslist, you need to do it with a purpose. You need to choose the kinds of leads that you are looking to work with. Here are some ideas: foreclosure buyers, lease option buyers, apartment building buyers, luxury home buyers, first-time home buyers, buyers in a particular school district- you get the idea.Step 3: Create Your Campaign
This step can be a little time consuming (really only 30-60 minutes), but the good thing is once you are done it’s done for good. You may want to go back from time to time and tweak, but most of the work is complete. Here is how to create a campaign for Craigslist lead generation. Once you have picked your campaign, you then need to create several different ads to post and generate traffic. Craigslist doesn’t allow you to post the same ad over and over, so you’ll need several different posting titles and posting descriptions (you’ll also want variations for the location and price boxes as well). By creating different titles and posts, it allows you post frequently, which allows you to consistently drive traffic to your landing page or squeeze page (never send the traffic to your main Web page) or to e-mail or call you.Step 4: Implementation – Posting Your Ads
Here is where the rubber meets the road. Now that you have your campaigns created you need to start posting. I recommend to post twice daily during the week and at least once a day on the weekends. You will want to be posting when there is a lot of traffic to Craigslist because the longer your ad is up, the farther down the page it goes. So you probably don’t want to post at 5 in the morning as it’s not likely that many home buyers are surfing Craigslist at that time. Now it is critical to be consistent posting your ads. This literally takes just a couple minutes a day, but it will become one of those things that after some time becomes a bore to do. If you really can’t stay diligent with it, have your assistant (if you have one) do them for you or you could even hire one of your kids to do it as well. I know I am stating the obvious here, but if you don’t post, you won’t get leads, so make sure you stay consistent.Step 5: Follow Up
Here is where it starts to get exciting. Depending on the information you collect from the leads you may be able to follow up in several ways. If you are just collecting name and e-mail, obviously that means your only form of follow up will be through e-mail. If you are collecting phone numbers, which I would recommend, then you can make outbound phone calls. If you are able to collect full contact information including address, I would highly recommend sending a sales piece, ideally a sales letter enticing them to work with you as a client. Your follow up must also be consistent and scripted. If you are offering a free list of homes, whether they be fixer upper or foreclosures etc, make sure you are regularly sending out the list. For example, in my business I send my free lists to my leads every Thursday morning. This does several things- keeps me on a schedule and creates an expectation from the buyers that they’ll be getting their new list each Thursday. In order to get maximum response from your list, you need to make different offers to them. Here are some ideas for offers you can be making to get them to raise their hand to work with you: teleseminars, homes tours, group open houses, live seminars, etc.Step 6: Track & Improve
The last step is the least glamorous, but might be the most important of all. You need to be tracking your ads and results from the start. If you don’t track, you’ll have no idea what’s working and what isn’t. Here are some of the things you need to track- which ads are getting the most response, how well your landing page is converting, how many leads you are getting daily, how many leads turn to clients, how many leads open your emails, and much more. Now this part of the business isn’t much fun, but you can only improve what you track and if you aren’t tracking this information you have no way of improving your results.Josh Schoenly has literally cracked the code to lead generation on Craigslist. Over the last 3+ years he has generated over 7,000 leads using his own system. For a limited time you can download Josh’s Craigslist Marketing “Cheat Sheet” and accompanying 30 minute video explaining his system at www.CraigslistMarketingMatrix.com.
For more real estate tips and topics on RISMedia.com, be sure to see:
Is the Real Estate Bear Market Beginning to Bottom Out?
Homebuyers Gain Edge with Internet Searches
via rismedia.com
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Mortgages - Changes in Mobile-Home Lending - NYTimes.com
Mortgages
Changes in Mobile-Home Lending
The New York TimesMOBILE homes may not be a staple of the New York City housing market, but nationally last year they made up nearly a quarter of all new homes sold for less than $200,000, according to an industry trade group, making them an important component of the affordable-housing sector.
Many of these homes have features similar to those found in site-built conventional houses, like natural wood finishes, eat-in kitchens and even skylights. But financing a mobile home is often far from conventional.
There are two types of loan available to borrowers. For those who do not secure the loan with land (perhaps because they are leasing a spot in a mobile home park), the most common is a personal property, or “chattel,” loan. These represent at least 60 percent of the lending activity for this housing category, according to Thayer Long, the executive director of the Manufactured Housing Institute, in Arlington, Va.
Borrowers who own the underlying land have the option of taking out a conventional mortgage, though lenders will often charge fees that can add as much as three-quarters of a percentage point to the interest rate. The fees are passed down by the lenders from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which buy the loans and typically regard these borrowers as riskier than conventional borrowers, even when their credit profiles are otherwise identical.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-controlled companies that set lending guidelines, do not buy chattel loans, which means that few lenders now make these loans. But changes last month in lending rules by the Federal Housing Administration, which insures mortgages, are expected to widen the range of lenders who can offer chattel loans.
The F.H.A. said it would insure 90 percent of the lender’s losses on each loan, thereby making it less likely that lenders will lose money on loans for mobile homes. The agency also raised the maximum chattel loan amounts that it will insure to nearly $70,000 from $48,600, and a combination loan on the home and the land to $92,900 from $64,800.
“These changes should help to open up the market,” for low- to moderate-income buyers, said Lemar Wooley, an F.H.A. spokesman. He noted that the last time the agency changed lending limits for the manufactured-housing category was in 1992.
Don Glisson Jr., the chief executive of Triad Financial Services of Jacksonville, Fla., which makes loans to owners of manufactured homes, agreed that the F.H.A.’s policy shift would help more people qualify for financing.
“It will allow us to make loans we wouldn’t make before, especially to customers who were borderline,” Mr. Glisson said, referring to borrowers with weaker credit. “With F.H.A. insuring 90 percent of the loan, it’ll entice us to make that loan.”
Mr. Glisson, whose company lends to mobile-homeowners in most of the nation, including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, said a typical customer paid about $60,000 for a home and made a down payment of 17 percent. He added that although many of his clients owned the land beneath the home, for various reasons they often chose not to mortgage it.
IN recent years, interest rates for chattel loans fluctuated from 7 to 10 percent, Mr. Glisson said. Late last month rates reached the bottom of that range for borrowers with credit scores of at least 750 and down payments of at least 20 percent. The maximum term length for a chattel loan is 25 years.
Borrowers can secure loans with down payments of 5 percent and credit scores of 660, but their rates tend to be at least one percentage point higher.
“We don’t see a whole lot of business in Connecticut,” Mr. Glisson said, “but New Jersey is pretty good. New York is good too, as long as you get outside Manhattan.”
via nytimes.com
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Landlord Lessons: Besides The Money… THIS Is Why I Wholesale. | The Millionaires Blog Wholesaling Guide
Landlord Lessons: Besides The Money… THIS Is Why I Wholesale.
Posted by ericmedem | Posted in Wholesaling Real Estate | Posted on -05-2008
0
I thought I might share some lessons and observations that I have made while being a landlord…
I swear on at least 2 of my Tenants graves… EVERYONE of these things really did happen… and by the way, shame on you for thinking the only reason I stuck with wholesaling was I wanted easy money…This is the real reason
1. If someone gets shot in your house, regular carpet cleaner (Resolve) does not work to remove the nasty stuff that comes out when you get shot. And, even crackheads will puke when they smell it.
2. Normal people do not want to live in a house where the neighbors have spray painted R.I.P James Smith on the side walk. One of my houses did.
3. If a tenant calls and begins the conversation with “I have always liked you”, or ” I hope your having a blessed day” it really means “I do not intend on paying rent this month”
4. When a prospective tenant says “I live with my grandmother, or any other relative” they are actually saying “There is not a chance in Hell I’ve ever had a landlord that would recommend you let me move in”
5. If a tenant offers to paint a rental unit for their security deposit, and they say they are good painters. It really means that they are experts at painting tile, wood floors, and windows, but your walls may not turn out very good. Do they make a 2000 sqft tarp?
6. When a tenant says that they “Don’t do drugs” they really mean “I don’t do certain drugs”. I ask “Do you do drugs?” they say to me “No I hate drugs”, they actually mean, “I hate crack, but weed and vicodin are staples in my life”
7. If your ceiling is torn down in one of your rental properties and the tenant tries to convince you that “It just Fell”, what they really mean is “There was a drug bust here, and we were growing weed in the cieling”… “there’s no way that’s coming out of my deposit” they say
8. Somehow the postal system is being very discriminate, only my tenants. This is an actual quote “Eric, I know this is the third month in a row that my social security check has not shown up on time, but the postmaster said “He fixed it”.
9. Do not call a heating and cooling guy when a tenant calls and says “My furnace isnt working” because what they really mean is “I have the heat set at 90 and its 95 in here, so my furnace isnt coming on”.
10. This is just a suspicion, but I think tenants are in cahoots with the gas companies, because I have walked into units where the landlord is paying the heat and I swear you could cook an egg on top of their big screen TV, and they have all the windows open in the middle of winter. When asked why the windows were open, and the furnace was on and they replied “The heats Free”. Almost as if the gas company gives them a dollar for every dollar they waste on gas.
11. A house, is just not a house, until it has what I call the “Ghetto stamp of approval”, this is when I install new carpet and within 30 minutes of moving in, the tenant has burned the outline of the iron into the carpet in at least 6 spots. What are they doing ironing anyway? Unless they need to wear a suit and tie to the Department of human services. It sounds cruel but out of 30 units not even ONE had a regular job.
12. I have found this very interesting, I live in a nice neighborhood with very nice homes, and many of my neighbors work 60+ hrs a week, and they have yards that look like the ninth whole at a golf course, and they maintain it themselves. Many of my tenants on the other hand, work 2 hours a week depending on the length of unemployment line, so one might deduce that their yard would be drop dead gorgeous, because they have so much time to work in it. This is not the case however, I can see missing a Twinky wrapper when you get out of your car, but how in the heck do you accidentally leave a couch in the front yard.
13. It is possible to mow a lawn, with a push mower in one had and a 40 oz of Colt 45 in the other. I was extremely pleased to discover this because I have been mowing my lawn for years and was always stuck wearing a beer helmet.
These are the reasons I teach Real Estate Wholesaling… and NOT land lording.
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like quick cash, with zero risk and no hassles.
Has so much more appeal than LOSING cash, SPENDING Cash, LOSING your a$$, all for Endless hassle…
But like I said, maybe the easy routes just what I prefer.
Nice article!
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Three Powerful Principles for Success By: Brian Tracy
Be Clear About Your Goals
There are many simi larities between business and war. In both cases, the victor is the one who uses superior strategy against his or her competition. There are three principles of military strategy you can apply to your work every single day. The first idea from the military is called the Principle of Man euver. The principle of man euver says that you should be clear about the goal, but be flexible about the process of ach ieving it. According to the Menninger Institute, this quality of flexibility is the most important single quality that you will require for success in times of rap id change. Be Open to Continuous Feedback
A key peak performance quality for you is to "accept feedback and self-correct." Peak performers are those who can take information from their environment and even if the information is contrary to all of their planning, they can accept the information, modify their plans, and continue moving forward. They are always open to new ideas and insights. Learn What You Need to Know
The second military principle you can use is the Principle of Intelligence. This principle of intelligence means simply, "get the facts!" The most important thing in business decision making is for you to get accurate information. Facts don't lie. It is important that you get the real facts, not the assumed facts or the apparent facts or the obvious facts, or the hoped for facts, but the real, provable facts.
| "10 Universal Principals for Personal Success and Empowerment!" With this program, you'll be able to make your plan of action...and have everything you need to stick to it until all your goals are accomplished! The Psychology of Success will inspire you to take a look at your work and life habits, and then motivate you to change them for the better.Learn more here >> |
Make Better Decisions
Perhaps the key job of the executive is decision making. The quality of the decisions that you make will be in direct proportion to the amount of time that you take to gather timely and accurate information. The very best thing that you can do, if you have insufficient information, is to delay making a decision at all. Invest Your Resources Wisely
The third military principle applied to strategic planning is the Principle of Economy of Force. Economy of force means that you expend only the resources necessary to achieve the objective and not more. It also means that you commit sufficient resources to achieve the objective once you have decided upon it. Since your own personal en ergy is all you really have to invest over the course of your lif etime, the military principle of economy says that you should be very selfish when deciding how you are going to use your self. Keep asking your self, "How important is this?" and more important, "How important is this to me?" Action Ex ercises
Here are two ideas that you can apply immediately to be more strategic in your work and personal life. First, remain flexible when you are working towards your goal. In times of rap id change, all of your best ideas can be contradicted by new information. Be willing to try different things. Be open to new inputs and ideas. Second, get the facts! The more and better information you can acquire before you make a decision, the better your decision will be. The very best managers spend a good amount of time getting the real, provable facts before they take action.
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Pregnancy Could Derail Your Home Loan Application | Bryan Ellis Real Estate Letter
Pregnancy Could Derail Your Home Loan Application
If your wife or significant other is pregnant, then you might want to leave her at home when you go to speak to the bank about a loan. Mortgage companies are looking askance at expecting couples as a higher risk for default since their income will likely temporarily fall while one or both parents take leave to care for the infant. In fact, some lenders are balking on loans even if the parents plan to return to work just a few weeks following the birth, reports the New York Times[1].
One mortgage broker explains that a pregnancy calls otherwise “guaranteed” income into question, since the economy is already uncertain and leaving a job, even temporarily, could mean that there is no employment to return to later, should complications arise. This means that if you are expecting and will actually be on maternity or paternity leave when you close, then you may need to look for homes you can afford on one salary since many lenders are rechecking loans right before the loan closes, and this includes calling employers to verify employment. Even mothers who receive disability or paid maternity leave may find their ability to pay a loan called into question, and closing may be delayed while the parent or parents reapply for a new loan under their new – however temporary – circumstances.
See More via realestate.bryanellis.com
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Pricing your home to sell in today's market Amy Hoak's Home Economics - MarketWatch
Pricing your home to sell in today's market
Brace yourself for the brutal truth of home values in a post-tax-credit market
Alert Email Print #var paragraph = content as Paragraph; #var textChunk = chunk as TextChunk; #// #// -->By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- With no federal tax credit to entice buyers, today's home sellers have to get even more serious about making a deal.
That means pricing aggressively -- low enough to compete with foreclosures in some markets. It's a conversation that stings, said Summer Greene, a real-estate agent for a Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate brokerage office in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
"It's like telling them that their children are ugly," she said.
via marketwatch.com
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
MarketWatch.com
via marketwatch.com
Nice video on the status of the housing market...
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
You Don't Have To Move Your Money Offshore To Get Asset Protection - Forbes.com
International Investing
You Don't Have To Move Your Money Offshore To Get Asset Protection
Ashlea Ebeling, 07.21.10, 06:00 PM EDT
Forbes Magazine dated August 09, 2010If you're aiming to stiff creditors, litigants or an ex-spouse, should you hide your money in Nevis or Nevada?
Forget about hiding money offshore from the Internal Revenue Service--unless you want to risk the penalties, back tax bills and threat of prosecution that thousands of American clients of ubs now face. But what about protecting your cash from vexatious litigants, a grasping ex-spouse or pesky creditors? Then offshore trusts are still an option, but a far less attractive one now that legal reporting requirements for offshore holdings have become more onerous and some U.S. judges have taken to jailing folks who won't (or can't) turn over offshore assets.
via forbes.com
The Wife? Really? lol
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Using An IRA To Save Your House
Using An IRA To Save Your House
Many people have money set aside that can help them buy a home or save their home – in a spot they don’t think they can access easily.
When times get tough, many people will drain their savings accounts and checking accounts of their savings – but I don’t hear very many people asking me about the right way to utilize their individual retirement account to combat a financial crisis.
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) Outline
Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) Outline
Photo by Michael Mulligan
Below I have reproduced an outline done by my colleague, O. Max Gardner, on the Home Affordable Modification Program. As usual, Max has done a great job at distilling important information. I hope you find it useful.
The HAMP and HARP Programs
O. Max Gardner III
PO Box 1000
Shelby NC 28150
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Pricing your home to sell in today's market - MarketWatch
Amy Hoak's Home Economics
July 19, 2010, 12:30 a.m. EDT
Pricing your home to sell in today's market
Brace yourself for the brutal truth of home values in a post-tax-credit market
#var paragraph = content as Paragraph; #var textChunk = chunk as TextChunk; #// #// -->By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch
CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- With no federal tax credit to entice buyers, today's home sellers have to get even more serious about making a deal.
That means pricing aggressively -- low enough to compete with foreclosures in some markets. It's a conversation that stings, said Summer Greene, a real-estate agent for a Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate brokerage office in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
"It's like telling them that their children are ugly," she said.
86812
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See the entire MarketWatch Guide to Real Estate
Many people with homes on the market already are slashing prices to catch buyers' attention. Twenty-four percent of listings on the market as of July 1 had gone through at least one price reduction -- that's a 9% increase from the previous month, according to the most recent data from Trulia.com, a real-estate listings site.
Price cuts are more prevalent in some markets than others, and the average size of the cut varies, too. In Minneapolis, for example, 40% of the listings had at least one reduction and the average reduction was 9% of the listing price. In Las Vegas, 12% of the homes had price cuts, but the reductions averaged 15% off the listing price.
Reducing their price is one way sellers are trying to weather the "tax-credit hangover" that the country is currently in, said Tara Nelson, consumer educator for Trulia.com. Slashing the price is the one thing a seller can do these days to attract attention.
"There's just not a whole lot of incentive right now for buyers to urgently buy," Nelson said. Mortgage rates have been relatively low for a while so buyers aren't concerned they'll miss that window, and inventory has been creeping up since April, she said. To be eligible for the home-buyer tax credit, buyers needed to have a contract on a house by April 30.
The Mortgage Bankers Association said the volume of mortgage applications to purchase a home during the week ending July 9 was its lowest since December 1996 -- despite mortgage rates that are near record lows. See story about mortgage applications hitting a 14-year low.
Wait it out
If clients don't "really, really have to sell," Greene said she often advises them to hold off. "If they can wait it out, we're counseling them to do so, unless they have a lot of equity in the house," she said.
"If it's worth 3% to 5% to wait and they don't have a compelling reason to move," the best choice could be to batten down the hatches until next year, she said.
For some sellers at or near a negative equity situation -- owing more on their home than it's currently worth -- it's possible that modest appreciation could mean the difference between a traditional sale and a short sale, which would do some damage to the seller's credit rating. In a short sale, the lender agrees to accept less for the property than the borrower owes on the mortgage.
But for any home seller, the decision of when to sell depends largely on the local market.
"There are markets still declining -- in Florida, for example -- and some that are already growing -- in California, for example," said Mark Fleming chief economist for CoreLogic, in an email.
Home-price appreciation stabilized while the tax credit was in effect, but tepid labor-market and income growth will cause prices to moderate and possibly decline for the rest of 2010, Fleming said in a recent press release.
Nationwide, prices should continue to fall until early next year, with a bottom expected in the spring, according to Moody's Analytics. From the first quarter of 2010 to the first quarter of 2011, prices are expected to drop 5%, said Celia Chen, senior director of housing economics for Moody's Analytics.
Weak price appreciation should follow, she said. From the end of 2010 to the end of 2011, homes are expected to appreciate at a level below 1%; from the end of 2011 to the end of 2012, they'll appreciate by about 4%, she said. Foreclosures and short sales are expected to put pressure on home prices for the next couple of years, keeping them from rising as quickly as they otherwise might, Chen said.
"It's not going to make that much difference if you wait a year to sell a house," at least from a price perspective, Chen said, since you might not be able to sell for that much more than in today's market.
But what could change in a year is demand for homes and your ability to find a buyer -- and to do so more quickly. There may be more house hunters then who will chip away at the large amount of inventory, she said.
"The main constraints are weakness in the job market and the demand for homes," Chen said. "We expect [the job market] to improve over the next year. As it gains traction, we will see more job growth and that will benefit housing demand."
Cutting your losses
If you're sick of the waiting game and wanted to move yesterday, price your home right from the beginning. If it's low enough, it should attract multiple bidders and you might even get more than you're asking for, Greene said.
"I do what the banks are doing with foreclosures right now: Price aggressively and get multiple offers," Greene said.
Don't be afraid to reduce the price if you're not getting any nibbles. If the home hasn't been shown a lot or is on the market longer than average -- or if you're getting feedback that your home is overpriced -- think about cutting the price. If and when you cut, make it count, Nelson said.
"Small, penny-ante, minimal reductions -- $1,000 here, $2,000 there -- unless that is a large percentage of your asking price, they almost signal unreasonableness," Nelson said. Unless it's a sizable drop, potential buyers might sit and wait for the next drop, she said.
Also, if a price reduction brings your asking price within a certain search parameter -- say, from above $250,000 to just below $250,000 -- that can help, she said. "That does actually open up new audiences for a home... if you can cut it below the next search parameter cutoff," Nelson said.
And remember: If you're selling a home to buy a new one, you'll likely get a good price on that new abode. Because the person you're buying that home from likely will be going through the same wrenching, price-dropping experience you are
via marketwatch.com
Seller Financing to the rescue?
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Class action suit filed against Bank of America for abuse
Class action suit filed against Bank of America for abuse
Here at AG, we’ve written about how Bank of America has foreclosed on homes by continuing the foreclosure process even after the home was successfully sold to a new buyer who didn’t even have a loan through Bank of America and we’ve covered how they have foreclosed on addresses they never even had a loan on despite dispute and direct correspondence.
AG columnist, Russell Shaw has remained our most vocal advocate for homeowners and agents having to battle Bank of America. His “Bank of America retard division for short sales” article that outlines the unfair, irrational and possibly illegal behavior of Bank of America remains one of the most read articles here at AG on most days, almost a year after it was originally published.
In steps the Texans
We’ve awaited the day that someone stood up to the documented abuses in a fashion that would impact Bank of America’s bottom line, and today, a group of homeowners are no longer taking it lying down. In true Texas fashion, a class action complaint was just filed and a jury trial has been demanded. Today,
the Texas Housing Justice League joins the 15 homeowners in the suit against Bank of America and its subsidiary BAC Home Loans Servicing.Interestingly, the claim is using RESPA (Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act) as grounds for the complaint. The other eight claims are as listed below:
- Count Two: Breach of Contract – Loan Modification Agreement
- Count Three: Breach of Contract – Forbearance Agreement
- Count Four: Breach of Contract-Promissory Note and Deed of Trust
- Count Five: Violation of the Texas Property Code
- Count Six: Breach of Oral Contract-HAMP Trial Modification
- Count Seven: Unreasonable Collection Efforts
- Count Eight: Intentional Misrepresentation
- Count Nine: Texas Debt Collection Act
About the plaintiffs:
According to the Texas Housing Justice League, “Plaintiffs are and represent people who purchased their first homes between 1994 and 2006, usually with loan assistance from the Federal Housing Administration and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Their loans were all serviced by Defendant BAC, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Defendant Bank of America, N.A.”
They continue, by noting that “The lawsuit complains not of poor customer service by BAC, but of a systematic home loan servicing scheme that includes hours of telephone runaround, misleading and inconsistent information, lost correspondence, verbal abuse, and extensive delay, all of which have documented costs not only in terms of money, but in health. The facts in this case reveal the harsh reality that underlies the loan servicer’s press statements about loan modifications and forbearance agreements following collapse of the U.S. housing market.”
A suitable summary of the suit:
Denver Realtor, Kristal Kraft says, “In the interest of time, I will now use only the keywords describing the gripes against Bank of America as accused by the Texas Homeowners.
‘Scheme, misleading, inconsistent, lost correspondence, verbal abuse, extensive delay, money, health, harsh, shuffled, no resolution, dysfunctional, barrage of misinformation, misdirection, deliberate inactivity, abuse, harassment, yo-yo. blocked at every turn, labyrinth of transfers, hundreds of hours on the telephone, transferred, never speak to same person again, contradictions, complaints meet with resistance, no supervisors available, unaccountable departments, asked to sign same documents three, four or even five times, negotiators who would not return telephone calls, not isolated incidents, pattern and practice by Bank of America.’”
What will happen next?
One of the Plaintiff’s lawyers, Robert Doggett said on ForeclosureBuzz.com, “It would be hard to imagine that Bank of America and BAC will fight the facts of the case; the question will likely be whether they can get away with it. The servicer will likely claim that poor “customer service” is something that must be accepted like a slow waiter or a bad movie. The difference is of course that homeowners are not merely customers that should expect to be mistreated and lied to — homeowners have a contract with the holder of their home loan and these servicers are the agents for the holder — and moreover, servicing a home loan is not in the realm of someone forgetting your fries or being tricked into seeing Gigli.”
For the full claim, click here.
Lani Rosales
Flickr | Facebook | Linked-in | Twitter
Lani is the New Media Director here at AgentGenius.com and was recently named President of New Media Lab, both of which are headquartered in Austin, TX. She has an English degree from the University of Texas (and of course used that to become a blogger) and has lived in Texas her whole life minus the semester in Spain and the summer in Mexico. She spends a great deal of energy on the AG brand as well as improving the real estate industry and is an avid Twitter user.
Email the author
via agentgenius.com
Go Texas, Hang Em High! lol
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Friday, July 16, 2010
Forbes.com - Magazine Article
Money Builder
Is Your Business Model Viable?
07.15.10, 3:25 PM ETYou have a great business idea, and even got started on a business plan. But now you wonder: Is my upstart business model really viable? Here is an eight-point test to tell you if you should forge ahead with your business idea.
1. Uniqueness
Before you worry about upstart financing, marketing or business location, you should begin with an idea--not just any idea, but one that's unique. What makes your business stand out from the rest?Uniqueness doesn't necessarily mean you have to invent something (though that's never bad--just look at Snuggie's success), it just means that you have to set yourself apart from the competition. If you're starting a catering company, say, what will make your catering service different from the rest? These are tough questions, but important ones. The most successful businesses have a strong, unique concept, and a clear identity. Take the time to define yours.
via forbes.com
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Can't I just email them? Do I really have to call? — Real Estate Training - Tom Ferry's Blog
Email or phone? What is best? Do you have fear with prospects? Listen here....
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Four Obstacles to Closing
By: Brian Tracy Fear of Failure
There are several other reasons why the end game of selling is stressful and difficult. First and foremost is the fear of failure experienced by the prospect. Because of negative buying experiences in the past, over which you could have no control, prospects are conditioned to be suspicious, skeptical and wary of salespeople and sales approaches. They may like to buy, but they don't like to be sold. They are afraid of making a mistake. They are afraid of paying too much and finding it for sale cheaper somewhere else. Fear of Criticism
They are afraid of being criticized by others for making the wrong buying decision. They are afraid of buying an inappropriate product and finding out later that they should have purchased something else. This fear of failure, of making a mistake in buying your product, is the major reason why people object, hesitate and procrastinate on the buying decision. Fear of Rejection
The second major obstacle to selling is the fear of rejection, of criticism and disapproval experienced by the salesperson. You work long and hard to prospect and cultivate a prospective buyer and you are very reluctant to say anything that might cause the prospect to tune you out and turn you off. You have a lot invested in each prospect and if you are not careful, you will find yourself being wishy-washy at the end of the sale, rather than risking incurring the displeasure of the prospect by your asking for a firm decision.
| "Ask for the order and close the sale!" It's no secret -- selling is about results. If you can't close the sale, your efforts yield nothing. My CD, The Art of Closing the Sale, will show you EXACTLY how to close more sales and get results. Click for more >> |
Customers Are Busy
The third reason why the end of the sale is difficult is that customers are busy and preoccupied. It isn't that they are not interested in enjoying the benefits of your product. It's just that they are overwhelmed with work and they find it difficult to make sufficient time available to think through your recommendations and make a buying decision. And the better they are as a prospect, the busier they tend to be. This is why you need to maintain momentum throughout the sales process and gently push it to a conclusion at the appropriate time. Inertia is Hard to Break
The factor of inertia is the fourth reason that can also cause the sales process to come to a halt without a resolution. Customers are lazy and often quite comfortable doing what they are currently doing. Your product or service may require that they make exceptional efforts to accommodate the change or a new way of doing things. They perhaps recognize that they would be better off with your product, but the trouble and expense of installing it hardly seems to make it worth the effort. They see no pressing need or urgency to stop doing what they are doing and start doing something else with what you are selling. Everyone Buys at the Same Time
The good news is that everybody you meet has bought and will buy, new products and services from someone, at some time. If they didn't buy from you, they will from someone else. You must find the way to overcome the natural physical and psychological obstacles to buying and then hone your skills so that you are capable of selling to almost any qualified prospect you speak to. Action Exercises
Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action. First, recognize the normal fear of making a buying mistake experienced by the customer. Give him every reason you can think of to be confident in dealing with you. Second, accept that everyone you talk to is busy and you are interrupting. Always ask if this is a good time for him to give you his undivided attention. If not, arrange to see him another time.
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
How to Communicate Clearly, Everytime.
Best Ways to Communicate for Fast Replies
Plus a few suggestions on how to ask for what you want and get it!If they say...
If you've ever missed a meeting because someone left you a voicemail instead of sending an email, you know that more ways to communicate doesn't always lead to better communication.
Knowing what your Learning Style preference is and those of the people you work with just makes life easier to get the info across more clearly...Here are a few tips to determine if the person you're working with is Visual, Auditory or Kinesthetic.
"I see what you mean. Looks good." = Visual
"I hear what you mean. Sounds good." = Auditory
"I GET it. Feels right*." = Kinesthetic*Kinesthetic people will usually pace and then snap, clap or do some other physical thing too.
So if you know what your preference for communication is, ask for it. If you prefer receiving emails over other methods, let people know that! One client puts the following message at the bottom of his email signature line:
(For fastest reply please use email)
Another client includes the following message in her outgoing voicemail, "Leaving a message here is the fastest way to get a hold of me. There's no need to call my other numbers or email me at this time. Thanks."
As always, it's great having you as a part of our community,
Jason & Jodi
PS I'm "look" forward to "seeing" you on the webinar this Friday.
Nice Simple Solution!
Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous
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