LeaseOptionFlips

Free WebApp Alternatives to Expensive Software

2011-10-04T10:02:00.001-07:00

Free WebApp Alternatives to Expensive Software

Here are some free web based alternatives to common, expensive, software such as Photoshop, Microsoft Office, Camtasia, Illustrator, Acrobat, etc. These web based applications do not require you to pay anything or download anything. You can upload, edit, and save documents from directly within your browser.

Microsoft Office â€“ Google Docs

Microsoft PowerPoint â€“ Preezo

Adobe Photoshop â€“ Splashup

Adobe Illustrator â€“ Aviary

Adobe Flash â€“ Ajax Animator

Instant Messenger Clients â€“ Meebo

Camtasia â€“ ScreenToaster

Windows Movie Maker â€“ Jaycut

Quicken â€“ Mint

Fax Software â€“ FaxZero

Adobe Acrobat â€“ PDF Escape

Special thanks to the suggestions by MikeTheDJ4 found here and here.

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Home Sales and the Post-2012 Medicare Contribution Tax - Spread Gain of Residential Sale Over 2+ Years

2010-11-22T15:47:00.001-08:00

Article Link: Here

Home Sales and the Post-2012 Medicare Contribution Tax

by Ken Weissenberg

A recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report tries to reduce fears that the 3.8% Medicare contributions tax on unearned income (added by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010) effective for tax years beginning in 2013, is a “real estate” or “home sales” tax. As noted below, part or all of the gain on the sale of a residence will be subject to this new tax, along with many other items of passive income.

The Medicare contribution tax is a 3.8% additional tax that is imposed on individuals, estates and trusts on the lesser of (i) unearned income and (ii) Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) in excess of a threshold amount. The threshold amount for married individuals filing jointly is $250,000 ($125,000 if filing separately) and $200,000 for all others.

The CRS report stresses that the tax is not limited exclusively to real estate transactions and does not apply to the portion of gain which is excluded from tax under Internal Revenue Code section 121. Currently, under code sec 121, when a taxpayer sells his or her principal residence, there is an exclusion from taxable income of up to $250,000 of the capital gain if single or $500,000 if married filing jointly. Certain ownership and use tests must be satisfied to qualify for the exclusion. Gains in excess of the section 121 exclusion will be treated as capital gain for regular tax purposes and investment income for purposes of the 3.8% Medicare tax. However, given the exclusion amount only a limited number of taxpayers would be affected, especially since many home owners have experienced a decline in the value of their homes in recent years. It should be noted that gains on the sale of second homes (i.e., those which are not a principal residence) will not be eligible for the exclusion and may very well be subject to the 3.8% Medicare tax, in addition to the regular income tax.

If you are planning on selling a primary residence with a significant gain in excess of the $250,000/500,000 or a second residence, it may be a better idea to sell before the end of 2012 to avoid this additional 3.8% tax. For sales after 2012, installment sales reporting may be helpful to spread the recognition of gain into more than one year. An installment sale would also spread the regular capital gains tax over more than one year, but you are also delaying the receipt of the cash. An unknown is what would happen if you made an installment sale of a home in 2012 with some of the proceeds payable in 2012. Would the portion of the gain reportable in 2013 for regular tax purposes be subject to the 3.8% Medicare tax?

Finally, for regular tax purposes a loss on the sale of a personal residence is not deductible. Will the same rule apply to the 3.8 % Medicare tax or can that loss be used to reduce the tax on other investment income?

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Excerpt from The 100/0 Principle, by Al Ritter

2010-10-25T12:05:00.001-07:00

Excerpt from The 100/0 Principle, by Al Ritter

Posted by Ron Dinsmore on April 13, 2010 · Leave a Comment

What is the most effective way to create and sustain great relationships with others? It’s The 100/0 Principle: You take full responsibility (the 100) for the relationship, expecting nothing (the 0) in return.
Implementing The 100/0 Principle is not natural for most of us. It takes real commitment to the relationship and a good dose of self-discipline to think, act and give 100 percent.
The 100/0 Principle applies to those people in your life where the relationships are too important to react automatically or judgmentally. Each of us must determine the relationships to which this principle should apply. For most of us, it applies to work associates, customers, suppliers, family and friends.
STEP 1 – Determine what you can do to make the relationship work…then do it. Demonstrate respect and kindness to the other person, whether he/she deserves it or not.
STEP 2 – Do not expect anything in return. Zero, zip, nada.
STEP 3 – Do not allow anything the other person says or does (no matter how annoying!) to affect you. In other words, don’t take the bait.
STEP 4 – Be persistent with your graciousness and kindness. Often we give up too soon, especially when others don’t respond in kind. Remember to expect nothing in return.
At times (usually few), the relationship can remain challenging, even toxic, despite your 100 percent commitment and self-discipline. When this occurs, you need to avoid being the “Knower” and shift to being the “Learner.” Avoid Knower statements/ thoughts like “that won’t work,” “I’m right, you are wrong,” “I know it and you don’t,” “I’ll teach you,” “that’s just the way it is,” “I need to tell you what I know,” etc.
Instead use Learner statements/thoughts like “Let me find out what is going on and try to understand the situation,” “I could be wrong,” “I wonder if there is anything of value here,” “I wonder if…” etc. In other words, as a Learner, be curious!
Principle Paradox
This may strike you as strange, but here’s the paradox: When you take authentic responsibility for a relationship, more often than not the other person quickly chooses to take responsibility as well. Consequently, the 100/0 relationship quickly transforms into something approaching 100/100. When that occurs, true breakthroughs happen for the individuals involved, their teams, their organizations and their families.

via business400.com

This is not easy, but if you want something badly enough, you can serve and wait for results.

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Stock Market Advice & Picks, Penny, Small Cap, Micro Investments - Profit Confidential

2010-10-25T11:08:00.001-07:00

The Latest Punch to the Gut: Foreclosures Fraud

By Inya Ivkovic, MA

Many Americans facing foreclosures on their homes are starting to believe they may not have to leave their homes, because questions have arisen as of late about lenders and whether they have followed all the foreclosure rules. If they have not, then seizures may be halted until the regulators get to the bottom of it all. But is it really a relief, is it simply postponing the inevitable, or are these foreclosure irregularities perhaps going deeper and threatening the overall recovery?

Attorneys general in as many as 40 states so far have started investigations into home foreclosure procedures and many lenders seem to have been caught in the net of providing foreclosure documents that have not been properly validated. Executives appear to have signed hundreds of thousands of documents without actually checking any loan records or having even the basic knowledge about who owns specific mortgages.

The defense of some of the lenders is that, while there may have been some procedural errors, the underlying transactions have not been fraudulent. This is hard to believe; if the lenders are not familiar with the details of specific loans, how can they be sure such loans are not fraudulent? In the meantime, the pressure is mounting. As foreclosure levels have reached record highs in the U.S., the U.S. government has had to say something, pressuring the lenders to reduce their eviction rates. But lenders, many of them having benefited from the billions of dollars in bailout money, are quite adamant on getting their loans back, one way or another.

Regardless, suspicions are mounting that lenders facing an exorbitant number of foreclosures have taken one shortcut too many trying to collect as much money as they could before the lending market truly imploded. According to RealtyTrac, just in August, lenders have taken possession of 95,364 California homes and served eviction notices on 338,836 more.

The problem is if these deficiencies are as widespread as 40 attorneys general think they are, hundreds of thousands of foreclosures could be tied up in courts for years, including the evictions already executed as well. If that happens — and it seems right now that the problem might be turning into an avalanche — economic recovery in the U.S. could be further delayed. There is simply no way getting the economy to start moving again without resolving foreclosure issues first.

The foreclosures fraud highlights another problem — the “shadow inventory.” If the homes now in default flood the market, which is a distinct possibility, real estate prices could be further depressed. If potential buyers, who are already scarce, believe that prices have not yet hit rock bottom, the will keep on waiting to get into the market and the U.S. real estate market will continue being nothing more than barren wasteland.

As for the resale homes turnover rate, the data point to an even more dismal picture. Data collected from 23 states where faulty foreclosures are now flooding the courts indicates that the average time between borrowers defaulting on their loan payments and sales of their homes has widened to 25 months in August of this year from 18 months reported in August 2007, at the onset of the financial crisis that has led to the crash of 2008.

The widening of the turnaround time is not only having an adverse impact on resale prices, but it may also serve as a signal to other stressed borrowers that it may be okay to stop paying, because their cases could also end up in courts for years. Considering the number of foreclosures, lenders are very likely to deal with the worst-case scenarios first and leave delinquent homeowners of less valuable properties in their homes longer.

Even when defaulting borrowers are trying to find a resolution and renegotiate their loans, they are hitting six-foot-tall brick walls. In far too many cases, no one can tell them who owns their mortgages, let alone how to go about refinancing them.

via profitconfidential.com

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Wells Fargo Nixes Extensions For Short Sale Close Dates and Trustee Sale Postponements

2010-10-01T11:32:00.001-07:00

Wells Fargo Nixes Extensions For Short Sale Close Dates and Trustee Sale Postponements

This was forwarded to me by my good friend Patricia Platt of Old Republic Title

“Due to recent industry changes, we at Wells Fargo will no longer be granting any extensions for short sale close dates or postponing foreclosure/trustee sale dates. If you were issued an extension letter dated 9/14 or earlier, those extension letters will be honored, but no further extensions will be granted. Files must close by expiration date on the original approval letter or they will be removed. If your approval expires 9/15 or 9/16, you will have 48 hours to get me the final HUD for approval and close.”

What this means for short selling:

Time is of the essence. While it previously normal for banks to grant multiple extensions to the short sale approval and the Trustee Sale postponement this will not occur with Wells any more. All parties must process the short sale in an expeditious manner.
Other banks may follow suite. We will be tracking this an updating you on this blog.
The game is constantly changing. This change further illustrates that the standards for short sales are in a continuous flux.

via alternative2foreclosure.com

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

"Wait to Worry". I tried to drown my worries with gin, but my worries are equipped with flotation devices,

2010-09-16T09:05:00.001-07:00

"Wait to Worry"
An Excerpt from
Attitude is Everything
by Vicki Hitzges

I used to worry. A lot. The more I fretted, the more proficient I became at it. Anxiety begets anxiety. I even worried that I worried too much! Ulcers might develop. My health could fail. My finances could deplete to pay the hospital bills.

A comedian once said, "I tried to drown my worries with gin, but my worries are equipped with flotation devices." While not a drinker, I certainly could identify! My worries could swim, jump and pole vault!

To get some perspective, I visited a well known, Dallas businessman, Fred Smith. Fred mentored such luminaries as motivational whiz Zig Ziglar, business guru Ken Blanchard and leadership expert John Maxwell. Fred listened as I poured out my concerns and then said, "Vicki, you need to learn to wait to worry."

As the words sank in, I asked Fred if he ever spent time fretting. (I was quite certain he wouldn't admit it if he did. He was pretty full of testosterone-even at age 90.) To my surprise, he confessed that in years gone by he had been a top-notch worrier!

"I decided that I would wait to worry!" he explained. "I decided that I'd wait until I actually had a reason to worry-something that was happening, not just something that might happen-before I worried."

"When I'm tempted to get alarmed," he confided, "I tell myself, 'Fred, you've got to wait to worry! Until you know differently, don't worry.' And I don't. Waiting to worry helps me develop the habit of not worrying and that helps me not be tempted to worry."

Fred possessed a quick mind and a gift for gab. As such, he became a captivating public speaker. "I frequently ask audiences what they were worried about this time last year. I get a lot of laughs," he said, "because most people can't remember. Then I ask if they have a current worry - you see nods from everybody. Then I remind them that the average worrier is 92% inefficient - only 8% of what we worry about ever comes true."

Charles Spurgeon said it best. "Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, but only empties today of its strength."

Most of us want to be positive. It's advantageous to possess a sunny outlook. Doors open to optimists. They make friends, earn respect, close sales, produce loyal clients, and others enjoy and want to be like them. The question is how can we do that consistently?

That's what Attitude is Everything is all about! It's filled with great stories, great quotes and many "a-ha" moments that will turn the switch from "off" to "on." Not only will you love it, anyone you give it to will love it too! It's a perfect gift for any occasion for friends, family and employees.

To learn more about how to stay positive, just click here to view the book!

Also, to celebrate Simple Truths' 5th anniversary, this book, as well as all our other products, are on sale for 30% off our regular price. There is no minimum order to qualify. Simply add items to your cart and your savings will be automatically applied.

As an added bonus today only, enjoy free ground shipping on all U.S. orders of $50 or more.

Offer expires: 09/20/2010 at 11:59pm CST

All the Best,

Mac Anderson
Founder, Simple Truths

Follow Simple Truths via your favorite social network sites!

NOTE: If you received this email from a friend and want to join our list please click here.

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

10 Reasons To Buy a Home - MarketWatch

2010-09-15T11:30:00.001-07:00

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By Brett Arends , The Wall Street Journal

Enough with the doom and gloom about homeownership.

Sure, maybe there's more pain to come in the housing market. But when Time magazine starts running covers that declare "Owning a home may no longer make economic sense," it's time to say: Enough is enough. This is what "capitulation" looks like. Everyone has given up.

After all, at the peak of the bubble five years ago, Time had a different take. "Home Sweet Home," declared its cover then, as it celebrated the boom and asked: "Will your house make your rich?"

But it's not enough just to be contrarian. So here are 10 reasons why it's good to buy a home.

1. You can get a good deal. Especially if you play hardball. This is a buyer's market. Most of the other buyers have now vanished, as the tax credits on purchases have just expired. We're four to five years into the biggest housing bust in modern history. And prices have come down a long way– about 30% from their peak, according to Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Index, which tracks home prices in 20 big cities. Yes, it's mixed. New York is only down 20%. Arizona has halved. Will prices fall further? Sure, they could. You'll never catch the bottom. It doesn't really matter so much in the long haul.

Where is fair value? Fund manager Jeremy Grantham at GMO, who predicted the bust with remarkable accuracy, said two years ago that home prices needed to fall another 17% to reach fair value in relation to household incomes. Case-Shiller since then: Down 18%.

2. Mortgages are cheap. You can get a 30-year loan for around 4.3%. What's not to like? These are the lowest rates on record. As recently as two years ago they were about 6.3%. That drop slashes your monthly repayment by a fifth. If inflation picks up, you won't see these mortgage rates again in your lifetime. And if we get deflation, and rates fall further, you can refi.

3. You'll save on taxes. You can deduct the mortgage interest from your income taxes. You can deduct your real estate taxes. And you'll get a tax break on capital gains–if any–when you sell. Sure, you'll need to do your math. You'll only get the income tax break if you itemize your deductions, and many people may be better off taking the standard deduction instead. The breaks are more valuable the more you earn, and the bigger your mortgage. But many people will find that these tax breaks mean owning costs them less, often a lot less, than renting.

4. It'll be yours. You can have the kitchen and bathrooms you want. You can move the walls, build an extension–zoning permitted–or paint everything bright orange. Few landlords are so indulgent; for renters, these types of changes are often impossible. You'll feel better about your own place if you own it than if you rent. Many years ago, when I was working for a political campaign in England, I toured a working-class northern town. Mrs. Thatcher had just begun selling off public housing to the tenants. "You can tell the ones that have been bought," said my local guide. "They've painted the front door. It's the first thing people do when they buy." It was a small sign that said something big.

More on the Developments Blog

Buying a Home, Good Idea?

With Little to Do, Home Builders Focus on Quality

In Monaco, the 'Most Expensive' Home

House of the Day: Private Maine Island

5. You'll get a better home. In many parts of the country it can be really hard to find a good rental. All the best places are sold as condos. Money talks. Once again, this is a case by case issue: In Miami right now there are so many vacant luxury condos that owners will rent them out for a fraction of the cost of owning. But few places are so favored. Generally speaking, if you want the best home in the best neighborhood, you're better off buying.

6. It offers some inflation protection. No, it's not perfect. But studies by Professor Karl "Chip" Case (of Case-Shiller), and others, suggest that over the long-term housing has tended to beat inflation by a couple of percentage points a year. That's valuable inflation insurance, especially if you're young and raising a family and thinking about the next 30 or 40 years. In the recent past, inflation-protected government bonds, or TIPS, offered an easier form of inflation insurance. But yields there have plummeted of late. That also makes homeownership look a little better by contrast.

7. It's risk capital. No, your home isn't the stock market and you shouldn't view it as the way to get rich. But if the economy does surprise us all and start booming, sooner or later real estate prices will head up again, too. One lesson from the last few years is that stocks are incredibly hard for most normal people to own in large quantities–for practical as well as psychological reasons. Equity in a home is another way of linking part of your portfolio to the long-term growth of the economy–if it happens–and still managing to sleep at night.

8. It's forced savings. If you can rent an apartment for $2,000 month instead of buying one for $2,400 a month, renting may make sense. But will you save that $400 for your future? A lot of people won't. Most, I dare say. Once again, you have to do your math, but the part of your mortgage payment that goes to principal repayment isn't a cost. You're just paying yourself by building equity. As a forced monthly saving, it's a good discipline.

9. There is a lot to choose from. There is a glut of homes in most of the country. The National Association of Realtors puts the current inventory at around 4 million homes. That's below last year's peak, but well above typical levels, and enough for about a year's worth of sales. More keeping coming onto the market, too, as the banks slowly unload their inventory of unsold properties. That means great choice, as well as great prices.

10. Sooner or later, the market will clear. Demand and supply will meet. The population is forecast to grow by more than 100 million people over the next 40 years. That means maybe 40 million new households looking for homes. Meanwhile, this housing glut will work itself out. Many of the homes will be bought. But many more will simply be destroyed–either deliberately, or by inaction. This is already happening. Even two years ago, when I toured the housing slump in western Florida, I saw bankrupt condo developments that were fast becoming derelict. And, finally, a lot of the "glut" simply won't matter: It's concentrated in a few areas, like Florida and Nevada. Unless you live there, the glut won't have any long-term impact on housing supply in your town.

Write to Brett Arends at brett.arends@wsj.com

via marketwatch.com

Watch where you live. This is true is certain areas. NY, Calif, NV, AZ, FL, MA, CT, and others, some will fall more than 10-15%.

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Video - Three Years After the Collapse, Some Perspective

2010-09-15T10:50:00.001-07:00

via online.wsj.com

great perspective.

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Video - News Hub: Top Reasons to Buy a Home Now

2010-09-15T10:38:00.001-07:00

via online.wsj.com

Not everywhere it is a good time.

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

6 Career-Killing Facebook Mistakes - Investopedia Slideshows

2010-09-15T09:51:00.001-07:00

6 Career-Killing Facebook Mistakes

6 Career-Killing Facebook Mistakes

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Surveys suggest that as of 2010, approximately 30% of employers are using Facebook to screen potential employees - even more than those who check LinkedIn, a strictly professional social networking site. To avoid missing out on a career opportunity, avoid these common Facebook faux-pas. Read: 6 Career-Killing Facebook Mistakes

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Filed Under: Business | Careers | Young_Investors

via investopedia.com

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Housing Choice - Help Today’s Owners or Future Buyers - NYTimes.com

2010-09-09T21:54:00.001-07:00

September 5, 2010

Housing Woes Bring a New Cry: Let the Market Fall

By DAVID STREITFELD

The unexpectedly deep plunge in home sales this summer is likely to force the Obama administration to choose between future homeowners and current ones, a predicament officials had been eager to avoid.

Over the last 18 months, the administration has rolled out just about every program it could think of to prop up the ailing housing market, using tax credits, mortgage modification programs, low interest rates, government-backed loans and other assistance intended to keep values up and delinquent borrowers out of foreclosure. The goal was to stabilize the market until a resurgent economy created new households that demanded places to live.

As the economy again sputters and potential buyers flee — July housing sales sank 26 percent from July 2009 — there is a growing sense of exhaustion with government intervention. Some economists and analysts are now urging a dose of shock therapy that would greatly shift the benefits to future homeowners: Let the housing market crash.

When prices are lower, these experts argue, buyers will pour in, creating the elusive stability the government has spent billions upon billions trying to achieve.

“Housing needs to go back to reasonable levels,” said Anthony B. Sanders, a professor of real estate finance at George Mason University. “If we keep trying to stimulate the market, that’s the definition of insanity.”

The further the market descends, however, the more miserable one group — important both politically and economically — will be: the tens of millions of homeowners who have already seen their home values drop an average of 30 percent.

The poorer these owners feel, the less likely they will indulge in the sort of consumer spending the economy needs to recover. If they see an identical house down the street going for half what they owe, the temptation to default might be irresistible. That could make the market’s current malaise seem minor.

Caught in the middle is an administration that gambled on a recovery that is not happening.

“The administration made a bet that a rising economy would solve the housing problem and now they are out of chips,” said Howard Glaser, a former Clinton administration housing official with close ties to policy makers in the administration. “They are deeply worried and don’t really know what to do.”

That was clear last week, when the secretary of housing and urban development, Shaun Donovan, appeared to side with current homeowners, telling CNN the administration would “go everywhere we can” to make sure the slumping market recovers.

Mr. Donovan even opened the door to another housing tax credit like the one that expired last spring, which paid first-time buyers as much as $8,000 and buyers who were moving up $6,500. The cost to taxpayers was in the neighborhood of $30 billion, much of which went to people who would have bought anyway.

Administration press officers quickly backpedaled from Mr. Donovan’s comment, saying a revived credit was either highly unlikely or flat-out impossible. Mr. Donovan declined to be interviewed for this article. In a statement, a White House spokeswoman responded to questions about possible new stimulus measures by pointing to those already in the works.

“In the weeks ahead, we will focus on successfully getting off the ground programs we have recently announced,” the spokeswoman, Amy Brundage, said.

Among those initiatives are $3 billion to keep the unemployed from losing their homes and a refinancing program that will try to cut the mortgage balances of owners who owe more than their property is worth. A previous program with similar goals had limited success.

If last year’s tax credit was supposed to be a bridge over a rough patch, it ended with a glimpse of the abyss. The average home now takes more than a year to sell. Add in the homes that are foreclosed but not yet for sale and the total is greater still.

Builders are in even worse shape. Sales of new homes are lower than in the depths of the recession of the early 1980s, when mortgage rates were double what they are now, unemployment was pervasive and the gloom was at least as thick.

The deteriorating circumstances have given a new voice to the “do nothing” chorus, whose members think the era of trying to buy stability while hoping the market will catch fire — called “extend and pretend” or “delay and pray” — has run its course.

“We have had enough artificial support and need to let the free market do its thing,” said the housing analyst Ivy Zelman.

Michael L. Moskowitz, president of Equity Now, a direct mortgage lender that operates in New York and seven other states, also advocates letting the market fall. “Prices are still artificially high,” he said. “The government is discriminating against the renters who are able to buy at $200,000 but can’t at $250,000.”

A small decline in home prices might not make too much of a difference to a slack economy. But an unchecked drop of 10 percent or more might prove entirely discouraging to the millions of owners just hanging on, especially those who bought in the last few years under the impression that a turnaround had already begun.

The government is on the hook for many of these mortgages, another reason policy makers have been aggressively seeking stability. What helped support the market last year could now cause it to crumble.

Since 2006, the Federal Housing Administration has insured millions of low down payment loans. During the first two years, officials concede, the credit quality of the borrowers was too low.

With little at stake and a queasy economy, buyers bailed: nearly 12 percent were delinquent after a year. Last fall, F.H.A. cash reserves fell below the Congressionally mandated minimum, and the agency had to shore up its finances.

Government-backed loans in 2009 went to buyers with higher credit scores. Yet the percentage of first-year defaults was still 5 percent, according to data from the research firm CoreLogic.

“These are at-risk buyers,” said Sam Khater, a CoreLogic economist. “They have very little equity, and that’s the largest predictor of default.”

This is the risk policy makers face. “If home prices begin to fall again with any serious velocity, borrowers may stay away in such numbers that the market never recovers,” said Mr. Glaser, a consultant whose clients include the National Association of Realtors.

Those sorts of worries have a few people from the world of finance suggesting that the administration should do much more, not less.

William H. Gross, managing director at Pimco, a giant manager of bond funds, has proposed the government refinance at lower rates millions of mortgages it owns or insures. Such a bold action, Mr. Gross said in a recent speech, would “provide a crucial stimulus of $50 to $60 billion in consumption,” as well as increase housing prices.

The idea has gained little traction. Instead, there is a sense that, even with much more modest notions, government intervention is not the answer. The National Association of Realtors, the driving force behind the credit last year, is not calling for a new round of stimulus.

Some members of the National Association of Home Builders say a new credit of $25,000 would raise demand but their chances of getting this through Congress are nonexistent.

“Our members are saying that if we can’t get a very large tax credit — one that really brings people off the bench — why use our political capital at all?” said David Crowe, the chief economist for the home builders.

That might give the Obama administration permission to take the risk of doing nothing.

via nytimes.com

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

The Benefits of Blowing Your Top - NYTimes.com

2010-09-09T20:35:00.001-07:00

July 5, 2010

The Benefits of Blowing Your Top

By BENEDICT CAREY

The longing for President Obama to vent some fury at oil executives or bankers may run far deeper than politics. Millions of people live or work with exasperatingly cool customers, who seem to be missing an emotional battery, or perhaps saving their feelings for a special occasion. People who — unlike the mining operators in the gulf — have a blowout preventer that works all too well.

Sang-froid has its place, especially during a crisis; but so does Sigmund Freud, who described the potential downside of suppressed passions. Those exhortations being directed at the president could be just as easily be turned on countless co-workers, spouses, friends (or oneself):

Lose it. Just once. See what happens.

“One reason we’re so attuned to others’ emotions is that, when it’s a real emotion, it tells us something important about what matters to that person,” said James J. Gross, a psychologist at Stanford University. When it’s suppressed or toned down, he added, “people think, damn it, you’re not like us, you don’t care about the same things we do.”

Rigorous study of what psychologists call emotion regulation is fairly new, and for obvious reasons has focused far more on untamed passions than on the domesticated variety. Runaway emotion defines many mental disorders, after all; restraint is typically associated with good mental health, from childhood through later life.

Yet social functioning is a different matter. Research in the past few years has found that people develop a variety of psychological tools to manage what they express in social situations, and those techniques often become subconscious, affecting interactions in unintended ways. The better that people understand their own patterns, the more likely they are to see why some emotionally charged interactions go awry — whether from too little control or, in the president’s case, perhaps too much.

Most scientists agree that a person’s range of possible emotional expression is a matter of inborn temperament. Growing up is, in one sense, a living education in how to manage that temperament so it elicits help from others and does not torment oneself.

“As we grow, the prefrontal areas of the brain develop, and we become more biologically able to control our impulses as well,” said Stefan G. Hofmann, a professor of psychology at Boston University.

Psychologists divide regulation strategies into two broad categories: pre-emptive, occurring before an emotion is fully felt; and responsive, coming afterward. The best known of the latter category, and one of the first learned, is simple suppression. First-graders will cover a smile with their hand when a classmate does something embarrassing; in time, many become far more adept, reflexively masking surprise, alarm, even rage with a poker face.

Suppression, while clearly valuable in some situations (no laughing at funerals, please), has social costs that are all too familiar to those who know its cold touch. In one 2003 Stanford study, researchers found that people instructed to wear a poker face while discussing a documentary about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made especially stressful conversation partners.

In another, published last year, psychologists followed 278 men and women as they entered college, giving questionnaires and conducting interviews. Those who scored highest on measures of emotion suppression had the hardest time making friends.

“An individual who responds to the college transition by becoming emotionally guarded in the first few days,” the authors wrote, will most likely miss opportunities for friendships.

Pre-emptive techniques can work in more subtle ways. One of these is simple diversion, reflexively focusing on the good and ignoring the bad — rereading the praise in an evaluation and ignoring or dismissing any criticism. A 2009 study led by Derek Isaacowitz of Brandeis University found that people over 55 were much more likely than those aged 25 and under to focus on positive images when in a bad mood — thereby buoying their spirits. The younger group was more likely to focus on negative images when feeling angry or down.

More striking, Dr. Isaacowitz found in another study that older people were twice as likely as younger ones to be “rapid regulators” — people whose mood bounced back quickly, sometimes within minutes, after ruminating on depressing memories.

“We have found in general that older people tend to regulate their emotions faster, and are not as motivated to explore negative information, to engage negative images, as younger people are,” Dr. Isaacowitz said. “And it makes some sense, that younger adults would explore the negative side of things, that they need to and maybe want to experience them — to experience life — as they develop their own strategies to regulate.”

Socially speaking, in short, the ability to shrug off feelings of disgust or outrage may suit an older group but strike younger people as inauthentic, even callous.

Finally, people may choose the emotions they feel far more often than they are aware — and those choices, too, can trip up social interactions. A series of recent experiments led by Maya Tamir, a psychologist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and at Boston College, has found that people subconsciously prime themselves to feel emotions they believe will be most useful to them in an anticipated situation. The researchers call these instrumental emotions.

In one experiment, published last year, Dr. Tamir and Brett Q. Ford of Boston College prepared participants to play a video game in which they would be hunted down by monsters. Before playing, the study volunteers rated what type of music they wanted to hear and what kind of autobiographical memories they preferred to recall.

They were much more likely to want to recall fearful memories, and to prefer to listen to ominous music, than others who were expecting to play a video game in which they would build a theme park or solve a simple puzzle. They were, the authors argue, adopting an emotion that would serve them well in the game.

Dr. Tamir has found similar results in a variety of situations, showing for example that people role-playing as landlords will ramp up their anger before confronting a tenant about late rent.

Mr. Obama’s analytical composure probably comes so easily because it has repeatedly served him well, Dr. Tamir said.

“If staying calm and patient and confident is what has worked for you in crisis situations in the past,” she said, “then subconsciously it may become automatic. And the more automatic it becomes, the less of the actual anger, or panic, you feel.”

All of which makes it a treacherous task to express the real thing, at exactly the moment and pitch that people expect. For people like the president, said Dr. Gross of Stanford, it means throwing the switch on two psychological systems at once: the habitual, analytical one (power down) and the instrumental one (power up).

“If that process interrupts expression even a little, people notice,” Dr. Gross said. “We have an exceptional capacity to track whether the timing and morphology of an emotion is correct.”

The most socially skilled among us — those who project the emotions they intend, when they intend to — are not wedded to any one strategy, Dr. Hofmann argues. In a paper published last month with Todd Kashdan of George Mason University, he proposed that emotion researchers adopt a questionnaire to measure three components of regulation: concealing (i.e., suppression), adjusting (quickly calming anger, for instance) and tolerating (openly expressing emotion).

“These are each valuable strategies, in different situations,” Dr. Hofmann said. “The people who get into trouble socially, I believe, are the ones who are inflexible — who stick to just one.”

via nytimes.com

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Mind - Research Upends Traditional Thinking on Study Habits

2010-09-09T15:41:00.001-07:00

Every September, millions of parents try a kind of psychological witchcraft, to transform their summer-glazed campers into fall students, their video-bugs into bookworms. Advice is cheap and all too familiar: Clear a quiet work space. Stick to a homework schedule. Set goals. Set boundaries. Do not bribe (except in emergencies).

And check out the classroom. Does Junior’s learning style match the new teacher’s approach? Or the school’s philosophy? Maybe the child isn’t “a good fit” for the school.

Such theories have developed in part because of sketchy education research that doesn’t offer clear guidance. Student traits and teaching styles surely interact; so do personalities and at-home rules. The trouble is, no one can predict how.

Yet there are effective approaches to learning, at least for those who are motivated. In recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying.

The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division to a retiree taking on a new language. But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on.

For instance, instead of sticking to one study location, simply alternating the room where a person studies improves retention. So does studying distinct but related skills or concepts in one sitting, rather than focusing intensely on a single thing.

“We have known these principles for some time, and it’s intriguing that schools don’t pick them up, or that people don’t learn them by trial and error,” said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Instead, we walk around with all sorts of unexamined beliefs about what works that are mistaken.”

Take the notion that children have specific learning styles, that some are “visual learners” and others are auditory; some are “left-brain” students, others “right-brain.” In a recent review of the relevant research, published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest, a team of psychologists found almost zero support for such ideas. “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion, striking and disturbing,” the researchers concluded.

Ditto for teaching styles, researchers say. Some excellent instructors caper in front of the blackboard like summer-theater Falstaffs; others are reserved to the point of shyness. “We have yet to identify the common threads between teachers who create a constructive learning atmosphere,” said Daniel T. Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia and author of the book “Why Don’t Students Like School?”

But individual learning is another matter, and psychologists have discovered that some of the most hallowed advice on study habits is flat wrong. For instance, many study skills courses insist that students find a specific place, a study room or a quiet corner of the library, to take their work. The research finds just the opposite. In one classic 1978 experiment, psychologists found that college students who studied a list of 40 vocabulary words in two different rooms — one windowless and cluttered, the other modern, with a view on a courtyard — did far better on a test than students who studied the words twice, in the same room. Later studies have confirmed the finding, for a variety of topics.

The brain makes subtle associations between what it is studying and the background sensations it has at the time, the authors say, regardless of whether those perceptions are conscious. It colors the terms of the Versailles Treaty with the wasted fluorescent glow of the dorm study room, say; or the elements of the Marshall Plan with the jade-curtain shade of the willow tree in the backyard. Forcing the brain to make multiple associations with the same material may, in effect, give that information more neural scaffolding.

“What we think is happening here is that, when the outside context is varied, the information is enriched, and this slows down forgetting,” said Dr. Bjork, the senior author of the two-room experiment.

Varying the type of material studied in a single sitting — alternating, for example, among vocabulary, reading and speaking in a new language — seems to leave a deeper impression on the brain than does concentrating on just one skill at a time. Musicians have known this for years, and their practice sessions often include a mix of scales, musical pieces and rhythmic work. Many athletes, too, routinely mix their workouts with strength, speed and skill drills.

The advantages of this approach to studying can be striking, in some topic areas. In a study recently posted online by the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology, Doug Rohrer and Kelli Taylor of the University of South Florida taught a group of fourth graders four equations, each to calculate a different dimension of a prism. Half of the children learned by studying repeated examples of one equation, say, calculating the number of prism faces when given the number of sides at the base, then moving on to the next type of calculation, studying repeated examples of that. The other half studied mixed problem sets, which included examples all four types of calculations grouped together. Both groups solved sample problems along the way, as they studied.

A day later, the researchers gave all of the students a test on the material, presenting new problems of the same type. The children who had studied mixed sets did twice as well as the others, outscoring them 77 percent to 38 percent. The researchers have found the same in experiments involving adults and younger children.

“When students see a list of problems, all of the same kind, they know the strategy to use before they even read the problem,” said Dr. Rohrer. “That’s like riding a bike with training wheels.” With mixed practice, he added, “each problem is different from the last one, which means kids must learn how to choose the appropriate procedure — just like they had to do on the test.”

These findings extend well beyond math, even to aesthetic intuitive learning. In an experiment published last month in the journal Psychology and Aging, researchers found that college students and adults of retirement age were better able to distinguish the painting styles of 12 unfamiliar artists after viewing mixed collections (assortments, including works from all 12) than after viewing a dozen works from one artist, all together, then moving on to the next painter.

The finding undermines the common assumption that intensive immersion is the best way to really master a particular genre, or type of creative work, said Nate Kornell, a psychologist at Williams College and the lead author of the study. “What seems to be happening in this case is that the brain is picking up deeper patterns when seeing assortments of paintings; it’s picking up what’s similar and what’s different about them,” often subconsciously.

Cognitive scientists do not deny that honest-to-goodness cramming can lead to a better grade on a given exam. But hurriedly jam-packing a brain is akin to speed-packing a cheap suitcase, as most students quickly learn — it holds its new load for a while, then most everything falls out.

“With many students, it’s not like they can’t remember the material” when they move to a more advanced class, said Henry L. Roediger III, a psychologist at Washington University in St. Louis. “It’s like they’ve never seen it before.”

When the neural suitcase is packed carefully and gradually, it holds its contents for far, far longer. An hour of study tonight, an hour on the weekend, another session a week from now: such so-called spacing improves later recall, without requiring students to put in more overall study effort or pay more attention, dozens of studies have found.

No one knows for sure why. It may be that the brain, when it revisits material at a later time, has to relearn some of what it has absorbed before adding new stuff — and that that process is itself self-reinforcing.

“The idea is that forgetting is the friend of learning,” said Dr. Kornell. “When you forget something, it allows you to relearn, and do so effectively, the next time you see it.”

That’s one reason cognitive scientists see testing itself — or practice tests and quizzes — as a powerful tool of learning, rather than merely assessment. The process of retrieving an idea is not like pulling a book from a shelf; it seems to fundamentally alter the way the information is subsequently stored, making it far more accessible in the future.

Dr. Roediger uses the analogy of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics, which holds that the act of measuring a property of a particle (position, for example) reduces the accuracy with which you can know another property (momentum, for example): “Testing not only measures knowledge but changes it,” he says — and, happily, in the direction of more certainty, not less.

In one of his own experiments, Dr. Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke, also of Washington University, had college students study science passages from a reading comprehension test, in short study periods. When students studied the same material twice, in back-to-back sessions, they did very well on a test given immediately afterward, then began to forget the material.

But if they studied the passage just once and did a practice test in the second session, they did very well on one test two days later, and another given a week later.

“Testing has such bad connotation; people think of standardized testing or teaching to the test,” Dr. Roediger said. “Maybe we need to call it something else, but this is one of the most powerful learning tools we have.”

Of course, one reason the thought of testing tightens people’s stomachs is that tests are so often hard. Paradoxically, it is just this difficulty that makes them such effective study tools, research suggests. The harder it is to remember something, the harder it is to later forget. This effect, which researchers call “desirable difficulty,” is evident in daily life. The name of the actor who played Linc in “The Mod Squad”? Francie’s brother in “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn”? The name of the co-discoverer, with Newton, of calculus?

The more mental sweat it takes to dig it out, the more securely it will be subsequently anchored.

None of which is to suggest that these techniques — alternating study environments, mixing content, spacing study sessions, self-testing or all the above — will turn a grade-A slacker into a grade-A student. Motivation matters. So do impressing friends, making the hockey team and finding the nerve to text the cute student in social studies.

“In lab experiments, you’re able to control for all factors except the one you’re studying,” said Dr. Willingham. “Not true in the classroom, in real life. All of these things are interacting at the same time.”

But at the very least, the cognitive techniques give parents and students, young and old, something many did not have before: a study plan based on evidence, not schoolyard folk wisdom, or empty theorizing.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: September 8, 2010
An article on Tuesday about the effectiveness of various study habits described incorrectly the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in physics. The principle holds that the act of measuring one property of a particle (position, for example) reduces the accuracy with which you can know another property (momentum, for example) — not that the act of measuring a property of the particle alters that property.

via nytimes.com

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

A quick peek at the retirement houses of tomorrow - MarketWatch

2010-09-08T10:25:00.001-07:00

Jan. 25, 2010, 1:47 p.m. EST

Rough outlines
Economy forces changes in thinking about retirement homes

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By Steve Kerch, MarketWatch

LAS VEGAS (MarketWatch) -- If your idea of a dream retirement home is a luxury contemporary overlooking a championship golf course in the desert, you better be prepared for some mighty small block parties: When it comes to retirement living, golf courses are out.

And Arizona and Florida aren't the only retirement-relocation hot spots these days. In fact, South and North Carolina now top the preferences of baby boomers who will be retiring in the next decade, according to a survey to be released this week from home builder Del Webb.

A lesson in retirement saving

Veteran personal-finance writer Jane Bryant Quinn says parents should focus on retirement savings before kids' college costs, but the new Roth IRA rules can be a great way to benefit heirs. MarketWatch's Jonathan Burton reports.

"My how times have changed when it comes to the golf course," said Paul Cardis, chief executive of AVID Ratings Co., a survey research firm. His recommendation to builders: Eliminate it. Bike paths and walking trails are the new greens and fairways.

Blame it all on the economy. The recession has taken its toll not only on nest eggs but also on the traditional concept of a retirement home. That's the message that attendees at the International Builders Show here last week received in a number of presentations and seminars. See MarketWatch's Special Report: Retirement Outlook.

Downsizing is a trend that is taking hold among all housing consumers, but it is particularly evident among the 55+ crowd that includes the older baby boomers. Read more on the shrinking size of U.S. homes.

And that downsizing includes housing aspirations in retirement. While "warmer climate" was the reigning factor in choosing where to retire in the first boomer survey Del Webb conducted in 1996, today "cost of living" is the most important consideration on where to locate. Although Florida, Arizona and California remain Top 10 retirement destinations, the trend is giving other states a chance to draw even more retirees.

Despite the broadening of potential destinations, baby boomers' desire to move in retirement has remained relatively stable over the years. Between 30% and 40% plan to move to a new home in retirement, about the same as in 1996, and half of those plan on moving to a new state.

What older buyers want in homes

What kind of houses will be in demand among those 55 and older? According to a consumer survey conducted by the National Association of Home Builders, the most important design features that 55+ buyers want in their homes center on the practical:

Washers and dryers in their units

Storage space

Windows that open easily

Garage-door openers

Easy-to-use thermostats

First-floor master bedrooms

Private patios

Porches

Attached garages

Bigger bathrooms

A lot of the more popular features in new homes these days don't appeal all that much to older buyers:

Island work areas

Separate showers

Private toilet compartments

Sun rooms

Woodburning fireplaces

Exercise rooms

But a number of items that home buyers overall don't find to be of much interest are much more popular with older buyers:

Bathroom aids such as grab bars

Kitchen aids

Light home-repair services

Outdoor maintenance services

An entrance without steps

Accessible public transportation

Wider doorways

Nonslip flooring

Among technology features, older home buyers tend to act like younger buyers when it comes to the basics: Both groups have a preference for security systems, energy management, structured wiring and lighting controls. But older buyers had little use for home theaters, distributed audio or home automation, more-expensive items that younger buyers do like.

"These older buyers are frugal, probably on a fixed income and so expensive tech items are not that big on their lists," said Rose Quint, the NAHB assistant vice president for survey research.

Service stations

The emphasis on services related to home and community is an important one that cuts across many age groups, said John Migliaccio, director of research at MetLife's Mature Market Institute, which surveys consumers and builders on retirement issues.

"Very telling is that the younger group of mature consumers reported enthusiastically that they want services like home maintenance and repair as part of their next home purchase, along with services usually connected to older householders, such as housekeeping, onsite health care and transportation," he said.

According to Migliaccio, all of those items were ranked higher than the desire for social activities by this group -- a surprise given that social activities and amenities have been thought to be valued highly by this group. He said the data support an emerging trend among builders to look for ways to partner with providers of such services to the residents of their active adult/lifestyle communities.

Migliaccio also predicted that universal design -- which includes features such as wider hallways, lever-handled doors, roll-in showers and no-stair entries -- will catch on as baby boomers watch their own parents age. "The boomers are going to see their own parents age without it and they won't like what they see," he said.

The 55+ age group represents 38% of all U.S. households and is projected to rise every year to be almost 45% of households by 2019. And that group has high homeownership rates: while the U.S. as a whole has about a 67% ownership rate, those 55 to 74 own homes at an 80% clip.

"Most buyers in this market are looking for an easy-living lifestyle. They would like easy access to services that will free up their time from maintenance both inside and outside their homes," said Mike McGowan, a 50+ builder from Binghamton, N.Y. and chairman of the National Association of Home Builder's 50+ Housing Council. "This data tells builders that the homes they build for older active adults will remain attractive to the consumers who will be entering that market for the foreseeable future."

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Good article for the future of housing...

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Home Sales Perk Up, but Expensive Houses Languish - TIME

2010-08-29T15:14:00.001-07:00

Home Sales Perk Up, but Expensive Houses Languish

By Barbara Kiviat Wednesday, Jul. 01, 2009

Halstead Country Living

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The "good" news in the housing market is that more homes are selling. The number of existing homes sold in May was 2.4% higher than the number sold in April, which itself was higher than the number sold in March. (Those figures, from the National Association of Realtors, are annualized and seasonally adjusted.) Yes, prices are still falling, thanks largely to foreclosures and short sales, but at least the market is starting to show signs of life. New data from the S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home-price index indicate that home prices in April dropped less than they did in March, when compared with a year earlier.
Just don't pull out the noisemakers quite yet. The segment of the market that's reviving is very narrow. In May, some 29% of sales were to first-time home buyers. The federal government's $8,000 first-time home buyer tax credit provided a lot of the boost. That means if you're trying to sell a house that a first-time home buyer probably wouldn't purchase — anything that's not priced as a starter home — you're not likely to feel the benefit of a faster moving inventory. And if you're trying to sell a high-end house, you're really out of luck. (See high-end homes from across the country that, despite steep markdowns, just won't sell.)
The way the housing market has stratified can be clearly seen in Howard County, Maryland. After falling for six months in a row, the number of contracts signed by buyers ticked up in January, and has been rising ever since. The problem, though, is that almost all of the activity is among the lowest-priced homes. In May, sales of houses under $300,000 (for the D.C. suburbs, that's low-priced) jumped 41%, as compared to the same month last year. Sales of houses $300,000 and above, meanwhile, dropped by 26%. The super-high-end is particularly grim. At the rate houses worth more than $700,000 have been selling, it will take three-and-a-half years to get rid of the existing inventory. And that's not including new houses that come onto the market. (See pictures of Americans in their homes.)
"People are scared, they aren't buying the big stuff," says Pat Hiban, a real estate agent at Keller Williams in Howard County's Ellicott City. "The sweet spot is in the low range." In 2005, Hiban's team sold 10 houses worth more than $1 million dollars. So far this year, they haven't sold any. That's why Hiban, like agents across the country, has retooled his business to target homebuyers of more modest means. "I'd rather have five sales for $200,000 than to sit and wait for $1 million," says Hiban, who now markets to first-time buyers and takes foreclosure listings from nine different banks. (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis.)
Out in Scottsdale, Arizona, Gayle Henderson, a real estate agent at RE/MAX Excalibur, still works with the high end of the market, but today that job takes a different shape. She was recently approached by Luxury Home Magazine to write a piece on short sales — that is, selling your house for less than what you owe on your mortgage. "What might have been selling at $2 million two years ago could be selling for $1.2 million today," says Henderson. Compounding the problem: people who buy expensive homes often want them as second homes. Those folks are most certainly gone from the market, which means an even smaller pool of buyers.
Then there is the financing issue. The federal government has done a lot to try to keep interest rates low — like buying up mortgaged-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — but loans over a certain size are often exempt. The rates on "jumbo" loans (generally those that run about $417,000) have historically been about .25 percentage points higher than on regular mortgages. That spread jumped all the way up to 180 basis points last fall, according to data-tracker HSH Associates — but has since settled down to about 100. Still, that's a big added expense. Plus, consider that for houses worth more than $1.5 million or so, banks are likely to look for a down payment in the 30% range. (See 10 things to buy during the recession.)
The result — since expensive houses tend to sit next to other expensive houses — is certain neighborhoods practically become no-sale zones. Rich Toscano, a financial adviser at Pacific Capital Associates in San Diego, crunched listings data for his metro area and found that while sales for the 20 most-expensive zip codes were down 8% in May, compared to a year ago, sales in the 20 cheapest were up 37%. Try to sell a house in Chula Vista and you're good to go — but don't expect much luck in La Jolla. Of course, what houses are selling for is a whole other question. Homes in those 20 least-expensive zips average sale pries are down 30%, while the high-end areas only saw an average drop of 12%. An uptick in sales hasn't affected all price points evenly — but in certain ways, maybe that's a good thing.

See pictures of expensive things that money can buy.

See 10 ways your job will change.

via time.com

Seller Financing can move houses and preserve Seller's Equity, whille assist Super Jumbo Buyers get financing that is not possible in this non-lending Residential Luxury Home Market! Call me Brian Gibbons 626 318 0599 to assist you in Seller Financing Luxury Homes.

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

A Beneficiary of the Housing Bust: Apartment REITS - TIME

2010-08-29T14:17:00.001-07:00

A Beneficiary of the Housing Bust: Apartment REITS

By Janet Morrissey Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010

Ocean / Corbis

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With much of the country's attention focused on the meltdown in the housing market, rising foreclosures and the economy's wheezy recovery, one unlikely sector has been quietly and steadily posting high returns to investors.
So far in 2010, apartment REITs, which own and develop rental apartment buildings, have delivered total returns, which includes dividends, of 25.5%, far outpacing the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, Nasdaq and the Russell 2000, which are down 2.7%, 2.1%, 3.9% and 1.6% respectively. Among industry groups, only gaming stocks have offered comparable returns. (See the best business deals of 2009.)
Why apartment REITs?
Many of the issues that are decimating the housing sector are the same ones spurring activity in the rental market. Rising foreclosures, tough lending standards, and uncertainty over how much further home prices will fall are all taking a toll on housing demand, with the national homeownership rate tumbling to 66.9% in the second quarter — its lowest level since the fourth quarter of 1999, according to the U.S. Census bureau. The rate peaked at 69.2% in the fourth quarter of 2004, and economists predict it could slip to 64% within the next few years.
"For every 1% decline in the homeownership rate, you get over a million potential new renters," says Richard Anderson, a managing director at BMO Capital Markets.
No matter that mortgage rates are hovering near historic lows. Today, most renters are content to sit in their apartments until a definitive bottom in seen in housing prices. This is causing demand for rental apartments to increase. "They (apartment REITs) have shown consistent improvement quarter over quarter sequentially...since the end of 2009," says Bob Gadsden, a portfolio manager at Alpine Realty Income & Growth Fund, which holds shares in apartment REITs. (See high-end homes that won't sell.)
And the rent-over-own cycle doesn't appear to be over: Sales of existing homes in July plunged 27.2% from June and 25.5% from July 2009, marking the lowest sales level since the National Association of Realtors began tracking the data in 1999. NAR's chief economist, Lawrence Yun, is predicting this slow sales pace will likely continue through September and then improve, but many consider that to be a rosy forecast in late of the latest housing statistics. Worsening the outlook — America's unemployment rate remains at a lofty 9.7%, with weekly claims for unemployment benefits ticking up in recent weeks, and the number of foreclosure filings rose another 3.6% between June and July.
Partly as a result of all this housing grief, apartment REIT management teams have been raising their earnings outlook. "This is one — if not the only — healthy sector out there that's showing some elements of pricing power," says Bill Acheson, a senior analyst at the Benchmark Company. "So far this year, we've seen increases in occupancy and we've seen a turn in rent rates from big negative numbers to actually positive sequential numbers." (Comment on this story.)
Of course, apartment REITs, like other sectors, took a beating in the recession. Most were forced to slash rents and offer perks and incentives, such as free health-club memberships, in order to retain tenants and attract new ones. Occupancy averaged 94.5% during the recession, noted Acheson, but rents plunged anywhere from 15% to 40% from their peak, depending on the market, says Anderson.
However, surging demand in recent months as well as the credit crunch — which limited the construction of new apartment buildings — is now allowing apartment REITs to start raising rents again. "There's no question that rents are recovering... and the recovery is happening sooner than expected," says Anderson. (See which businesses are bucking the recession.)
Investors began jumping into the sector in the third quarter of 2009 as apartment REIT management teams began reporting increased demand and offering rosier-than-expected earnings outlooks. The sector rallied, posting total returns of 30.4% in 2009, reversing the negative 25.1% return reported in 2008. In the 2010 second quarter, the sector posted its first sequential quarter-over-quarter increase in net operating income since the fourth quarter of 2008, and industry experts expect year-over-year growth to come as early as the third quarter.
So is this the stock group to ride into the future? Most industry experts are bullish about the sector's growth through the second half of 2010, but aren't so sure about 2011. Much will depend on the extent to which job growth picks up.
"There's only so much you can do without real job growth," says Acheson. "At the end of the day, that is the driver of apartment demand."
Gadsden believes the sector is now pricey, with much of the frothy outlook being baked into the current stock prices.
"We're bullish on the fundamentals," he says, "but the valuations keep us from getting more heavily invested at this point."

via time.com

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Mortgages - Rethinking Adjustable-Rate Mortgages

2010-08-29T11:38:00.001-07:00

But if you took out a five-year ARM, which has a fixed rate for the first five years, in mid-2005, that risk would have paid off. Compared with a 30-year conventional loan at the prevailing rate of 5.64 percent, a loan of $417,000 would have saved you roughly $10,080 in mortgage payments by now, assuming a five-year ARM rate of 4.99 percent, said Michele Raab-Francis, chief executive of Safe Harbor Capital, a mortgage broker in Bellport, N.Y.
With mortgage rates and many financial indexes low, and the economy showing no signs of a quick recovery, current ARM borrowers face an interesting choice. If they keep their loans, they may well have lower payments in the next year than those who have fixed-rate loans.
After the initial period, most ARMs are adjusted annually, at rates typically tied to one of three indexes: the one-year Constant Maturity Treasury Index; the Cost of Funds Index, known as the Cofi; or the London Interbank Offer Rate, known as the Libor. Borrowers whose ARMs are linked to the Treasury Index, for instance, would face one year of payments at a roughly 3 percent interest rate, according to Keith Gumbinger, a vice president of HSH Associates, a financial industry publisher and consulting firm. The Treasury rate may remain low since it generally rises when the economy strengthens.
Another option is refinancing to a fixed-rate loan while rates are at historic lows. Ms. Francis says this is especially popular with borrowers who have ARMs adjusted according to other indexes or have terms that allow for sharper interest rate spikes. But the cost of refinancing may be steep, especially in New York, where borrowers must pay a mortgage recording tax.
Ms. Francis suggested one other choice: converting the terms of an ARM with a current lender.
That is more feasible for borrowers who took out loans from regional banks and depositories instead of larger lenders like Citibank. Depositories tend to keep the mortgages on their books instead of selling them to investors.
Ms. Francis says these institutions will sometimes convert an ARM into a fixed-rate loan for a flat fee amounting to much less than the closing costs of refinancing. “It’s definitely worth it to at least call your lender in that circumstance,” she said.
For borrowers who want a jumbo loan — $729,750 or more in the greater New York area — an ARM may make more sense than a fixed-rate loan, she said.
Borrowers with excellent credit who need a $2 million loan, for example, can qualify for a 3/3 ARM, in which the rate resets every third year, at roughly 3.125 percent. That saves the borrower around $100,377 over three years, and when the loan adjusts in the fourth year, the rate can increase to no more than 5.5 percent — the same as the prevailing fixed rate jumbo loan today.
Some ARM borrowers hoping to refinance to a fixed-rate loan may be rejected if their homes are found to have lost too much value. But Anthony Hsieh, chief executive of LoanDepot.com, an online lender, said they might qualify for new loans.
For instance, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac administer the federal government’s Home Affordable Finance program, in which borrowers whose mortgages exceed their homes’ value by as much as 25 percent may still qualify for a new loan. To qualify, a borrower’s current loan must be owned by either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. (You can find out if that is the case at fanniemae.com/loanlookup, or freddiemac.com/mymortgage.)
Borrowers must also be current on their loan payments, and the new loan must be deemed to put the borrower in a more financially stable situation than the old mortgage. Partly for that reason, borrowers whose mortgages exceed the value of their homes by more than 5 percent cannot refinance to an ARM.

via nytimes.com

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Parents, do you know what these texts mean?

2010-08-28T20:17:00.001-07:00

via cnn.com

Do you have kids? Can you read these codes?

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Chicago Fed Explores Effectiveness of Home Buyer Counseling

2010-08-26T16:13:00.001-07:00

Chicago Fed Explores Effectiveness of Home Buyer Counseling

by Jann Swanson on
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Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans pointed directly to a major problem with the economic system in a speech before the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership on Wednesday: a serious deficit in the country's financial literacy.

His solution, however is aimed less at eliminating that illiteracy than at incentivizing it in appropriate directions.

Evans spoke at the Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership (INHP) Community Breakfast on the roots of the housing crisis and current plans to end it, but his speech differed a bit form the formulaic presentation given over and over by financial and housing officials. While others have pointed to the use of inappropriate mortgage products as one cause of the crisis, rather than vilify these products such as option mortgages or those with zero amortization, Evans made room for them at the table.

"While economists usually give great respect to individual choices," he said, "in this case it seems that many borrowers made poor choices and that at least some lenders abetted those poor choices." Evans said that people who had no business getting exotic mortgages not only got them, but got them without any verification of their ability to pay. There are two policy approaches to insuring that a housing meltdown does not happen again. One would be the imposition of stringent regulations that eliminates those inappropriate products. This would certainly prevent unqualified borrowers from obtaining them, but these products might be perfectly appropriate to certain people and certain situations, so strict regulation could have some real costs.

An alternative, he said, would be to place few restrictions on the choices available to borrowers but to better educate them about home ownership and mortgages. "This would make borrowers better prepared to make informed financial decisions. Such an approach might keep those who should not have exotic mortgages from getting them while leaving such mortgages available to the small group of people for whom they are appropriate.

In effect, Evans was preaching to the choir. INHP operates an innovative financial coaching program which has been the subject of a Federal Reserve paper on the subject, a fact which Evans alluded to in his speech. However, he said, "The big question is whether financial education can work."

Chicago Fed staff has recently undertaken a review of studies evaluating the effects of financial education and they found that the evidence on its effectiveness is mixed. Some programs have improved financial outcomes due to increased financial literacy however other programs are less successful. Evans said that, while more research is needed, his own opinion is that programs must be very well designed and rigorous. Further, he said, it is an open question as to whether effective programs can be implemented on a wide scale at reasonable cost.

The INHP program was included in that evaluation. It is aimed at low-and moderate-income households, and designed to prepare them for home ownership. Under the program, prospective homeowners are assigned a coach who will work with the client for up to 24 months to provide guidance and education on money management, improving credit scores, reducing debt, negotiating collection balances, and saving for a down payment on a home. In addition to monthly meetings with the coach, the client also attends formal classes. While the program is completely voluntary, it has strict requirements and clients who do not fully participate may be asked to leave. Evans said an important component of the Indianapolis program is its continuation following the home purchase and involvement with the client should problems arise.

Other research had already showed that the INHP clients improved their credit scores during counseling, making them better candidates for mortgages, but the Federal Reserve study indicated that the training did indeed translate into improved loan performance. Compared to other borrowers, the INHP clients started the program with significantly lower FICO scores and lower incomes and had accrued smaller down payments. Yet, despite their financial condition at entry, they had a lower default rate - 3.8 percent compared to 6.4 percent - than other borrowers over the course of a year. When researchers controlled for an array of additional influences, the differences grew. The 12-month default rate was typically 8 to 9 percentage points lower than for comparable borrowers who had not participated in the INHP program.

However, Evans said, the success of counseling is certainly not guaranteed. Fed researchers also looked at a counseling program in Chicago created under a mandate by the Illinois Legislature. The law grew out of concerns that predatory lenders were taking advantage of naïve, less sophisticated borrowers in certain markets and required that mortgage applicants with low credit scores and those taking out nontraditional high risk mortgages in certain zip codes undergo a brief counseling session with a HUD-approved counselor before closing on the loan. The session, which typically occurred a few days prior to the closing, was designed to educate the borrower about the terms of the loan and to discuss whether that product was appropriate for the applicant. The Fed researchers found that the counseling had little effect, "perhaps unsurprising," Evans said, "given its extent and when it took place. Increasing participants' financial sophistication is not easy."

There were, however, some positive effects from the program. The researchers found that fewer high-risk loans were originated because some lenders preferred to exit the market rather than having their mortgage terms scrutinized by counselors and being accused of predatory lending. Other dubious loans were not made because borrowers opted for alternatives to avoid the mandatory counseling. "While one can argue that this decrease in the supply of mortgages had a downside in terms of decreasing borrowers' choices, the analysis found that the borrowers who were able to obtain mortgages performed significantly better than similar applicants in zip codes without the counseling requirement.

Evans pointed out that the two programs each affected the performance of loans, but they did so in quite different ways; one by affecting the behavior of potential borrowers which helped their performance on their mortgage arrangements, the other had a positive result because some lenders avoided the new environment and some borrowers choose products that did not require counseling.

"These findings fit quite well with the principles of a relatively new school of thought known as behavior economics, which recognizes that people frequently make substantial mistakes in their economic decisions," Evans said. "In fact, these mistakes are so systematic that it is possible to alleviate many of their worst consequences by marginally adjusting the context in which the decisions are made. The costs resulting from the adjustment may be relatively minor and less costly, for example, than the consequences of prohibiting certain products altogether. In mortgage markets, prohibitions of products intended to "protect" borrowers could result in significant reductions in the availability of credit. This could prove costly as it would preclude some qualified customers from obtaining higher-risk mortgage products that they readily understand and can repay.

But behaviorists would also argue, he said, that mass-scale counseling could be costly and difficult. They would instead give consumers choices, but then incentivize them to make the proper choices. He cited the Chicago example as one type of low-cost incentive to avoid the high-risk product by "nudging" borrowers toward the low risk option which would be the "proper choice" from a policy perspective. "We may," he said, "look to behavioral economics more often as we evaluate new policy options aimed at avoiding the mortgage market problems we have seen in the recent past."

MND says: WHY NOT BETTER EDUCATE LOAN ORIGINATORS SO THEY CAN BETTER EDUCATE BORROWERS?

Filed under: financial literacy, delinquency rates, mortgage decision, financial education

via mortgagenewsdaily.com

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

July new-home sales fall to record low pace - MarketWatch

2010-08-25T10:13:00.001-07:00

Economic Report

Aug. 25, 2010, 12:09 p.m. EDT

New-home sales drop to record low 276,000 yearly rate

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By Greg Robb, MarketWatch

A previous version misstated the percentage decline in new-home sales.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Sales of new homes in the United States fell to all-time record low in July, as demand from consumers has dried up after tax breaks for homebuyers expired in April, the Commerce Department estimated Wednesday.

Sales dropped 12.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 276,000 in July, from a downwardly revised 315,000 in June.

The report was weaker than expected, with economists surveyed by MarketWatch expecting a slight increase to 339,000 annualized.

"The report shows the housing industry is still nursing a bad hangover," said Mitchell Hochberg, principal at Madden Real Estate Ventures in New York, in an e-mail.

"With shadow inventory, rising foreclosures, little job growth and more stringent access to credit, weak sales will persist and the industry's headache will linger," he said.

U.S. stocks retained losses after the report was released, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DOW:DJIA) in negative territory in morning action. See full story.

Top developers giving up on properties

Angela Pruitt explains why some of the largest commercial-property owners are defaulting on debts and surrendering buildings worth less than their loans, just like homeowners walking away from mortgaged houses that plummeted in value.

Government statisticians have low confidence in the monthly report, which is subject to large revisions and large sampling and other statistical errors. In most months, the government isn't sure whether sales rose or fell. The standard error in July, for instance, was plus or minus 10.8%.

Sales are down 32.4% in the past year.

Inventories of unsold homes remained flat in July at 210,000 for the second straight month. This matches the lowest level since September 1968 and represents a 9.1-month supply at the July sales rate, up from 8.0 month supply in June.

Once a home is completed, it is taking 11.3 months to sell it. In more normal market conditions, it takes five months, analysts said.

The number of unsold homes under construction fell 0.9% to 209,000 in July. This is the lowest level since February 1970.The supply of unsold homes on the market has plunged 23% in the past year.

Median sales prices fell 4.8% over the past year to $204,000. Average sales prices are down 13.2% over the same period to $235,300.

Another measurement of house prices, the Federal Housing Finance Agency's seasonally adjusted purchase-only house price index, rose 0.9% in the second quarter, the agency said Wednesday.

The new-homes report showed that sales fell in all four regions. Sales dropped 25.4% in the West to record low levels, and fell 13.9% in the Northeast, fell 8.3% in the Midwest and fell 8.7% in the South.

In a separate report, the Commerce Department said orders for durable goods rose a weaker-than-expected 0.3% in July, including an 8.0% fall in core capital equipment goods. See durable-goods order story.

via marketwatch.com

Not Good!

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

How persuasive is your website’s copy? A simple, five-step checklist | Design Shack

2010-08-12T17:12:00.001-07:00

How Persuasive Is Your Website’s Copy? A Simple, Five-Step Checklist
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Written by D Bnonn Tennant, On 9th August 2010.
Filed in Business.

As a web designer, you’re probably accustomed to obsessing over the layout and visual appearance of your designs. And if you’re like most, a site’s content is something you’d rather not worry about. But being able to identify weak web copy allows you to offer greater value to your client. By spotting major problems and helping him to solve them, you can position yourself as an expert who works with him…rather than as a labourer who works for him.

And if you know some basic principles for identifying and fixing weak copy, you not only increase your value to your clients—you increase your chances of getting them. Your own website will have stronger copy; more likely to persuade prospects to hire you.

So how can you tell if copy is weak? And what can you do about it if it is? Here are five foolproof questions to get you headed in the right direction.

1. Who is it talking about?

Whoever copy is talking about, that’s also who it’s talking to. Why? Because people are largely concerned with one thing: themselves. Thus, if you want to sell a chap on something, you need to talk about him. His problem, which you can solve. His needs, which you can fulfil. His desires, which you can help him achieve.

If your copy only talks about you (or your client), it will only be engaging to you. But if it talks about your prospect first, and then about how you can do something for him, it’s likely to be much more persuasive.

A good rule of thumb is that there should be lots of words like “you” and “your” for at least the first couple of paragraphs—and relatively few words like “I” and “me”.

2. What is it talking about?

Many websites talk about things their prospects just have no interest in. XKCD gives us a recent example. It’s funny because it’s true—but not so funny if you’re in charge of designing sites like that. Not funny at all if your own site is like that.

For example, many web designers talk about their “passion” for web standards (passion? Really?), their ability to produce valid HTML and so on. But do their prospects care about—or even understand—these things? More likely they care about how adhering to web standards produces websites which get more customers, by ranking higher in search engines; and sites which get more conversions, by working across all browsers. If possible, ask your ideal prospects what they care about. Then tailor your message to that.

Remember that you need to not only talk about the benefits you can offer your prospect, but also give him reasons to believe you. Proof is very important in persuading someone that you’re a good, safe choice. The three strongest types of proof are:

Testimonials. In most instances, nothing is stronger than the words of a satisfied customer. If you’re not sure how to go about getting some good testimonials, check out Sean D’Souza’s article, ‘Six Questions to Ask for Powerful Testimonials’.

Case studies. A case study is a story of how you helped a client become more successful. Many designers have portfolios which show a lot of their prior work, but with little explanation. Showing fewer examples, but with more explanation, is typically more powerful. (To get started writing case studies, check out Simon Townley’s article on the topic.)
Articles. Nothing says “I’m an expert” like practical, high-quality articles about your area of expertise. Ideally, pick problems your prospects can relate to, and demonstrate how to solve them. As you give away more and more useful information, people assume you know more and more; and your value increases in their eyes. You don’t have to write often to use this tactic—even just once a month is plenty as long as you’re producing quality content. It’s even better if you can get published on sites which are recognized as authorities in your field (like this one). Whitepapers and free reports are great variants on the basic article.

3. Who is doing the talking?

The strongest copy has a single, clear personality. It’s not written as if a committee were speaking to a general audience. Rather, it sounds as if a single representative were speaking to a particular prospect. Your copy should read exactly as if you were having a conversation with a customer about his needs—about how to solve them.

Sadly, this style of writing is used by few businesses. And in a way, this poses a challenge for freelancers. We feel as if we must sound “professional” and “impressive”—and we think this means using the same style as most corporate websites. Speak like an Oxford professor writing a dissertation. Say “leverage” or “utilise” instead of “use”. But how appealing do you find that language? Oh, you think it sounds pompous and stupid? Damn right it does. So speak naturally instead, like I am right now. Advise your clients to do the same. If they dare, it’ll lift their response rates a lot.

4. How does it start?

You probably already know that your prospect will make a snap decision within a couple of seconds of opening your site: either stay and look, or close and move on. After that, you’ve still got only a few seconds more to persuade him to stick around long enough to be converted.

Although there are obvious design considerations which affect your prospect’s decision, the overriding factor is the headline. It’s the first thing your prospect usually reads—and what it says decides whether he’ll continue into the copy or not. So it goes without saying that the headline should be as compelling as possible. Yet many designers settle for big friendly welcomes that really don’t speak to a prospect’s needs or desires.

How do you tell whether a headline is good—without being a copywriting expert, and without just relying on your own (possibly unreliable) intuition? There are four simple questions you can ask. If the answer is “no” to one or more, the headline is weaker than it should be:

Is it useful? Does it offer or imply a clear benefit for your ideal prospect (not some other guy) if he keeps reading? Does it speak to the issue which is foremost in his mind—the issue he came to your site to solve? Headlines which start with “how to” or “why” are usually very successful, because they imply that the copy will be useful.
For example, the headline Why most new websites fail will probably be very interesting to someone thinking of building a new website. He wants to succeed—so he really wants to know how to avoid being one of the “most” who fail! But we can make it even stronger by adding more usefulness: Why most new websites fail…and how to ensure yours doesn’t.
Is it urgent? Does it get your prospect wanting to read on by appealing to his self-interest? Does it suggest some kind of undesirable outcome if he doesn’t immediately read what you have to say? Or some kind of desirable outcome if he does?
Urgency often comes naturally with usefulness—but you can increase it by trying to find the strongest way of saying what you want to say. For example, our headline can be made to sound more urgent by adding a bit of visual imagery: Why most new websites go belly up…and how to keep yours afloat. Check out thesaurus.com if you’re stuck. That’s what I do.
Is it ultra-specific? Specificity increases both the credibility and the curiosity factor of a headline. Like, a lot. Watch what happens when we add some specificity to our imaginary headline: Why 78% of new websites go belly-up…and how to keep yours afloat.
That figure is pretty intriguing, right? “Most” could mean a lot of things…and we suspect it’s probably a bit of an exaggeration. But 78%? That’s clearly a figure based on some kind of research. A study must have been performed to find it out. We’re a lot more inclined to believe it straight up. Plus, it’s pretty high! Not only do we really want to know why so many websites fail, but we also realize that the odds are against us if we don’t read the copy.

But wait—there’s more! Specificity stacks: we can add more in to get even more credibility and curiosity. Like this: Why 78% of new websites go belly up within 18 months…and three simple steps to keep yours afloat. (Notice how I also added to the usefulness factor by specifying “simple steps”.)
Is it unique? It doesn’t matter how useful, urgent or ultra-specific a headline is…if it’s not saying something your prospect hasn’t heard before. For example, if it’s common knowledge that 78% of websites fail within the first 18 months, our headline is never going to make much impact. Even worse if everyone knows the three steps to take to avoid this. (By the way, this is all totally fictitious—I don’t think 78% of websites fail, and I don’t know three ways to avoid it!) So make sure you have a unique angle. Be sure you know what your competitors are saying—so you can say something different.

If you’re interested in learning more about writing magnetic headlines, check out Brian Clark’s excellent tutorial series on Copyblogger.

5. How does it end?

Sandy Blum said, Take a great beginning and a great ending…and put them as close together as possible! You now know what a great beginning looks like—so what makes a great ending?

It’s pretty simple really. Once you’ve drawn your prospect in, talked about his problems, and proved how you can solve them, you need to make an offer. Tell him exactly what you’d like to do for him—and what he has to do to accept. Generally, this means encouraging him to contact you. In doing this, make sure you stick to three vital rules for getting good conversion rates:

Make it clear. Now that your prospect is convinced he wants the amazing benefit of your services which he’s just learned about, you need to be sure there’s absolutely no doubt in his mind as to how to make it happen. Make a strong offer, and issue a clear call to action. Make sure the CTA starts with a verb (an action); make sure it encourages him not to delay; and make sure it uses language he is expecting. The old classic, Click here to contact me now, is still hard to beat in terms of raw conversion rates.

Make it easy. Surprisingly, a lot of businesses (including web designers) still only offer their phone numbers and email addresses on their websites. You definitely need to include those, because some prospects will want to use them. But an inline contact form makes it far easier for a prospect to convert. It also encourages immediate action; thus pushing conversion rates up. Be sure to only ask for information you absolutely need, though. People are very disinclined to fill in forms that ask for information that’s obviously not necessary.

Make it a no-brainer. Your prospects are way more likely to convert if they literally cannot lose. Even more so if they get an obligation-free benefit. Strong guarantees, free gifts and the like will always increase conversion rates. Few designers offer any kind of guarantee—possibly because they don’t want to get taken advantage of. But it’s definitely worth considering. Similarly, although many designers offer free initial consultations (it’s hard not to as part of the sales process), few of them position this as a unique benefit. Rather than talking about a free initial consultation, why not take your existing evaluation process and turn it into a checklist—then offer a free site audit worth $97 or similar?

Conclusion

This is by no means the final word on spotting (and writing) strong copy. It’s just an introduction to some of the basics. But it should give you sound principles to rely on—principles you can use to add extra value to your services, and extra oomph to your own website. And hey, if that works out for you, there’s plenty more to learn. I’ll be following the comments here, so feel free to ask questions—or check out my website for a lot more information on writing better and more persuasive copy.

Like the article? Be sure to check out the author’s bio page.

via designshack.co.uk

Nice article for Web Digners! Like me!

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Top Canadien real estate investment opportunities: Surrey, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows make top 10 cities list

2010-08-12T15:28:00.001-07:00

When investing in real estate, sometimes it’s necessary to look beyond your own backyard. The Real Estate Investment Network (REIN), a national organization of investors, has compiled what it says are the top 10 Canadian cities in which to invest. Few are major cities and some are surprising. Don Campbell, president of REIN, as well as one of the researchers on the study, says the results are based on factors such as planned transportation improvements, or if the area’s average income, population growth and job growth are increasing faster than the provincial average.
Oddly enough, nothing east of Ontario shows up on the list, and while Mr. Campbell says cities like Halifax, Saint John and Moncton “still provide decent returns,” the top cities are ones that will outperform the national average between 2010 and 2015.
1. Calgary
Calgary is “poised to outperform the average by a wide margin,” says Mr. Campbell, making it the top-ranked city.
After two years of declining average resale housing prices, the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. has predicted they will increase year-over-year in 2010.
The REIN report credits the downturn to a much-needed correction, and that it was “economically impossible for the [Calgary] market to continue at the pace at which it was heading.” But now that it is coming out of the recession, along with economies elsewhere, Calgary’s strengths in producing food, fuel and fertilizer will boost its growth.
“Calgary is in a unique economic and geographic position to take advantage of the direct and indirect jobs this increase in demand will create,” says Mr. Campbell, who adds that with strong in-migration and renewed affordability, the city provides a good buying window for long-term investors.
2. Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, Ont.
REIN refers to Canada’s Technology Triangle as the “economic Alberta of Ontario.” That means KWC is not only seen as the economic engine of the new Ontario economy, but also that it “will outperform all other major regions in eastern Canada,” Mr. Campbell says. For indicators, he points to job growth, student growth and a new light rapid-transit system.
3. Edmonton
Edmonton sits near the top of the report’s list because of its future potential. Calling it a “perennial overachieving market,” REIN says the city is a “growing market, [with] an increasing population, and a forward-looking leadership.”
It will also be the main benefactor of energy development in Western Canada, says Mr. Campbell, resulting in a “very affordable, strong rental market with strong in-migration from across Canada.” Major infrastructure improvements, such as the ring road and LRT expansion, will be key.
4. Surrey, B.C.
British Columbia’s second-largest city is growing so fast it could become even bigger than Vancouver.
“Just a decade ago, it was known as the punch line to many a joke,” Mr. Campbell says. But with two border crossings to the United States, links to five major highways, deep sea docks and four railways, Surrey is a prime location to do business, he says.
Although there may be a strong rental market, it’s a city that requires a closer examination, taking “neighbourhoods and even the street’s characteristics into consideration when deciding where to purchase,” REIN warns.
5. Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows, B.C.
The Translink and Gateway Project infrastructure improvements have made these B.C. towns the “most accessible regions in [Vancouver’s] Lower Mainland,” the report says. They’ve come a long way, Mr. Campbell says. The unofficial motto of Maple Ridge used to be “You can’t get there from here.” As a result of poor infrastructure in the past, property values have been historically low in this area. But with the improvements, it’s predicted an additional 400 business will move into the area, REIN says, improving the demand for both residential and commercial property.
6. Hamilton, Ont.
“The perception no longer matches the reality of Hamilton,” Mr. Campbell says. “The city’s leadership, as well as local business owners, have transformed what was once a rough-and-tumble steel town to a city with economic vitality, diversification and population growth.” REIN applauds Hamilton’s leadership as being innovative in revitalizing the city, adding Hamilton
“has beaten its overall building permit value for the second year in a row.”
7. St. Albert, Alta.
“Long thought of as a satellite of Edmonton, St. Albert is poised to be the biggest benefactor of the new Edmonton Ring Road,” says Mr. Campbell, who adds that as the transportation access improvement is completed, the city will begin to experience “a flood of not only new residents, but also the relocation of companies and jobs into town.” Other attributes of the city include consistently low vacancy rates, high rents and strong property value increases. It also helps that the city has “turned itself into a major retail centre for the northern region while adding to its industrial and commercial job base,” REIN says.
8. Barrie & Orillia, Ont.
These two cities have been shedding the perception of being just cottage country and have become a “hot bed for growth,” Mr. Campbell says. University and college expansion campuses have brought new life to the area, and the addition of Go Train access has made them viable commuter towns for the Greater Toronto Area, REIN says. For investors, this all adds up to healthy property appreciation, a respectable vacancy rate of 4.7% and the youngest residents on average in a given Census Metropolitan Area (CMA).
9. Red Deer, Alta.
In the centre of the Edmonton-Calgary corridor, Red Deer is not close to either. But REIN suggests reviewing city plans, as there will be a lot of hidden opportunities. “The whole central Alberta region has witnessed very strong population and job growth, as well as a real estate market that has continually outperformed most other regions of the country,” Mr. Campbell says. He adds that with a continually expanding industrial and commercial job base, Red Deer is in a good position to “take advantage of the inevitable growth in demand for food, fuel and fertilizer.”
10. Winnipeg
Winnipeg is often left off the real estate investment radar, but Mr. Campbell says it’s a good city for “consistent economic performance — not too high during booms and not too low during downturns.” But people should stick to buying top-quality properties. REIN also notes that housing prices, after dipping last year, are back to double-digit increases, which could “lead to an influx of inventory on the market.” But with one of the lowest vacancy rates in the country, at 1.2%, there is room for movement. Another positive factor for the city is international immigration is expected to increase under the provincial nominee program being undertaken by the government.
Financial Post
© Copyright (c) National Post

via vancouversun.com

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Vulture investors are back and making a bundle - Yahoo! Real Estate

2010-08-11T08:59:00.001-07:00

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- These are the glory days of the residential real estate investor. Low prices, rock-bottom interest rates and stable rental markets have created huge buying opportunities.
"It's awesome right now. I don't think we'll ever see another time like this," said Tanya Marchiol of Team Investments, which has operations in about 10 states but focuses mostly on the Phoenix market.

These investors are known to many as vultures because they swoop in and buy "distressed properties" -- foreclosures and short sales -- cheap. Places like Las Vegas, Phoenix and Miami are popular because home prices there have dropped as much as 70%.
But how they're investing has changed. In the boom years, they would buy a property and flip it for a quick cash out. Today, they are holding and renting for hefty, steady incomes.

MORE AT CNNMONEY.COM
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Once they analyzed their decisions based on home-price appreciation, which is very speculative. Now they consider potential rental profits, which is far more stable.
Back then, they flipped often and helped to bid up home prices into a froth. Now, the investors say, they can be a part of stabilizing neighborhoods.
"People are not in it to flip like back in the old economy," said Matt Martinez, an investor and author whose new book, "How to Make Money in Real Estate in the New Economy" comes out next February. "The new economy dictates that you have to have a long time horizon."
Marchiol, for example, does not even factor in home price appreciation for at least a year. After that, she calculates only a 3% annual increase -- a return that won't turn heads of investors who only want to buy low and sell high.
Marchiol just purchased four separate four-plexes in North Phoenix. Three years ago, each four-unit building sold for $310,000; she paid just $70,000 per building. She intends to spend about $64,000 rehabbing the properties, making her total investment $344,000.
In total, she currently owns about 17 rental units. Usually she buys the properties to keep herself, but she also works with a group of investors who are intent on holding them and renting them out. She can spot the deals and then sell to them.
For example, with her North Phoenix buildings, the investors will buy the buildings for $95,000 each. They'll put 20% down and finance the rest, about $76,000 per building.
At today's low interest rates, they'll get a near 5% loan. That yields a payment of about $400 a month. Figure another 10% of the price for property management, 10% for maintenance, an 8% vacancy rate, taxes, insurance and other home ownership expenses, and you're talking about a monthly nut of roughly $1,300.
Marchiol projects the apartments will rent for $600 a month each, for a total rent roll of $2,400. That gives the owners a profit of $1,100 per month and $13,200 per year -- a nearly 70% annual return on investment.
Although conditions are very favorable, investors have to be adaptable because the market is evolving rapidly. In Phoenix it's changed in just the past six months. Foreclosure auctions are no longer a fertile hunting ground for
Foreclosed, homeless, but fortunate
"Amateurs have come in and run up the prices," she said. "In 2009 I bought 76 properties at foreclosure auctions, at an average of about 60 cents on the market dollar. This year, I've bought four."
Glenn Plantone faces a similar situation in Las Vegas. A veteran real estate broker and investor, he has switched from buying mostly foreclosures and repossessions to short sales almost exclusively. That's because the inventory of distressed properties available in Vegas is way down, to about a two-week supply.
"The banks make better profits with short sales, so they're not foreclosing," Plantone said. "They've switched staff to processing short sales and they've gotten faster at processing them."
He tries to purchase properties for at least 10% less than what he considers to be true market value, then he does some light rehabilitation and sells them to some of the 3,000 buyers he works with.
Since prices have fallen about 70% in some Vegas communities and rents have only declined by about 20%, it's possible for his investors, who are cash buyers, to make money from the first month the homes are rented.
"We're getting cash flow (net return on investment) of 12% to 14%," he said.
He doesn't completely ignore potential profits from home price appreciation because he believes the town is bouncing around the bottom. (Homes already sell for below what it would cost to build new homes.) He does not, however, emphasize that aspect of the investment.
It's the income from rentals that's paramount right now.
The beauty of cash flow, of course, is that even if the prices decline another 10% or 20%, the investors should be able to live with that.
"I tell them to plan on holding for five years," he said. "With cash flow, there's no need to worry about price drops." To top of page

via realestate.yahoo.com

Not in California tho! Brian

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

California Real Estate - BusinessWeek - Business Exchange

2010-08-09T13:33:00.001-07:00

The most active stories in this topic based on user activity.

Add

Housing price drop in county predicted more

San Diego has gotten used to climbing housing prices — 13 months by one count — but that might soon end.

signonsandiego.com. Added to topic by Dennis DeSouza on August 4, 2010
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Does strange architecture affect Irvine home values?more

The home at 4822 Kron Ct. is perhaps Irvine's most notorious, and its zany history encompasses everything from the...

ocregister.com. Added to topic by Drew Hartanov on August 3, 2010
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Homes will sell if priced right; foreclosures have impact more

People who price their homes to the market can sell them, which means taking neighborhood foreclosures and short sales...

USA Today. Added to topic by Dennis DeSouza on July 30, 2010
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These Surf City homes are facing foreclosure more

Huntington Beach homes in default on loans and scheduled to go to auction. Dates are frequently postponed and can be...

huntingtonhomes.ocregister.com. Added to topic by Drew Hartanov on July 29, 2010
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S.D. home prices up 12.4% in May more

San Diego’s increase was the second highest of the 20 metro areas surveyed, says the latest Standard & Poor’s...

signonsandiego.com. Added to topic by Dennis DeSouza on July 28, 2010
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Fighting Foreclosure Disintegration more

Imagine if your home was surrounded by dozens of empty houses, each falling into disrepair following a rash of local...

Real Estate Webmasters Blogs. Added to topic by Drew Hartanov on July 26, 2010
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5 Property Tax Questions You Need to Ask When Buying Orange County Rea...more

Many first-time buyers of Orange County real estate have budgeted their money down to the last penny and leave no room...

guidetolocalrealestate.com. Added to topic by Drew Hartanov on July 26, 2010
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San Clemente Real Estate Sales Statistics more

Congress recently extended the home buyer tax credit closing date to September 30. The measure would give more time to...

hartanovteam.com. Added to topic by Drew Hartanov on July 26, 2010
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$1.7 million buys ‘fixer’ at repo auction more

Last year this Huntington Harbour home was a “fixer upper” on the market at $2,389,000. Nope, you don’t need glasses.

huntingtonhomes.ocregister.com. Added to topic by Drew Hartanov on July 21, 2010
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San Diego foreclosures lowest in 3 years more

San Diego County had fewer mortgage defaults and foreclosures in the second quarter than it has had in the past three...

signonsandiego.com. Added to topic by Dennis DeSouza on July 22, 2010
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Dirt-Cheap Mortgage Rates: Here for How Long?more

Although economists have grown increasingly concerned that the real estate market may slip into a...

news.yahoo.com. Added to topic by Dennis DeSouza on July 22, 2010
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All 5 S.D. school board trustees back proposed parcel-tax effort - Sig...more

A property tax to generate money for San Diego city schools will almost certainly go before voters in November.

signonsandiego.com. Added to topic by Dennis DeSouza on July 20, 2010
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Foreclosures hit record: U.S. foreclosures jump in second quarter to r...more

California homes received a total of 192,422 foreclosure filings in the second quarter, a 24% decrease from the same...

latimes.com. Added to topic by Dennis DeSouza on July 15, 2010
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Home prices in San Diego County take a breather more

San Diego County’s rapid run-up in home prices over the last few months took a breather in June, as sales activity...

signonsandiego.com. Added to topic by Dennis DeSouza on July 15, 2010
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1-in-13 skip O.C. house payments more

According to CoreLogic’s latest late-mortgage report, 7.69% of Orange County home-loan borrowers — roughly 1-in-13 —...

mortgage.ocregister.com. Added to topic by Drew Hartanov on July 8, 2010
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Flood Insurance Program Extended more

Last week the Senate past the National Flood Insurance Program Extension Act of 2010 (H.R. 5569), reauthorizing the...

guidetolocalrealestate.com. Added to topic by Drew Hartanov on July 15, 2010
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USDA Loans For No Down Payment Financing more

Need 100% financing? A USDA loan may be the answer!

massrealestatenews.com. Added to topic by Bill Gassett on July 7, 2010
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Realtors Should Be Attending Home Inspections With Their Clients more

A Realtor should be in attendance with their respective client at a home inspection!

massrealestatenews.com. Added to topic by Bill Gassett on June 30, 2010
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Senior condos to become rentals on former base more

Senior condos on the former Tustin Marine base are being changed to senior rentals after the City Council has approved...

ocregister.com. Added to topic by Drew Hartanov on July 8, 2010
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Orange County Foreclosure Statistics more

here were 23,181 Orange County CA foreclosure homes and 3,904 new foreclosure filings in May 2010, according to...

guidetolocalrealestate.com. Added to topic by Drew Hartanov on June 29, 2010
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Beach homes are hardest to sell more

It’s cool by the sea! The latest O.C. home inventory report from Steve Thomas at Altera Real Estate says that as of...

lansner.ocregister.com. Added to topic by Drew Hartanov on June 29, 2010
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SoCal home prices rise at fastest pace in 5 years more

Home prices throughout Southern California rose by 22.5 percent in May, the highest year-over-year jump in five years,...

signonsandiego.com. Added to topic by Dennis DeSouza on June 17, 2010
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San Clemente Foreclosure Trends - May 2010 more

May 2010 statistics show San Clemente had 121 new foreclosures with an average foreclosure sales price of $610,982,...

hartanovteam.com. Added to topic by Drew Hartanov on June 29, 2010
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Segal scores with big shift more

“The Q” might have been a seven-story office building in downtown’s Little Italy, empty and begging for tenants.

signonsandiego.com. Added to topic by Dennis DeSouza on June 23, 2010
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Grunow takes construction in a green direction more

La Jolla-based Grunow Construction recognizes the importance of green building while committing itself to the community.

sdnews.com. Added to topic by Dennis DeSouza on June 21, 2010
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Nice articles here...

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Consumers Find Ways to Spend Less and Find Happiness

2010-08-08T19:37:00.001-07:00

A two-bedroom apartment. Two cars. Enough wedding china to serve two dozen people.
Yet Tammy Strobel wasn’t happy. Working as a project manager with an investment management firm in Davis, Calif., and making about $40,000 a year, she was, as she put it, caught in the “work-spend treadmill.”
So one day she stepped off.
Inspired by books and blog entries about living simply, Ms. Strobel and her husband, Logan Smith, both 31, began donating some of their belongings to charity. As the months passed, out went stacks of sweaters, shoes, books, pots and pans, even the television after a trial separation during which it was relegated to a closet. Eventually, they got rid of their cars, too. Emboldened by a Web site that challenges consumers to live with just 100 personal items, Ms. Strobel winnowed down her wardrobe and toiletries to precisely that number.
Her mother called her crazy.
Today, three years after Ms. Strobel and Mr. Smith began downsizing, they live in Portland, Ore., in a spare, 400-square-foot studio with a nice-sized kitchen. Mr. Smith is completing a doctorate in physiology; Ms. Strobel happily works from home as a Web designer and freelance writer. She owns four plates, three pairs of shoes and two pots. With Mr. Smith in his final weeks of school, Ms. Strobel’s income of about $24,000 a year covers their bills. They are still car-free but have bikes. One other thing they no longer have: $30,000 of debt.
Ms. Strobel’s mother is impressed. Now the couple have money to travel and to contribute to the education funds of nieces and nephews. And because their debt is paid off, Ms. Strobel works fewer hours, giving her time to be outdoors, and to volunteer, which she does about four hours a week for a nonprofit outreach program called Living Yoga.
“The idea that you need to go bigger to be happy is false,” she says. “I really believe that the acquisition of material goods doesn’t bring about happiness.”
While Ms. Strobel and her husband overhauled their spending habits before the recession, legions of other consumers have since had to reconsider their own lifestyles, bringing a major shift in the nation’s consumption patterns.
“We’re moving from a conspicuous consumption — which is ‘buy without regard’ — to a calculated consumption,” says Marshal Cohen, an analyst at the NPD Group, the retailing research and consulting firm.
Amid weak job and housing markets, consumers are saving more and spending less than they have in decades, and industry professionals expect that trend to continue. Consumers saved 6.4 percent of their after-tax income in June, according to a new government report. Before the recession, the rate was 1 to 2 percent for many years. In June, consumer spending and personal incomes were essentially flat compared with May, suggesting that the American economy, as dependent as it is on shoppers opening their wallets and purses, isn’t likely to rebound anytime soon.
On the bright side, the practices that consumers have adopted in response to the economic crisis ultimately could — as a raft of new research suggests — make them happier. New studies of consumption and happiness show, for instance, that people are happier when they spend money on experiences instead of material objects, when they relish what they plan to buy long before they buy it, and when they stop trying to outdo the Joneses.
If consumers end up sticking with their newfound spending habits, some tactics that retailers and marketers began deploying during the recession could become lasting business strategies. Among those strategies are proffering merchandise that makes being at home more entertaining and trying to make consumers feel special by giving them access to exclusive events and more personal customer service.
While the current round of stinginess may simply be a response to the economic downturn, some analysts say consumers may also be permanently adjusting their spending based on what they’ve discovered about what truly makes them happy or fulfilled.
“This actually is a topic that hasn’t been researched very much until recently,” says Elizabeth W. Dunn, an associate professor in the psychology department at the University of British Columbia, who is at the forefront of research on consumption and happiness. “There’s massive literature on income and happiness. It’s amazing how little there is on how to spend your money.”
CONSPICUOUS consumption has been an object of fascination going back at least as far as 1899, when the economist Thorstein Veblen published “The Theory of the Leisure Class,” a book that analyzed, in part, how people spent their money in order to demonstrate their social status.
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via nytimes.com

Money, Happiness, What.....???

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Shadow Inventory To Peak in Summer of 2010: Barclays « HousingWire

2010-08-06T15:50:00.001-07:00

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010, 1:26 pm

The shadow inventory of foreclosures should peak in the summer of 2010 before falling gradually in the later months, according to a new report from Barclays Capital.

Barclays defines the shadow inventory of foreclosures as loans in 90-plus day delinquency or already in the foreclosure process. According to the report, there are currently 2.4m loans in 90-plus day delinquency and another 2.1m in foreclosure, totaling 4.5m in the shadow inventory.

Analysts measured these loans in reports from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, their regulator the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC), the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) and its own resources.

The shadow inventory should reach its height in the summer in 2010 before falling gradually as the market absorbs 130,000 distressed properties per month, according to the report. Over the next three years, analysts forecast 4.7m distressed sales with 1.6m in 2010, another 1.6m in 2011 and 1.5m in 2012.

Barclays reported more than 478,000 loans in REO status. At the current rate the banks are trickling loans from foreclosure into REO, that number could grow to 536,000 by late 2011. If that rate increases, Barclays analysts said that number could reach 640,000 by the summer of 2012. Still, analysts said the market is unlikely to revisit the “extreme levels” of REO seen in late 2008.

Write to Jon Prior.

via housingwire.com

Shadow Inventory, man, what force to be reckoned with!

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Lacrosse - College, High School and MLL Lacrosse Teams, Scores, Stats, News and Rankings - ESPN

2010-08-05T14:32:00.001-07:00

via espn.go.com

Hey, do you just love la-crosse? Played in college, miss it sooooooooooo much! Here are the BEST in the world....MLL

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

John Carlton on Copywriting: Features vs Benefits | The Total Package

2010-08-05T09:46:00.001-07:00

via makepeacetotalpackage.com

Remember this...or dont make any money! lol :)

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Can you connect with People? Use Roberto's secret!

2010-08-04T20:08:00.001-07:00

Here's a little story about how you can win your dream girl or man
using Roberto's secret.

There's a great TV show airing in the US that my wife and I LOVE to
watch.

It's called the Bachelorette.

The show is about a beautiful woman named Ali in search for her Mr.
Right.

She has 25 eligible men all trying to win her heart.

After weeks of going on amazing dates, and learning about their
home lives, the Bachelorette has the opportunity to get engaged
from one of the 25 bachelors as they are narrowed down week by
week.

On one of the "group dates", each of the men were to sing Ali a
love song from a Broadway play called The Lion King.

The bachelor with the best singing performance would join Ali alone
that evening.

Together, they would perform in the play in front of a sold-out
crowd.

So the first bachelor sings.

And he was nervous, but he did an ok job.

And the next bachelor goes and he is consumed with fear.

He bombs.

And another one sings ok, too.

And so all the bachelors on this group date sang their best to win
Ali's heart and a date for that evening.

But only one of the bachelors did something different.

When Roberto sang his song, he sang while gazing into Ali's eyes.

And Roberto won Ali for the date that night.

Later in the season they became engaged.

Roberto did something all the other guys were afraid to do.

He showed Ali how much he cared.

All the other guys were too concerned with how they would sound.

They were afraid of what others might think.

And because they were so self-absorbed with their own feelings of
insecurity, they forgot to connect their feelings with Ali's.

PS. Be your customer's Roberto. If you'll show your customers how
much you care by making an emotional connection, you'll win your
girl or guy over in more ways than one.

This story reminds me of a new interview I just did with Drayton
Bird.

The late David Ogilvy said he "knows more about direct marketing
than anyone in the world."

His clients have included American Express, British Airways,
Mercedes, Volkswagen, Microsoft, Nestle, The London Business
School, McKinsey, IBM, Visa and many others.

But more importantly, he knows how to connect with people.

You can download or play this interview at this link below.

Go to

http://www.hardtofindseminars.com/Drayton_Bird_Interview.htm

His book, Commonsense Direct and Interactive Marketing now in its
fifth edition and out in 14 languages, is the best-selling British
work on the subject. He has written four other books, over 1,000
articles

You'll love this interview with Drayton.

Go to

http://www.hardtofindseminars.com/Drayton_Bird_Interview.htm

Michael Senoff

About the Author

Michael Senoff is the CEO and publisher of
http://www.myfirsthmaclient.com

The world's leading free consulting audio business library.

Michael is an experienced Internet marketer and talk show host and
a popular professional interviewer. Michael has taught 100% online
around the country & around the world to more than 50,000 students.

His over-the-top online audio interview web site
http://www.hardtofindseminars.com is listed in the top 1% of most
visited web sites in the world.

Michael has also worked as a coach and adviser to other famous
marketing consultants.

Michael is a husband and father of two young boys in Southern
California. He has a successful audio publishing business. Michael
is originally from Atlanta Georgia and is now based in San Diego,
California. Michael works with small to medium sized companies on
four different continents.

He is the author of the book: "TALK YOURSELF RICH": (86 of the most
revealing, proprietary secrets on the subject of how to make more
money with audio interviews and the soon to be released sequel:
AUDIO MARKETING SECRETS. How To Make Your Own Information Product
Using Audio Interviews. Michael may be contacted at
Michael@michaelsenoff.com or at (858) 274-7851

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Do Lease Option Assignments On The Phone! Part 1

2010-07-26T17:34:00.001-07:00

via youtube.com

Make money over the phone!

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

12 Years of Business Lessons in 12 Minutes (OK more like 5 mins)

2010-07-24T17:44:00.001-07:00

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

2010-07-24T11:58:00.001-07:00

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

2010-07-24T11:41:00.001-07:00

Grand New Party
Will Your Children Grow Up To Be Servants And Nannies?
Reihan Salam, 07.23.10, 6:00 AM ET
Will 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

6 Steps to Generating Free Leads on Craigslist | RISMedia

2010-07-23T14:24:00.001-07:00

6 Steps to Generating Free Leads on Craigslist

Print Article

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

Mortgages - Changes in Mobile-Home Lending - NYTimes.com

2010-07-22T22:24:00.001-07:00

Mortgages

Changes in Mobile-Home Lending

The New York Times

MOBILE 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

2010-07-22T18:27:00.001-07:00

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.

via themillionairesblog.com

Nice article!

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Three Powerful Principles for Success By: Brian Tracy

2010-07-22T11:44:00.001-07:00

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

2010-07-22T08:11:00.001-07:00

Pregnancy Could Derail Your Home Loan Application

Posted by Carole VanSickle on Wednesday, July 21st 2010

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

via realestate.bryanellis.com

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Pricing your home to sell in today's market Amy Hoak's Home Economics - MarketWatch

2010-07-21T22:09:00.001-07:00

Pricing your home to sell in today's market
Brace yourself for the brutal truth of home values in a post-tax-credit market

View all Amy Hoak's Home Economics ›

‹ Previous Column

Record-low mortgage rates -- who cares?

First Take ›

EBay benefits from a low-set bar

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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

2010-07-21T21:58:00.001-07:00

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

2010-07-21T15:16:00.001-07:00

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, 2010
If 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

Paul is a friend of mine, helping REIs gain a powerful mindset...

2010-07-21T08:40:00.001-07:00

via unleashyourmindset.com

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Using An IRA To Save Your House

2010-07-20T20:38:00.001-07:00

Using An IRA To Save Your House

by Justin McHood on July 19, 2010

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.

via biggerpockets.com

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) Outline

2010-07-20T11:50:00.001-07:00

Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) Outline

Posted by Russ DeMott

May 13, 2009

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

maxgardner@maxgardner.com

www.maxgardnerlaw.com

via demottrealestate.com

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Pricing your home to sell in today's market - MarketWatch

2010-07-18T21:44:00.001-07:00

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

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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.

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86812

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

2010-07-18T21:31:00.001-07:00

Browse: Home / News / Class action suit filed against Bank of America for abuse
Class action suit filed against Bank of America for abuse
By Lani Rosales on July 15, 2010 | 10 Responses
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.

Posted in News | Tagged bank of america, class action lawsuit, Real Estate News | 10 Responses

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.
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Forbes.com - Magazine Article

2010-07-16T15:25:00.001-07:00

Money Builder
Is Your Business Model Viable?
Claire Bradley, 07.15.10, 3:25 PM ET
You 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

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Can't I just email them? Do I really have to call? — Real Estate Training - Tom Ferry's Blog

2010-07-15T08:41:00.001-07:00

via blog.yourcoach.com

Email or phone? What is best? Do you have fear with prospects? Listen here....

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

Four Obstacles to Closing

2010-07-14T09:30:00.001-07:00

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

How to Communicate Clearly, Everytime.

2010-07-13T12:37:00.001-07:00

Best Ways to Communicate for Fast Replies
Plus a few suggestions on how to ask for what you want and get it!

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.
If they say...
"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.

via archive.constantcontact.com

Nice Simple Solution!

Posted via email from Brian Gibbons REISkills.com's posterous

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