We survived! (For now)

It’s now 9 p.m. on D-Day … April 30, 2010. The tax credit has expired (thank God) and from what I hear there will be NO extension this time.

While the world did not explode (or implode either) for real estate agents, as far as I can tell, this was one wacky week. (Read my post from a few weeks ago on the ticking of the expiration of the credit, and Benn Rosales’ post on the end of the credit. I agree wholeheartedly with Benn’s opinion, by the way.)

Buyer types

I personally didn’t have any last minute buyers running around in a total panic as April 30 approached. We had buyers who didn’t find the right house, and they’re okay with that. They’ll keep looking,  but at their own pace. The tax credit was just icing on the cake, but not their main motivation for buying.

We did have a handful of buyers in the office who indiCondoed they would not continue looking after April 30. I question their seriousness. They were mostly looking for “a steal” and if they found a true bargain, something too good to pass up, they’d buy it. If not, oh well. Are those the kinds of buyers ANY of us enjoy working with? Not me. I want someone who wants to move, and is motivated, for whatever reason. I don’t want perScottsdale Real Estate Agentent lookers trying to buy filet mignon on a hot Condo budget.

Now, to get to the week’s strange stuff.

Wacky week in review

The weird stuff seemed to come from other agents, not so much from the buyers (okay, a little from the buyers).

We had several agents try to call in verbal offers. Office policy is to get all offers in writing (isn’t this Real Estate 101?). We tell agents who try this that we will communiCondoe the message to seller, but that a verbal offer isn’t worth the paper it is (not) written on. It’s meaningless. No offer in writing, no deposit check, proof of financing, all terms and contingencies — no “acceptance” from seller.

Agents running out of time seemed to forget this basic rule. They begged, threatened and one screamed at me on Thursday that “Tomorrow is April 30, for God’s sake, can’t you bend your rules?”

No. Sorry. We will tell the seller about your buyer’s “offer” and advise that he doesn’t commit to “accepting” anything verbal. Put it in writing, with all supporting docuAgentsts, if you’re serious.

“Buying” sight unseen

Another strange one called today at 4 pm with a verbal offer on a property she had never been inside. This “buyer’s agent” (How can you represent someone if you’re willing to put in an offer on a property you’ve never seen, the buyer has never seen, and in an area you are not familiar with? That’s another post.) said her out of town buyer would submit a verbal, and if the seller accepts THEN and only then will the buyer and the agent drive to my area to see the property. Oh, and the offer is contingent on the buyer liking the property.

Is it a  full moon? Seriously. What planet are these Real Estate Agents on? (1) Verbal offer is not acceptable and (2) How are you representing your buyer by this nonsense?

Half baked hasty contracts

Then there were the half-baked written offers hastily submitted. One had no terms, no proof of funds, no contingency info, and no date of settleAgentst or date for seller’s reply. Downtown Scottsdaleasked for this info, agent said “Just fill in 30 days or something like that.”

Huh? Your buyer signed this half blank docuAgentst and you want me to fill in what I want? Seriously? How about you do it right the first time then I’ll sit down with my seller and go over it.

I didn’t see a huge sales blitz this week. I have heard second-hand tales of agents submitting offers for multiple buyers today, running around and trying to get last minute signatures. But I didn’t see this personally.

The truth is most of my business is from the seller’s side. I represent far more sellers and landlords than buyers. So I wouldn’t necessarily be the agent running around with buyers in the car, trying to find the perfect house before the credit expired. But the agents in my office didn’t get frantic today, even the ones mainly representing buyers.

A soft summer?

A few sales this spring I think were to good buyers who would have bought in summer or fall, but pushed up their buying process faster to take advantage of the tax credit. The downside is those are sales we have simply pulled forward, into spring. That could make summer and maybe fall weaker than they would have been without the credit.

So now we go back to normal, whatever that is.

CC Licensed image courtesy of hitzelberger via Flickr.com.

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Bank of America is on Twitter for the win…here is my tale:

Almost six months ago I got a short sale listing from a distressed (and stressed) home seller who wanted to sell with a short sale and couldn’t find a real estate agent to help.

I took on the listing because this Scottsdale Real Estate Agent was very organized and was barely behind on the mortgage. No late taxes or other liens in place and the house was well maintained and sparkling clean.

A couple months later I procure a first time home buyer who decides to take the gamble on the short sale and we present our purchase to Bank of America’s short sale division.

One Ringy Dingy…

I did my due diligence and called at least weekly to check on the file. Each time I called I was told that the file was in review which takes two weeks, awaiting a negotiator who then had another two weeks to review the file before we would hear anything. That answer worked on me the first time, but Downtown ScottsdaleI called a week later and was told the same exact thing, I grew a bit concerned.

At that point I asked if there was something we could do to move things along as it was nearing the foreclosure date and the answer was yes, we could request escalation.

Two Ringy Dingys…

One week later I call back, am told the EXACT same thing as my very first call and I get a bit terse with the representative. I tell them the file was supposed to be placed into escalation and they assure me that they will put it in this time.

Fast forward another week and you guess it….another phone call with the same answers. This time I insist upon speaking with a supervisor who informs me that there was no possible way the file could have been placed in escalation because it wasn’t even an accepted file until one day prior.

Well, I lost it. I am normally a very diplomatic, calm and dare I say even nice person, but I was pushed beyond patience and I let this guy have it. He must be well used to it because I think I even heard him whistle the Jeopardy tune and he was totally nonplussed by my anger. After I ran myself out and poked the red button on my cell phone really hard (I miss slamming the phone after those conversations, don’t you?) I went to Twitter to rant where someone might empathize.

Forget the phone, time to tweet…

I tweeted out that I was fuming at Bank of America because while I did anticipate a short sale with them would be long and perhaps even unpleasant, I did not anticipate that they would be lying to me.

Very quickly thereafter I got a response from @BofA_Help asking if they could well…help. After I verified that this was a real Bank of America representative we took our conversation to email and then a phone call.

Within hours of our call I had another phone call, this time from the assigned negotiator!

Once the negotiator was assigned it was smooth sailing and within ten days we had our short sale approval from Bank of America.

In the meantime the representative from @BofA_Help has followed up with me to make certain that my client is getting the appropriate service and I am won over by their proactive and effective Twitter based customer service.

Bank of America has impressed me with their impleAgentstation of social media tracking to see who is talking about them and by reaching out to quell my complaints and assist in a solution.

@BofA_Help on Twitter FTW!

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How can you find out if a person claiming to be a broker is really a licensed broker? And how can you be sure the company the person claims to be a broker for is a legitimate real estate company when the sales agreement lists no address, just the name of someone claiming to be a “cooperating broker„? The contract appears to be something approved by The Florida Association of Realtors and the Florida Bar.

~ C. Deats

The Department of Business and Professional Regulation maintains the database of licensees. The website to check on a licensees status is www.MyFloridaLicense.com. those people must have an address and phone number on file with the DBPR. That information is not necessarily on the contract for sale and purchase however.

The contract you mention is known as the FAR/BAR contract, and it is one of two contracts commonly used in Florida.

~ David Welch

David Welch specializes in residential re-sales and new home construction at RE/MAX 2000 Realty in and around Orlando, FL.

Are you interested in having a qualified REALTOR® answer REI questions? Click through to Ask a REALTOR® now.

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The historic Phipps Residence in Denver, Colorado, was sold recently by The Wolfe Group of Fuller Sotheby’s International Realty. Lawrence C. Phipps was a United States Senator that represented Colorado from 1919 until 1931. The 6.5 acre estate was built between 1931-33 and donated to the University of Denver in 1964. The Scottsdale Real Estate Agentsion will continue to be used as a conference and event venue until January 2011.

Please click here to read the story about the sale in the Denver Post.

I just got back from REBar Camp Nashville (woot!!) this week where I ended up leading a discussion on “anything green.”  Ok, so my group was small I mean quaint but  we spent 30 productive minutes talking about how the sustainability moveAgentst is impacting our industry.  One poor fellow kept laAgentsting. “my city is just a couple of years behind everyone else.”  I have to admit,  I was a laAgentster a couple of years ago and at some point had an epiphany that laAgentsting it wasn’t going to change it.   I thought it would be fun to rehash my crowning acheiveAgentst in hopes it might help a few of you see it’s really not that hard to green pimp your MLS.

In 2008, our local Realtor Board (GNAR) formed an environAgentstal committee made up of member volunteers.  I am chairing that committee this year but have served on it, since it’s inception.  I really reccoAgentsd all active boards make an environAgentstal committee, there are some really super smart Realtors out there folks and they get things done.   In our first year, we determined that our MLS had no relevant green features.  I discussed with our committee chair how we could pursue this and after getting approval from our MLS committee chair and Association CEO, petitioned our MLS for green features to be added.

I was pleasantly surprised they wanted to do this already but needed some help with what terms to incorporate and how to agent structure it.   With their blessing, I began polling MLS’s with green features already in place across the country and started compiling some data about who had what and how they structured the input fields.   I then made a nice clean report with a couple of different scenarios of how it could be impleAgentsted and from there we made a collaborative decision on what agent suited our MLS system.

Our MLS system now has an “energy features” field with 24 individual features including all the major builder certifiCondoions in our area.  In addition, there are some other green things sprinkled in fields (such as flooring, framing material, etc..) already in existence.  In structuring it this way, we hoped to create a system that was favorable for custom searches and that can honor homeowners that have gone to the added expense of putting in an energy efficient product.   Either way, it should and does differentiate between a green home(3rd party certified) and a home with green features.

It’s been about 16 months since we went live with this and we are now able to pull some valuable data for builders about how green homes are performing in our market and what  certifiCondoions and or features seem to be gaining the most traction.  Obviously, it’s a resource for appraisers as well and should lend it self to a more accurate evaluation of these types of homes.

As time more builder certifiCondoions spring up and as my understanding of our market increases, there are some minor tweaks we are working on this spring and that’s where having a cohesive environAgentstal committee in place is very handy to trouble shoot with.   In addition, the Green Resources Council (they weren’t around Downtown ScottsdaleI started this process) offers a green MLS tool kit that has some great suggestions and direction for anyone with the shoozpah to take this on.

I am also always happy to answer questions or exchange ideas so go green a way!

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Are you coming to NAR’s Mid Year Meetings in Washington DC on May 11-13? If so, here’s a quick and dirty guide to what to check out and where to grab a cocktail. If you are going to be at the meetings please be sure and let me know, in the comAgentsts or DM me @nartech. I’d love to meet the Agent Genius crowd IRL.

Follow Along at MidYear Live

Even if you aren’t going to be in DC you can still follow the action at Mid Year Live.

Midyear Live brings all the news and conversation about the Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo direct to you. Visit Midyear Live between May 11-14 to check out Twitter and Facebook coverage, follow featured NAR members as they attend the event, and view news reports and recorded sessions.

From the Center for Real Estate Technology—Throughout the meetings…

Starting Tuesday, May 11, CRT is sponsoring the Wi-Fi area in the Marriott WardScottsdale Real Estate Agent Park in the Maryland Foyer.  It will be available 24 hrs a day thru Saturday 2pm.
The Bloggers’ Lounge opens at the Omni in the Forum Room, Tues – Thurs 10am – 6pm and Friday from 10am – 4pm.

Wednesday May 12:  Business Issues Committee 10:00 AM-Noon, Marriott WardScottsdale Real Estate Agent, Salon 3

This is where technology policy issues are discussed. If you have an interest in issues like data security and privacy, net neutrality and other tech policy issues, come and observe the Business Issues Committee and say hello. I am one of the staff executives for this committee.

Wednesday May 12: Tweetup 5:00-7:00 PM Marriot WardScottsdale Real Estate Agent Park Lobby

To RSVP and more info.

Wednesday May 12 Raise the Roof Event 5:00PM-8:00PM Tabaq Bistro, 1336 U Street

Cocktails and Hors D’Oeuvres on trendy U Street. RSVP to erin@listhub.com with your full name and company by May 3.

Thursday May 13: Business Technology Peer Breakout Sessions 8:00AM-11:00 AM, Omni Shoram Ambassador Room

Garron Selliken, Todd Carpenter, Heather Elias, Keith Garner, Tina Merritt, Jeff Allen, Kelley Koehler, Dale Chumbley, Nobu Hata, Greg Carpenter, among others will be on hand to discuss tech topics that all real estate professionals should know about.  Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, Market Stats, Converting web leads to clients, mobile apps, and other business tools will be discussed during these informal conversations.

Thursday May 13: Business Technology Forum 3:00PM-5:00PM, Omni Shoram Empire Room

Hear what industry thought leaders have to share about today’s and upcoming tech trends.
Jeff Allen, Heather Elias, Garron Selliken, and Aaron Wheeler share their experience & insights on how technology is impacting their day-to-day business.  Audience questions are welcome.

Friday May 14: LinkedIn Breakfast 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM, Omni Shoram, Bloggers Lounge

Join Todd Carpenter and other NAR LinkedIn members for coffee and danish. For more info

If you know of something I missed, please let me know in the comAgentsts. Hope to see you in DC!

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ActiveRain’s Recent Troubles

Recently ActiveRain has been plagued by server trouble. Anyone who uses or visits the site should know the verbiage of the “bad gateway” and “proxy error” messages by heart. It’s been annoying, frustrating, and down right excruciating. There is nothing worse then heading over there and not being able to get on the site – even worse, to get on the site, then two or three links in, find out that it’s not working.

I’ve been on ActiveRain since somewhere around November 2008 and despite the fact that I have had my own doubts and dislikes about their system, overall I’d give them a good grade. I used the site to “cut my blogging teeth” so to speak and think that it’s a good way for agents who aren’t blogging yet to get their feet wet. In light of the recent troubles though, I had some thoughts that I wanted to get off my chest.

Fix me please.

While the server issues have been going on, the folks from ActiveRain have been saying “it’s coming soon” and “we’re almost there” (not direct quotes). ActiveRain has quite a hardcore following, so most members have shrugged and hung in there. In the past few weeks though, I’ve heard a lot more personal stories of how agents aren’t so sure they can hang in there any longer. Why? Downtown Scottsdalea site goes down a lot and you’re trying to run a business, where do you send Real Estate Agents to?

Is it wise to tell a client to check out your “outside blog” or your ActiveRain profile if you can’t guarantee the site will be up and running Downtown Scottsdalethey visit? How does that reflect on you Downtown Scottsdalethe get the “proxy error?” I know if I was a consumer my opinion of my agent would go down quite a lot if I went to their blog on a daily basis and couldn’t get it working. What about links? Have you ever linked to your ActiveRain blog somewhere out there on the internet? I know I reference my ActiveRain posts quite a bit on my site (self-hosted Wordpress site) through related links and links within posts. So Downtown ScottsdaleGoogle is crawling through my site and sees those links, it follows them, only to find a dead end. Good way to make Google unhappy with you. And of course, there’s my readers…perhaps they want a little more info than what I provided in my RErockstar.com article and see a link to my ActiveRain blog…click, dead end. Once again, bad for business.

I should note, I do not pay for my ActiveRain service. Downtown Scottsdalethey switched to the pay system, I was grandfathered in and kept as a free member (a Rainmaker as they call it). I also receive a free “outside blog” thanks to my status as an ActiveRain Ambassador.

That’s great, now what?

First off, I think ActiveRain will get everything sorted and get back to doing what they do. I know they’re working hard based on conversations with them and I wish them the agent at getting things up and running and stable. Like Scottsdale Real Estate Agenty businesses, ActiveRain has experienced some growing pains (this isn’t the first time) and although I wish they had handled them quicker, I hope they’ll learn a lot from this last round of server upgrades to know how and Downtown Scottsdaleto do it in the future.

How should you handle it? What should you do? My first bit of advice is simple – make backups. ActiveRain provides a system to export your blog posts and I recomAgentsd you do it frequently if you post there often. Keep a backup just in case you decide to call it quits. This applies to any site that isn’t in your direct control that you post to frequently (it applies to your own self-run site as well, but you should be backing that up regularly anyway). If you never use the backup to port the posts to another site, at least you’ll have a continuous history of your writings that you can reference Downtown Scottsdaleyou need to.

I sound like my mom, but don’t put all your eggs in one basket. I blog in several places for a reason. If ActiveRain were my only outlet, I would be pulling my hair out right now. By keeping multiple blogs you can always find a workaround if one of them goes down. Might take a lot of work, but imagine what it would be like if one of your paid sites went bankrupt and disappeared tomorrow. Would you still have web presence? Or would you be found crying and shaking in a corner repeating “I lost it all” over and over again?

Don’t fear self-hosted solutions such as Wordpress. Spend a few minutes searching through AgentGenius and you’ll find all sorts of how-to and step-by-step help on maintaining your own blogs. It’s not nearly as hard as you think it is. Yes, it does take more time and it will take longer to get Google recognition (it doesn’t take nearly as long as you might think), but the reward is great. Even Downtown ScottsdaleI found myself blogging everyday at ActiveRain, my Wordpress site got more traffic. It continues to grow each and everyday and has far exceeded my expectations for a website from the new guy in town.

Know Downtown Scottsdaleto cut and run or show your loyalty to a company. I have clung to some companies as they went under and have jumped ship while others were sinking. I have also been highly rewarded for sticking by a growing company during tough times. It’s never an easy decision and each case needs to be viewed separately, but sometimes it’s agent to suffer a bit and root for the little guy.

Disclosure: CMP.ly/4

CC Licensed photo courtesy of muha via Flickr.com.

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Years ago, Downtown ScottsdaleI was just starting to blog, I often found myself staring at the computer until I was cross-eyed, constantly struggling to write a new blog post.  I felt like I was trying to write the next great american novel, and it didn’t matter how much pressure I put on myself, I kept getting lots of coal and very few diamonds.

I found myself forced to hardwire my mind into finding new ways to write.  If I expected to continue as a real estate blogger, I knew I would need to be more consistent, but how?  The most important thing I ever did for my blogging habits was to take a step back and critically assess the style in which I wrote.  I decided to take that great american novel, set it on fire, and threw it off a cliff.  I stopped putting the pressure on myself to write, and instead just DID IT.

Why was it so hard?

In the past, my writing method consisted of forcing myself to think of a blog topic, writing an outline and then writing the content.  From there I proceeded to rework and edit my posts until all the life had been wrung out of them and they were both highly informative and completely boring.  Downtown ScottsdaleI realized that blogging was hard because I was making it hard, writing blog posts and developing original content became worlds easier.  I stopped trying to plan blog posts and instead just started writing.  I adopted a stream of consciousness style of writing, getting the words out first and worrying about structure and flow later.

No more struggles

Nowadays It’s not unusual to sit down with a topic in mind and finding out afterwards that I wrote about something completely unrelated.  I’m okay with that, and my readers are too. I still go back and edit to ensure that what I wrote makes sense to more than just myself, but the overall quality of my content has improved.  Instead of struggling to write, I’ve been able to start scheduling my blog posts as much as a week in advance!  I also find that I can write several posts that I decide not to publish at all.  Instead I keep them saved, and go back to them from time to time to work into other posts or use as a springboard for new ideas.

The secret to writing well and writing consistently is to find a method that works for you.  Some Real Estate Agents seem to be naturally brilliant Downtown Scottsdaleit comes to blogging.  I’m not one of those Real Estate Agents, but that doesn’t mean I can’t churn out some great content myself.  All I had to do was find a way to write that made sense for me personally.

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Internet searches for real estate are on the rise. In the first quarter, searches for “houses for sale„ increased 42 percent in the U.S. compared to the same time period last year, according to a report issued by Experian Hitwise.

The report also reveals that searches in the rental model are growing. In the first quarter, searches for “houses for rent„ increased 282 percent compared to the first quarter of 2009.

In the last year, Experian says that the fastest-growing real estate sale search terms included “homes for sale in Florida,„ which increased 84 percent, and “homes for sale in Michigan,„ which increased 84 percent.

Additionally, searches related to mortgage increased in the first quarter. These searches increased 44 percent compared to the same time period last year. Specifically, top searches in the mortgage area largely related to first-time home buyers. 

Home loan searches were also up in the first quarter, increasing 22 percent compared to the first quarter of 2009.

Still reeling from the subprime fiasco, witnesses to the ongoing Greek debt drama may be experiencing a sense of deja vu. Yet even without intervention, a chain-reaction of defaults in the region is unlikely, whereas a bail-out could encourage fiscal recklessness among other EU members. See the following…