Well, that little lesson about how the old days of just sticking it in MLS and it will get sold are GONE turned into a polite email from the publisher of Homes & Land. It seems that many of her advertisers were in the class and called her up and said “you told us that our houses automatically go to all of those sites! What’s the deal?”

So here’s “the deal” which will be promptly followed by “the lesson”

After a lengthly phone call with the publisher AND her making a phone call to her programmers/techies, here’s what you need to know:

“The Deal”

First and foremost, I was NOT talking bad about H&L. We advertise with them. Have for as long as I can remember. We get calls. We get leads. Period.

Secondly, their listings DO get “pushed” to 23 different websites, (including Zillow which up until January you could advertise for free on but now they charge if you go direct). More precisely, the homes in the magazine AUTOMATICALLY go to those 23 sites UNLESS you specifically check a little box that tells them NOT to. For your listings that aren’t in the magazine, they do an MLS feed to the 23 different sites, but for these you have to check a little box that says you DO want them syndicated to the listings.

“The Lesson”

KNOW YOUR TECHNOLOGY!!! It amazes me how many agents are investing in tools and not using them to their fullest! In this market of decreased commissions, decreased sales prices, and fewer buyers, we need all the help we can get! If you are paying for leads, advertising, virtual assistant, voicemail, websites or ANYTHING else in your business, call up your representative or go through their online help/tutorials and make sure you’re using all of the bells and whistles. This other agent was paying for a service and missing one of the big benefits of it… the syndication to the 23 websites!

The other lesson? Be mature enough to admit when you’ve made a mistake… I was scared to make the call to the publisher to clear up the situation, but as soon as I did and we discussed the situation, I felt a whole lot better not having that hanging over my head. This is a small world… word gets around… both when you do the “right” thing and when you don’t. Your reputation is critical. Swallow your pride and make that call… I’m glad I did!

RESOURCES:

For Real Estate Agents: Subscribe to my weekly e-zine at www.AndyTolbert.com

For Homeowners: BeforeYouShortSale.com and SeminoleCountyForeclosureBlog.com

For Investors: IRCFlorida.com

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Today I had a listing appointment with a client that was referred to me because of my skills in “Alternative Financing” and moving properties that nobody else has been able to sell.

Anyway, as I printed the Mapquest to his house, there was an ad at the top of the printout that was for Genuine Hewlett-Packard Ink for your printer. It said: “1 out of every 4 refilled inkjet cartridges will fail. Trust HP inks for 99% quality” or something along those lines. Their point was the they only have a 1% failure rate as compared to 25% failure rate among refills.

It reminded me of a handout that I shared with my Women’s Group a while back, and I wanted to share it with you today .

First, look at your mindset and your business, what quality level would YOU accept if you were put in charge of a product or service? 90%? 95? 98? 99? How about 99.9%? Many big companies think that a 99.9% quality rate is good, in fact, Motorola commits to acheive “Six Sigma” which is less that 3 rejects per million items produced!

Here’s some examples of what a 99.9% quality level would equal:

-12 newborns would be given to the wrong parents every day
-114,500 pairs of mismatched shoes would be shipped per year
-18,322 pieces of mail will be mishandled per HOUR
-2 Million documents will be lost by the IRS this year
-2.5 Million books would be shipped with the wrong covers
-315 entries in Webster’s dictionary would be misspelled
-20,000 wrong drug prescriptions would be written
-5.5 million cases of soft drinks would be produced with no fizz
-3,056 copies of tomorrows wall street journal would be missing a section
-880,000 credit cards in circulation would have the wrong info coded on the magnetic strip

Does that make you think a little differently about your acceptable levels in your business? Just a thought!

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After I got over my initial anger over how someone could POSSIBLY list a property that much below market value in MY neighborhood, I started thinking rationally about why this might not be a good practice. Here’s a few ideas that I came up with and I’d love to hear any others you might have.

Bank turns the short sale offer down. Come on… banks aren’t stupid (oops, sarcasm!). If a house is solidly worth 120 and the BPO comes in at 120, they’re going to turn down 75! Yeah, you’re going to get offers, pretty quick and probably multiples, but if it’s never going to get approved you’re wasting YOUR time, your BUYERS time (and their agents’), and you’re not only wasting your seller’s time but maybe also costing him his house. You’ve gotten his hopes up that his credit will be saved and his home will be sold, but alas, it was not meant to be because his agent didn’t understand the short sale process.

Another thing is often the bank will ask you for listing history such as:
How long has it been on the market?
How many offers have you gotten?
What price(s) has it been at and for how long?

If I had listed that same property at $129,000 then lowered to 125 then 120 then 115 then 110 and then we get an offer at that point for 104, I can very reasonably show the lender that we TRIED to get more but this is the best offer we were able to get. If I list it at $75,000 and get an offer the next day for $74,000 then the bank is going to wonder if we COULD have gotten more for the property if we had marketed better, priced better, marketed longer, etc.

On the other hand… maybe some how, some way, the bank DOES accept the ridiculous low offer. How does that play out? Well, I’m glad you asked!

The lower the property sells for, the larger the 1099 “phantom income” or deficiency judgment will be. That’s right, to calculate out the 1099 Cancellation of Debt amount OR a deficiency judgment, they take the amount you owe the bank minus the amount it sells for and the difference is how much you technically still owe them. So the lower the selling price, the larger the amounts they still owe. This also applies to the lender asking for personal notes or cash brought to closing. (do you think the “lowball lister” explained this to their seller?)

If that property DOES close at $75,000, you’ve just set a new Market Value for the neighborhood. Typically short sales sell for fairly close to market value, so if you do get one through, the market takes notice. When you list yours for 75 then other sellers in the neighborhood feel pressure to lower their prices too. This results in the continued decline of market values.

I think that deep down in their hearts, EVERY real estate professional wants our values to stabilize and stop this awful downward spiral (hey, did you ever notice that a downward spiral is EXACTLY like a toilet flushing?) When an agent lists a property low like this, that stabilization seems less and less likely.

Your commission is lower. Yes, that’s a complete sentence and a complete thought. Don’t get me wrong… I NEVER make decisions based on the commission amount, but in this case, a higher price is not only better for YOUR pocket, but is also better for the Seller and their lender. If you are acting as a single agent for the seller, lowball listing prices are probably not in the seller’s best interest.

Although the buyer’s might love you! Oh wait, probably not. Not once their agent explains to them that you listed it low to try to “drum up interest” and get multiple offers and you expect them to come in over asking price. Buyers don’t like that line any more:

If you really want the house you’ll have to bid $20,000 over the asking price…

Uhhhh… that’s what got our market in the pickle that it’s in! Slight difference now though… we’re not telling them to go in over MARKET value like in the boom, only above ASK price (but still at or below market). We know that, but the general public is VERY gun-shy about this right now…

These are just a few I came up with in my head… what can you think of that I missed?
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They have it broken into Regions like Midwest, South, Etc. but judging from the 9 cities listed in the South category, Florida was the only state included in the category!

Of course on the surface this list shows everything that is wrong with our market right now… the top city, Merced California, had a 62.11% decrease from THEIR peak in the 2nd quarter of 2006 (that was the other interesting feature of the list… it shows the quarter and year the city reached their “peak”)

Here are 2 ways that I see you can use this info… I’m sure there are many more, and feel free to share them in the comments section.

1) Useful tool to show to sellers who are having a hard time absorbing the listing price you just suggested. I don’t know about where YOU are, but here in Florida we still have people that think they can get 2006 prices for their homes. This list is hard-fact, 3rd party proof of current value trends.

2) Useful tool to show YOU where the market is and what niches you might want to pursue… short sales and investor buyers are 2 that pop to mind right away!

As usual… I’m keeping it short and sweet today! Enjoy!

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Anyway, just like everyone’s Thanksgiving there’s a certain point where the TV gets turned on, only there nothing’s in English! So Tim’s Mom had the DVD’s of the CBS show “Criminal Minds” about a team of FBI agents that help catch criminals by profiling them. I had never watched the show and got kind of caught up in it. Not because of the gruesome crimes, but rather by the methodology by which they figured out who the bad guy was. (by the way, of the ones I watched, THREE were set in Florida! What are they trying to say?)

Most “crime” shows look at the evidence, the “surface” stuff, but this show they get into the MIND of the criminal. As an example, in one scene the killer had gotten into the house through the back window. One of the FBI agents actually crawled in the window and based on how he had to maneuver he deducted that the killer was small framed and athletic. Everyone else just said “he got in through the window.”

How is this like the real estate business? When a client says “I want a 3 bedroom with a payment under $900″ do you take that “surface” information and try to base your entire case on it? Or do you dig deeper to find out WHY those things are important? Maybe a 2 bedroom with a den would also work if it was in a neighborhood that they REALLY liked… or maybe their budget could go up to $950 if they found a home closer to work so their commuting and gas costs were reduced…

For you to do the best job for your clients, sometimes you need to dig a little deeper to find out the REAL Why for their situation. You need to walk a mile in their shoes and learn what REALLY motivates them. Once you know this and work with them, you truly will have a client for life that refers their friends to you.

If you’ve felt down AT ALL about where you are in life or about the hand you’ve been dealt, then WATCH THIS VIDEO right now. It’s about 3 minutes and might just give you a different outlook on your lot in life.

Especially in real estate we’ve faced a few challenges over the last few years… watch the video and it might just kick you in the A$$ and start making the money you deserve again!

Don’t forget to put 10pm Sunday in your schedule and turn on the Biography channel (or in my case I’ll Tivo it!).

Andy

p.s. if you want to get Nick’s weekly business email tips, go to www.NickNanton.com and join the newsletter…

Well lately I’ve been pondering where I learned some of my childhood lessons that have made me the person that I am today and I want to share some with you (who knows…maybe you’ll get some ideas!)

This may come as a surprise, but I actually am a country farm girl. No, really. My family had farmland and cattle. My first job was selling watermelons out of the back of the truck at an intersection.

My sister and I got taken on some unconventional “field trips” as kids. We went to both a slaughterhouse and a milking facility to see where our food came from (tip: if you ever raise an animal for food, name it something like T-bone or burger so you don’t get too attached) and an early visit to the landfill to see where your garbage goes (if you want to see bald eagles… Go to the dump. Not very regal, but they’re always there!) We also worked at charities and fundraisers for as long as I can remember (I’m great at the concession stand and to this day can make change in my head!) I’ve learned that by helping others you can help yourself (maybe that’s why I ended up specializing in short sales and teaching others)

As I got older I worked in the family retail business. We were in an industry that had a lot of competition from mail order so I learned to buy from local merchants whenever possible…even if it costs a few dollars more. I also learned payroll, advertising and accounting when it was all done by hand… which gives me a better understanding of how it works on the computer today.

My life has not been perfect. There have been definite highs and lows and I know that there always will be… But it’s what you do with the lessons you’ve learned that show what kind of person you are.

I hope that some of the lessons that I’ve learned and shared with you through this newsletter have made a difference… both in your real estate and your outlook on life.

Andy

p.s. Thanks Mom!

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Well, today it was confirmed. We had a buyer fall out on one of my approved shorts and when I contacted BofA for resubmission they sent me a note that said we had to follow the new procedure and they sent me a “brochure” as they called it.

Here’s the link to see the new Bank of America Short Sale Brochure… it’s so new that this appears to be a proof that the mitigator sent me!

The client/seller will now call BofA directly, give them some info, and a file will be setup on REOTrans.com for the short sale. Then you as the agent will be able to login to this online portal (if the seller authorizes you) and upload the documents needed such as HUD 1, contract, etc.
Supposedly you will be able to see status updates real time and know exactly what’s going on… sounds like we’re in a dream! (or a drug-induced coma!)

Can’t wait to get this first one started under the new program! It can’t be any worse than their old method (knock on wood!)

Anyone involved in the new process yet? I’d love to hear how it’s going!

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I’ve been leading trainings for almost 10 years now, and the longer I do, the more “Bad Andy” rears her head (in case you didn’t know, Bad Andy is my Mii Avatar when I play Wii) When I first started training, I hoped that everyone liked me, I hoped everyone learned something, and I hoped that everyone would give me a good review. After the class I always went straight to the reviews and read every single one, and 99% of them could be rave reviews, but if even 1 said anything negative at all, it would send me into a funk that would sometimes last for days…

At some point, Tim & Stacy (my husband and my assistant) realized this and forbid me from even reading them. You see, they reminded me that you can NEVER please everyone all of the time, and some people were only put on this Earth to complain (sound like anyone you know? maybe in your family or in your office). Don’t get me wrong, the feedback is VERY important to me and Stacy would go through them and share any suggestions and we would find a way to implement the ones that made sense, but the “bashing” ones were filed away.

I also tried to be the “neutral reporter” that just stated the facts but didn’t necessarily say one view was better than the other, for fear of offending someone. All that has changed over the last few years. I do take a stand. I do voice my opinion. I HOPE someone disagrees with me… at least that means they were paying attention! (by the way, to everyone that REALLY knows me, you know that this paragraph only refers to my CLASSES, in my personal and business life I have ALWAYS been very clear on where I stand and what I believe and have never been shy to make it known)

Now that you have a reference point, I want to tell you a story. I recently attended a training myself. I actually go to quite a few seminars every year, everything from communication styles to real estate techniques to how to be a better trainer… from $free to over $6,000! And don’t get me wrong… this training was great, the mindset and techniques are very in line with my business beliefs and practices, so I have nothing bad at all to say about the content. I also enjoyed the teaching style of the instructor… it was very similar to mine (stories and humor, etc.)

But all was not perfect or I wouldn’t be writing this. There were a few people in the class that felt like having their own conversations in the room during class. It is very distracting to have 3 conversations fighting for attention while the instructor is speaking. We also didn’t always start and end on the times that were promised. As I was sitting there, I just kept thinking to myself “wow, I hope my classes aren’t like that”

So I did some soul searching on the way home and here’s my vow to you:

-I will do whatever I can to start and end all classes and breaks on time. You’ve paid to be in my course, you deserve it.

-I will be more aware of “side conversations” going on and politely get their attention back on the training. If that does not work, I will politely talk to those parties during break. You’ve paid to be in my course, you deserve it.

-I will continue to update the course materials, handouts, and presentations to reflect the latest data and will strive to make even the most confusing topics understandable. You’ve paid to be in my course, you deserve it.

-I will always be open to constructive suggestions. I am not perfect. Bad Andy is closer, but she is not perfect either. You’ve paid to be in my course, you deserve it.

-I will continue to monitor the market and the changes happening to continue to bring you the latest techniques and information. You’ve paid to be in my course, you deserve it.

-I will never lose sight of YOUR needs. You are the reason that I train. (well, you and all of the thousands of families that I can help by helping you!). You’ve paid to be in my course, you deserve it.

I hope anyone that reads this that ever conducts any classes, trainings, webinars… anything, wil realize what might be happening in their own classes and be more aware.
And if you come to a future class with me… thank you for trusting me as an advisor in your business. I won’t waste your time you’ve invested!

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