All posts by Bettina Settles

My clients appreciate my compassion, empathetic nature when dealing with them and their transaction but more than willing to educate in a simple way to make a complex transaction understood. Being accessible and cooperative when it comes to dealing with clients and cooperative agents has earned me high praises from both. They have learned that I am dedicated, honest, and knowledgeable and can become very persuasive when it comes when working a transaction for my clients.
education, Inspiration, organizing, planning, Team work, tips

Control what you can control

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An article about 9 things that will trash your home value from Mandi Woodruff came across my desk. Some of the things they listed where loud neighbors, foreclosure in the neighborhood and hoarders. This made me think, not only about the housing market but also about running a business.

What could be the things that will trash your business?

My first thought goes immediately towards the total loss of information and documentation due to a natural disaster like fire, flood, or storm. Or possible more manmade disasters like power outage, back-up failure, you name it.

There is also the possible personal accident or medical emergency that could keep you from tending to your business when you don’t have plan B in place.

Some other internal business wreckers for some business could be the improper disposal of chemicals or cleaners or employees who are not quite as honest  and maybe taking a switch here , a gallon of paint there or eating an unauthorized free meal here or giving their friends a free lunch there.

The other thing that comes to mind is not keeping up with changes or keeping up with continues education and changes in technology or becoming just plain complacent and set in the personal way of doing things.

Some of the things we can control in in some way but there will be some things we have absolute no control over and we just need to take the bull by the horn and deal with them or ignore them when appropriate.

commitment, Communication, education, Inspiration, planning, tips

Are women businesses less credit worthy?

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I don’t think so but it appears we are losing some ground.

Catching up on reading news clippings I have collected and I ran across another eye opening article about a study from Biz2Credit posted in the Bloomberg Business Week. Biz2Creidt analyzed 14,000 loams and found out that women-owned companies were 15 percent to 20 percent less likely to be approved for small business loans within the first 6 months of 2012.

They put some of the blame on the type of business a woman is planning on opening. Most of the women part of the loans they looked at where planning on opening a retail location, which normally does not have a lot of ROI and higher expenses.

Did you know that U.S. government contracts to women- owned small businesses dropped for the second consecutive year, declining at a faster rate than awards to their male counterparts?

Sure there is less contractual work to give out and the competition has increased and the government never focused very strongly on women owned businesses. It does not help that the government has a 5% cap on work given to women and minority businesses.

I am hearing the cap will be raised but I am not sure if the hiring manager will get the message to the same time.

Several things we can do as women:

  • Before you open any business, do your homework.
  • When you want to be rewarded a government contract. Educated yourself and take offered training that is for free or low cost in many cases.
Communication, education, planning, Team work, tips

New interactive course to teach you to achieve your financial and homeownership goals from Freddie Mac.

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This great new online self-guided interactive course from Freddie Mac is for everybody who is considering buying their home or who is already a homeowner. Goal of the tool is to teach new buyers on how to achieve their goal and current homeowners on how to avoid foreclosure.

The This great new self-guided interactive online training course by Freddie Mac is called CreditSmartÂŽ Consumer Online Training and has 12 separate training modules. Each module is about 20-30 minutes long.

You will learn:

  • Understand the importance of building credit to secure your financial future.
  • Gain insight into how lenders assess your eligibility for a mortgage loan.
  • Recognize the warning signs of predatory lending and scams.
  • Learn the steps to successful homeownership.
  • Safeguard your home and your finances against life’s unexpected challenges.
  • Learn what to do if you ever have difficulty making your mortgage payments.
Communication, education, tips

Cybercriminals are using our connectivity

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Just had an article coming into my inbox that moved my senses! Businesses Are Losing The Right To Ask For Customer ZIP Codes by Dominic Green.

How many times where you asked at the checkout lanes for either our zip codes or phone number at the end of the transaction and how many times did we just raddle the information out without thinking?

Several states like California and now the Massachusetts make it a federal privacy violation to collect shopper’s personal information like the phone number or a zip code.

This now leads me to the question how we keep any information, personal and private, under lock and key. Most of us deal with our and our clients personal information on our lap tops, tables and smart phones on a daily bases. How we secure this information is becoming more and more important in this age of connectivity.

Most of the Cybercriminals are using our connectivity to gain our trust and phish for our and our client’s information through twat is called social engineering. In many cases you are contacted via email and given a deal that sounds too good to be true or you are asked to donate after a disaster. Another could be from “your financial institution” threatening the closure of your account. The lottery constantly tells us we have one a certain amount of money and we have to click on link ABC to claim it. These are a few I can think of right now but I know there are more.

When you not sure that the email you have received is a true or a phishing email Microsoft has a great article on how to spot the fake. When you are still not sure if it is a true email you might call the person to find out if they have send you this message, don’t click on the link inside the email and just delete it when you still not sure.

I did this just last week and we found out that this personas smart phone was hacked.

Communication, education, Inspiration, planning, tips

It is only how you look at things

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Finished up the mandatory CE for my licenses and I am so ready to leave the room. Not because I am done. NO I truly enjoined my time for additional information, education and networking. I am so ready to leave the negative crowd behind me who was part of the audience for the last few days.

I am constantly asking myself “when you don’t like to learn, why  are you calling yourself self-employed? They reminded me of a blog I had posted in March of last year called Are you a Real Estate Entrepreneur or Employee?  and an agent I have talked with who was not aware of the new changes within the field of real estate.

Some of the “old timers” and “new comers” into the field who tell me that nothing new can be taught to them. All this ran through my mind as I read a blog post Mark G. called “No Time for Improvement? Bah! Make Time for Improvement!”

What is the old saying: When you stop learning you need to move on or out of the business.

…and anyone who tells me they don’t have time just keep in mind:

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” – H. Jackson Brown

Communication, education, Inspiration, organizing, planning, Short sale, Team work, tips

FHFA Streamlined Modification Initiative

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FHFA announced just recently the new Streamlined Modification Initiative for Borrowers and Servicers to benefit from a more simplified program to the borrower and servicer.

The New Streamlined Modification Initiative Borrowers is an additional option for borrowers who are in trouble with their mortgage in addition to the modifications options their servicer’s offers to them.

This FHFA program is offered by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and runs from July the 1st 2013 and expired on August 1, 2015 and is a program that is available to homeowners whose loan is guaranteed by either Fannie Mea or Freddie Mac. Their mortgage must be a first-lien mortgage with either Fannie Mea or Freddie Mac and needs to be at least 12 months old with a loan-to-value ratio equal to or greater than 80 percent.

Borrowers who are between 90 days to 24 months delinquent starting July 1st will receive a Streamlined Modification Solicitation Offer from their servicer and when the borrower agrees to the terms of the offer they do not have to Streamlined Modification Solicitation Offer but will need to make trial period payments on time.

Borrower should still work with their servicer to possible pursue the full range of modification options available to them like the HAMP program ever prior to being later more than 90 days.

Communication, education, planning, tips

Open invitation for burglars

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Cruising  some of the neighborhoods to look at potential homes who are listed for sale for some of my  buyers and would you not know it ………    one of the neighbors took the trash out today and is now advertising to anyone who drives by that they are the proud owner of a 55 inch Samsung flat panel TV.

How tempting it was to pull into their driveway and knock on the door and make them aware of what they are doing by throwing out their un-collapsed box into the trash for the trash service to pick up on Thursday and today is only Tuesday. It would been better for them to collapse the box , turn it inside out ,make it as small as possible and string it together for the trash service to pick up.

One way to prevent your house to be burglarized is not to throw un-collapsed boxes from recent purchases like TV or other electronic items into the trash. You don’t want to advertise what you have in the house for someone to take.

When it is an item they can quickly turn around and sell very quickly on the open market or their drug dealer down the road they will.

Just a few days ago I had posted another blog called: “Spring break but not for burglars”. Where is gave some ideas on how to make sure that your home is not an open invitation for burglars when you are out for spring break.

Is this a guarantee to 100% prevent a burglary? No …but we can make sure we have done everything we can on our end to make sure that no one knows you left the home and it is unattended during work and play time and to make sure that no one knows what you all have they might be willing to steal while you are out.

Inspiration, Team work, tips

Urban farming a popular trend

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You have seen it on the popular DIY channels on TV, in Homes magazines and during local fairs and exhibits. Urban farming is here to stay.

Some individuals even started to make a career out of their urban farm and have been very successful doing it.

When you plan on starting an Urban Farm you need to do your homework before you even start. Not only to research what grows in your area but also the legality of what you can or cannot do in the area you live in.

For instance when your garden is within a homeowner association you might have limitations on how large your storage shed can be, maybe your fence can only be a certain height or you cannot build the chicken coop your daughter would like to have for 4-H.

Some of you might live outside the city limit but maybe you are within the jurisdiction and limitations of a city even so you are outside the city limits.

Before you start turning the soil, do your homework first.

Find out form the local Planning and zoning board what if any limitations are attached to your land and property due to zooming ordinances. Some limitations could be the height of a fence, size and location of a storage barn, or limitations on small farm animals. When you are in within a homeowner associations read through your associations rules and regulations. You might not be able to have a small composter or your storage shed needs to be the size of a postage stamp with a lot less storage you need.

When there are too many limitation for you to have your own backyard farm you might put your farm into containers and scale it down or rent a small plot in the community garden many cities now has for their residents.

Communication, education, Inspiration, organizing, planning, Team work, tips

Not all Cities are great for Small business

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Thanks to the 6 + inch snow outside I have some time to catch up on reading. Last week I found and saved a article written by Laurie Kulikowski called “Best Cities for Small Businesses” and found that not every cities is created equally and supports small business owners especially women business owners.

Some of the few Cities mentioned in the article who are supportive of small business owners are San Antonio CA, Des Moines IA, Miami FL, Kansas City KS, and Atlanta GA.

Other cities have been very slow in reacting to the changing business field and have mainly been focusing to attract large employers and businesses to their market. Many cities are not willing to invest into their future by investing and updating their infrastructure to attacked small businesses into their town. For any small business to move into the areas they need the support.

Support from the local government is needed by providing the basic infrastructure for the business to attract qualified personal during work and play, with a well-connected transit system, over all great connectivity, parks and family friendly recreation areas.

Also the support from local already established businesses are needed as well.

Many cities and their businesses have many opportunities who are more male oriented and very seldom female. The attitude that “she “is just doing this because “she” is a bored “housewife” is still alive and well established throughout the country.

The attitude’s is slowly changing and it has taken years to get to this point.

Sure we have National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) , American Business Women’s Association and the SBA (Small Business Administration) who is focused on women. Have you noticed that most of them have groups and meetings only in the larger cities of each state? You don’t hear much about them and you have to know they exist. Some cities offer networking evens for women but you have to be in the know or know someone who is in the know to find out about any meeting that is geared to women business owners or women who are interested in opening up their own business.

Meghan Casserly, with Forbes pointed out in her article called “Why Women’s Networking Groups Fail” that when the network is balance of resources, information and good intentions to make a network not just functional, but beneficial to all members you have a good network. When one of the parts is missing you have just a great conversational group that meets for coffee.

Communication, education, Inspiration, planning, tips

Spring break but not for burglars

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Here we have another spring break. Suitcases are packed and the air is full of excitement and anticipation of the trip to the fun and the sun. Burglars are as exited for your to go on spring break only for a totally other reason.

Within the United States, one in every thirty-six homes will be burglarized with an average loss of $1,675 per break-in.

During all of the spring break excitement have you take some precautions to minimize the possible risk of being burglarized?

  • Hold the mail and newspaper
  • Put lights on timers and set timer to different times of the day
  • Leave the TV or radio on for noise
  • Make sure all the doors ,windows and garage doors are locked and secure
  • Have the blinds closed so no one can peek into the windows
  • When you have an alarm system make sure it is armed
  • Have your exterior light on light sensors
  • Ask someone you trust to take out your trash and pull back in your trash can for and after trash day
  • You might consider hiring a house sitter for a while
  • Do you have a written inventory of your household items, including all of the serial numbers of your electronic items? Just in case…..

Is this a guarantee to 100% prevent a burglary. No …but we can make sure we have done everything we can on our end to make sure that no one knows you left the home and it is unattended.