Category Archives: tips

commitment, Communication, Team work, tips

Your past performance might come to haunt you in the future.

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How many time have we heard from parents, teachers, friends and others never to burn your bridges.

I am sure you had you fair share like we all do. I know I did.

 

Have you ever thought about your past work performance?

 

This becomes important when you decide to part ways but maybe later you decided to return due to a change of your personal situation or the company is now offering more of what you are looking for.

 

It is very interesting to see how surprised some individuals are when they are not asked to return due to their past performance when they inquiring and asking to return. Some of them did not think that a record is kept of their performance especially when they where hired as independent contractors.

 

They did not think that when no one was able to get in touch with them via phone or email for a longer period of time or when work was not completed with in the allotted time and no communication was received from them about the holdup of delay of work was important.

 

Your bad performance now and in the past, might burn you some bridges you might need to use in the future.

 

buying, Team work, tips

I only work Real Estate Monday through Friday 9 to 4

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I am looking for a Real Estate professional to work with in certain areas because I am looking to buy more investment properties.

 

Before I make my calls to meet with them in person I do a little due diligence on each of them I am planning on contacting and low and behold I ran across several personal websites ( not the company) where the agent posted their personal work hours on their website.

 

Monday – Friday 9 AM to 4 PM (no nights)

Saturday and Sunday: Closed.

 

Nice….

 

I know for certain that this agent and their office will not be on my list to represent me in the purchase of my investment properties.

 

Not sure if this agent understands the most of the buyers and sellers are only available during the week in the evening or on weekends….that is when I drive by and look at potential investment properties I would like to buy.

buying, education, planning, tips

Are your investments paying you or do you pay for them?

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I have many investment properties coming over my desk where the investor has gotten themselves into trouble. Many times when I speak with the investor I find out that they blame their property troubles on tenants who don’t pay the rent or the constant upkeep of the buildings.

When looking at their financing situation I can see that 100% of their investments have been bought, while times where good, and secured with some type of 100% financing.  Nothing out of pocket….

They truly don’t own their investment 100%, they still own the right to make the payment to an investor who gave them the money to invest into their investment!

So who is the true investor?

The one who signed the paperwork to buy the investment or the one who gave the money that is secured by a property and who might not lose much when foreclosing on the other guy’s investment?

buying, education, planning, tips

Are you ready for the next waive?

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The real estate market has so slightly is showing signs of a turn around and it might be a good time to think again of investing in real estate. Actually there is no bad time when it comes to investing in real estate. It just might in a different area or different product.

With any type of investing you yourself need to be ready for the opportunity and you need to be able to jump on the opportunity when it knocks and presents it self’s.

Many investors are not ready for the opportunity and counting on loans and other forms of secondary financing to be able to close and finalize the deal.

Nothing wrong with this type of financing, just keep in mind that you should get paid. Now, will it be you 100% of the time or do you need to share a percentage of your potential personal income with another party?

planning, Short sale, Team work, tips

Don’t take short cuts….it will cost you at the end…..

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came to mind as I talked to an individual who complained about their short sale transaction.

 

Asking a few probing questions I uncovered what the reason could be for not having a smooth short sale transaction.

 

Here are some quick tips and questions to ask that could help you out in a short sale:

 

What type loan is on the house? Conventional or insured

Has a loan modification been attempted? Yes/no

Was a written short sale approval given? Yes/no

Is the homeowner cooperating? Yes/No

Is the homeowner employed or self employed?

Do you have a CURRENT:

  • Tax return
  • Bank Statement (2 months contiguous)
  • Pay stubs or other proof of ALL reported income (2 months contiguous)
  • Filled out financial form, signed and dated and all income information confirmed or back up with written proof.
  • Hardship letter (not older than 30 days)
  • Filled out RMA form. Signed, dated and all information can be confirmed and is backed up in writing.

 

I am sure you noticed that I have not listed anything that has to do with a short sale contract.

 

Point is…when a short sale approval was not given at the time you list a home, why would you want to waist your time by looking at offers when you don’t even know what the mortgage servicer will agree to.

 

You will speed up the selling process by starting first with the short sale approval process prior to listing the home and NOT while the home is listed.

Communication, education, Team work, tips

Do you know who your customers are?

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When I ask this questions I normally receive the same answer.

A lot of the business owners will tell me that their clients are the once who given them the jobs that keeps a company in money.

Who are your customers?

Now truly think about this one more time in a broader sense and spectrum.

Businesses have direct customers, consumers and the most forgotten once, Internal customers.

The consumers are the once who are using the product and services that are offered. This holds true for any type of company. Wholesaler or distributors.

The direct customer are the once who are directly buy or subscribe to your service’s and make the decision to may invest in your services or your company.

The internal consumer is the one that is mostly overlooked. They are the once who make the wheels run and make it happen for the external consumers. Sure it does take a management team to run everything on the inside but when we loose sight and don’t pay attention to all of the consumers, external and internal we might run into a “Herby” and might loose good external but also internal consumers.

When you have not looked at your total consumers structure, internal and external, and examined how all of them are interacting and connecting you should some time to do so. It might take you a lot longer than you thought and be honest.

commitment, Communication, organizing, planning, Team work, tips

I have the REO training but why do I not receive REO listings?

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This question is asked every day, or posted online.

I am working with orders from servicers and agents thought out the country every day and I can see why REO servicers do not call on certain agents or brokerage firms.

It has absolutely nothing to do with who they like and who is the most popular or bestselling Agent in the area. It has all to do with timely communication, knowledge about your listing inventory and their current status, and timely completion of task timelines given by the REO servicers to the agents or their brokerage firms.

Many REO servicers already have a clear idea about an individual agent and brokerage firm before they even call on them to list their REO portfolio.

Many of the agents are completing BPO’s, are part of Homeowner outreach programs or other services for third party companies.

Guess what???  All the orders the agents are working on coming from the servicers who also have REO’s to give to agents.

When you are late and not meeting the timelines on the orders that you were  give, or not communicating with the third party companies, it is communicated to the servicers with the agents name and brokerage information when an order is submitted to that servicer.

With that a picture of the work and communication habit of each and every agent is created. This info can be accessed and viewed by a servicer who might is looking for an REO listing agent.

Bottom line is……

…be on time

..Communicate timely

…do this on a consistent base, every day…no matter what. No amount of REO training will give you a listing when that is not done.

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

Are you losing business…..

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….and you might not even realize you do….

 

In today’s market personal and business continues education and fulfillment is much easier than it was in the past.

 

With many companies having many of their educational material, free or for pay, online available it is truly heartbreaking when I see and talk with prospects for a position and they have not a clue what is going on the field they have chosen to practice in.

 

Today phone call was a great example of this again.

 

I had contacted a very well know business person I need for a task in an area he considers himself an expert in this field (at least what his website said). During the conversation I found out that he was not aware of” recent” changes in his field that happened in 2009 and today is 2012.

 

What I did not tell him during this conversation was that I have several referrals for him in his area of “expertise” but due to him not willing to keep up with his personal and business continues education in his chosen filed I am moving on to the next potential business in the area.

Communication, planning, Team work, tips

Assumptions we all make them…..

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The little action of assuming something sometimes gets us in trouble, gives us the wrong feeling of confidence or the total wrong impression about a situation we do not have the full information on.

 

Just the other day I was sitting in awe, listening in on an assumption someone made about a situation that they were not privy to or given the full information on but still made their personal opinion known to everybody in the room.

 

Immediately my thought turned to myself and wondered how many times I made an assumption about a situation without being privy too or given the full information on. Or had not researched or talked with both parties who might be part of the situation and could give me the needed information for me to be able to form an informed option to make a decision on the situation.

 

I found myself doing just this in my mind the other day. Just yesterday I had received a call about a situation and I immediately was upset about what has happened without having the other person’s story. I stepped back, put my personal opinion aside and talked with the other person that was involved in the situation. To my horror I found out that there was a missing training piece that was not covert and might not been found out about unless this situation occurred.

 

We pulled both parties together and together we took their situation and wrote a training piece about this and used their situation as an example and added talking points and tips on how to avoid being in the same situation.

 

My thought…you never know what you are missing until you ask and when you ask you might find that you have missing pieces in your training or communication you have never thought off.

Team work, tips

I don’t have time for a referral…..

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…was the email answer I received after I emailed and called a business that my client was in need of hiring and I thought I had a good relationship with.

 

The bottom of the email signature was the following tag line after the business information:

“We are never too busy for your referrals”.

 

What a contradictory statement in the same email message.

 

Most of us business people strive for referrals. Referral for us is the best form of compliment another business person can give us. They trusting us and have enough confidence in us to send their personal clients to us.  We are working very hard to receive referrals ……

 

Why would we not have time for another business transaction and to make money and possible have another source of future referral coming in from another potential client?

 

Keep in mind; you never know who they know and who they possible could refer to you.

 

Needless to say I referred my clients to another business. I have taken the business that turned down my referral out of my personal “to refer to” list and have replaced them with another business.

 

Will I keep them informed of what is going on in the area???? Sure…..

Will I send more of my personal clients their way???? …. You tell me…..