commitment, Short sale, Team work, tips

What is the HAMP Program and why my agent does not know about it?

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  HAMP – Home Affordable Modification program is a loan modification program designed to reduce eligible, delinquent and at-risk borrowers’ monthly mortgage payments. Why some Real Estate Agents and Broker are not aware of this program I do not know. I have my thoughts but I will keep them for myself.

 

HAMP possible can lower your monthly mortgage payment up to 31 percent of your verified monthly gross (pre-tax) income, which usually provides savings of hundreds of dollars per month.

 

You may be eligible for HAMP if you meet all of the following criteria:

 

•You occupy the house as your primary residence.

• You obtained your mortgage on or before January 1, 2009.

• You have a mortgage payment that is more than 31 percent of your monthly gross (pre-tax) income.

• You owe up to $729,750 on your home.

• You have a financial hardship and are either delinquent or in danger of falling behind.

• You’re not unemployed

• You have sufficient, documented income to support the modified payment.

• You must not have been convicted within the last 10 years of felony larceny, theft, fraud or forgery, money laundering or tax evasion, in connection with a mortgage or real estate transaction.

 

To apply for HAMP, you need to complete and provide the following to your Mortgage Servicer

 

•Request for Mortgage Assistance (RMA)

•IRS Form 4506T-EZ or 4506-T

•Verification of Income

 

If your mortgage is owned, insured, or guaranteed by Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA, VA or USDA, ask your mortgage servicer which solutions might be best suited to your situation. Each one has it’s own guidelines and rules.

 

When you not qualify for a HAMP you might qualify for the Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives (HAFA) Program.

commitment, Communication, planning

Do you recognize a prospect ….when you see one?

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This is a loaded question…I know, but I just had to finally put it on paper.

When you are given a possible contact name and number of a person that is interested in what you have to offer do you truly follow up with this person?

 

Be honest ………..

 

Every time …most of the time ….or occasionally?

Experience has taught me that about:

95% of the receptions are very eager to talk to the person.

55% take time to make the first initial contact over the phone or email with in 24 hours

30% will talk to the person during a one on one meeting only once

6% will close the deal

1% will keep of following up with the referral, prospect

The rest will just fall through the crack and never will be farmed or followed up on even after the first initial contact.  Talking with one of my investor Friends who uses his FSBO approach to weed out unproductive Agents has confirmed what I already know.

By now the 80/20 rule no longer exists…it is more like 10/90 or 5/95 at best.

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Spring cleaning not for the inside

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Getting the exterior of the home ready for the rest of the season is as important as the interior cleaning.

Heating and Air conditioning:

When you had not had your air conditioner checked and serviced in a while, now is the time to call the Heating and Air condition company. Now they have time, as soon the first day of hot and humid days hit, they will be busy.

You also should look at your furnace filter and if needed replace it.

Roof and Gutter

Just take a minute to cleanout the gutter and downspouts and the reaming leave that might hang around on the roof. Nothing worsts them a Spring or Summer rain and your gutters are not draining.

While you are looking at the gutters, you might also look for loose areas that need re

Exterior siding

Now is also time to think of possible cleaning the exteriors vinyl siding. Especially on the North side of the home, you can find that the siding is getting dirtier then the rest of the house.

You can get in many home stores siding cleaner you can use with a long handled brush and a water house.

Wooden Decks

Wooden decks do take a beading over the winter. When there are located close to trees the leave will discolor the deck flooring. Clean off the leaves and other debris that has collected on the deck over the winter. You can find very nice deck cleaners at your local Hardware Store. Just follow the products instructions.

Now would be also a great time to re-seal or re-stain the deck.

Drive ways and walk ways

Take a quick peek at your drive way and the walk way the goes to your home. See if there are any cracks or possible areas where someone can trip and fall.

When you have drive way cracks, you can get a sealer that is specific for your type of drive. When you have gravel, just get the rake out one warm weekend and start even out the gravel, or have new gravel delivered.

There are many other things you can do. This is just to get you started….

….happy cleaning and be safe.

commitment, Communication, planning

Building relationship and Follow-Up

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I have been quite for a while and world watch out. …….I am recharged.

……so you subscribed to a lead generating program and they are sending you homeowners to contact.

You make your first initial contact, left your info, and you wait….and wait ….and wait…

….I hate to tell you; just with one visit most of the owners will not call you. On the average it takes up to 5 personal visits before an owner will either open the door or call you back.

One of my great friends and Real Estate investors has made it a sport in weeding out the “fly-by-night Real Estate Agents” (his words not mine). He advertises his properties as FSBO when he is looking for an agent to sell his home in states other than mine.  He does not call any agent back unless he has heard from the agent in some form or fashion at least 5 or more times.

He gave me the following percentages from tracking the Agent’s activity over the last 10 years:

 

40% of the agents will not call or contact him for a second time

30% will contact him at least twice

20% will contact him at least 3 times and give up

9% will contact him 4 times and give up and

1% of the original agents who contacted him will contact him 5 or more times

 

He told me that it did not matter how the market was doing. When the market was good, bad, or ugly the average numbers were the same.

 

Sobering numbers? ….I think so.

commitment, Communication, Team work

“You can not always control circumstances, but you can control your own thoughts.”

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This quote from Charles Popplestown came to mind as I received a very long email from a possible Real Estate recruit, that in detail explained to me why she hates doing certain tasks in her current function and why she thinks she will not doing them later.

 

Do you know who your customers are and where do they come from?

 

It is easy for all of us to complain about this or that, him or her. It is so much harder to look at the problem and offer a solution and when a company is recruiting, that is exactly what they are looking for.

Most of the time when a company is hiring they are faced with an opportunity that has not been solved and they are now looking for the solution externally.

 

In our business we strive for referrals and for the referral business. Before we receive the referral business we have to earn it. Referrals and the referral business do not come without hard work, dedication, and offering of solutions to our current customers and clients.

 

This does not only hold true in the world of our business, this is true for all types of jobs and employment.

 

Be the solution to an issue and don’t become the issue and when you have an issue offer a solution.

commitment, Communication, organizing, planning, Team work

Can your client count on you?

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…..how many times have you told your client that you will have something to them by a certain date and you did not deliver?

…..how many times did you promise to call back by a certain date and you did not make the call?

……how often did you set time for a F2F meeting and you where late, even for 5 minutes?

…… how often did you miss a deadline, even less than a day?

…..how often do you read your emails only to be told that no one can email you because your inbox is full and no longer can accept emails?

….how often do you miss listening and clearing your phone voice mails only to be told that on one can leave a message because your voice mail box tells the caller your voice mail box is full and no longer can accept messages?

Sounds familiar?…..No……are you sure?

None of us are perfect……..a few will accept the opportunity that is given to them, tell on themselves and strive to make changes and adjustments.

 Where to start?

….recognize you overextended yourself and notify early. Don’t have it called out on you

….don’t make excuses. Own up to it.

commitment, Inspiration, tips

Our office does not pay a referral fee!

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Reading my emails I came across a posting from Peggy Chirico called “I Don’t Take Referrals!” and it reminded me of several conversations I had with REALTOR’s that where located in an areas I had a referrals for.

 

As I called and talked with the Principal Broker, to find out which of her agents to send the referral too, I was surprised to hear her say that her office is not paying a referral fee for referrals. They never have and never will. She informed me that it is not necessary for her office to pay a referral fee; they have enough work coming in to keep them busy.

 

OK…..I understand….and I moved on to another office in the area, which was happy to pay a referral fee for a listing referral in the area.

 

In our office we love receiving referrals and we do pay a referral fee to the agent who gives us the referral at the time of closing. I do not see anything wrong with this. When we have a referral for other areas, I am gladly willing to send the referral to a more local agent.

 

I see a referral given or received a chance to build a relationship for live and a potential for future referrals and that is the true value of a referral.

 

There are so many men who can figure costs, and so few who can measure values.  ~Author Unknown

commitment, Communication, Team work, tips

Are you truly listening…………..?

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I had several situations this week that made me think…..are we truly listening to the person who is talking with us on the phone or who is talking with you right in front of you?

 

With our busy life and work we all try to multi task and sometimes we forget to focus on what is important right at this moment.

 

…..have you ever had the situation that you where talking to a person, maybe at a meeting, and they checked their phone for messages during you conversation with them and not even ten minutes later they asked a question that you had covered with them not even ten minutes ago?

 

…..or where you ever in a restaurant ordering food and the server wrote down your order but had side conversations while taking your order and as you received your order, it was not correct?

 

….or have you ever been given a message from an email or phone that someone else took for you while you were out and as you followed up with the message it was not what the messenger told you or assumed  it was?

 

Things like this happen more and more often. We trying to do too many things at once might be the culprit. The more we try to do at once the less we accomplish and create re-work for ourselves and others.

 

Here some ideas to make certain that the person you are talking with understands and has listed to you.

 

On the phone:

 

  • Ask them open ended questions about what you just presented
  • Ask the person to paraphrase the information what you just told them
  • Find out if there are in the car talking with you, when they are, reschedule the conversation to a time when they are not driving or being driven. Cell servicer in some areas is not 100% and important parts of a conversation could be missed
  • Send an email with all of the discussion points and ask them if there are any more questions about the task at hand and ask an open ended question to make certain it was understood and they have to reply.
  • When they put you on hold during your phone conversation, reschedule the conversation after they return to your call.

 

When it is a face to face meeting;

 

  • Ask them to please put the phone down
  • Do not sit behind the desk, use a more casual conversation group

 

When it was an email message that was taken for you

 

  • Ask to have the original email forwarded to you
  • When something is unclear contact the original sender to clarify

 

Politeness is the art of choosing among one’s real thoughts.  ~Abel Stevens

Communication

Emails with a blank subject line

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….so….finishing up another day at the office and I am going through my SPAM folder at the end of the day and here I see again ton’s of emails with a blank subject line.

Granted 50% of them are possible junk or emails with a link to a virus, the other 50% are legitimate emails that I need to respond to in the morning.

…why is this so frustrating you wonder….simple….!!

By most SPAM filter definitions and email without subject line is considered SPAM and will be held back no matter who sends the email.

Senders with no good intentions send most of the time emails, which include a possible virus or links to viruses, which have not subject line.

Someone from your contact list had their account hacked into and the hacker used the contact list to send out emails in a person’s name without subject line…..again a possible virus or links to viruses.

When you send an email yourself without subject line you are telling the receiver…”Hey my message is not important and I truly don’t care if your respond back to me.”

……so be so good and take just another minute to add a subject line to your email otherwise one day you just don’t receive a responds to an urgent or important email.

Inspiration, Short sale

Reaching the defaulted borrower ……..early…….

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We are still not through the wave of possible short sales that are coming on the market. The new furcated number I have been given just recently is a HUGE scary number and when all of them would hit the REO market…..wow…..

2012 might be the year of the short sale and have you prepared yourself for the huge workload?

Mortgage servicers are still using the Door-to door outreach program and from reading though all of the information I have I can see that the personal face to face contact approach and reaching defaulted borrowers early during their default period is still the way to go to avoid having to many REO’s hit the open market.

Reaching the defaulted borrows is one thing, but are you willing to work with the defaulted borrower early in the ball game or do you just hope they might consider calling you for a short sale?

Are you truly ready for them when they call you up and ask you to list their home as a possible short sale?