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BloodhoundBlog

There's always something to howl about

“Managing loans” is the tail that wags the dog today. When I was a rookie stockbroker, the good folks at Mother Merrill taught us to “gather assets”. Essentially, the firm encouraged us to pitch clients to have their assets transferred to a Merrill Lynch account. The strategy was that assets “in-house” would result in a commission when they had to be sold.

Is it any wonder that the mortgage sales gurus who brought that strategy to the mortgage business were former stockbrokers? Rich Katz, former President of Loan Toolbox, spent his early career with both Merrill Lynch and Smith Barney. Dave Savage of Mortgage Coach perfected that strategy with his software offering. Todd Ballenger developed a business model that partnered with financial planners; it’s cornerstone was actively managing mortgages for customers.

Simply put, a new mortgage originator could track current homeowners’ mortgages, by rate (and/or term). The lowest-tech system would be in file folders, indexed by note rate. Vendors like Mortgage Coach, Top of Mind, and

Niche Marketing- A Different Kind Of Blog?January 5

Well, I’m guilty of thinking again. My mind wanders thinking of ways to do things differently-actually, a way to do things better, which brings questions, and then getting lost a little bit.

My blog, if you remember, is a pretty narrow niche in that I write about Green Real Estate. But, the other day I was thinking…What if there were a way to have multiple pages or categories with their own blog? I know that makes absolutely no sense, but I’ll explain.

I have tried to spend some time looking at Niche Marketing Blogs over the past few months and each one proves that Niche Blogs are just…different. If you get off topic, you lose readers. If you don’t get out on a limb and break up the content sometimes, it bores people..and then you lose readers.

So back to my idea. Personally, I think this is an amazing idea for the real estate industry. In a way it would be multiple sites all in one. For example, we have pages right? Contact, Search for listings, yada..yada. Then we have tags for our posts: Foreclosures, Mortgage, Marketing, New Listings…whatever.

What if within the separate pages we could have a different blog, or a way to filter a blog to a separate page? Instead of having just one long page of posts on a blog page it would be nice for within the Dashboard to filter the Blog Post to a different page.

So, I’m writing a post

Free “gifts” for real estate webloggers: “The need to deny influence is damaging to the soul”January 5

On Vendorslut Eve, here are a couple of quick notes on free “gifts” and their intended influence:

Richard Riccelli points out this New York Times article:

Starting Jan. 1, the pharmaceutical industry has agreed to a voluntary moratorium on the kind of branded goodies — Viagra pens, Zoloft soap dispensers, Lipitor mugs — that were meant to foster good will and, some would say, encourage doctors to prescribe more of the drugs.
No longer will Merck furnish doctors with purplish adhesive bandages advertising Gardasil, a vaccine against the human papillomavirus. Banished, too, are black T-shirts from Allergan adorned with rhinestones that spell out B-O-T-O-X. So are pens advertising the Sepracor sleep drug Lunesta, in whose barrel floats the brand’s mascot, a somnolent moth.

Some skeptics deride the voluntary ban as a superficial measure that does nothing to curb the far larger amounts drug companies spend each year on various other efforts to influence physicians. But proponents welcome it as a step toward ending the barrage of drug brands and logos that surround, and may subliminally influence, doctors and patients.

It’s not just a matter of subliminal influence. When every pen and pad you use comes from a ven

Filters Aren’t Just for CoffeeJanuary 4

As I take stock of 2008 and move into 2009, I’ve decided to develop and implement a strategy for transforming my business moving forward. I’ve settled on a theme for this year - creating, delivering and leveraging knowledge.

My goal for 2009 is to become a better filter.

I want to become an expert filter - more importantly, be recognized as an expert filter - transforming information into knowledge. I had a very interesting conversation this morning with a client regarding the state of the current real estate market in Chicago. After three attempts of getting several properties under contract, my client and I finally succeeded in getting a deal together. We visited the unit again this morning. After seeing the unit, I sensed his apprehension when talking about next steps.

He wants to renegotiate the price now after having the property under contract. He’s been actively reading on the blogs that prices are continuing to fall in the US - he cited Case Shiller’s recent price decline of 18% as the reason why he should pay even less than our negotiated price.

This became a real example of why information is not knowledge.

I became a filter - he was not really aware that the indicator, often touted in daily news sound bites about the ailing US real estate market, was actually an aggregated statistic for 20 metro areas in the US - Chicago faring slightly b

If selling is not a viable option, you need to fall in love with your house all over againJanuary 3

This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link).

If selling is not a viable option, you need to fall in love with your house all over again

The foreclosure market dominates the news, but it remains that good old-fashioned American homeowners occupy the overwhelming majority of Phoenix-area homes. That’s the good news.

And here’s some even better news: If you have significant equity in your home, you can probably refinance right now, reducing your monthly payment.

But here’s the bad news: Unless you absolutely have to, you probably won’t be moving for at least five years.

Don’t believe the number you see on that refi appraisal. At most, your house is worth the same amount as a comparable lender-owned home, plus the net cost to bring that home up to the livability of yours.

Swallow hard. You may have read in the paper that Americans lost $2 trillion in real estate equity in 2008. That’s a specious number. Money is the stuff you can fold up and spend. The equity in your home is unrealized money. You weren’t rich when your home was worth a lot, and you’re not poor now that it isn’t.

But what you are is stuck, practically speaking.

You don’t want to sell your house for what it can bring right now. If you do, you will lose money. But, refi or not, you’re making your payments.