Not too many years ago, this was a joke.  It was usually told in the form of “I am from the IRS, and I am here to help you.”  We thought of this as one of the world’s greatest lies and, to a large degree at the time, it was!

Things seem to be changing, don’t they?  All this talk about the recovery. . . bailouts. . . help for homeowners. . .  Well, it seems to be real this time!  I have been involved in several short sales and loan modifications recently.  As a part of these transactions, I have become intimately familiar with the HUD site - MakingHomeAffordable.gov.  To visit, click their logo below:

This is where homeowners who are either upside-down in their loan or cannot afford to make their payments can learn about programs designed to get them government aid. Loan balances can be lowered, rates can be lowered, in an effort to get your payments down to 31% of your gross income per month or less.

Once you determine if you are possibly qualified for this service, you should visit www.hud.gov to find a list of HUD approved counselors who can be your advocate and negotiate with your lender for no fee!

Please feel free to contact us if you need help with this.

Have you driven around and seen the For Sale signs and noticed that a great percentage of them indicate “Bank Owned” or some other phrase that tells us that this is no ordinary sale?  I have heard from a number of you that is seems like most sales are foreclosure sales.  I decided to give you the real numbers, and I have presented them here graphically, so that you can get a sense of what is happening here in Brentwood.

As the graph shows, of the 227 actual closed sales from January 1 through April 28, 177 of them were bank-owned homes.  Commonly called REO (Real Estate Owned - by the bank), these are either foreclosed homes or homes turned back to the lender in some form of “deed in lieu of foreclosure.”  This represents fully 78% of all residential sales in our town. Add in the “short sales” (when the home sells for less that the borrower owed), and you peak at 87%. So, it seems, your instincts have been on the mark

What is happening?  It is simply a matter of cycling through the inventory of homes that the owner can no longer afford, for whatever reason.  Our economy is in a tight spot, homeowners are losing jobs, interest rates on seasoned loans are climbing and the homeowners are deciding that it might not be worth it any longer.  This might be a mistake.

The government recently enacted several measures designed to help those homeowners who want to stay in their homes.  The most recent, called Making Home Affordable offer us some very attractive ways to actually be able to afford these homes that we currently cannot afford.  For additional information, visit MakingHomeAffordable.gov or give me a call or an email and I will be happy to help you get started - no charge.

JackH

I am certain that we all have heard or read the following phrases over and over in nearly every REALTOR® marketing piece:

“Your REALTOR® for Life!”

Often, the writer will add to this by detailing a scenario that is the object of what the REALTOR wants to see happen;

·         Repeat Business

·         Referral Business

·         Investment Opportunity Business

We seem to be convinced that by just repeating this magical phrase over and over until it becomes our own personal mantra, we will be transformed into successful agents!   It is interesting to note that some might say that “if you feel a great need to say it, it probably isn’t true.”  Like the excerpt from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, when he is trying to trick his mother into showing herself as a liar, he says “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.” By saying this, Hamlet is actually saying that he thinks his mother is proclaiming her innocence by relying on too much denial.  Like a little kid who says; “I didn’t do it. . . really. . . I am telling the truth.”  We hear enough to tell us that he likely DID do whatever IT was.

I don’t mean to say that any agent who proclaims himself/herself to be “your REALTOR® for life” is not a good agent and is not capable of serving your needs into the future. I am just pointing out that if it is true, you probably don’t need to shout it from the rooftops. Also, it is potentially something that clients will view as being self-serving. Think about it this way; we are asking them to do something for us – to commit to us as their only real estate resource.

On the other hand,  maybe we are taking the wrong approach. Perhaps it might be a better and more acceptable approach for us to focus on creating relationships that result in “Clients for Life!” Now, you might be thinking that I am playing with semantics here.  You might be right, but consider this: If we truly focus more on the needs of clients and less on our own needs, the clients will recognize that and will react differently.  What we are saying with this approach is that we want to let them know that, if they will have us, we will work very hard to serve their needs for the long run. We are not just looking around the corner for the next commission.

With the former approach, focused on REALTOR® for Life, we will usually not have much meaningful interaction with the clients in between sales and purchases. Sure, we might work very hard at maintaining a relationship – postcards, parties, drop-by’s and the like. But these are not truly real estate related by their nature.

Moving away from this approach and into a Client for Life approach would involve frequent and meaningful real estate specific interactions. Some examples might include calling the client to offer to help them get a reassessment on their taxes if the average prices drop significantly. You could also send to them copies of articles about market conditions, information on loan modifications, some hard-to-believe investment opportunities, annual review of their own property value, etc.

These frequent and meaningful real estate specific contacts could be interspersed with offers to help them with all their needs, whether they are buying, selling or have a need that is not related to a transaction. Remember, the consultative approach widens your offering to include anything real estate related, even the non-transactional activities.

This approach might be viewed better by the clients. After all, you are no longer  asking them to commit to you. You are offering to commit to them! This is a huge difference. In the end, I am just suggesting a very minor shift. If we shift our focus away from “REALTOR® for Life” and toward “Client for Life,” we will see a huge change in both our client’s attitude and our own self image.

Jack Harper is a longtime REALTOR^® and author who is an avid proponent of the consulting model in today’s real estate market. He believes in providing fair and professional service and being paid a fair and reasonable fee for those services every time he is engaged by a client, whether there is a sale involved or not. He advocates allowing the consumer to have full choice in terms of the services and is an evangelist for the consulting model.Check out the RealTown Consulting Group for more information and to ask questions. Copyright, 2008, Jack Harper, All Rights Reserved