For the past 3 years my life has consisted of one thing - researching REO. Every aspect of REO that is. When you have thousands of members and clients that depend on your company for results it can be a daunting thing. Especially when the government makes over 20 changes to the TARP program within 9 months!The past 3 weeks have been dedicated to the development of our new levels of training (2 and 3) which are going to be geared towards the REO Masters Network directors. The way that this network is being designed resembles an undergraduate and graduate program. With the REOM being the "graduate" program I had to step it up a little bit with content. So, with that end in mind I began with a "State of the Market" initial presentation, ended with a "Future Projections" summary and then sandwiched some cutting-edge REO stuff in between. I should have given myself 3 MONTHS!I can say that I've learned a lot, which is always a great thing. I was kind of waiting-out the whole government involvement of real estate until the dust settled so as not to fry any of my mental circuitry. I watched from September 08 through March of 09 as colleagues were trying to decipher the realities of the real estate market, TARP, the Financial Stability Plan, "Making Home Affordable", HOPE NOW, and the mergers of banks left and right. In my little universe I was telling myself the whole time, "just keep track of everything, but don't try to figure it out yet". Whew! Glad I made that decision and stuck with it.Fellow professionals I'm here to say that this market is absolutely, undoubtedly one of the craziest markets in American history. Go watch some of the real estate market videos on YouTube of Mark Zandi of Moody's or Glenn Beck (whatever your personal opinion may be, these guys toss out some pretty indisputable stats).Oh, and if you have a couple of minutes, check out the Wall Street Journal's take on the history of the meltdown (there are 3 parts, but I'm only embedding part 1):OK, back to the think tank.Sincerely,Dan Waterman
Steve - thanks for the encouraging words and feedback. We're so buried in development right now that it's easy to get our heads lost and out of touch from reality....that's why I love the social media/networking environment...it's my social outlet. I hope that you can join us soon too. Let me know what I can do to help make that happen for you.
Cindy - thank you SO much for your insight and input. Not everyone in this industry knows where people like you and I have been and how amazingly different REO is from just 5 years ago. It's like a whole different industry...and it has completely been reinvented since the 80's based on what my mentors told me about their careers in the 80's compared to what they were doing/teaching me in the early part of 2000's.
Dan - thank you for this info - as a former Asset Mgr for many years - I and other AM's saw this coming years ago, we did not learn from the 80's, instead we became more creative. I.E., banks never used to pay buyers closing costs when purchasing REO's nor did they used to contribute to these companies for down payment assistance, but once started it became inevitable that we would have the domino effect. Now buyers expect and get closing costs whether it is bank or individual owned. It is all about money, greed and power!
Thank you Dan for posting stuff like this, it's really peaking my intrest in nfsti. The more I read from you and others in here, the more I like what I see. Hopefully by the end of the month I'll be able to jump in.
And yes, very few reporters understand what it means to be "investigative" and remain neutral. My past life as an LEO showed me how one-sided and lazy the media can be! I believe little of what I read or hear and only half of what I see.
Jesse - After spending a good amount of time getting to know a couple of professional editors for various news sources it became clear to me that there are only a select few individuals out there who truly understand investigative reporting.
I don't think the majority of Americans have any clue as to how seriously bad the real estate market / financial markets are because of all the slanted media reports.
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Cindy - thank you SO much for your insight and input. Not everyone in this industry knows where people like you and I have been and how amazingly different REO is from just 5 years ago. It's like a whole different industry...and it has completely been reinvented since the 80's based on what my mentors told me about their careers in the 80's compared to what they were doing/teaching me in the early part of 2000's.
And yes, very few reporters understand what it means to be "investigative" and remain neutral. My past life as an LEO showed me how one-sided and lazy the media can be! I believe little of what I read or hear and only half of what I see.
Be careful what you read everyone!