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I am back from 5 star!!!

As many of you know I was at the five star default convention last week and now I am back with my family and animals! I had 4 things on my 5 star to do list and I am glad I got them done and then some!With that being said I am sure you want to hear about my 5 star default conference adventure!! I arrived late Tuesday night. I was elbowed in the head on my plane ride by the man seated behind me but I know something of that nature would happen. Without fail I am a target everywhere of some kind! (wink! wink!) We stayed at the Hilton Anatole. I was impressed by the size of the hotel my husband was not impressed by them not having a shuttle. that's a whole other blog that I am not going to get into.Wednesday in the Am I went down to get my new badge cause mine was wrong. Everyone there had a color coded badge and the people who were wearing red, black or green where being hunted down like deer during hunting season. It scared me a little cause I was stuck on an a full elevator everyone was blue except the guy net to me. He was black and the minute someone spotted him he was attacked. I got off asap and didn't even look back.I ran into some Internet friends by the main info area! Nesli is from San Diego. We have talked several times and exchanged REO info back and forth. I called her looking for her and she was behind me. She was looking for my dark hair and didn't recognize me. No worries I got that all week. She is a great person and I am glad to have met her! There were sooooo many people it was hard to find anyone. I guess it doesn't help that I need a new eye glass prescription and couldn't tell who anyone was till I got close.I did have 1 class that was on my to do list and that was the reo trans class. I needed it to get certified. I have used the system before so most of the information was not new. I did however get to chit chat with the CEO. Very nice man and he helped answer a couple questions that I had that were not answered during the class. If he ever needs to buy in the OC I have a great realtor for him!

Wednesday eve were 2 receptions. I went to the first one and ran into a large group of people I chat with on yahoo groups. They are in my inbox everyday and was glad to meet them. They kept me laughing, entertained, and safe.The second reception was very very crowded and I got lost from everyone I knew and was approached by many interesting parties and was about to leave when I again found my friends. I had a great time! I also got some work done at the show. CA was 2 hours ahead so I was still getting questions asked.

Thursday AM was the awards breakfast. My phone died and I forgot my charger. I had no way of calling anyone and about 4000 people were waiting to get into the breakfast. I have night blindness (it was dark in the breakfast room) and I already told you I need a new prescription so I sat down at the nearest empty table I could. It filled up pretty fast so I was not alone for long. I was chit chatting with everyone. The man next to me and I where talking about Denver and Orange County. He then told me he was the CEO of one of the Asset management companies that was on my to do list. Once he told me who he was....all the agents at the table gave him their card. I wasn't about to give him mine and have him remember me that way. We had a great conversation about his company and he asked me my opinion on a couple things. I felt bad for him cause he kept having people ask him for his card while we were talking. He was very polite and told them to wait till he was in the booth at the expo hall. Anywho.....Breakfast was great and the people who got awards were well deserving! I was impressed!

Expo hall was a zoo!! I walked around and talked to some companies but I waited to come back till it wasn't so crowded. I soon realized that there were a ton of people there to get their foot in the door with REO. Many, many people where cutting in line and pushing and it was not a scene I wanted to be in. I did however get to borrow a iphone charger from a man at REDC. They are an auction company and they had Eric Estrada there taking pictures. I charged my phone and came back down to the expo hall. Less crowded and now I could talk to the people I wanted to without having to worry about someone cutting me off. I was talking to a rep at FirstAM REO and one of my fellow active rain friends recognized who I was. Thanks! It made me smile and the FirstAM guy will probably remember me for that!I was signing up online again w/ FirstAM cause the guy said the software changed. I am with them but he said it couldn't hurt. As I was signing up I had 3 more vendors come talk to me. I even had a auction company want to hire me as a project manager. I am going to stick to REO though...I am kinda good at it. I then moved out of the hall to go find some more Internet friends. As I was waiting I started talking to this man w/ no badge and found out he is w/ another direct lender that I was hoping to talk to. I guess I was at the right place at the right time again!! I soon had to get some work done online and get ready for First Preston Round up.FP was # 3 on my to do list and I was totally impressed by this company. I am so lucky and excited to be a listing agent for them. They are innovative and down to earth. They have a contract in the works with a bank to dramatically change the way short sales are looked at and done. Again, I am so lucky, happy, excited and fortunate to be a part of their local ambassadors.There was a man there that asked 2 really good questions and turns out he is another friend of mine who likes to play in the rain! Jon is a great guy and really nice to be around. He and I got excited about First Preston together!!!Friday was the lender open house and again a crazy mad house! I was so not going in the rooms so I stayed outside and talked to lenders as the passed. I was pretty much over worked at this point and ready to go home. I did have to stay and go to the res.net cert class in the afternoon. I found Jon and his friend Mike and we sat thru the class together. They had a test at the end which was easy if you had used their system before. I was so tired and ready to get out of the hotel since I had been indoors for days i went out to the pool. Another Internet friend of mine from San Diego named Katrina and I chit chatted by the pool. My hubby was pretty tired of hearing about REO and I could tell he was more then ready to go home.I learned a some new things and I met some great contacts. I will defiantly go next year.....as a key note speaker!!! LOL!~Stacie
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Blog?? Why??

I recently was asked why do I blog and isn't time consuming?? It took me bit to come up with the answer but it went something like this:Importance of blogging.........Blogging help raise your google/yahoo ranking for free. Good blogs with tags and links and widgets that are linked deep into your website help create a web crawl. Once the web crawl locates the content it has to go back out thru every page of your site. I am working on that right now. Also it is educational. Not only for other people but for yourself. Time consuming??? You bet, but how else can you be a pro without just blowing pro smoke?? People in my city see my name (since I don't just work with REO's and they call me) Crazy since I look so young and I am kinda spacey but.....I do know my stuff!! Blogging also helps you find out about other things you might not have found otherwise.My site and my biz are important and blogging helps me to be more innovative then other agents and help me to stand out!! Everybody and their mom is a Realtor or reo agent. What is going to set you apart from everybody else??I left the part out that I really really like it and it is fun for me. You know I have been an AR member since the beginning. I think I was the 180 person to join. Maybe a little more maybe a little less. I was a member when AR was a totally different platform. I didn't really know what to make of it till recently when I found out what a innovative tool it was and how it could really help me. And help me it has.....Now I am a member of REOpro and I am stoked to have a place for my niche to learn and grow.
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I get asked this question daily. 8 years ago I asked the same question to a well known agent in my office who did high volume and was the father of a girl I played soccer in High school with. He knew who I was but I think he looked at me as an inferior and blew me off. His answer was " It's really hard unless you have a contact person already so don't spin your wheels cause you don't have enough experience." I walked away from him with my tail between my legs and I went to the internet. NADA!!! I found nothing. Well I take it back...I found 2 sites. One for HUD and one for Golden Feather. I was determined that just because I was young (at the time I am much more seasoned now ;) )to beat him not only on google but in the REO world.It didn't take me long to get my HUD key but the problem I was facing was an upswing in the market. There weren't very many HUD listings in my area. Golden Feather was good to me. They welcomed me with open arms. I sold a couple properties for them and this is how I was introduced to REO's. I loved it but just like I said before they were on and off the market so fast and so little were pooping up that I only had a small handful.Now, over the past 8 years I think every buyer I showed property to asked to see bank owned homes and they were virtually extinct. Until.......last year. I felt at the beginning of the year last year the market was staring to get soft in Orange County and I sat back and listened to all the talk about "The Bubble" and figured I wanted to stay a Realtor during the down time and how was I to do that??? Hmmmm....REO's!!! I headed straight for the internet. Guess what I saw. Something different then I had seen before. AM's!! Asset manager's. They had the same idea I had and there you have it. BPO's BPO's BPO's. This is pretty much all that the AM's were giving out at the time so to the streets I went. Now after doing BPO's and signing up for as many AM's (2-3 a week) I am REO busy!! Yay ME!! I still find that I am not signed up with all the AM's out there so I try to dedicate one day a week to searching and blogging cause people across the country want some of my info and they tend to share theirs!! Yay me!!So there you have it!! knock on that REO door by signing up with as many AM's as you can. Do your BPO's. Do them well (take a class Kim class or join NABPOP) Be patient and blog. Or at least read them!! Love & Light~Stacie
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