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COMPLETED REM CORPORATION BPO IN TWENTY MINUTES BY USING REALTY PILOT SOFTWARE

I am into my second month when it comes to doing BPOs as a real estate agent. I was told that it would be a great way to start breaking into the REO business. This is all new to me. I consider myself an expert when it comes to fixing and flipping homes as I continue to assist real estate investors. However, I want to use my skill sets to list bank owned properties.

I continually sign myself up to become a vendor for asset management companies on a weekly basis. I believe I have been approved by 23 companies to conduct BPOs. I sign up with five asset management companies per week. I would suggest that you Email point of contact each week until you are accepted BPO vendor. The squeaky wheel gets the BPO business.

I have to be pretty fast on the keys to accept BPOs. I accepted a BPO from REM Corporation. The first thing I do is take pictures of the property. Then, I come home to complete the comparative marketing analysis on the home. Finally, I give them my Broker Price Opinion based upon my report. That was the easy part. How am I going to transfer the data into the necessary fields to get paid for this BPO. ANSWER: REALTY PILOT SOFTWARE.

The hardest thing for me to do when completing a BPO with Realty Pilot is taking the pictures of the home. Are you serious? Yes, I am living proof. Realty Pilot populates data from my MLS into Realty Pilot. Then, I complete the BPO in Realty Pilot. Then, I hit the Macro button to transfer the data from Realty Pilot into REM Corporation web site forms. This whole process takes me twenty minutes or less by using Realty Pilot.

I AM READY TO DO MORE BPOS THIS WEEK. BRING IT ON!

Costs Will Increase For Buyers Regardless Of Credit Worthiness

Banks Get Conservative
Risk vs. Reward

New home buyers shopping for mortgages will face these fee increases

1. Someone buying a home with credit OVER 740 with 25% or lower down payment will now pay approx .125% more in rate.
2. A borrower with a credit score over 740 refinancing to 80% of the value of their home and taking out additional cash can expect to pay an additional .25% higher in rate.
3. Anyone buying or refinancing a condominium (excluding detached condos) with less than 25% down payment (or equity) can expect an increase in rate of almost .5%
4. Borrowers without larger down payments will see slightly higher rates.
5. Buyers with lower credit scores, they can expect much higher rates.

Fannie and Freddie have learned their lesson. The politics of housing has changed from a congressional mandate to make home ownership more accessable, even to the unquaalified, to a rational and more profitable system. They/we lost a bundle and they are looking at another bad year with foreclosures expected to rise again in 2011.

Related Articles
The Politics of Housing
FHA Reforms Shift The Game
A Recent Survey: Is It Time To Buy Rental Property

Before 2011, whenever a buyer would call in on one of my listings, I would always tell them they needed to go find themselves a Realtor. I did this for several reasons, one of which is because, I just was too busy with listing to be taxing people around to look at homes.

As a new year resolution and, after considering that I may very well be leaving a lot of money on the table by not working with these buyer’s, I decided I would create a buyer’s team. This would be a group of trusted Realtors who like working with buyers that I could forward these buyer’s to and these agents would work them to close.

The way I had envisioned this team to work is, I would pre-qualify the lead, hand it off to the buyer’s agent, they would work it to close and pay me a 25% referral fee, fair enough. Well, after many months of doing this, I realized very quickly that buyer’s agents don’t like to work, or at least the ones I had working with me anyways.

It wasn’t like I was just pulling agents off of Craig’s List, I was interviewing them, talking with previous brokers and doing a decent job of figuring out who would work and who wouldn’t, at least so I thought. Push come to shove and I ended up getting rid of about 20 or so agents before I finally found one I really thought was hungry enough to do a good job.

This agent, we will call Suzy Super Agent, she talked an incredible game. She was hungry, needed the work, was ready to do a great job, showed up an open houses, just was totally on board.  She told me she was down on her luck, needed a helping hand, had 3 kids to feed, and she would do whatever it took to get a job (that was legal of course).

About three weeks into the job, I started getting calls back from leads that I sent to her. Yes, you heard me correctly, buyer’s were calling in, I was qualifying the lead, assigning them to her and amazingly enough, these leads were calling me back wanting to know when someone was going to be calling them.

Of course, I confronted her but, she kept telling me that she was calling these people and not hearing back from them. So, the 5^th time this happened in a week, I conference her in on the call, stayed on the phone, muted my head set and listened. Let’s just say, customer service skills were lacking, seriously lacking.

It happened a 6^th time, did the same thing and realized, I have a problem. So, once again I confronted her, she had every excuse in the book and yes, having grace, I extended her forgiveness thinking that our tough talk would straighten her out and all would be good.

At the end of January, I had given her 36 leads for the entire month and not a single buyers agency agreement or deal on the table so, I had one of my other buyer’s agents audit her leads and come to find out, she left $600,000.00 worth of sales on the table and told me she was only working with one lead out of 36. In other words, she didn’t follow up, she didn’t work, she didn’t attempt to close $18,000.00 in commissions but, she was working a cash investor I sent her who wanted to buy a $150,000.00 house.

Needless to say, we no longer have a relationship with this agent and I am looking for an agent to replace her.

I have been doing a polite battle with the Banks for sometime on Short Sales.  I have also been working with my Congressman and State Association of Realtors on the whole short sale system, hamp & hafa..  So the idea came to mind to post on the blog and do an e mail follow up.   And Kaboom the blog went nuts.  I just told my e mail friends I posted the comment and they made it go nuts.  This was not an advertisement for money, rather it was to help the community.

I don't expect this to continure but to get a 1000 views in a matter of hours.   Well I am blow away.   This was centered around the old Community Reinvestment Act and helping the Non Profits that are trying to aid people save their homes from foreclosure.

If you interested you can go to my site and then go in through the Blog link at www.hafa.us  If you have any ideas about Short Sales and the System please post them there.  I am going to do the final follow up and print the blog and send it to the top guys at the Banks... WHO know maybe its all in the title of the Blog maybe it was "providence" that knew this was for a good cause.

I love making the photos and slide shows and videos for listings.  Maybe THAT should be my whole career, hmmmmm...

So, I do not know how to make YouTube show my main info text screen shot, it always seems to show a thumbnail of some random shot in the middle of my video.  Anyone else dealt with this, any YouTube pros out there with advice?

here is a link to my video on YouTube, I could ALWAYS use more YouTube friends and subcribers too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywpY3wSwLaM

One more thing, if you are a Realtor marketing today, do you have a YouTube account? ..... if not, go get one, it is FREE and such great exposure for listings and to push more traffic to your web sites.

Jessica

WHY ARE YOU WASTING YOUR MONEY ON OBTAINING CDPE DESIGNATION?

I have registered in March of 2011 to obtain my Certified Distress Property Expert (CDPE) designation to further my education in real estate. I made this announcement on my weekly radio show last week. I want to show the public that I am an expert in distressed properties. However, obtaining my CDPE alone will not make me an expert.

I am dealing with distressed properties on a daily basis since I assist real estate investors to purchase from the Arizona Trustee Sales on a daily basis. My real estate investors expect a lot from me. I deliver on a daily basis to obtain investment properties at a great loan to value. Yes, there are times when people are still in the homes. How do you deal with that problem? Well, one must be able to communicate with another human being to commit to a move out date so the investor can renovate the property. I have never had a problem over the last four years.

I am looking forward to the CDPE class. I will be the first one to inform you that I do not know it all. So, I would like to accomplish three things from the class see below:

1. New knowledge on distressed properties
2. Network with other real estate professionals
3. Obtain my CDPE designation

The CDPE designation will also show asset managers that I am an expert in distressed properties when obtaining listing assignments to move their inventory with the best methods in the industry. I am ready for the challenge at all times.

Case Shiller report shows a deceleration in the annual growth rates in 17 of the 20 MSAs. Housing generally leads the economy out of a recession. This time its not, housing is simply suffering. Not only is money tight but job creation is still a big hurt. In some cities, the decline over the last year was quite sharp.

David M. Blitze,chairman of S.&P.’s index committee tells the NY Times that a double-dip could be confirmed before spring. He goes on to say the series is now only 4.8% and 3.3% above their April 2009 lows. Certainly nine cities set new lows, and with the only positive news concentrated in southern California and Washington DC, the data point to weakness in home prices.

S&P sounds dismal, indeed. David Wyss, S&Ps chief economist tells martketwatch that The recovery in home prices has not only stopped, it's going in reverse, that it's going to get worse before it gets better

Some Balance Is Needed

Artificial Stimulus
The tax credit
First, the index to a positive spike due to the tax credit, an artificial inducement to buy. Well it worked, and we saw buyers flood the market. But comparing new data to a spike that doesnt represent normal market behavior, but a artificial spike in home sales due to the tax credit can skew the true picture.

Seasonality
This is the slowest part of the year for home sales and must have something to do with the steep decline

Weather
Could the weather have been worse for the mid west and east coast? Winter is traditionally a poor indicator of market health.

Certainly, this market needs no excuses and Im not second guessing S&P, but lets not lose perspective - winter data is hardly a leading indicator for housing markets and there is more to the story than the data is expressing.

You may republish this article, as long as you do not edit and you agree to preserve all links to the author and www.yourpropertypath.com

Due to recent developments in the default real estate industry, we (as default professionals) have seen an explosion of real estate schools offering default courses in specific niches like, Short Sale, REO and Loan Modification.

Of course, I am sure we all can agree, a quality education can be expensive but, well worth it however, why would someone pay a premium for a quality education? For many of us, this question is mute simply because know the benefits of such an education.

The problem I see in the default industry with these real estate schools is that many of them are over promising, under delivering or plain negligent and in some cases, possibly even fraudulent with their claims. We know this to be the case due to the increased number of professionals adding their voice to the chorus of complaints, negative blogs and outright hostility towards many of these real estate schools.

So, if I was in the market looking for an education, what would I look for to make sure, I am getting a quality education. Below is my list of requirements any school would have to offer to get me to write them a check.

1. Books: If I am going to pay for a class, I want more than just a handout or screen shots of the slide presentation, I want a book. I want a book because, this lets me know that someone within in the school’s organization sat down and committed his knowledge and experience to paper. This is important to me because it commits the writer and instructor to a process of improvement and refinement. To be more specific, when students have a book, they are likely to go through, read it, question it and pose those question to their instructors and get answers. This Q & A process allows the instructor to refine the material, make changes to improve the material and becomes the single authority the class is built around. A book is very important.
2. Experienced Instructors: An experienced instructor is invaluable and very well worth their weight in gold. The experience of the instructor, coupled with the knowledgebase of an actual training manual / book, creates an environment where learning is maximized. Experienced instructors give the book and class a level of integrity that can’t be and shouldn’t be discounted. As a student, I expect that if I were to ask a question about a particular subject matter being taught in class, my instructor should be able to answer my question or, at the very least, have a resource from his experience to get that answer with no difficulty.
3. Uncompromised Integrity: The days of testing a students’ knowledgebase with an open book test are gone! If I am going to pay good money for a course, I expect that when I am done and it’s time to test my retained knowledge that I can’t just go and grab my book, open it up and look up the answer. I have never understood the purpose of these types of test. As a student, I took the course not to just get the “certification or designation” but, to actually better myself and increase my knowledgebase and likewise, I expect to be tested in such a way that evaluates my level of retention honestly so I may strive for success. Too many times I have seen agents walk into a training class with computers, IPads, mobile devices and the such because, the class was secondary to whatever else was going on. The class expectation was lowered because they knew the test was open book and all they had to do was be a warm body in a seat for a couple of days. This isn’t a class I want to be a part of.
4. Certification / Designation: If I spend the time, money and energy to truly learn and become a subject matter expert in my niche, I better get a designation or at least a certification. For many of you, this may not be important because, many of you carry certification and designations that came from open book test. I am looking for a certification or designation that isn’t achieved by just paying my $499.99 onetime fee and my annual $99.99. Give us a certification, designation that means something, that was something I worked hard for and people know I worked hard for.
5. Open Doors: People go to Harvard or Stanford not simply because they are good schools but, because they also know that those names on a resume will open a door. In other words, students know that paying $100,000.00(+) for a education will pay off as a long term investment, 10 (+) fold. Too many real estate schools are charging premiums for education yet, not a single door is ever opened with that education. Granted, I am sure that the majority of the time, the student can hold a good portion of the blame, when it comes to not making their education work for themselves but, I have never met a poor Harvard graduate. My point is, students expect that if they are going to pay a premium, it better be returned in business. I don’t think this is too much to ask, hell….I would expect it myself if I were looking for a default course to take. The reason many of these real estate courses out there today don’t open doors is because, they aren’t built around traditional education philosophies and instead are nothing more than money grabbers who make empty promises but, what is worse, the industry knows it and therefore, they do not open doors.
6. Mentoring: After I pay my premium, take my test, graduate the program, I want to know that I have a forum, a site, somewhere to go to find advice or provide advice to others who follow. Mentoring is key to a quality education because it’s a part of the process to open doors. People who have made it and can contribute a portion of their success to their education can then turn around and bring others up behind them through a quality mentoring program. Granted, I don’t necessarily need a one on one mentor but, at the very least, I need a library of sorts that I can go to, look things up, chat with other members and further my learning by staying on the cutting edge of what is happening real time in the real world.
7. No Annual Fees: I shouldn’t have to continually pay for my education, certification or designation. A education isn’t a service, it’s a product and therefore, should be priced around the idea that I will only pay once. I don’t got to the grocery store, buy a box of Macaroni and Cheese and then pay for it every week so, why would I do that with an education, I wouldn’t! Annual fees are nothing more than a education provider to milk his current students out of their hard earned cash because that provider knows it’s harder to obtain new students than it is to simply get current students to agree to give you annual fees when they sign up for your course in the first place. Annual fees allows education providers to become stagnate and lazy and I don’t want to pay them.

My point is, these 7 bullets are my concerns about what is happening in the real estate education industry. If I can’t get a majority of these 7 items filled, I don’t buy the class. Sad to say, really because, why can’t we have a choice where we aren’t looking to purchase based on these 7 points so much we are looking at the actual quality of education.

Are all of you listening to the radioblog jesse does ?

well Nicole Ocean and I where the guests this week and it was great being on!

Listen today and you will pick up some very good tips and tricks for the BPO agents!!

30-year fixed-rate mortgage: Averaged 4.80 percent with an average 0.7 point for the week ending January 27, 2011, up from last week when it averaged 4.74 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 4.98 percent.

The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage: A veraged 4.09 percent with an average 0.7 point, up from last week when it averaged 4.05 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 4.39 percent.

Five-year indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages ARMs: A veraged 3.70 percent this week, with an average 0.7 point, up from last week when it averaged 3.69 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 4.25 percent.

One-year Treasury-indexed ARMs: A veraged 3.26 percent this week with an average 0.6 point, up from last week when it averaged 3.25 percent. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 4.29 percent. 

Freddie Sayz

Attributed to Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist, Freddie Mac.

Mortgage rates followed bond yields a little higher this week amid positive data reports from  The Conference Board that suggest the economy is strengthening. The index of leading indicators rose 1.0 percent in December, nearly twice that of the market consensus forecast and represented the sixth consecutive monthly increase, according to the Board. They also reported a stronger gain in consumer confidence for January, rising to an eight-month high. In addition, the share of households who said jobs were plentiful rose to the highest level since May 2009.

Consumer demand in the housing market is also showing some positive gains. Sales of  existing homes  rose in December to the strongest pace since May and sales of  new homes jumped to the highest since April. At their current sales rate, the expected time on the market fell from 9.5 to 8.l months for existing houses and fell from 8.4 to 6.9 months for new home

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Filling The Vacancy

JOINING MY LOCAL NATIONAL HISPANIC ASSOCIATION OF REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS IN PHOENIX, ARIZONA FOR $50

Yes, this is me looking to network with other real estate professionals in Phoenix real estate market. Also, I wanted to learn more this year about first time Hispanic home buyers and assisting Hispanic real estate investors. Did you know the number one need for Hispanic population in America is financial education? I meet many Hispanic real estate investors that make many mistakes during the process of a real Phoenix Fix and Flip Home. There is a huge opportunity to make a difference in this community when it comes to real estate investment training. Do you speak Spanish? No, I am willing to learn the language. My passion for real estate will attract real estate investors. I have learned that money does not discriminate.

So, I notified my local representative to join my local chapter of NAHREP. It only cost $50.00 to join for a one year membership. Plus, they have monthly activities to network with other professionals. Does this sound too good to be true or what? I am in for that price. Fellow NYer here-I know a true bargain when I see one. Look at the numbers below:

HISPANIC PURCHASING POWER source US Census

• Hispanic Purchasing Power increased to over $865BB in 2007, and is anticipated reach over $1 Trillion by 2010, an increase of 457% since 1990
• The growth rate for Hispanic Purchasing Power of 8.6% is the highest of all minorities, and is over 2.5 times greater than the 175% projected for whites
• Hispanic incomes are growing the fastest in the $75,000 to $99,000 category
• The Number of Hispanic households earning over $75K are increasing faster than the number of Hispanic households earning less than 75K
• 50% of all U.S. Hispanic Households earn $50K or more
• Affluent Hispanic buying power is estimated to be 2/3 of the entire U.S. Hispanic buying power
• Homeownership equity accounts for 63% of Hispanic household wealth - the highest of any group. (Federal Reserve Board's Survey of Consumer Finances 2001)

I will continue to blog about my adventures over this coming year with NAHREP. I encourage everyone to join their local chapter today.

TARP Hurting More Than Helping

Per The Office of the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program…..

“Unless and until institutions currently views as “too big to fail” are either broken up so that they are no longer perceived to be a threat to the financial system, or as structure is put in place that gives adequate assurance to the market that they will be left to suffer the full consequences of their own recklessness, the prospect of more bailouts will continue to fuel more bad behavior with potentially disastrous results.” Jan 26, 2011 Quarterly Report of SIGTARP

To read the report to Congress yourself, visit this link….http://www.sigtarp.gov/reports.shtml

So, what exactly does this mean to you?

Ultimately, what the Inspector General is saying is the government needs to get out of the business of preventing business from failing otherwise, we only have really 2 options. We either break up the business and not allow them to grow beyond a certain point or we some kind of assurance that they will be protected from failure.

Ok, so…..let’s drill this down a bit. I don’t really know how many of you want to see our government preventing business from growing, I know I don’t want to see this. Isn’t the American Dream built on the concept that the sky is the limit. Aren’t we as American exceptional because we don’t harness our free society and allow government to tell people, business that they can’t grow too big. Don’t oppressed people come to America to seek freedom, liberty and free markets where they can succeed based on how much work they put into their endeavors? Limiting the size of our free markets isn’t free by any definition. In fact, it’s communism.

What about assurances……wouldn’t it be nice that you could start a business and be assured that you can’t fail? As sweet as that may be, let me assure you, it would create a business environment of fraud, corruption and out right consumer abuse on a unprecedented scale like we have never seen. I don’t need to tell you this, you know this. Whatever happened to the idea that the greater the risk, the greater the potential return however, the greater the potential loss………….isn’t this a law of economics? What kind of people think a world where business can make whatever decisions they want and the tax payer would be there to bail their corrupt asses out every time is a good thing?

Let me just say it once again, GOVERNMENT IS NOT THE SOLUTIONS, GOVERNMENT IS THE PROBLEM.

I HATE TO BREAK THE BAD NEWS TO THE GROUP. THE BPO FAIRY DOES NOT EXIST!

I hate to break the bad news to the group. The BPO fairy does not exist. Yes, I know it is a shocker. My son turned nine this year. He informed me that he no longer belives in Santa Clause. Reality is the best policy as we continue to age in life. Well, I am here because I decided to go after the REO business in 2011. Many of my real estate peers are calling me crazy. That is when I know I am doing the right thing. I have always believed to go opposite of the herd mentality.

What is my next step? Well, I consulted with many successful REO agents in my local area. The informed me that I will need the following to be a successful REO agent

• Be successful in doing BPOs(Broker Price Opinions)
• Accessible 24/7 to asset manager
• Money
• Proven track record in distressed properties both in knowledge and sales
• Technology
• Sphere of influence
• Network like crazy

My first step in climbing the REO mountain was to sign up to asset management/BPO companies. I developed a process to sign up as soon as possible. I needed the following information in PDF format:

• Professional resume
• Real estate license
• Broker license
• E&O insurance
• W9
• Zip code coverage

I was able to sign up with 48 companies in the first three days. I did this activity at the end of December of 2010. I was able to get approved by 11 companies in 72 hours. THE BPO FAIRY DOES NOT EXIST. The only way to get BPO business is to go after it. That has always been my motto. So, I was able to obtain 13 BPO orders from the same company that were due the following Monday by noon. How am I going to get it all done?

I signed up with Realty Pilot for BPO automation. I never used Realty Pilot before in my life. I went to work on completing the 13 BPOs that were assigned to me. First, I was able to complete all the photos in a two hour period. Second, I started obtain three solds and three sales for subject property to determine value. Finally, I entered all data into Realty Pilot. The BPO automation worked like a charm. I was able to transfer the data files from Realty Pilot to web site by using the macros offered by Realty Pilot. DONE DEAL WITH DELIA! I am on my way to conducting more BPOs. THANKS REALTY PILOT!

THE BPO FAIRY DOES NOT EXIST. MAKE IT HAPPEN TODAY AND BEYOND!

I look forward to your comments on this post. Here to serve

Listing Agent Mistake Part 1

It has always amazed me why I get the following call

“ring, ring”---“ring, ring”

Jesse Gonzalez: Jesse Gonzalez

Suzy Super Buyer Agent: May I speak to Jesse Gonzalez

Jesse Gonzalez: Speaking

Suzy Super Buyer Agent: Oh…Hi Jesse, my name is Suzy and I am calling about that property you have listed on 19^th Ave., are you working any offers?

Jesse Gonzalez: I don’t speak about the details of any of my offers I receive with anyone other than my client however, I can tell you that any offer you submit will be presented to my seller.

Suzy Super Buyer Agent: You can’t tell me if you got an offer?

Jesse Gonzalez: No, I am not at liberty to discuss my clients offers with anyone other than my client. I can assure you that if you provide me with an offer from your buyer it will be presented.

Suzy Super Buyer Agent: Well….(un-comfortable pause) I just want to know if you’re working an offer because I don’t want to waste your time, I know you are really busy.

Jesse Gonzalez: Suzy, it’s my job to present any and all offers to my seller so, if your client writes up an offer, it’s not wasting my time to present that offer to my seller.

Suzy Super Buyer Agent: So, you aren’t going to tell me if you have an offer?

Jesse Gonzalez: I can tell you that if your buyer wants to make an offer I will present it to my seller.

Suzy Super Buyer Agent: I don’t understand, does that mean you don’t have any offers?

Jesse Gonzalez: No, what that means is if your buyer wants to make an offer, I will present it to my seller for consideration.

Suzy Super Buyer Agent: Jesse, if you could just help me out here, I can prevent everyone from wasting a lot of time.

(long uncomfortable pause)

Suzy Super Buyer Agent: Jesse are you there?

Jesse Gonzalez: Yes, I am here

Suzy Super Buyer Agent: Did you hear the last thing I said?

Jesse Gonzalez: The last thing I heard was that you didn’t want to waste anyone’s time.

Suzy Super Buyer Agent:  So, are you going to help me out?

Jesse Gonzalez: What was it that you need me to help you with?

Suzy Super Buyer Agent: Never mind…don’t worry about it. (click, hangs up phone)

So, the conversation above wasn’t a hypothetical situation, it actually happened and happens often. In fact, it happens to me so often that I am 100% confident that many listing agents out there are complying with these request without ever once verifying what they can or can’t do from their clients, the sellers.

I don’t know about your State’s laws and regulations on client confidentiality however, I do know what is in my client’s best interest and many times….if not all the time, it’s not in my clients best interest to inform buyer’s agents if I my seller is currently working an offer.

For many of you, that is all I would have to say and you would understand why I believe this is the case but, I am sure I need to break this down for some of you so, let’s do it together.

So, my seller got an offer on his property, he has 2 days to consider the offer and get back to the buyer. To keep the timeline easy to understand, let’s say he got the offer on 1/1/11 and the buyer’s offer time limit is 1/3/11. Obviously, during negotiations, the property is still active in the MLS and the appointment desk is still scheduling showings. Why would I let this happen?

Simply stated, my seller reserves the right to continue to market the property up to Binding Agreement because, hopefully we will continue to get offers and hopefully, one of those other offers will be better than what we got. This is in my client’s best interest and truth be told, it’s my job to make this happen, if possible. This gives my client the potential to receive the maximum possible from the market place and as a broker who has a fiduciary responsibility to my seller……I better be making sure his interest is above my own.

Ok, so…..it’s 1/2/11 and my seller hasn’t made a decision, better yet, I tell my seller not to respond to the buyer’s offer till we absolutely have to in hopes of getting another offer. It’s early afternoon on the 2^nd and I check my email….BOOM! Guess what, it’s another offer, from another agent for my seller. Now my seller has two offers to consider instead of one……..this is vagenious! (yes…I said VAGENIOUS, VAGENIOUS, VAGENIOUS) LOL

Now, could you imagine what would have happened if buyer’s agent number 2 would have called me before showing the property to his buyer and I told him….”Yeah, we got an offer, we are negotiating it now”? Do you believe this agent would have told his buyer that the property was under contract and no need to see it? As the guy from the Men’s Warehouse says…..”I guarantee it” That’s right, instead of my seller looking at two offers and being in a better situation than before, he would be looking at a single offer, struggling to decide how far he can push the envelope with this single buyer. At the very least, with two offers he can run the clock on the time limit’s, negotiate each one individually and take the best offer or, notify all agent of multiple offers and let them battle it out.

So, hopefully you see my point, it’s not in my clients interest to tell any buyer’s agent how many offers we are working if I don’t have permission from my seller and or if I don’t have a offer from said agent.

I get why the buyer’s agents are making the phone call….they don’t want to put their buyer’s in a multiple offer situation however, if you are a listing agent and you are disclosing to these buyer’s agents just how many offers you are working before you have talked this strategy over with your client, in my humble opinion, you are in violation of your fiduciary duty and are in breach of your client’s trust. Granted, you may never get caught doing this…..some of you may not even have any hang-ups working with buyer’s agents to cheat your sellers out of money but, make no mistake, if you disclose this information, that is exactly what you are doing.

Value is the result of what anyone will pay to acquire the property.(maybe not). I believe a property listed at a certain price and does not sell becomes an overpriced listing. Therfore, seller is reducing the price unitil sold and we have the value. Value is linked to price through the mecanism of exchange. Part of this process is the BPO we are doing and which determine the value based on the best similar properties recently sold and presently listed . We realize this property is suddenly overpriced due to the extended time on the market and remains unsold. A major price reduction finally triggers a sale and we say the property is sold at its value. Really! In many case it has been done nothing to market this property other than limited information on MLSand a waiting period to apply a price reduction. In my opinion, anything can be sold with price reduction and that does not mean the sold price is a real value. Does a 18th century painting paid $ 100 in a garage sale has a real value of $ 100? Let see the sold price later on in an appropriate auction! What I am trying to say it is easy to say the listing price is overpriced while very limited marketing has been done to try to sell this property. This applies to many REO properties (at least in my area) and it is obvious that price reduction is an easy way to sell and generates a declining market since the subject property will be thereafter used as comparable for future transactions. Then, we are dealing with financial industry to raise capital due to the financial crisis. May be one way to raise capital will be at first to sell and try to sell the defaulted asset at their just value.

Alain Thillois.

Mortgage Bankers Association for the week of 01/12/2010

Market Composite Index: (loan application volume) increased 2.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index increased 47.5 percent compared with the previous week

Refinance Index: increased 4.9 percent from the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index decreased 3.7 percent from one week earlier

Purchase Index: increased 41.9 percent compared with the previous week and was 10.5 percent lower than the same week one year ago. The four week moving average for the seasonally adjusted Market Index is down 5.3 percent. The four week moving average is down 1.0 percent for the seasonally adjusted Purchase Index, while this average is down 7.5 percent for the Refinance Index.

Refinance Share of Mortgage Activity: increased to 72.1 percent of total applications from 71.0 percent the previous week

Arm Share: decreased to 4.9 percent from 5.0 percent of total applications in the previous week.

MBA outlook: (Excerpted from mbaa.org)

The financial markets response to the announcement of QE2 on November 3 has likely been a disappointment to the Fed. Equity prices have risen, but long-term rates have backed up considerably, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury pushing up past 3%. And turmoil in Europe has led to an increase in the value of the dollar in exchange markets, not the decline that had been expected in response to QE2. Had the Feds proposal for renewed large-scale asset purchases been well received, Fed officials might now be considering increasing the announced rate of purchases to $100 billion per month or more. But dong so under present circumstances would likely evoke a political firestorm.

The percentage of loans on which foreclosure actions were started during the third quarter was 1.34 percent, up 23 basis points from last quarter and down eight basis points from one year ago. The percentage of loans in the foreclosure process at the end of the third quarter was 4.39 percent, down 18 basis points from the second quarter of 2010 and down eight basis points from one year ago. The seriously delinquent rate, the percentage of loans that are 90 days or more past due or in the process of foreclosure, was 8.70 percent, a decrease of 41 basis points from last quarter, and a decrease of 15 basis points from the third quarter of last year.

We expect that mortgage originations will decrease to $967 billion in 2011, the lowest level of originations since 1997. This is a decline from $1.5 trillion in 2010 and a little under $2.0 trillion in 2009. Purchase originations should increase to $615 billion in 2011 up from $473 billion in 2010. Refinance originations, primarily impacted by the level of mortgage rates, are expected to drop sharply in 2011 to $352 billion and fall further in 2012 to $237 billion. We expect that the refinance share of originations should fall from 69 percent in 2010 to 36 percent in 2011, and then 24 percent in 2012 as rates climb above the 6 percent mark.

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Mortgage Rates and Home Prices

30-year fixed-rate mortgage: Averaged 4.71 percent with an average 0.8 point for the week ending January 13, 2011, down from last week when it averaged 4.77 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 5.06 percent.

The 15-year fixed-rate mortgage: Averaged 4.08 percent with an average 0.7 point, down from last week when it averaged 4.13 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 4.45 percent

Five-year indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages ARMs: Averaged 3.72 percent this week, with an average 0.7 point, down from last week when it averaged 3.75 percent. A year ago, the 5-year ARM averaged 4.32 percent.

One-year Treasury-indexed ARMs: Averaged 3.23 percent this week with an average 0.6 point, down from last week when it averaged 3.24 percent. At this time last year, the 1-year ARM averaged 4.39 percent

Freddie Sayz
Attributed to Frank Nothaft, vice president and chief economist, Freddie Mac.

Bond yields drifted lower following the release of the December employment report , which was weaker than the market consensus forecast and implied that the labor market is still in a sluggish recovery. Fixed mortgage rates followed bond yields lower for a second consecutive week, bringing them to a four-week low.

In its January 12th regional economic review, the Federal Reserve noted that activity in residential real estate and new home construction remained slow across all Districts over the last two months of 2010 due to concerns about the pace of economic recovery, especially in employment. In addition, the outlooks for residential real estate were mixed, with contacts in most Districts described as expecting continued weak conditions

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This is a timeline that I hope everyone will find useful. This is just what I have found to be the norm. If in doubt always best to check with your asset manger unless directed to send questions to their pre marketer.

Brandon Jordan