Click here to view the article - it’s neat!

Here are a few fun real estate trivia facts pulled from the article.

NAR was founded in Chicago in 1908.

In 1917 California adopted the first real estate license law.

The first real estate textbook was published by. NAR in 1923

For most the New Year brings a sense of new beginnings and a fresh start. According to a study nearly 78% of all New Year’s Resolutions fail. The reason? People try to do too much too fast. By committing to just one small resolution you automatically increase your chances of success. Something as simple as changing your mindset to a more positive one can improve all aspects of your life; personal and professional.

Many agents are stuck in the mindset that can’t be a successful agent in this market. This couldn’t be further from the truth! If you’re an agent, this is your time to shine! If you put in the time and effort you will see results and having a positive mindset while working towards success will make the journey that much more enjoyable. Below is a blog entry written by. Cemil Ozcelik that addresses three tips as a starting point for creating a more positive mindset.

Happy New Year from The Real Estate Learning Group!

We by now have all heard the old motto of in order to succeed you need a positive mindset. While we would love to just take this and ignore it, the truth is that this is the basis in order to attain success in business. This can at times seem a little hard to accomplish, but with a few basic techniques you will be able to succeed and ultimately create Life Success.

1. Start by keeping a focus on your goals, this will many times sound easier said than done. There are a few basic steps that you can take to make sure that you keep your focus. Write your goals down and place them in a place that you will see them regularly. This will help you to remain focused, and lead to a positive mindset as well. My tip is to have them in a stop where you can’t help but to see them each and every day. This will constantly remind you of what you need to work towards for Life Success.

2. Mistakes are a part of life, the best way to grow from these is to expect mistakes to be made and learn from them. When you learn from your mistakes, you are able to help make sure that these mistakes are not made again in the future. This is another key step that will help to make sure that your mindset stays focused and that you are on track to achieve your goals for Life Success.

3. When you achieve a goal, make sure that you reward yourself for your achievements. While these may be small to other people, these goals are the primary reason that your mindset will remain positive. These goals are many times a good way to judge your progress. When you begin to achieve your goals, you find yourself in a position where your mindset will actually increase – this is all personal growth and the steps towards Life Success.

These little tips are meant to be a starting point for you and your journey to creating a positive mindset. There are several other things that you are able to do in order to attain a positive mindset.

These are the three most popular things that a person can do in order to get a running start on their business success and as a result this will lead you to have the success that you dreamed was possible and overall Life Success.

The important thing that needs to be remembered is that no business person had success without a positive mindset, and that this did not just occur out of the blue.

Have a wonderful day

Cemil Ozcelik

The Federal Housing Administration has suspended its anti-flipping rules for another year to facilitate the financing and sales of newly renovated foreclosed properties.

“This extension is intended to accelerate the resale of foreclosed properties in neighborhoods struggling to overcome the possible effects of abandonment and blight,” said acting FHA commissioner Carol Galante.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development issued the anti-flipping rule in 2003 to protect FHA borrowers from investors who were quickly flipping properties at inflated prices.

The anti-flipping rule prohibits lenders from using FHA financing in transactions where a single-family property is being resold within 90 days.

In early 2010, HUD first suspended the anti-flipping rule because it was holding up sales of foreclosed properties.  It was suspended again for all of 2011.  And now it is being suspended for all of 2012.

Under the terms of the suspension, all sales must be “arms length” transactions and the lender must demonstrate that the property was not subject to prior flipping and that the property was fairly and openly marketed for sale.

In cases where the sales price is 20% or more above the seller’s acquisition cost, the lender must justify and document the reasons for the increase in value.

FHA research shows the investors can acquire, renovate and resell properties in less than 90 days.  Requiring them to hold the property for more than 90 days increases costs and risks vandalism.

Although the suspension of the anti-flipping rule is designed to stimulate renovation of foreclosed properties, it applies to all sales transactions.

Since suspending the anti-flipping rule in February 2010, FHA said it has insured nearly 42,000 mortgages worth more than $7 billion on properties resold within 90 days of acquisition.

The blog entry below was written by. Coffee with Krisstina.

Click here to view the original post and slideshow.

Over the past 12 months I have been speaking at different real estate conferences across the country on the benefits of bringing technology to the forefront of your real estate business. Though attending these conferences as a Speaker, I am also a Listener. I listen to others on stage; and I listen to attendees.

I’ve listened to a number of conference speakers advise Realtors to invest in one new, fantastic and pretty technique to improve their business: “Looking for that one special something that will transform your business, generate a flood of new leads, and which will save your business from disaster. I give you the Holy Grail of technological tools!” Of course, this game-changing technology may ultimately be purchased through each Speaker. But, in an effort to not appear as salesmen, these glowing product descriptions are sandwiched between sage advice and tips for Realtors.

The problem?

In a classic case of “All talk, No Action,” many speakers don’t put their advice, tips and gadgets to use in a personal practice of generating and servicing real home buyers and sellers. As a result, I’ve listened to many tips that are shallow and ultimately not at all helpful. An excellent example of this loss of potential comes from presentations on the uses of Apple’s iPad. There’s never a shortage of talks on the “Top 10 Apps” or other “Mobile Agent” advice given at conferences, but what is missing from these speeches is sound advice on how to use and apply these applications in the everyday practice of real estate sales. After buying this Holy Grail of gadgets, many Realtors I’ve spoken with admit to allowing it to sit idly on their desk or at home. Few have actually managed to implement the iPad as a fundamental tool of their business. Why? Because they didn’t know how.

Like Excalibur is to King Arthur, an iPad is to an Agent

In keeping with our mythological theme, as Excalibur was to King Arthur, the iPad is to an Agent. His sword was an essential part of King Arthur’s success, and in our modern world the iPad is essential for an Agent’s success. At the GoodLife Team, all of my agents own iPads. Because the iPad is so foundational to transacting and servicing customers in a mobile and digital world, owning one is a requirement for anyone working here. As a company, we teach our agents how to implement it in their daily business practices, and as a result my agents actually use their iPads. If you asked them today, they would admit to you that they wouldn’t know how to function without one.

Beyond practicality …

Though using the iPad benefits the practical functioning of our business, it also serves a larger purpose for our Team. We desire to do our part in caring for the environment, and the iPad helps us commit to our philosophical creed. Our aim at The GoodLife Team is to be a paperless company. With the help of the iPad and a few other technologies and innovations, our Agents are virtually paperless; the company is virtually paperless. By using these technologies, we have almost fulfilled our company-wide ambition!

The Presentation

In the slideshow above, I take you through a “Day in the Life of a GoodLife Paperless Agent.” I show you exactly how my agents use their iPads as a part of their business practice to serve our customers. I demonstrate to you what we revealed to Apple when they came to our office over the summer to learn why we incorporated the iPad into our core business operation and how exactly we use it. I think it’s safe to say we got the Apple stamp of approval when they named us, Official Power Users of the iPad.

How do you use your iPad?

By virtue of sharing, I think we all wind up better off. Please share with us how you use your iPad. What makes it a part of your core business practices? We would love to know!

Here’s to raising the bar,

Krisstina

P.S. Here is a link to an article published in the The Chicago Agent Magazine that describes how we are using the iPad as part of our core business philosophy and best practice.

Stop Whining and Start Winning

I wanted to say something but I couldn’t get a word in.

My wife’s friend Rachel wouldn’t stop complaining.

For twenty minutes she bombarded me with a series of complaints. She complained about her job. She complained about her company’s new policies. She complained about the economy. Most of all she complained about her lack of sales.

I don’t remember saying this but Rachel likes to remind me that I finally stopped her from complaining by saying, “Rachel, Rachel, will you please shut up.”

Then I said, “It’s really simple. You have a choice. You can accept your company’s new policies, come to work with a positive attitude and decide to be your best every day or you can find a new job at a new company. But whatever you do, stop complaining because it’s not doing you any good. Either change your job or change your attitude about your job.”

The conversation was over and so was our friendship, I thought, because Rachel wouldn’t speak to me for a few months.

Then my wife and I saw her at a party and she told me that while it was hard to hear what I had to say she decided to take my advice. She stayed in her job, stopped complaining and started selling more.

Three months after changing her attitude her sales were up 30%.

A year later her sales were up 70%.

Everyone in her company wanted to know how she was doing it. Rachel graciously and honestly told people about our conversation and I was invited to speak at her company’s annual sales meeting.

And just the other day, three years after our initial conversation, I caught up with Rachel again. We hadn’t spoken in a long time and I was wondering how she was doing.

Rachel told me that during the last two years her sales continued to grow. She has been promoted twice and is now in her dream job, leading a division at The Knot. It’s the job she always wanted and she’s more excited and passionate than ever about her work.

Rachel stopped whining and started winning!

How about you?

Is complaining sabotaging you and/or your team?

If complaining is holding you back I know how you feel. I use to be a professional complainer. That’s why I knew what Rachel needed to hear. I was in a similar situation 10 years ago.

But I’ve learned that when you stop whining and take positive action, you start winning.

Give it a try!

-Jon

This article was provided by. Jon Gordon - To view his website visit

www.jongordon.com

For real estate agents, VA home loans can be beneficial because they have higher loan limits than other lending programs in the same category. The average home price in Maine can range from $250,000 to $400,000+ depending on the location, and for military buyers financing such a purchase may not be possible with a conventional home loan. With a VA Home Loan, eligible military borrowers are typically able to borrow up to $417,000 for their home purchase; however, that amount can be as high as $1 million in high cost counties around the country. For realtors this higher loan limit means a larger commission.

What is the Typical VA Loan Process?
The VA home loan process is a relatively quick and easy process, which benefits both the buyer and the real estate agent. In as little as 30 days, a military buyer could be in their new home.

If a real estate agent meets with a military member who is interested in purchasing a home, it is always wise to ask the potential buyer if they have already spoken with a VA loan specialist, such as VA Mortgage Center. If they have, the realtor should be able to determine the buyer’s pre-qualified amount and will be able to commence home shopping at once. However, if the military member has not spoken with a VA loan specialist, suggest to them the benefits of doing so.

After the interested buyer has spoken with a VA loan specialist to determine their pre-qualified amount, and submitted their Certificate of Eligibility to the VA-approved lender, they will be able to purchase a home in four quick steps:
• Find a home with the help of a registered Realtor
• Submit the VA Home Loan application
• Wait for processing and approval
• Close the loan

Who is Eligible for a VA Home Loan?
Nearly all veterans and active duty service members who have served in a branch of the U.S. military are eligible to receive a VA Home Loan. Spouses of military members who were killed in action may also be eligible to receive a VA home loan. To initially qualify for a VA loan in Maine, interested military members must submit their Certificate of Eligibility to provide proof that they have:
• Served for at least 3 months on active duty during war time or 181 days on active duty during peacetime
• Or have served for at least 6 years in the Reserves or National Guard

The VA home loan program has no income or credit requirements, but most VA-approved lenders do. In order to secure financing, most VA-approved lenders will desire a mid-range credit score of at least 620. Regardless of their credit history, all interested veterans and active duty service members are still encouraged to apply for a VA home loan.

Matt Polsky is a blogger for VA Mortgage Center.com and VA Benefit Blog. VAMC is the nation’s leading provider of VA home loans, while VA Benefit Blog focuses on providing service members with current news and information on the VA benefits they have earned through serving our country.

I was recently contacted by an agent who had just received her HAFA certification and wanted to know how to obtain those pre-approved short sale listings that are commonly associated with the government’s HAFA program.

If you are unfamiliar with the acronym, HAFA, it stands for Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives, which is the government’s short sale program. As part of this program, you may recall that short sale sellers can receive a $3000 incentive at closing and deficiency judgments will be waived—if (and only if) the seller qualifies for the program.

If you are a HAFA certified agent, than you know that not all banks and not all investors participate in this program. For this very reason, it is sometimes hard to identify whether a specific seller will qualify for the program. For example, a seller with two loans at Bank of America may only qualify for HAFA if both of the investors are participating in the program. You see, even though Bank of America does participate, not all of the investors for which Bank of America services notes participate in the government’s program. (A little bit confusing, I know.)

Another great component of the HAFA program is that short sales can be pre-approved. If there is not yet a buyer for the property and the seller does qualify for HAFA, a package can be submitted and the listing agent and/or the seller will receive a pre-approved purchase price that is good for 120 days.
Obtaining Pre-Approved Short Sale Listings.

Let’s return to the question from the agent regarding HAFA listings. This particular agent wanted to know how to obtain the listings for those pre-approved HAFA short sales. Well, a short sale is not like an REO. In an REO the bank (who is the seller) selects the listing agent for the property—generally someone who is experienced with REOs. In a short sale, the bank is not the seller of the home—the bank merely ratifies the purchase contract and approves the acceptance of a purchase price lower than the loan balance.
It is the seller who selects the listing agent. So, to answer the agent’s question about how to obtain these pre-approved short sale listings, you need to go after them in the same way that you would any other listing. There is really no way to avoid hard work, good marketing, a strong sphere of influence, and word of mouth.

Clients are the lifeline for Real Estate Agents. Without your clients, your Real Estate Business would be nonexistent. This means it is extremely important to provide the highest level of customer service possible. Providing a high level of customer service can help you stand out among the competition and guarantee loyal clients.

To find out where your strengths and weaknesses are, you can email a customer satisfaction survey to your current and past clients. Customer satisfaction surveys are a fast and easy way to gauge customer satisfaction in your business. There are many companies that allow you to create and send surveys to your clients; www.SurveyMonkey.com is site that I’ve heard great things about in the past. Remember when sending the surveys let your client know you appreciate the time the fact that they have taken time out their busy schedule to leave feedback. Once you’re received feedback, really think about what your clients have said and how you can use this information to improve the level of service you provide.

Getting to know your clients is a large part of providing quality customer service. What are your clients looking for? Why are they moving? Is this their first home buying experience? Once you better understand your clients’ specific and individual goals, you can better serve them. The type of service and the expectations of a first time homebuyer will differ from that of a client that has been buying and selling real estate for 20+ years. Know your clients and know their expectations.

Communication and follow-through are two extremely important components to making your clients happy. There are things as simple as returning phone calls and email in a timely manner that can make a huge difference. Set a rule for yourself. – You will return all phone calls within X amount of time and stick with it! If you say you’re going to send an email to your client with a new listing, do it and as soon as possible. These may sound like simple tasks, but you would be surprised by how many people don’t follow-through and properly communicate with their clients.

It is also important to set realistic expectations with your clients from the start. Pull comparables for your clients’, let them know what the realistic sale or purchase price of a home is. Setting proper expectations will help you avoid disappointment and frustration in the end.

Buying or selling a home is a huge emotional and financial investment. Be there to support and guide your clients through the process – nothing less than the best service should be good enough for your clients.

(This article is a re-post. This blog was originally posted on CNN.com and was written by. Jean Chatzky. To view the original post, click here.)

(MONEY Magazine) – Think, for a minute, about what goals are. At the most basic level, they’re wants. Not wants like “I want a Coke.” Or “I want to see that new Richard Gere movie.” They’re bigger than that. They’re your aspirations for the future. For my friends Don and Paige, one goal is to spend the summer of 2005 traveling– literally–around the world. My brother Dave and sister-in-law Ali want to leave the city behind and buy a house in the suburbs. My husband and I would like to put an addition onto our house. Goals, in other words, are uber-wants.

And setting goals–whether you do it on a piece of paper or on a computer screen or in a conversation over dinner with a nice Cabernet–helps you see them clearly. It helps you flesh them out. It helps you realize the steps you’d have to take to accomplish them. It helps you figure out what achieving your goals might cost and whether the trade-offs are worth it. And–oh, yes–it makes you happy. Goal setters are happier with their finances and less likely to worry about their money.

What’s the best way to set goals–and be sure you achieve them?

The four steps of setting goals

1 SEE WHAT YOU WANT. Visualization is step No. 1. Sit in a chair and imagine yourself happy five or 10 or 25 years down the road. Be specific. Be clear. One big reason people fail to reach their goals is that those goals were amorphous to begin with. A goal like “buying your first house soon” is too wishy-washy. Deciding that you’d like to buy a three-bedroom Cape on a half-acre within 30 minutes of your workplace before the next school year is much better. There’s no need to be practical about this–think big.

Once you have your vision, focus on how it makes you feel. As the research of Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert has shown, you’re likely very good at identifying the things you believe you want. But when you get them, they often don’t make you as happy as you thought they would.

To become a better forecaster of your own happiness, think about how you’ll feel if you get what you think you want. What kind of emotions will that elicit? How long will they last? Try to imagine as many aspects of the outcome as you can. Even winning the lottery has its hassles–cold calling from brokers, newfound dealings with the tax man, tension in families.

2 WRITE YOUR GOALS DOWN. Like any good idea, goals need to be written down so that you can refer back to them every now and again. You may decide to change them or to abandon them. That’s your prerogative. But they need to be in writing.

Why? Because if you don’t write them down, you’re likely to forget them. When you see something, your brain holds onto that image for about a half-second. When you hear something, you retain it a little longer, say three seconds. Then you lose it, unless you make an effort to retain it, perhaps by repeating it to yourself over and over or creating an association (Mrs. Green has green eyes). To move a bit of information from your short-term memory into your long-term memory, where it can be available for you to recall, you either have to play with it–or go with the easier alternative: Write it down.

3 TURN EACH GOAL INTO AN ACTION PLAN. Break each goal down into the steps you’ll need to take to achieve it. Say your goal is to save $5,000 in the next year. That may sound daunting–but saving $100 a week for 50 weeks doesn’t.

4 UNDERSTAND THE TIME INVOLVED. We often overestimate how much we can accomplish in a single day and underestimate how much we can accomplish in a year, given just a little progress every day. That’s true whether you’re teaching a child to swim, writing a book or trying to lose 10 pounds. Quick fixes rarely work.

The six keys to achieving your goals

For setting goals, you get a substantial payoff. For working toward them, you get a greater one. Nearly half–48%–of Americans who are steadily working toward their goals or have already achieved them say they are very happy with their lives overall. A little over 30% of those who have just started to achieve their goals say they are very happy–and only 18% of those who haven’t identified goals or taken the first step toward them say they’re very happy. People who have at least started to achieve their goals are much more likely to feel useful, content and confident. And once you start to make steady progress, worry diminishes. How can you get to that point?

1 BEGIN. Once you know what your goals are, act on them. Many people are perpetual dreamers, who hope and hope but never implement. So take the first step, whether it’s opening an account at a brokerage firm for the $50 you plan to save each week or saying no when the dessert trolley passes by.

2 RECOGNIZE THE OBSTACLES IN YOUR WAY. Jim Ball, founder of the Goals Institute, who helps individuals and corporations structure and meet their goals, tells of working with a group of women in Omaha. One woman we’ll call Robin said she’d feel much better about her financial future if she could save $50 a month. The group named that goal Robin’s Nest Egg and figured out where she could come up with the money (biweekly instead of weekly manicures, double coupons). Then Ball asked her what barriers stood in her way. Robin answered without a second thought. “My husband,” she said. “He likes to spend money.”

Ball shook his head. “That’s not going to work,” he said. “He’s going to get in your way every step. Unless he has an interest in your saving–unless he sees that there’s some reward for him at the end of the road–you’re not going to be able to save without racking up additional debt. But if you can get him to buy into the program, perhaps together you can save even more.”

Once you’ve isolated your obstacles, it makes sense to avoid them. Manage your environment so that you have little exposure to the temptations that plague you–whether that means walking out of the path of your favorite shoe store or having coffee instead of dinner with the friend who believes you can’t get a good bottle of wine for less than $100. Condition yourself to ignore television ads. Then surround yourself with healthy examples–good money managers, sound eaters, avid exercisers or other people who embody the characteristics you desire.

3 BUILD BETTER HABITS. Most people make the mistake of looking at goals as a point in time some distance away. You’re better off if you can think about goals in terms of a series of lifelong changes that you have to make to achieve your desires.

Start by breaking old habits. When Jim Ball went through SmokEnders, the record he kept showed that he lit up after a swim. “What are you going to do after a swim when you can’t have a cigarette?” his counselor asked. Ball decided that he would go for a run. On the counselor’s instructions, he visualized it. He repeated it in his mind: Go for a run. Go for a run. Go for a run. It wasn’t until summer came around again nine months later that he got a chance to see if it worked. By then, he’d been off cigarettes for nearly six months, but he hadn’t been in the pool either. And wouldn’t you know it–he jumped into the pool, got out and had an urge to smoke. What did he do? “I went for a run. I laughed about the fact that I was probably programmed to want the cigarette,” he recalls. “But I did it.”

You can do the same with fiscal fitness. Say you and your spouse eat out twice a week, and each meal runs $75. If you decide to spend just $75 a week and invest the rest, you’ll save $3,900 in a year. Invest the money in a tax-advantaged account or a mutual fund that returns 8%, and 10 years from now you’ll have $67,877. Twenty years from now you’ll have $209,609. Thirty years from now when you retire, you’ll have $523,611–a half-million dollars just for skipping one restaurant meal a week. That’s how you begin to process a goal.

It’s important to replace your old habits with new, improved ones. The first time you skip that dinner out, you may find it tough to tell your friends you can’t meet them. The second time, it will be easier. By the third week, they may stop asking–unless you offer an alternative. Potluck at home?

4 AUTOMATE WHERE YOU CAN. You don’t have to do all the heavy lifting yourself. Most deposits into brokerage, savings and retirement accounts can be scheduled. You decide how much will be deposited, which shares it will buy and when the deposit will be made. You sign on the dotted line and then the transactions just happen. You can schedule your bill payments as well.

5 SET UP REMINDERS. Whenever you’re working toward a goal, if you can see it–clearly and often–you’ll be less likely to stray. That’s why people tack pictures of Britney Spears’ abs and Tina Turner’s legs on their refrigerator doors. And it works.

6 FOCUS ON TOMORROW. Look forward, not back. If you spend more than you’d planned or eat more than you’d planned, simply start again tomorrow. Reaching your 10-year goal in 11 years is better than never reaching it.

Focusing on the positive helps as well. Nobel-prizewinning economist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues conducted an experiment in which they asked one group of subjects to submerge their hands in ice water at 14C for 60 seconds and a second group to submerge their hands for 90 seconds; during the first 60 seconds the water was 14C, but during the last 30 seconds it was warmed one degree. Although the second group of subjects had their hands in the icy water for a longer period, they remembered it as a less painful experience because it ended on an upswing. It works the same way with money.

Attaching numbers to your goals

Once you know what you want–and you’ll know after going through the above steps–it’s time to figure out how much those things will cost. Say you want to retire in Northern California. Only when you know what it will cost to settle in San Francisco can you determine how much of that cost your existing nest egg and projected Social Security benefits are likely to cover–and determine how much of a gap remains. Then you can figure out whether you’ll be able to cover it by investing, say, $400 a month at a 7% return or whether it’ll take $500 a month at a 9% return. For each goal, you need to run a separate analysis. Once you know the total you need to sock away, you can keep it in any combination of accounts you like.

There are plenty of calculators on the Web that can help you figure out how much money you need for just about any goal. Try Moneyville at money.com. Or Google it. You’ll see. But some people still prefer to work it out with pencil and paper. The worksheet at right is for you.