Jason Forrest is a sales professional, author, professional speaker, and consultant to homebuilders.

No matter if you’re a broker or an individual agent, you want to know how to get the most success from yourself or your team. Agents and brokers can either blend into the crowd with every other agent and team, or stand out by providing an excellent process and presentation. Focus your energy on deeper aspects of selling for maximum results.

Your product and pricing can only distinguish you to a certain extent, so the most fruitful coaching/self-coaching focuses on the things that can really set you apart in the eyes of the customer – causing repeat business and the ever-important referral.

While each level has its place, brokers and agents who focus heavily on the sales process, presentation and people are most effective at building a solid, results-oriented team mentality. However, those who spend the most time focused on circumstances, results and behavioral activities (the most common and least effective) end up falling behind the pack. Following are the six levels of coaching, as well as the characteristics, principles and benefits of each.

Circumstances. Focus on the economy, traffic numbers, etc. 

Results. Target the number of sales, whether agents expect to meet monthly/weekly goals, etc.

Activity-based coaching. Focus on behaviors such as setting appointments, completing loan applications and making phone calls.

These first three levels produce the shallowest results and therefore should receive less of your valuable attention. The following three levels, however, yield the greatest results, because they work to actually change sales results.

Process-based coaching involves analyzing where in the process the sale got stopped and how to start it again. You may ask which home or neighborhood your prospects are considering and what is hindering them.

Presentation-based coaching really gets down to what motivates buyers. Questions may include, “What was your selling message with the prospects?” or “Why do they need a home to improve their life?”

People-based coaching is the deepest and most effective level of sales coaching. It gets to the crux of the agent’s goals and the motivations that drive them to perfect their sales presentation, move prospects forward in the process, and earn what they’re worth. Questions at this level include, “Why do you need to reach your sales goals this month?” “If you were your own coach, how would you advise yourself to improve your last customer presentation?” “What do you hope to accomplish in your career in real estate?” and “What part of the sales process makes you the most uncomfortable?”

The most effective sales team leaders and individual agents spend the most time in the deepest levels possible. Where do you spend most of your time?

The above is adapted for this audience from Jason Forrest’s upcoming book for sales coaches. 

Named one of Training Magazine’s Top Young Trainers of 2012, Jason Forrest is an expert at creating high-performance sales cultures through complete training programs. He incorporates experiential learning (rather than theory) to increase sales, implement cultural accountability and transform builders into sales organizations that build homes.

A sales professional at heart, Forrest is the author of “Creating Urgency in a Non-Urgent Housing Market” and “40-Day Sales Dare for New Home Sales.” As a consultant for many of the leading homebuilders in the United States, Canada and Australia, Forrest’s competitive distinction is his behavior-modification approach (which focuses on people, process, and presentation); his ability to create urgency; and his focus on culture change. Learn more.

Interest rates hit historical levels yet again last week, with the 30-year FRM hitting 3.79 percent.

Freddie Mac yesterday released the latest results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey, and it found what by now has become common – that average fixed mortgage rates hit record lows last week.

The 30-year FRM averaged just 3.79 for the week ending May 17, a four basis point decline from the 3.83 percent of the week prior and a substantial drop from the 4.61 percent from last year.

Nick Marascia, the branch manager of Guaranteed Rate in Dallas, said the rates have influenced a number of new transactions.

“We’ve obviously been very busy with refinancing,” Marascia said, “but purchase business has really picked up, too.”

Currently, Marascia said there has been a perfect combination of factors leading to the heightened interest in homebuying. Not only are rates low, but consumer confidence has risen strongly in recent months and home values are extremely attractive. When homes go on the market in his region of Texas, Marascia said they do not last very long.

Even more encouraging, Marascia added, has been the nature of the homebuyers. Many of the documents he comes across have noted that the buyers were initially looking to sign a new lease on a rental unit, but were dissuaded from the decision by their agents, who pointed out the incredible deals currently available in the purchase market.

Frank Nothaft, the vice president and chief economist of Freddie Mac, said economic factors oversees played a big part in the declining rates, which occurred despite positive economic news at home.

“The European debt crisis overshadowed improving economic indicators for the U.S. and allowed Treasury bond yields and fixed mortgage rates to ease for another week,” Nothaft said. “For instance, industrial production rose 1.1 percent in April – the largest gain since December 2010 – and consumer sentiment in May rose to its highest reading since January 2008, according to the University of Michigan.”

The 15-year FRM averaged 3.04 percent, down just one basis point from the week before but 75 basis points from last year, when it averaged 3.80 percent. The 5-year ARM, by comparison, averaged 2.83 percent, up by two basis points from the week before but still down 67 basis points from last year. The 1-year ARM, at 2.78 percent, was up by five basis points but down 27 from last year.

Fannie Mae re-upped its predictions for a positive 2012 in its latest economic report.

Fannie Mae bolstered its predictions for the U.S. housing market in its report from the latest Economic & Strategic Research Group.

Housing, the report stated, showed considerable promise in the first quarter of 2012, growing at a rate that “substantially” outpaces that of 2011.

Doug Duncan, the chief economist for Fannie, said that even though growth may slow somewhat in the coming weeks, the GSE still feels confident going forward.

“Despite the loss of momentum as we move through the spring months, we expect that home sales will rise slightly more than 7 percent during 2012,” Duncan said. “Our outlook is bolstered by improvements in consumer sentiment seen in our National Housing Survey results, which show that consumer views of housing market conditions have become more supportive of home purchases and their outlook on home prices.”

That outlook, Duncan continued, has been particularly noteworthy for sellers.

“Interestingly, we’re seeing a pick up from depressed levels in the ‘good time to sell’ category, suggesting rising optimism about the housing market,” he said.

The slowdown, the report stated, may be a side effect of the unseasonably warm winter, which may have unnaturally boosted economic activity at a time of historical stagnation. But still, though economic growth in the first quarter of 2012 decreased from 3.0 percent in 2011′s fourth quarter to 2.2 percent, it was still stronger than 2011′s first quarter and better balanced, when upside and downside risks are considered.

The report predicted that growth will remain consist with the first quarter through the rest of the year.

“For all of 2012, we expect growth to come in at 2.3 percent—little changed from the view we have held since the beginning of the year,” it stated.

Forecasts for the housing market, though, appear very positive. For housing starts, Fannie expects the market to grow from the 687,000 of 2012′s first quarter to 775,000 by the end of the year. Single-family starts, which will average out at 498,000 for the year, will be 15.7 percent higher than in 2011. The real growth, though, will be in 2013, when Fannie predicts starts will grow to 790,000 in the first quarter, 842,000 in the second, 910,000 in the third and finally finish the year at 990,000, when construction will be fully back in action.

Data on sales was similarly encouraging. New single-family home sales are expected to grow from the 337,000 in 2012′s first quarter to 353,000 in the fourth quarter, and through 2013, they will grow to 378,000, then 407,000, then 443,000 and then finally at 492,000. Existing-home sales, by comparison, will finish 2012 at 4.552 million, or, 6.9 percent over 2011.

Some analysts the FHA is re-inflating the housing bubble, but data on the agency's loans may not support that viewpoint.

The Federal Housing Administration has taken a big role in the tight-lending environment of the post-boom housing market, but has it been costly?

That’s the argument of the Fiscal Times, which, in a piece analyzing the financing methods of the FHA, even went so far as to utter the word “bubble” in relation to the lending practices of the government agency.

The situation, as the Times frames it, is one of compensation. In the face of the restrictive lending policies that major banking institutions have followed after the economic downturn, a period where only the most credit-worthy of consumers could apply for loans with significant down payments, the FHA has stepped in to fill the void, offering its low-cost, low-down payment offerings to more modest consumers who lack the stupendous requirements of private lenders.

Those lower standards, the Times argues, has involved extending credit to unqualified buyers, and as a result, the home-owning market has become littered with people of questionable finances that are more susceptible to economic shocks – and thus, delinquencies, defaults and foreclosures.

Roger Staiger, an adjunct faculty member at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, said in the article that because of the low down payments, this new breed of homeowners are more like rents.

“You’re creating a country of renters who are now renting from the bank,” he said. “Because of this lack of fiscal prudency (sic), we’re never going to become a nation of non-debtors.”

Edward Pinto, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, summoned the dreaded “bubble” rhetoric, arguing that the extension of credit to questionable buyers will create uncertainty and risk in the system.

“[The FHA] continues to make loans that are very high risk and they’re not pricing them right,” Pinto said. “There’s no incentive to put down a larger down payment. It makes it difficult for the private sector to compete as they price rationally, as private banks cannot compete with irrational pricing.”

Recent data from the FHA would appear to support the two analysts’ perspectives. As of March, 26 percent of the FHA’s loans from 2007 were seriously delinquent, as were 24 percent from 2008. And, 49 percent of the agency’s modified loans were delinquent again after 12 months, with 638,000 loans total (as of September 2011) in their second default. But as is often the case with government lenders, those numbers are only half the story.

First of all, the delinquency data improves dramatically as time progress. Twenty-four percent of the FHA’s 2008 loans may be seriously delinquent, but that number drops to 11 percent for loans originated in 2009, to 4.1 percent for loans from 2010 and all the way down to 1 percent for loans from last year.

Foreclosure activity was down nationally, but result varied considerably across the nation's local markets.

Foreclosure filings, which encompass default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions, were the lowest in April in five years, according to the latest data from RealtyTrac.

The 188,780 filings for April were a 5 percent decline from March and a 14 percent drop from April 2011. Overall, one in every 698 U.S. housing units had a foreclosure filing in the month.

Brandon Moore, the CEO of RealtyTrac, said the declines may be deceptive, given the local nature of foreclosure markets.

“Rising foreclosure activity in many state and  local markets in April was masked at the national level by sizable decreases in  hard-hit foreclosure states like California, Arizona and Nevada,” Moore said. “Those three states, and several other non-judicial foreclosure states like them, more efficiently processed foreclosures last  year, resulting in fewer catch-up foreclosures this year.”

Indeed, the judicial/non-judicial divide has become increasingly marked, as foreclosure inventories continue to linger in certain markets. Just last week, Foreclosure-Response released its own foreclosure data with particular emphasis on the distinction.

In RealtyTrac’s data, foreclosure activity in the 26 judicial states was down 3 percent from March to April but up 15 percent from April 2011, with monthly activity falling in 14 of the states and yearly activity increasing in 15.

One area, however, with a relatively minor foreclosure presence is Houston, where the 2,741 filings in the month represented just 1 in every 842 households in the city. Filings are down 0.72 percent from March to April and 2.46 percent from April 2011.

J.J. Molaison, the manager of Prudential Gary Greene, Realtors’ Inner Loop office, said that has definitely been the scenario for her particular market.

“We don’t deal with many foreclosures in our area,” Molaison said. “There have been relatively few, and we’ve actually had a high level of sales activity recently.”

Foreclosure starts were similarly local-driven. Though nationally, starts were down 4 percent from march and 2 percent from April 2011, 26 states posted monthly increases and 27 year-over-year increases. States with the biggest annual  increases in foreclosure starts included New Jersey (180 percent), Utah (179  percent), Indiana (49 percent), Pennsylvania (44 percent), Florida (43  percent) and Michigan (42 percent).

John Daugherty

After experiencing record-breaking home sales in March, John Daugherty Realtors are continuing to exceed its goals. March set the tone for the best month in a 45-year history with sales of $136.2 million this year. The month of April also proved to be an accomplishment.

The residential real estate rebuilding from the recession has played a nominal factor in the success of Houston-based real estate firm. According to John Daugherty Jr., the president and CEO of John Daugherty Realtors, the company hasn’t done anything different.

“We have been very focused on the upper end of the residential real estate market since 1967 and have stayed very focused on that market,” Daugherty said.

However, other factors that contributed to the increase of homes sales in both March and April includes Houston’s overall healthy business climate. For 10 straight months home sales rose and the average sale price reached an all-time high.

“We have the third largest port in the United States, the largest medical center in the world and a significant technology sector,” Daughtery said about outside influences to home sales increase. “The world has their eyes on the business success that Houston continues to have, no matter what our national or the international economies are doing.”

The company is currently on a major expansion. They will be adding to their support team for the sales associates with top quality sales people every month. Nonetheless, the increase will help surpass preset home sale numbers for the remainder of the year.

According to Daugherty Jr., the company sets an annual goal in December of the year before. “We expect to exceed our goal set for 2012 by in excess of 20 percent which would be 32 percent overr of last year’s sales,” Daugherty said.

Housing inventory has continued to drop in 2012, with year-over-year declines in May at 21 percent.

Inventory levels in the U.S. housing market are down 21 percent from last May, according to the newest statistics from Pro Teck Valuation Services.

A real estate valuation firm based in Waltham, Mass., Pro Teck said many of the most depressed local markets in the nation have been seeing increased home sales accompany the falling inventories.

Michael Sklarz, principal of collateral analytics for HomeValueForecast.com, singled out Michigan and Illinois in a HousingWire piece, saying that those states are defying their reputations as “foreclosure-riddled states” and have been making substantial strides in reducing their inventories.

Tom O’Grady, the president and CEO of the firm, said  that the inventory/sales relationship is a significant one.

“One of the most important developments in the past year for the residential real estate market has been the significant decline in the inventory of homes for sale,” he said. ”Nationally, the number of homes currently listed are down 21 percent from a year ago.”

Interpretations differ on how many months supply represent a healthy real estate market, but the consensus is generally around five to six months. In its analysis, Pro Teck stated that five months or less indicates a strong market, and the U.S. market’s current level of 6.3 months is its lowest level in six years.

The Residential/CRE Investor app allows for numerous approaches to track investing.

Residential/CRE Investor, a newly-released app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, is a sophisticated yet user-friendly financial model for evaluating single-family, multifamily and commercial real estate investments

George Mathew, the app’s creator, said he wanted to create a program that effectively compared financial returns from a number of different products.

“I needed a model that compares the potential returns of different investment properties with a logic that is consistent with how analysts evaluate other investment options, including equities and corporate bonds,” Mathew explained.

In addition to its aforementioned features, the app also structures mortgage financing and determines pricing based on valuation metrics. For all potential investments, the app utilizes a Financing Likelihood Indicator that allows users to adjust an offer price based on a target internal rate of return (IRR) or projected capitalization rate.

Rather than building customized spreadsheets or working with costly desktop software packages, users are able to input property data and understand potential returns on a mobile device with an intuitive user interface, and users can also generate cash flow projections with as few as two inputs or with hundreds, making this financial model as simple or complex as a user prefers. The cash flow projections can then help determine the viability of potential financing structures and investment returns.

The app allows for unlimited properties, tenant units, expense items and revenue items, and each revenue and expense item’s growth can be generalized or customized by year. Other features include:

• Common building expenses can be shared with specific tenants.
• Capital expenditures can be projected by year and by tenant.
• Projected sale value can be based on price appreciation, capitalization rate, or even a discount rate with perpetual growth formula.
• Income taxes, including the tax benefits associated with building depreciation, can also be projected.
• Users can also e-mail property investment reports directly from their own e-mail outbox.

A full App Guide and further information is available at http://CRE-Owner.com.

Housing starts rose in April by double-digit sums from the year before.

Housing starts for privately-owned homes rose by nearly 30 percent year-over-year in April, perhaps the strongest sign yet of a recovery in residential construction.

According to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, starts were up 2.6 percent from March to April and 29.9 percent from April 2011 to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 717,000.

Single-family housing starts were also positive, rising 2.3 percent from March to a rate of 492,000.

The Census Bureau also reported on housing completions and building permits in its data.

For privately-owned housing completions, April’s seasonally adjusted annual rate of 651,000 was a 10.0 percent increase from March and a 20.1 percent increase from April 2011; in the single-family market, the 489,000 rate of completions was an even more impressive 11.4 percent rise from March.

Building permits were the one area that did not show uniform increases, but yearly, they still posted significant increases. From March to April, the rate of 715,000 was a 7.0 percent drop, but compared to April 2011, the rate is 23.7 percent higher. For single-family authorizations, the rate of 475,000 was a 1.9 percent increase from March.

In a blog entry on the data, Calculated Risk’s Bill McBride framed the increases in a historical light.

“[T]otal housing starts have been increasing lately after moving sideways for about two years and a half years,” he wrote. “Total starts are up 50 percent from the bottom, and single family starts are up 39 percent from the low. This was above expectations of 690,000 starts in April, and was especially strong given the upward revisions to prior months. The housing recovery continues. “

The future of housing finance was a big topic at a recent symposium for real estate.

Housing finance was the main feature of a multi-panel discussion at the Realtors Midyear Legislative Meetings & Trade Expo in Washington yesterday.

Officially titled “Housing Policy in 2013: Challenges, Opportunities and Solutions,” the symposium featured a who’s who in the world of housing finance, including Ed DeMarco, the acting director of the FHFA, Carol Galante, the acting commissioner of the FHA, Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics and Susan Watcher, a professor at the Wharton School of Business.

“We all are cautiously optimistic that the signs of stabilization, and in some places, strength, that have begun to emerge in various housing markets are true signals that a long-awaited recovery is taking place,” DeMarco said. “While FHFA will keep its focus on foreclosure alternatives, refinancing, and ongoing liquidity in the marketplace, it is time for policymakers to begin work in earnest on the future housing finance system.”

As evidence of those efforts, DeMarco made mention of the FHFA’s efforts in building a new infrastructure for the secondary mortgage market; establishing standards that promote a safer and more efficient housing finance system; and increasing private capital while retracting government participation in the secondary mortgage market, goals that were, coincidentally, identical to what NAHB Chairman Barry Rutenberg advocated in a recent op-ed on financial reforms.

What DeMarco did not mention, though, was principal reductions, an omission that only reinforces how contentious the topic has become in recent weeks. After resisting calls from agents and lawmakers to pursue the policy, DeMarco stated in an address to the Brooking’s Institution that, contrary to what he had claimed, principal write downs would save Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the tune of $1.7 billion. Still, he said the FHFA would take its time in making a final decision on the matter, and a couple weeks ago, it announced it was delaying its decision.

DeMarco’s comments alone demonstrated the schismatic lending environment that 2012′s presidential victor can anticipate, come the 2013 inauguration. Since 2008, Fannie and Freddie have either purchased or guaranteed 75 percent of new mortgages, and when FHA financing is included, the government has accounted for roughly nine out of 10 new loans. Though many sources, President Obama included, feel that private lending must take a greater role in housing finance, the recent principal reduction throw down with the FHFA has shown that transition will not happen overnight.

In her comments, Galante stressed the mission and professional commitments of the FHA, making particular note of the recent changes the agency has made to shore up its troubling finances. Just this morning, we reported on the FHA’s finances, and how despite the changes that Galante referenced and data suggesting their impact, analysts still fear the worst when assessing the FHA’s portfolio.

Following Galante’s speech, a panel of industry experts debated the future of the GSEs and the government’s role in promoting the American dream of homeownership, and in comments following the symposium, NAR President Moe Veissi reaffirmed the association’s support for a secondary market.

“As leading advocates for homeownership, Realtors want to make sure that everyone who wants to own a home and is able to afford one can do so,” Veissi said. “Without a secondary market, mortgage interest rates would be unnecessarily higher and unaffordable for many Americans, and products like the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage would likely be inaccessible for most borrowers.”