“A lot of people aren’t using built-in apps like the calendar on their smart phones,” Mangino said. “Many people don’t realize how easy it is to synchronize their phones with their desktop so they can keep their contact information and calendar on their phone.”

Mangino has some advice for REALTORS®:

• Use MLS mobile app if available.  This allows agents to be able to show their clients listings while they’re showing properties. They shouldn’t have to go back to the office to show the property on their desktop.
• YELP gives local information.  YELP is another killer app. It shows top-rated restaurants in the area or if there’s Indian food nearby. This is so timely and gives you information as you’re showing a house. You don’t have to spend time doing a Google search or delaying the search until you return to the office.
• Everyblock (for larger cities) or Crime Reports (for smaller areas) provide trend reports on crime statistics, specific areas and comparisons.
• Customer relations management (CRM) systems like SalesForce, Highrise and TopFloor are  helpful phone applications.  The apps allow you to make a few notes about your client after you’ve met with him and they help you when you follow up with your client so you’re not asking the same questions again.
• Mortgage calculator apps on mobile phones make it quick and easy to provide customers information.
• A navigation app is good to add if you don’t already have a GPS system.

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REALTORS® Property Resource (RPR) is expected to be a tremendous time- and cost-saving benefit for members, according to Jeff Young, RPR’s senior vice-president of operations.

“Research has shown that $30 million is spent annually purchasing public record and tax assessment data from third parties,” Young said. “RPR will be a single source for agents who sell in multiple areas and will allow them to compare the differences in the market.”

Young said there are 147 million parcels of property including vacant land, parking lots, commercial buildings and residential properties. “This is not a nationwide MLS. There’s no offer of compensation on RPR. We’re trying to create a depth of data for these properties whether or not it’s ever been for sale,” Young explained. “MLSs only have information about properties that are on sale or have sold so it’s a limited history of a property.”

While REALTORS® could obtain this information by extensive research of property records, online or in county court houses, NAR would like to provide this information for REALTORS® in one central location. “This information is better suited to be in one single place and ultimately consumers will benefit because REALTORS® will have access to this information,” Young said.

Currently the database is being built and RPR has collected about 92 percent of the nationwide data. RPR has a blog that allows REALTORS® to learn more. The RPR will be rolled out geographically throughout the country and all members are expected to have access to the data by the third quarter this year. Young said it’s expected that 100 percent of the data will be in place by the end of 2011.

MLSs and Commercial Information Exchanges (CIEs) are encouraged to participate in the RPR so the data will be all-inclusive. The RPR will also have tax records, mapping and school information.

“All real estate is local but the consumer doesn’t know anything about confined market areas,” Young said. “They move from one area of the country to another.”

PAR will use the grant money to interview a random sample of individuals who have recently experienced a foreclosure, as well as those still living in hard-hit neighborhoods, according to Jennifer Shockley, assistant director, PAR Government Affairs. “The results of this project will help our members and political leaders better understand the direct impact of foreclosures on individuals and position REALTORS® to become part of the solution by recommending affirmative steps for action to elected officials,” she said.

PAR’s Foreclosure Prevention and Response Grant is part of NAR’s Right Tools, Right Now program. More than 100 grants were awarded to local and state associations to help them develop coordinated plans of action to prevent foreclosures and respond to their adverse affects.

SGS is currently developing questions and is expected to have results of the survey by the end of June.  PAR will determine a course of action based on the data.

David H. Stevens

The assistant secretary for housing and commissioner of the FHA said housing financing brought the country’s economy to its knees. “No parents were watching the kids,” he said.

Stevens said too many people looked at buying homes as a way to make millions. “That’s what was wrong. Owning a home was no longer about shelter; it became an investment. Mortgage programs started that weren’t sustainable,” he explained. 

He said the administration has saved what could have been a larger crisis and the FHA has played a role in helping the recovery.

“FHA was boring with 30-year, fixed-rate loans,” he said. FHA has more than doubled the number of mortgages given in the last three years and is now 30 percent of the housing market’s mortgages. In 2007, FHA issued 400,000 loans and last year, two million were issued.

Stevens said changes have been made to achieve mortgage sustainability. Changes include:

• A required 3.5-percent down payment
• Minimum FICO scores of 580, with larger down payments. Studies show that default rates are too high when applicants have a credit score less than 580
• Upfront mortgage insurance requirements.

“There’s a lot of work to do but the amount of investment in the housing recovery by this administration is unheralded,” he added. He said the FHA will work to create an environment of responsibility, integrity, trust and ultimately bring back private investments.

Tom Ferry

Marketing never stops, according to Tom Ferry, founder and CEO of TomFerry-your coach. “The key to marketing is making sure you’re driving traffic, getting it to the places you want to go and ultimately allowing it to generate money,” said Ferry, a trainer, motivator and personal coach for real estate professionals.  He added, “Now more than ever it’s about attracting buyers but you need a marketing strategy.”

Duration: 3:16

Jim Sherry

Sherry, who recently spoke to LeadershipPAR participants, said, “Consumers are taking charge of discovering data on where they want to live. Before buying anything, they collect tons of information and often show up with more data than the REALTOR® has.”

This requires a shift in how REALTORS® must perceive themselves, Sherry said. If a REALTOR® sees himself as a salesperson, he limits his value to a client who has already done most of the research and knows what he wants to buy.

“REALTORS® should consider themselves advisors who need to understand their clients’ needs and help them find a home that matches those needs, whether it’s a ‘green’ home, closer to their workplace or in a specific neighborhood. They should know specific data like what percentage of students from each school district go on to college. This is the kind of information an advisor can help with,” he added.

Sherry said more than half of homebuyers today are Generation ‘X’ and ‘Y.’ To work with these clients, REALTORS® must be versed in working with the Internet and social media, Sherry advised. “REALTORS® are being asked to change the way they do business because the consumer is demanding change.

“I’m convinced there’s a place for REALTORS® in this new market as an expert advisor, not as a salesperson,” Sherry said. “REALTORS® need to understand how events around the world affect their businesses. The recent economic changes have made that very clear.”

Sherry concluded that extreme customer service is of utmost importance. “REALTORS® provide a service for a ‘big ticket’ purchase and they receive a commission for that service. Their service should be of ‘big ticket’ importance to their clients,” he added.

Question: How do you defriend someone on Facebook without causing bad feelings? Is there a way you can do it without them knowing?

Answer: A contact on Facebook will not receive a notification telling him you removed him as a friend (defriended). There are a few ways he could figure it out, such as noticing a decrease in the number of friends and trying to figure out who he is no longer connected to or one day wondering why he hasn’t seen your name on his newsfeed and realizing you’re no longer connected. If the person has a large number of friends and you don’t usually interact on Facebook, I would say the chances of him noticing your “defriendship” is slim.

That being said, unless you have a truly compelling reason to delete him from your network, I recommend hiding his feed. In a recent post, I explained how to hide people and applications from your news feed. This means you don’t have to see his status updates unless you specifically look at his personal page.

Another option is to control what your friends see on your page by using Lists and the privacy settings. To learn more, visit facebook.com.

Do you have a social media question? Ask Meghan by filling out this form.

A virtual phone service allows the user to have one phone number for all phones and phone calls are all funneled through this one number.

“With a virtual phone, you can set it to ring at the office or on your cell phone or go to voicemail if you don’t want to be disturbed,” Vezina said. “One of the features allows you to receive an e-mail or voicemail notification about messages.

“For a real estate office, a virtual phone service replaces an expensive phone system and allows agents to be accessible from one unique phone number,” he added.

Some virtual phone services work with a virtual receptionist first answering the call and then directing the call to either the agent or to a dial-by-name directory. “This gives the real estate office a more professional appearance and helps ensure that all calls are answered,” Vezina said. “It also offers voicemail for all employees, main and after-hours greetings, informational messages, call screening and conference calling,” he said.

Some virtual phone services like Google Voice may offer a free plan while others may charge additional costs ranging from $10 to $50 per month depending on the features added. The ultimate benefit is flexibility, mobility, productivity and the ability to respond quicker to clients.

You know you are in a different time and place when:

1. House prices are lower this year than last year and last year’s prices were lower than the previous year’s prices.

2. There’s a continuing danger that the equity in many homeowners’ properties is at risk, especially the down payment for recent purchasers. In today’s real estate market, down payments evaporate if prices fall.

3. Despite recoveries over the past seven months in terms of prices, sales and reduced numbers of foreclosures, markets are still weak. The Wall Street Journal reported that new home sales dropped another 11 percent in January 2010 (after a December 2009 decline of 7.6 percent) to a seasonally adjusted rate of 309,000. This is the lowest level of new home sales since record-keeping began in 1963!

4. Interest rates are at historic lows yet consumers are not buying most things, including houses.

5. Tax shelter is increasingly being viewed as a bad thing in the housing market (since it results in higher asking prices today). Brokers may promote it as an advantage to homeownership but buyers, especially first-time buyers, would rather not have to pay the premium built into the settlement price.

6. Sub-prime loans, Alt-A mortgages and Option ARMs were heralded as favorable innovations by industry and consumers alike; soon afterward, they became dreadful memories.

7. Defaults and foreclosures have become everyday terms around America’s water coolers. Once a fraction of one percent, now these are everyday problems.

8. It’s good news when the number of borrowers in arrears increases but at a decreasing rate.

9. Mortgage modifications currently total over 116,000 but four million borrowers seek help.

10. The federal government has announced a new program to bail out borrowers in states with large price declines and high rates of unemployment — but even before it’s implemented, government officials are lowering expectations. As important as $1.5 billion will be to those five states (California, Arizona, Nevada, Florida, and Michigan), it’s not going to solve what is a catastrophically large problem.

11. “Strategic defaults” are beginning to be questioned as immoral financial decisions.

12. Even the market for jumbo loans is very tight. A recent report indicated that a borrower with $8 million in assets could not refinance his home mortgage.

13. “More affordable” is about the best thing you can say about the current housing market.

14. Rents are falling and are expected to continue to decline.

15. In terms of legal issues, the authority of eminent domain is a significant government threat rather than the major constitutional protection of private property in the U.S.

16. Commercial real estate defaults are likely to be the next shoe to drop. One report indicates as much as $1.4 trillion in commercial mortgages will require refinancing over the next four years. Expect $200-$300 billion of defaults threatening as many as 3,000 banks.

17. While the housing market is on a “path to recovery,” no one believes there will be significant appreciation, revived sales activities or shortages of inventories for a very long time.

More consumers are looking for homes that are energy-efficient and more ‘green,’ said REALTOR® Steve Matthews of Prudential New Jersey Properties, Montclair, NJ, who’s seeing an increase in consumer demand as his region is limited in new construction.

Matthews, who has a GREEN designation, said, “In the northeast, we’re still playing catchup to the west coast in terms of looking at issues like greening our homes.” Many northeast metropolitan areas have little or no space for little new construction and consumers have focused on how to make existing homes more environmentally friendly.

Clients thinking about selling an older home can make a few changes:

• Add blown-in insulation and energy-efficient windows. Document the difference in your energy savings. “It doesn’t sound like a lot to start with but during the winter  months these can make significant savings,” Matthews said.
• Conduct a home-energy audit to see where the house is losing energy. An audit will show cold or hot spots.
• Add Energy Star appliances. These appliances add value to the home and make the home more energy efficient.
• Make changes to the landscaping. Use indigenous plants that require less maintenance and less water.
• Use low VOC paints when repainting the home.

“Keep documents on everything you do,” Matthews added. “Make them available to potential buyers. If someone’s especially interested in green aspects, this gives him extra confidence in what you’ve done.”

Kate Hart of Hart and Associates Staging and Design of suburban Philadelphia  agreed with Matthews. “You don’t have to gut your house to make your home more energy efficient. There are some simple things to make a difference,” she added. “Replacing windows and garage doors helps the appearance of the home and helps with energy savings. And some items are available for a tax credit as well.

“Make a list and show it when potential buyers come through,” she said. “Show the buyers the savings you’ve seen in your utilities. With the deregulation on utilities in Pennsylvania, buyers are going to be concerned as they’re looking at a new home.”