And… this interview includes a couple of can’t miss minutes on the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC). You’ll want to hear this one…

Listen to the Interview with Brian Brady (”America’s Number 1 Mortgage Lender” Here)

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HREU Superstar

Hello,

This is a reminder for you to attend this weeks Superstar Interview featuring…

Brian Brady.

Here is the information for your schedule:

EVENT:  Super Star Interview
DATE & TIME: Friday, July 10th at 12:00pm Pacific
FORMAT: Simulcast! (Attend via Phone or Webcast — it’s your choice)
TO ATTEND THIS EVENT, CLICK THIS LINK NOW…
http://instantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=8135850

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In part of the article, Tim listed a few activities that the “Real Estate Sloth” might engage in:

That powerful, focused intense agent that you had to be has been replaced by its alter ego…the the Real Estate Sloth. You are now focused on doing things like:
1) Making home brochures.
2) Realtor tours and maybe open houses.
3) Putting the homes on 6 bazillion web sites.
4) Servicing your sellers.
5) Speaking with potential buyers
6) Working on your websites.
7) Going to endless office meetings….

Here’s the thing…. Thinking about all the agents I know who are using AR for “coffee talk” for lack of anything better to do in a slow market, I had a strange urge to sneak in “Participating on Active Rain” as number 8 on this list of things that are characteristic of the real estate sloth

I knew of course (after a few seconds of reflection,) that such a comment would been unfair and would have of course led to a nice little storm of comments from the agents that are using Active Rain in a focused, productive, “Navy Seal” type way.

So I figured I’d share a quick and easy approach to using Active Rain for the uninitiated… (or the slothily initiated…)

In and Out in 15 Minutes: Using Active Rain To Generate Real Business Via A Daily Recurring AR Appointment

• Provide SEO juicy links back to blog articles you’ve written on your own blog as a sort of “What’s Going On Over At My Blog” post. Here’s an example update post like this that I wrote a year ago:
• Comment on just 1 featured article from the AR home page. Why? There may be an agent out there reading one of the popular articles that has a referral for your area. Why just 1? Well, try to make it interesting. Provide a little substance. One quality comment is probably much better than 10, “Hey, I agree, nice” comments that are meant purely for point accumulation…

That’s it. List over? Well, maybe not. But really, the point I’m trying to make is that Active Rain can be a useful tool… as long as you keep your interaction with it short and sweet?

So… AR devotees out there.. Do I have it wrong? Is 15 minutes a day not enough? Is it too much? What’s your Navy Seal type approach to using AR?.

-Ryan Hartman
Harris Real Estate University

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RECORD home sales in Vegas last month…..

Sales of single-family homes, condos and townhomes reached a record 4,702 in June, topping the previous record of 4,414 set in June 2004, the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors reported Wednesday.

What is selling? Homes priced less than $200,000…..that may had been previously valued as much as 50-60% greater….

The record was announced the same day a new survey showed more than half of potential homebuyers nationally say they’re still not prepared to jump into the market.

Locally, Realtors sold 3,785 single-family homes during the month, up 16.3 percent from May and up 70 percent from June 2008. Condo and townhome sales more than tripled from a year ago to 917.

Inventory of homes for sale in Las Vegas shrank to 20,613, a decrease of 11.9 percent from a year ago. Condo listings are down 2.2 percent to 5,416.

HREU Students…especially all of you in Vegas…..remember what we told you last week….there are 30,000 bank owned homes that are expected to hit the market over the next few months. Please understand that this is truly the calm before the storm…

“I think it’s significant that we sold a record number of homes last month,” Realtors association president Sue Naumann said. “We’ve been closing in on this mark for a few months now.”

Median prices held steady at $140,000 for single-family homes, unchanged from the previous month and down 37.8 percent from a year ago. The median price for an existing home was $242,000 in June 2004. Condo prices meanwhile inched up 1.5 percent from May to $66,000. It was the second consecutive month of condo price increases.

WOW…37.8% LESS than 12 months ago…and almost 50% less than 2004!

“We’ve been looking at prices declining for so long now, it’s refreshing to see them stabilize and some go back up,” Naumann said. “Inventory is down, so that’s a good thing.”

Remember….eye of the storm…don’t for a second think we are anywhere near the end of this….

The numbers for June are quite impressive, broker David Brownell of Keller Williams Realty in Las Vegas said. Closings are up 82.5 percent from a year ago, pending sales are up 82 percent and inventory — taking out pending sales — is down 40 percent.

His numbers are for the greater Las Vegas area, not including Pahrump, Mesquite, Boulder City and other outlying areas covered by GLVAR.

He said sales numbers would have been higher if banks had not placed a voluntary moratorium on foreclosures last year. The market should welcome the backlog of bank-owned homes that are expected to be coming soon, Brownell said.

Well said…’The market should welcome the backlog of bank-owned homes…” (that made me laugh)

“The reason I say that is in 90 percent of scenarios, we’re in multiple offer situations,” he said. “I had a client on Monday looking to buy a home and found one she wanted. It was on the market for less than 24 hours and we would have been the 19th offer.”

Brownell said there were six cash offers on the bank-owned home and just as many conventional loans. The bank will consider those offers before his client’s FHA financing, he said.

Yep, great point. Cash buyers will always get to the front on the line…even when their offering prices are LESS!

“When the market price is $230,000 and you have 19 offers and six are cash, I’m going to say the market is undersupplied,” he said.

Or, more likely…the buyers are NOT truly ‘cash’. They are saying that in their offers because they think that gives their offers priority with the banks…we are hearing ALL THE TIME from our students of buyer agents submitting ‘cash offers’ on their REO and Short sale listings. When the buyer is pressed to prove their ability to pay cash for the house…they go…’poof’….

Brownell showed 3,460 closings of real estate-owned, or bank-owned, homes in June, more than double the number from the same month a year. Meanwhile, REO inventory has dropped 42 percent to 2,771, leaving less than one month’s supply. Another 5,340 REO closings are pending.

Translated: REO listing agents are making a fortune. Learn how to become a REO listing Agent now. Its not too late for you to cash in on the best money making opportunity of your real estate career. Watch the FREE Agent REO Secrets video and then download the FREE Agent REO Secrets book.

Naumann said she’s seeing strong demand from both investors and first-time buyers taking advantage of the $8,000 tax credit.

“They’re hearing rumors of interest rate increases and they could very well be priced out of a home if they don’t act now,” she said. “Plus, we’re seeing where parents want to help their children with gifts for down payments to get them out of apartments.”

Housing analyst Dennis Smith of Las Vegas-based Home Builders Research said the upward trend in home resales will continue for two to three years because of the affordability factor and also because new home builders can’t compete on prices.

“That’s the problem. As long as prices continue to go down, we can’t say the market is at the bottom,” Smith said. “We can say it’s getting closer.”

In the Realtor.com survey, to be released today, nearly 53 percent of consumers who said they were planning to buy a home in the future cautioned they’re not ready to take such a large financial step right now.

Nearly a third of potential homebuyers surveyed cited concern about their jobs as the main reason they would shy away from the housing market. Worries about selling their current home are stopping 16 percent of the prospective buyers surveyed, while just under 8 percent said they fear home prices will keep falling.

Americans recognize there are great deals to be had in the housing market, but many are in too much of a financial pinch at the moment to even think about buying.

Among those consumers who are interested in buying, the survey found, some believe that prices aren’t going to fall further and others are looking to take advantage of government incentives designed to kick-start sales.

Nearly one in five potential buyers said they were interested in a deeply discounted foreclosed home, while nearly 15 percent said they want to receive a new $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers or other state incentives. More than 15 percent said they don’t expect prices to drop lower, but many are still taking their time.

Something we are starting to hear….buyers who are intentionally waiting because they think the Government will come out with more incentives to buy…more tax credits etc. “Why buy when something is 30% off when the 50% off sale starts in a few weeks”… seem to be their logic…

GLVAR statistics are based on data collected from the Multiple Listing Service and does not necessarily account for new homes sold by builders, sales by owner and other transactions not involving a Realtor.

Source: ReviewJournal.com

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Would you walk away from your home if it was..10%…20%…50%+ upside down? At what point do you simply stop making payments and make the financial decision to default?

THIS is the question that homeowners across the US are asking themselves. HREU Students, be prepared for homeowners who will initiate

…….’strategic’ foreclosures.

Are we advocating Realtors telling homeowners not to make their house payments?

Of course not.

However, you can work with these sellers and help to improve their situations. When you sell someones upside down home through the short sale process you are making is to they can avoid a foreclosure. In this market every (EVERY) Realtor should be actively listing and selling short sales.

Maybe a year ago you had a choice not to know how to do short sales….not as many homeowners were upside down and it was possible to find sellers who actually had to sell…and had equity. Now, everything has changed…and you know it.

At this point, If you still have not mastered short sales  you are simply making the decision to fail…

Its really that simple.

Heck, don’t just listen to us….recently the Co-Founder of RE/MAX, Dave Liniger AND the Founder of Keller/ Williams, Gery Keller have stated the absolute importance of offering short sales.

Here is the article, please read it and share your comments:

Up to 26% of U.S. homeowners who stop paying their mortgage may be doing so intentionally, not because they can’t make the payments but because they don’t want to put money into a house that’s worth less than what they owe. That finding, from a paper by economists at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and the European University Institute, raises some doubt about the approach the Obama Administration has taken toward stabilizing the housing market. The current approach focuses on whether or not homeowners can afford their monthly payments, and largely ignores the fact that some 20% of homeowners owe more than their house is worth - a situation known as negative equity, or being “underwater,” which, according to the paper’s findings, may itself trigger default.

Realtors, learn how to easily list and sell short sales. Short sales are the make money now opportunity. Watch the FREE Agent Short Sale Secrets video now and then download the Free Agent Short Sale Secrets Book.

The paper’s authors caution that their statistics are not exact and should be taken primarily as an indication that there is a looming problem, one that needs to be addressed. The 26% figure comes from a series of consumer surveys that feed into the Booth Chicago/Kellogg School Financial Trust Index. In December 2008 and again in March 2009, 1,000 people were surveyed and asked, among other things, if they knew anyone who had defaulted on a mortgage, and if they knew anyone who had defaulted on a mortgage even if he or she could afford to make the monthly payment. By taking the ratio of the two answers, the economists calculated that more than a quarter of defaults are, as they put it, “strategic.” 

“They can still afford to pay but they decide not to,” says Paola Sapienza, a finance professor at Northwestern University and one of the paper’s authors. “It’s very easy to do this in the U.S.” Even though there are serious consequences to reneging on a home loan - including wrecked credit, not being able to buy another house for years to come, the cost of moving and the social stigma associated with being a person who does not honor one’s commitments - lenders tend not to pursue former homeowners for the money they are owed because of the prohibitive cost of tracking down such people and suing them.

Notably, other survey data included in the paper suggest the percentage of intentional defaults may be much lower than 26%. The researchers also asked if respondents themselves would welsh on their mortgages if they were $50,000 underwater. Among the people for whom $50,000 represented less than 10% of their home’s value, none would walk away. However, once $50,000 represented between 10% and 20% of the house’s value, 5% said they would walk away, and when the shortfall reached 50% of home’s value, a full 17% said they would. 

When the shortfall amount in question was $100,000, the walk-away responses accelerated at a faster rate. Some 7% of people said they would intentionally default when a $100,000 shortfall represented less than 10% of their house’s value. Once that shortfall represented between 50% and 60% of the home’s value, an entire 25% of respondents said they would walk away. The hesitation to intentionally default when the theoretical amount of negative equity was $50,000, even when representing the same percentage of a home’s value, may relate to the high fixed costs that come with walking away, such as moving.

What is not clear is how the survey results map onto what is actually happening in the U.S. today. It is true that in some areas of the country homes have lost half their value. It is also true, according to data aggregator First American CoreLogic, that there are five states where more than 30% of mortgage holders are underwater and another 15 states where at least 15% of homeowners are. However, this sort of data does not indicate how much homeowners are underwater - or their attitudes about future home prices. If a homeowner believes house prices will recover during the time he intends to live in his house - which could easily be 10 or 15 years - then the incentive to walk away stops making sense from an economic perspective.

Realtors, learn how to easily list and sell short sales. Short sales are the make money now opportunity. Watch the FREE Agent Short Sale Secrets video now and then download the Free Agent Short Sale Secrets Book.

Christopher Foote, a senior economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, who studied negative equity in Massachusetts during the late 1980s and early 1990s when home prices dropped 23%, argues that most walk-aways are likely driven by the combination of two things: both negative equity and an economic hardship, such as job loss. 

More recently, Foote and his colleagues have studied patterns of mortgage nonpayment, and found that in certain states there is a disproportionate number of people who suddenly stop making payments and never try to catch up. This, they surmise, might be an indication of walk-aways - as opposed to struggling borrowers desperately trying to stay in their homes, making payments when they can. The states with more sudden stops are California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona - places where property prices have plummeted and more than 30% of homeowners are underwater. “That’s consistent with the idea that there should be more walk-aways in those states,” says Foote. “But outside of those states, I would think that walk-aways are more rare than people think.”

Data from the new paper also point to the likelihood of mass walk-aways being a highly localized event. Sapienza and her colleagues plotted data on late mortgage payments and home-price declines and found very little relationship between the two when house prices in a metropolitan area had dropped less than 20% from their peak. However, once prices had fallen more than 20%, a disproportionate number of people wound up behind on their mortgage payments, even when the unemployment rate (a measure of means to pay) was held constant.

Realtors, learn how to easily list and sell short sales. Short sales are the make money now opportunity. Watch the FREE Agent Short Sale Secrets video now and then download the Free Agent Short Sale Secrets Book.

The research also suggests that social cues can play a large role in deciding to walk away. The researchers found that even though 81% of people surveyed considered it immoral to intentionally default, those respondents who said they knew somebody who had were nearly twice as likely to say they themselves would. People who live in areas with high foreclosure rates were also more likely to say they’d be willing to walk away. “Once you see everyone else doing it, maybe the stigma goes down,” says Sapienza. “It’s also possible that there’s a multiplication effect: if I know other people are walking away, the value of my house deteriorates.” Which then would create the problem anew.

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Want to learn the fundamentals of SEO? (Search Engine Optimization) This video’s a good place to start.

Want a more comprehensive intro to Search Engine Optimization as it applies to your real estate business? How about a bunch of other good stuff related to “upping your Real Estate tech game?”

You Should Try This Video Too…

• .

Well, it looks like similar scams are still going around. Here’s a comment we received earlier today on that original post:

I JUST RECIEVED ONE OF THESE 009-S FORMS TODAY. I FOUND IT SUSPICIOUS BECAUSE THERE WAS NO SENDER INFORMATION ON IT ANYWHERE SO I DECIDED TO GOOGLE IT. THANK GOD I DID!

We just took a quick look to see what google would have to say about the “Form 009-S Payment Reduction Notification” and there’s a nice link to an example bogus form from msn.com: CLICK THIS LINK TO SEE AN EXAMPLE BOGUS LOAN MODIFICATION FORM.

Let’s make sure as many folks as possible are aware of this Loan mod ploy and others like it. Here’s a “tell a friend” link you can use to forward this along to clients and Realtor friends…

• Loan Mod Training | How-To Make $$ From Loan Mods

Well, here we go:

Thanks to Richard & Louise Vitellaro for their kind remarks. Richard & Louise are real estate agents in the Redding / Anderson / Red Bluff / Cottonwood CA area. If you have any referrals for the Vitellaro’s feel free to contact them.

If any one else has any positive (or negative… negative helps too thoughts on our new blog redesign, please feel free to let us have it in the comments below… For instance, we’d love to know. How does ours stack up against other Real Estate Coaching Blogs?

• .

“3 Things That Sell A Home Script”

Mr. Seller, in real estate it always comes down to 3 very important elements… Price, Condition, and Location. We know that we can’t move your house so the location is as good as it will get. Condition wise, you aren’t planning on adding a room or making any major changes are you? (No.) Of course not, so that means the only thing that can have any real effect on is the price…

Harris Real Estate University Coaching Scripts for Realtors

• .

The NAR Price Reduction Script

“Mr. Seller, according to the National Association of Realtors, after 2 weeks or 10 showings… whichever comes first…we will need to reposition your home on the market to more correctly reflect the buyer’s expectations.”

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