Mumbling Out Loud

Jazzing up blogs?

2008-08-28T10:42:00Z

I've been asked recently about blogs that I write (not here but other places) and how I jazz up my blogs with clipart and photos.

No, I'm no genius at photography or graphic images and NO, I don't take them from other places around the web that I do not have permission to do so.

No, it's much simpler than that. I get my images by paying for them...right now they are running a special for $29.95 for a year membership and you can use all their images (thousands and thousands of them). Go check it out if you are looking for images to spice up your blog or your website! LINKED HERE (it will open in a new window and WARNING, it is an affiliate link so if you go there and purchase, I'll probably be sent a coke or something for spreading the word [I'm not really sure the compensation but I joined based on another agent's referral and I've really appreciated the use of the site, so you probably will too!])

Who sells more real estate than anyone?

2008-08-28T10:30:00Z

Well, the answer to that question is pretty easy. There is strength in number and there is power in advertising and with that in mind, The KATY AGENT TEAM is proud to have accepted an invitation to join REMAX GRAND in Katy Texas!

This move benefits our seller's in SO many ways it's just not possible to go into here on the blog so give a call and I'll tell you why with the tougher real estate market, it's more important that EVER to have the power of RE/MAX behind the selling of your home!

Same great service and all the honesty and integrity that you have come to expect from Ron Tarvin and the Katy Agent Team now with the power of Re/Max!

An unbeatable combination!

Contact us:

Ron Tarvin Direct- Cell 281-935-7152
Office 281-994-5747
On the web: www.katyagent.com
and by email:
katyagent@gmail.com

Sponsoring Events for Past Clients

2008-02-15T21:29:00Z

We all like to do things for our past clients and reading a few things on the Reliberation today made me think about referrals as well.

So along that vein, what events do you sponsor or maybe even create for your past clients to say thank you for your business and thank you for your continued referrals?

What's on the BACK of your business card?

2008-02-15T18:18:00Z

Someone brought up the topic of their picture on their business card the other day and while IMAGE MARKETING is another topic all together (usually), but it made me wonder, What's on the BACK of your business cards these days?

Lots of choices out there on what to do, but what brings the most bang for your buck?

Short Sale Specialist?

2008-02-12T22:39:00Z

The short sale has become an increasingly needed tool in our arsenal to help home owners who are in trouble. For those not in the know, the short sale allows the owner to sell their property for less than what is owed on their loan and ultimately it saves the home owner the FORECLOSURE status on their credit report. This helps the home owner a year or two or three years from now be able to purchase another home without dealing with FORECLOSURE too.

It helps the agent who wants to help the home owner to be able to move a home that won't sell at what is owed in a softening market.

It also helps the bank because a foreclosure process can be very expensive to them. In addition, it keeps the bank from building too high an inventory of foreclosed homes.

All that said, something that might have gone unnoticed in the recent government interventions in the mortgage mess is that the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 allows the home owner to NOT pay taxes on the amount that is forgiven by thier mortgage company. In a normal situation, the bank issues a 1099 on the amount forgiven and the owner has to pay INCOME TAXES on it. For instance, $120,000 owed and the bank sells for $100,000. The other $20,000 is put on a 1099 and counted as income for the homeowner that sold below what was owed. With this Act, the IRS will no longer count as income any mortgage debt forgiven!

Heads up to Help Out!

2008-02-12T19:08:00Z

My fellow agents, I just wanted to take a second and point out something in the latest REALTOR magazine about the initiative to help out home owners who are having trouble with their mortgages, especially those affected by ARMs.

President Bush's HOPE NOW initiative has a hotline number for your clients (past clients?) to call to see if they can get assistance (assistance is usually in the form of a freeze on the interest rate adjustment!). The number is

888-995-4673, the last four digits spell HOPE.

You can visit your REALTOR magazine: REALTOR.org/realtormag or you can go directly to the Hope Now website: www.hopenow.com

Doom and Gloom in the Mortgage Industry?

2007-08-24T17:18:00Z

There is a lot on the news lately about the sad shape of real estate and the mortgage industry.

Sadly, a lot of it is being published by people who have NO idea what the industry is about. There are many points to make about the current state of the industry.

1. It was inevitable that a market correction would occur. It occurs in EVERY investment opportunity. The stock market is making a correction too. However, the cycle of correction generally tends towards two steps forward and one step back, making the net over time POSITIVE!

2. Private investors FLOODED the market with money for mortgages when the real estate "boom" hit. These investors were anxious to cash in on the mortgage industry. This lead to some loans being made that should not have been made and of course, money will be lost because of it. HOWEVER, remember that mortgages, especially subprime mortgages are FRONT loaded. In other words, They come with their share of FEES and costs to generate the loan (the buyer pays that up front a lot of times) AND the interest on a mortgage is amortized in such a way that you pay PRIMARILY interest the first 10 years of a loan. So while it appears the mortgages that are being foreclosed on are still where they were when they were made, remember that money was made along the way.

3. The sky is not falling on the mortgage industry...it is simply returning to what we once had. A lot of companies are getting out of the mortgage business and taking those investor dollars somewhere else. It might be the stock market or it might be government bonds or it might be GOOGLE for all we know...but it is simply a movement of the dollars available and not really a collapse of the industry.

4. Many of the companies that have been around for over 10-20 years, will continue to be there...many of the companies that were there to cash in on the boom, will be gone. What does that mean? It means, as a real estate agent, and especially a NEWER agent in the business (which by the way, many, many agents will be leaving the business over the next year), you better align yourself with a mortgage professional that understands how the mortgage industry works and not just how to do mortgage paperwork. That mortgage professional will become KEY in going from private investor funds and returning to FHA and VA loans that we've had for many, many years!

So what is the net effect on the mortgage industry to the consumer? It means that now there will be more regulation on funds. It means that the average home buyer will HAVE to bring money to closings and they will need up to 3% to close their mortgage. It means that the mortgage industry is NORMALIZING again. Does it hurt? Yeah it does. Is it fatal? Not a chance. People will still get married, people will still get divorced, people will be born, people will die, people will get promotions, people will get fired...all those people have changes of circumstances in their lives and because of it, they will buy and sell houses.

Are you going to be one of the professionals left after the Chicken Little scare? If you are, your buyers and sellers will ultimately need you more than they have in the past 5 years or so because for many, it's time to go back into uncharted waters...for those that have been around a while, it's back to business as usual!

What's the difference?

2007-08-24T17:14:00Z

Point2Agent offers three levels of membership. Standard, Professional and Premium. It often comes up what is the difference between the two PAY versions and here is a post that I posted to the message board. I think it pretty much covers all the differences between the Professional and the Premium versions:

First off, it's $70 more, not $85 (at least by the math I've learned ($119.95-49.95).

1. You get UNLIMITED pages to add to your site. This is critical to building a site that does well with the search engines. Not only with SEO for main keywords but also with minor keywords which can, when done right, bring in much more traffic than the more compettitive main key words like ANYTOWN REAL ESTATE.

2. You get the ability to sell banner advertising on your site. This COULD be a big deal, depending on how much traffic you get (see #1 above about traffic). I've had a few local businesses ask if they could BUY advertising on my site. I've never actually acted on it, but as a premium member, it's another potential income stream.

3. Unlimited POP3 Email accounts vs 3 for Professional.

4. Address groups for HTML emails 1000/group vs 250 for Professional.

5. Maybe relatively minor to most AGENTS (not saying for Brokers) but private list attachments for Premium Members.

6. 1 free spotlight ad per month. This is a $25 value and will do a couple of things. It will get that listing more exposure and it will help to INCREASE traffic to your site, thus helping with #1 and #2 above.

7. Text messages a day is 15 for premium. If you have a site that is not very active, and not a lot of people signing up, then only 5 text messages might be enough per day. Otherwise, the added text messages allow you to respond to visitors IMMEDIATELY.

8. More exposure in SELLING AREAS for referrals for Premium than Professional. Depending on YOUR area, this might or might not be important.

9. As mentioned before, the two free neighborhoods for life. Depending on what you do with them, this could be worth the price of the upgrade all by itself considering similar "NEIGHBORHOOD" sites can run $50/month each through other companies.

10. 300 Third level domains vs 100 with professional. This allows you to set up pages with unique names and advertise many different ways. Again, depending on how you use this, 100 might be enough or 300 might be better!

11. Point2 Advisory council and The Point magazine. The print version of the magazine is really cool and having a say in what gets instituted with P2 is nice too. It's great to have a voice in such a forward thinking company.

In a nutshell, there are the differences between PROFESSIONAL and PREMIUM for an extra $70 month. If you see value in it, then it might be time to upgrade. If not, then it might be time to stay where you are. If you have no idea what I just said about all this website goblety-gook, maybe it's time to find a new business!

(that last line was COMPLETELY tongue-in-cheek!)

Referral company warning

2007-08-18T17:04:00Z

When is a REFERRAL company NOT a referral company? When they charge an up front fee to do business with you and not a REFERRAL fee. Right?

Take for instance, Peter with www.recr.com. This man emailed me on my site this morning:

Hello Ron, I am in need of one very special agent for multiple referrals targeted to Harris County Houston / Gulfgate immediate purchase pre-qualified for financing Houston / Northside purchase 90 days pre-qualified for financing Tomball sale $ 100-200,000 Katy purchase 3-6 months for rental income.

I called Peter immediately upon getting notification of the email (a great POINT2AGENT feature!). He asked if I took referrals. I said absolutely. I asked him if he was with a lead generation company and he said no, we are a referral company. So I asked if he was an agent, making referrals. He said he was not an agent and went on to explain his company. I told him I only had one question and he got huffy and hung up on me. My one question was if they actually work on a referral basis. Had I gotten that answer, I would have known that it was a lead generation company and not a "REFERRAL" company.

I went to Peter's company's website after I got off the phone with him and it clearly states:

You keep 100% of your commission - no referral fees or commission splits!

So how can a company be a referral company without getting paid referral fees?

A little truth in advertising goes a long way, Peter. So does a lot less hostility and antagonism on the phone.

Their site is listed above, and I would highly recommend NOT doing business with them just on my personal encounter with this companies employee, Peter. That is ONLY my opinion. Perhaps I can help the 100,000 plus members of Point2Agent not make a mistake with their money! Now, on to the other blogs and message boards I love to talk to other agents on!

Seller's NET?

2007-06-12T14:15:00Z

Does anyone out there use a really comprehensive tool for calculating Seller's NET? I have a tool in our MLS but I'm just not all that happy with it.

Suggestions?

On the subject of gifts...

2007-06-02T13:18:00Z

Michael was just asking about closing gifts and one of the ideas rolling around my head lately has been how do I reward referrals? I know that we can do the Starbucks card, or Home Depot Card or some other gift card that's been given over and over again...

But what ideas do you have for REFERRALS that really stand out!? Say under $50 (so a ROOOMBA wouldn't work here, but it MIGHT work if you got enough referrals to do a monthly, bi-annual or annual drawing for one?!) and really makes your SOI want to make sure they refer you?

The Greatest thing since sliced bread!

2007-05-27T19:54:00Z

We've all heard that saying and it got me to wondering, anyone know what was the greatest thing BEFORE sliced bread?

Also, is sliced bread really better than PCs and cell phones? Better than digital video recorders? Better than Bluebell Ice Cream (Ok, you'd have to be around this area to appreciate that one!).

Newest American Idol, daughter of one of our own!

2007-05-24T04:24:00Z

Well, we talked about it a while back and looks like Jordin Sparks became the NEXT AMERICAN IDOL.

Her mother is a Realtor® in AZ (with Keller Williams) and her father used to play pro football for the Giants and the Cowboys.

Grats to her, the youngest AI winner ever named at 17...

Home Warranty Companies?

2007-05-23T01:58:00Z

Do you use a national Home Warranty Company?

Does your E&O insurance give you a break on your deductible if you do have a home warranty in place?

What does your Home Warranty Company DO for YOUR business?

Are you REALLY full service?

2007-05-22T16:34:00Z

There has been a debate about full service vs limited service and traditional commissions vs discounted ones but if you are a FULL service real estate professional what are you doing in other ways to be full service other than showing homes and walking contracts through...

If someone is really a real estate professional, it seems to me that we have a great opportunity coming to us. Many of our clients we have helped in the last couple of years are starting to get those letters from their mortgage companies...you know the ones, YOUR INTEREST RATE IS GOING TO BE ADJUSTING SOON.

You closed the deals and you know who the clients are, right? So have you gone back to your preferred lenders and said, "the time is now to look at how these folks can refi out of these adjustables" and get your lender to really WORK with you to put some programs together for these folks? If you lender isn't the type to do that, perhaps a change in lender might be in your best "full service" professional interest as well...

Go back and tell these people that you and your lender have options for them if they need help understanding what is happening with their loans and if they want options for dealing with the pending raises in PMTS! Really go out of your way to provide them with SERVICE!!

I know, it's not your job...

Unless you count yourself as FULL SERVICE in your real estate profession!