Pre-approvals are a necessary part of the purchase process but today they aren't enough. An "Underwritten Commitment to Lend" elimates surprises and helps you close on time, every time.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
The Anatomy of a 14 Day Close
Every once in a while we need a FAST close on a home purchase. While I will NOT personally guarantee a 14 day close they are possible if you follow these tips.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
Be a Proactive Marketer Vs. A Reactive Marketer
A few years back a friend of mine, Ron Quintero, wrote a great article about how his sister bought her last house. His account of the experience shows just how important preparation and presentation is to be successful in real estate sales. In today's market, if your marketing presentations and sales strategies aren't AT LEAST as powerful as what you read here you simply can't be making the money you deserve and if you are you're working WAY too hard. ENJOY!
Become a Proactive Marketer vs.
Reactive Marketer!
My Sisters Story!
By Ron Quintero
The story I am about to share with you is a true account of an actual event however
details have been altered to provide structure to the lesson I
am attempting to teach. I have shared this story with many of my
clients and at the end I ask them “do you think that what I
just told you was true or not?” The usual response is “yes I
do” or “if it’s not it could be.”
Within in my family, I am the one my family seeks advice from as
the subject relates to finances or real estate. The bad news is that I
am the one some of them want to turn to for loans now and then.
At a recent party, my sister in-law introduced me to a friend of hers
and gave me the title of “the family monarch!” (I hope that’s a good
thing)
Very recently my sister (Karen) called me for advice regarding sell-ing her home. She said to me “my carpeting is a bit worn and we have a couple of
stains. Should I put in new carpet before we sell it or give a carpet credit to
the new buyer?” Of course my advice was to install new neutral carpet and then I gave
her other words of advice gleaned from my being involved in over a thousand real estate
transactions. I then said to her “hey sis, I didn’t even know you were looking, what
did you buy?” She shared with me that “her Realtor®” (Alice, the woman that sold her
the house about three years ago) stopped by her house totally unannounced and asked
Karen “if I knew of what I would consider to be an excellent investment and
home for your family, would you want me to at least share that information
with you or pass it on to my other clients?” (not the exact words, experiencing a
flash back from my Realtor® days)
As the conversation continued, the Realtor® told her about a property that “fell out” and
that the property was a phase one home with a sales price of $415,000 and that the phase
three homes, same model were selling for $439,000. The developer wanted this one sold
and was offering $20,000 in added features if they could get a contract on it that week. This
Realtor®, as the conversation progressed, got my sister excited about the opportunity and
to jump in the car with her for a quick look at a model home from a new build contractor
(cooperating builder). From my days of selling real estate I would have added something
Like
“I know you’re not on the market nor have you probably been thinking about
it. In my opinion, this is an opportunity that will not last long. Even if this is
something you want to pass on, I would like for you to invest a few minutes of
your time to at least look at it so if in conversation in the next day or two you
come into contact with a friend, family member, co-worker or neighbor that
mentions real estate, you could perhaps share it with them. Can I have a few
minutes of your time to quickly look at it?”
My sister LOVED IT! As they were walking through the home my sister asked the Realtor®
what the payments would be. The Realtor® commented “funny you should ask. I
stopped by my lenders office on the way over here and I asked him to prepare
an outline of what the costs would be. He prepared this spreadsheet
(Mortgage Coach users, Total Cost Analysis) with several financing choices
for you to pick from. He has in here a loan where you pay interest only and
another loan where you have the choice to defer interest. He also outlined a30 and 15 year fixed rate product.” My sister pointed to the interest only payment
and said “that’s about what our payments are now!”
The Realtor® commented “that’s a very popular loan right now; many of my clients
are using that.” During the course of our conversation my sister asked me my
opinion of the loan and because I am such a huge fan of leverage, I said “go for it!”
As the conversation progressed, my sister asked the next logical question: “what do you
think we could get for our property Alice?” Alice responded with “funny you
should ask. Before I left my office I ran updated sales activity in your area
and based upon the comps - now I haven’t seen the inside of the home yet -
however, if you have deferred the maintenance and if the home needs some
fixing, it falls into the lower range of pricing at $329,000, but if you have
done some improvements and really maintained the home then the property
falls in the upper range of the comps in the $349,000 range.” The Realtor® had
already prepared a market analysis!
Well of course this led to the next question: “what do you think we could or would
net on the sale?” Alice, being the pro that she is said: “funny you should ask. I prepared
a sellers net sheet before I came over here right in the middle of the
range at $339,000. Based upon these figures you would net around $94,000!
I had my lender prepare the spreadsheet with the different loan programs
with you only putting 10% down and placing the other half back in you bank
account. (OK, I’m adlibbing, but at least it’s good adlib and more importantly relevant.)
You and Brian (her husband) will be able to use that money and not pay any
taxes on it. I looked at the closing statement from when you two bought that
place a couple of years ago and according to my records, you put about
$28,000 in down payment and closing costs into the deal and you guys tripled
your investment, job well done!”
At this point my sister is bubbling with excitement and the possibility of getting the home
she says the Realtor® “let’s go back to my house and get my husband, he has to
see this!” They get in the car, drive back to find Brian watching a basketball playoff game.
She shares with him her excitement and he says “I’m watching the Lakers, are you
kidding? I don’t want to move, I don’t want to sell, we’re not even looking at
real estate right now, forget it!” She leans into him and says the “the only thing you can forget about is getting ANY tonight if you don’t get in the car. Don’t
worry, the Lakers are going to win, they always do!”
When they arrive back at the new home, Brian is impressed. As he is walking through the
home he asks “what would the payments be?” The Realtor® commented “funny
you should ask. I stopped by my lenders office on the way over here and I
asked him to prepare an outline of what the costs would be and he prepared
this spreadsheet (Mortgage Coach users, Total Cost Analysis) with several financing
choices for you to pick from. He has in here a loan where you pay interest
only and another loan where you have the choice to defer interest. He
also outlined a 30 and 15 year fixed rate product.”
You know where this is going. He of course asks “what can we get and what would
we net?” and of course Alice had the answers. “Karen, hand him the paperwork.”
Then Alice being no dummy spoke to the logical side of his Brian and said “Brian, you
have not had enough time to crunch the numbers yet but you are selling your
home at $120 per square foot and buying this one at $94 per square foot, I
think you are making 20 to 25% on your money by capturing this opportunity.
What do you think?” Then, the dagger through the heart. As they are walking
through the home he enters THE ROOM. The home theater room he has always wanted.
Game over. Brian turns to Alice and says: “let’s go back to our place and let me walk
you through it so you can let me know what we could sell it for.”
To end the story, three hours after showing up in front of my sister’s home, without a lead
appearing on any radar, that Realtor® walked out of that home with a $415,000 sales contract
where the builder was paying a 3.5% commission, about $14,525 in fees. She left there
with a listing and told my sister: “I think I have a buyer for your home. If I can sell
it to them, I can do the transaction exclusive and save you 1% and do it at 5%
but if they don’t buy it, I will need to put it in the MLS and then it will be 6%
but the net will remain what I quoted you.” Then I slipped in “sell it by owner if
you can and …, I have a FinanceThisHome.com territory manager and they
can assist you By Owner.”
She didn’t want to hear it. She said that she was working with Alice and her people. I then
said “I have two clients that provide lending services in the market and I want
you to get the best loan and trust me, with me as their coach they will give you a GREAT deal and really take care of you.” She didn’t want to hear it; she was
working with Alice’s people. By the way, she double ended my sister’s home for $339,000 at
5% for $16,950 in additional fees now totaling $31,475 in fees, not a bad day.
Then a thought slipped in. A couple of years ago, my sister wanted to refinance and I referred
my sister to a client (Mike G.) with whom I was working at the time. She had a couple
of issues back then and had some credit challenges to overcome. He closed the loan and my
sister never heard from him again. Now coming from a trainer some could interpret this
statement as “well it doesn’t seem like your coaching works” or something else as
ignorant. I can lead a horse to water but I can’t make them drink. He did the $200,000 deal
and left the $400,000 one on the table, dumb!
The Realtor® is trying to talk her into buying another property for rental purposes with the
excess proceeds from the sale of the house. Maybe he left $600,000 on the table. We will
see. Do your real estate professional relationships use you in this capacity? I told my sister
“I love your Realtor® and her approach and I am grateful someone in your
city (she lives in another state) is looking after you and forcing you to grow!
Don’t let go of that Realtor ®, she’s a keeper!” It is refreshing to see an example of
how a professional benefits from the process of data-basing.
Alice is a pro. She created a sale where one didn’t exist. When she woke up in the morning
she had nothing and created something without a lead to begin a transaction. This is a classic
example of being Proactive vs. Reactive and taking control of your outcome. That’s professional
sales. That’s taking care of your clients. That’s working your database. That’s being
a professional committed to their profession and their customer base and not just trawling
the market to attempt to snag anther loan to make a quick buck. I’m thinking of that scene
near the end of the movie Jerry McGuire when Jerry’s guy had a huge game and the pro
quarterback that deceived Jerry earlier is watching Jerry and his client embrace and the QB
says to his agent “how come we don’t have that type of relationship?” I love you
man!
I called Alice and interviewed her. I asked her how many transactions she does in a year?
Her answer was a humble “about 140.” I asked her how often she does the above with her
clients? She told me “I meet with about 2 clients, 3 times a week.” She can always
find what she believes is good value to keep her clients moving forward. I asked her how
much she spends on marketing and advertising and she shared with me that after nine years in the business she really does not market and all of her business is referral business. When
she receives a call it goes something like “I’m a friend of Karen’s. Can you do for me
what you have done for her?”
You may be asking yourself if what you just read is true? You’ll never know, I’ll never tell,
sometimes you simply have to believe and you will achieve. Now ask yourself is the above
scenario a possibility? If you are still reading this story, you are intrigued enough to believe
so.
Become a Proactive Marketer vs.
Reactive Marketer!
My Sisters Story!
By Ron Quintero
The story I am about to share with you is a true account of an actual event however
details have been altered to provide structure to the lesson I
am attempting to teach. I have shared this story with many of my
clients and at the end I ask them “do you think that what I
just told you was true or not?” The usual response is “yes I
do” or “if it’s not it could be.”
Within in my family, I am the one my family seeks advice from as
the subject relates to finances or real estate. The bad news is that I
am the one some of them want to turn to for loans now and then.
At a recent party, my sister in-law introduced me to a friend of hers
and gave me the title of “the family monarch!” (I hope that’s a good
thing)
Very recently my sister (Karen) called me for advice regarding sell-ing her home. She said to me “my carpeting is a bit worn and we have a couple of
stains. Should I put in new carpet before we sell it or give a carpet credit to
the new buyer?” Of course my advice was to install new neutral carpet and then I gave
her other words of advice gleaned from my being involved in over a thousand real estate
transactions. I then said to her “hey sis, I didn’t even know you were looking, what
did you buy?” She shared with me that “her Realtor®” (Alice, the woman that sold her
the house about three years ago) stopped by her house totally unannounced and asked
Karen “if I knew of what I would consider to be an excellent investment and
home for your family, would you want me to at least share that information
with you or pass it on to my other clients?” (not the exact words, experiencing a
flash back from my Realtor® days)
As the conversation continued, the Realtor® told her about a property that “fell out” and
that the property was a phase one home with a sales price of $415,000 and that the phase
three homes, same model were selling for $439,000. The developer wanted this one sold
and was offering $20,000 in added features if they could get a contract on it that week. This
Realtor®, as the conversation progressed, got my sister excited about the opportunity and
to jump in the car with her for a quick look at a model home from a new build contractor
(cooperating builder). From my days of selling real estate I would have added something
Like
“I know you’re not on the market nor have you probably been thinking about
it. In my opinion, this is an opportunity that will not last long. Even if this is
something you want to pass on, I would like for you to invest a few minutes of
your time to at least look at it so if in conversation in the next day or two you
come into contact with a friend, family member, co-worker or neighbor that
mentions real estate, you could perhaps share it with them. Can I have a few
minutes of your time to quickly look at it?”
My sister LOVED IT! As they were walking through the home my sister asked the Realtor®
what the payments would be. The Realtor® commented “funny you should ask. I
stopped by my lenders office on the way over here and I asked him to prepare
an outline of what the costs would be. He prepared this spreadsheet
(Mortgage Coach users, Total Cost Analysis) with several financing choices
for you to pick from. He has in here a loan where you pay interest only and
another loan where you have the choice to defer interest. He also outlined a30 and 15 year fixed rate product.” My sister pointed to the interest only payment
and said “that’s about what our payments are now!”
The Realtor® commented “that’s a very popular loan right now; many of my clients
are using that.” During the course of our conversation my sister asked me my
opinion of the loan and because I am such a huge fan of leverage, I said “go for it!”
As the conversation progressed, my sister asked the next logical question: “what do you
think we could get for our property Alice?” Alice responded with “funny you
should ask. Before I left my office I ran updated sales activity in your area
and based upon the comps - now I haven’t seen the inside of the home yet -
however, if you have deferred the maintenance and if the home needs some
fixing, it falls into the lower range of pricing at $329,000, but if you have
done some improvements and really maintained the home then the property
falls in the upper range of the comps in the $349,000 range.” The Realtor® had
already prepared a market analysis!
Well of course this led to the next question: “what do you think we could or would
net on the sale?” Alice, being the pro that she is said: “funny you should ask. I prepared
a sellers net sheet before I came over here right in the middle of the
range at $339,000. Based upon these figures you would net around $94,000!
I had my lender prepare the spreadsheet with the different loan programs
with you only putting 10% down and placing the other half back in you bank
account. (OK, I’m adlibbing, but at least it’s good adlib and more importantly relevant.)
You and Brian (her husband) will be able to use that money and not pay any
taxes on it. I looked at the closing statement from when you two bought that
place a couple of years ago and according to my records, you put about
$28,000 in down payment and closing costs into the deal and you guys tripled
your investment, job well done!”
At this point my sister is bubbling with excitement and the possibility of getting the home
she says the Realtor® “let’s go back to my house and get my husband, he has to
see this!” They get in the car, drive back to find Brian watching a basketball playoff game.
She shares with him her excitement and he says “I’m watching the Lakers, are you
kidding? I don’t want to move, I don’t want to sell, we’re not even looking at
real estate right now, forget it!” She leans into him and says the “the only thing you can forget about is getting ANY tonight if you don’t get in the car. Don’t
worry, the Lakers are going to win, they always do!”
When they arrive back at the new home, Brian is impressed. As he is walking through the
home he asks “what would the payments be?” The Realtor® commented “funny
you should ask. I stopped by my lenders office on the way over here and I
asked him to prepare an outline of what the costs would be and he prepared
this spreadsheet (Mortgage Coach users, Total Cost Analysis) with several financing
choices for you to pick from. He has in here a loan where you pay interest
only and another loan where you have the choice to defer interest. He
also outlined a 30 and 15 year fixed rate product.”
You know where this is going. He of course asks “what can we get and what would
we net?” and of course Alice had the answers. “Karen, hand him the paperwork.”
Then Alice being no dummy spoke to the logical side of his Brian and said “Brian, you
have not had enough time to crunch the numbers yet but you are selling your
home at $120 per square foot and buying this one at $94 per square foot, I
think you are making 20 to 25% on your money by capturing this opportunity.
What do you think?” Then, the dagger through the heart. As they are walking
through the home he enters THE ROOM. The home theater room he has always wanted.
Game over. Brian turns to Alice and says: “let’s go back to our place and let me walk
you through it so you can let me know what we could sell it for.”
To end the story, three hours after showing up in front of my sister’s home, without a lead
appearing on any radar, that Realtor® walked out of that home with a $415,000 sales contract
where the builder was paying a 3.5% commission, about $14,525 in fees. She left there
with a listing and told my sister: “I think I have a buyer for your home. If I can sell
it to them, I can do the transaction exclusive and save you 1% and do it at 5%
but if they don’t buy it, I will need to put it in the MLS and then it will be 6%
but the net will remain what I quoted you.” Then I slipped in “sell it by owner if
you can and …, I have a FinanceThisHome.com territory manager and they
can assist you By Owner.”
She didn’t want to hear it. She said that she was working with Alice and her people. I then
said “I have two clients that provide lending services in the market and I want
you to get the best loan and trust me, with me as their coach they will give you a GREAT deal and really take care of you.” She didn’t want to hear it; she was
working with Alice’s people. By the way, she double ended my sister’s home for $339,000 at
5% for $16,950 in additional fees now totaling $31,475 in fees, not a bad day.
Then a thought slipped in. A couple of years ago, my sister wanted to refinance and I referred
my sister to a client (Mike G.) with whom I was working at the time. She had a couple
of issues back then and had some credit challenges to overcome. He closed the loan and my
sister never heard from him again. Now coming from a trainer some could interpret this
statement as “well it doesn’t seem like your coaching works” or something else as
ignorant. I can lead a horse to water but I can’t make them drink. He did the $200,000 deal
and left the $400,000 one on the table, dumb!
The Realtor® is trying to talk her into buying another property for rental purposes with the
excess proceeds from the sale of the house. Maybe he left $600,000 on the table. We will
see. Do your real estate professional relationships use you in this capacity? I told my sister
“I love your Realtor® and her approach and I am grateful someone in your
city (she lives in another state) is looking after you and forcing you to grow!
Don’t let go of that Realtor ®, she’s a keeper!” It is refreshing to see an example of
how a professional benefits from the process of data-basing.
Alice is a pro. She created a sale where one didn’t exist. When she woke up in the morning
she had nothing and created something without a lead to begin a transaction. This is a classic
example of being Proactive vs. Reactive and taking control of your outcome. That’s professional
sales. That’s taking care of your clients. That’s working your database. That’s being
a professional committed to their profession and their customer base and not just trawling
the market to attempt to snag anther loan to make a quick buck. I’m thinking of that scene
near the end of the movie Jerry McGuire when Jerry’s guy had a huge game and the pro
quarterback that deceived Jerry earlier is watching Jerry and his client embrace and the QB
says to his agent “how come we don’t have that type of relationship?” I love you
man!
I called Alice and interviewed her. I asked her how many transactions she does in a year?
Her answer was a humble “about 140.” I asked her how often she does the above with her
clients? She told me “I meet with about 2 clients, 3 times a week.” She can always
find what she believes is good value to keep her clients moving forward. I asked her how
much she spends on marketing and advertising and she shared with me that after nine years in the business she really does not market and all of her business is referral business. When
she receives a call it goes something like “I’m a friend of Karen’s. Can you do for me
what you have done for her?”
You may be asking yourself if what you just read is true? You’ll never know, I’ll never tell,
sometimes you simply have to believe and you will achieve. Now ask yourself is the above
scenario a possibility? If you are still reading this story, you are intrigued enough to believe
so.
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