My Obsession Is My Proffession

To me Real Estate is not a job or a career, it is my passion. I am constantly thinking of new and better ways to bring the American Dream to ordinary hard working people. The media has really convinced the masses that its a terrible time to invest in anything other than groceries. In actuality now is the best time to invest in anything you can get your hands on. Just about everything is at an all time low and really has no choice but to appreciate. With that being said Real Estate is at an all time low and should you decide to buy some, if you have the right Realtor you will be making a very sound investment. I say the right Realtor because there are Realtors that could care less about your life decisions they just want their commission and dont care if they ever see you again. The more YOU spend on a property the larger their commission and for some, not all but some Realtors its all about their commission. These kind of Realtors are usually really good salesman or saleswomen and make you think they care. You usually dont find out that they really didnt have your best interest in mind until some time later. Then there are Realtors such as myself who eat, sleep and breathe Real Estate. We love finding a great deal for our clients, wheather it be a seasoned investor or a first time homebuyer. I believe in long term relationship building not quick money. Its a beautiful thing when one can make a living doing what they love to do and I love what I do. I think of myself as the Ultimate Realtor and if your a Realtor who loves what you do then you should think of yourself the same way. We are few and far between and im not scared to say it. Realtors have been looked down upon by the general public thats why there are so many For Sale By Owner homes out there. I am here to change the peoples perception of Realtors one client at a time because my obsession is my proffession!!!

Residential Lease Agreements

If you are a Realtor you know how tough it has been to find qualified buyers in the past few years. Realtors all across the nation have had to re-invent themselves and do things in their Real Estate business that they have not done before. One thing I have been doing for the past 2 years is approaching property managers and landlords who do lease options, land contract and rent-to-owns and offer to find them tenant buyers for a small fee. I admit when your used to a commission of 3 or 6 percent on an average home price of $124,000 a small fee doesnt sound so inviting, but a few small fees per month in this market can mean the difference between paying the mortgage or having to qualify for a modification with your lender. I actively pursue those who are interested in renting since the foreclosure epidemic has produced a record number of renters. I am the Real Estate expert, I know my market and my geographical area so it only makes sense for me to assist those who have lost homes due to a foreclosure and/or those who have just move to the area looking to get established. The MLS in Grand Rapids, MI. has recently added a Residential Rental Listing Service. Its a little late in my opinion but better late than never. I have a lease deal that will be closing this week and my commission is $550. I showed the couple 3 different properties and the one they signed the lease on I showed 2 times. I admit, I did complain a little because of the dollar amount but looking back it was well worth it. They will be able to buy a home in a year and if I did my job right, which im sure I did, they will be giving me a call when its time to start looking. Now if I can do one lease every week thats pretty good money for the rest of the year, not including my sales commissions. Then next year when my tenant buyers are ready to buy its just like money in the bank. Real Estate has evolved and we as Realtors do not find buyers anymore, they find us. Helping future homeowners find a home to rent is, in my opinion job security. Dont discount the power of a renter/tenant buyer just because there is not a huge payday in it, we do not know what the future has holds for them. They may be looking to rent a home for $600 a month this year and next year be looking to buy a home for $600,000. Sometimes helping a family is all the payday we need. A little goes a long way in these tough times, I have always appreciated the two's and few's, you should too. Good luck and God bless

Getting REO listings and BPO orders

For the last few week I have been racking my brain trying to figure out how agents get hooked up with banks to get foreclosure listings and orders to perform inspections and BPO's. For those who may not know what REO or BPO mean, REO stands for Real Estate Owned which means that the bank or lender owns the property. BPO stands for Broker Price Opinion, these are orderd when a bank or lender needs to know the current market value of a property with its present condition taken into consideration. BPO's are only supposed to be done by Real Estate Brokers but more and more Real Estate Sales people are performing them. Typically a bank or lender will not give you any REO listings unless you have performed a few BPO's for them with efficiency and good results. In a lot of cases especially in pre-foreclosure properties some companies will NOT pay you for doing a BPO. You have to prove yourself worthy, then and only then will they give you the REO listings. So there is kind of a catch 22 because if as a Real Estate salesperson I cant do BPO's then how am I going to get REO listings. In our current market BPO's can easily provide a steady stream of income since you get paid about $50 to do one. If you do 5 or 6 a week that goes along way for a Realtor in todays market. After due dillegence, I finally found out that banks and lenders use Asset Management companies to hire agents to do BPO's and list REO properties. Armed with that knowledge and Google, I went to the web to learn more. I came across several sites that want you to pay to be added to their database. I personally dont like to pay for anything and if I can get something for nothing I feel real good at the end of the day. I found a great blog on http://www.activerain.com/ which is a great website for anyone who is involved in Real Estate. One of the posts had a list of about 75 asset management companies and links to their agent or appraiser registry page. I will share that with you at the end of my post. For two days I went through and registered with almost every company on that list. Out of all the asset management companies only 4 required me to pay. Out of the 4 that ask for my credit card information only 1 is worth the $50 yearly membership fee. I say that because they handle the top 5 banks assests but me being the businessman that I am, I will wait until I make some money from one of the other asset management companies and use that to pay the $50 fee. As I am typing this post I just got and email and this is what it says:

Congratulations! Your ClearCapital.com Vendor Account has been approved and activated! Clear Capital is now able to email BPO and PropertyInspection Solicitations to you!

I dont know how long it will take to get business from them but it sure gives a struggling agent hope. I hope this post helps other agents also, it is going to require persitance and patience but I have a feeling it will be well worth it in the long run. If this helps your business please post some comments to let me know how things are going for you in your area, good luck and God bless.


The following is the list of Asset Management Companies.

http://www.accredhome.com//
Assetlink
http://www.assetlinklp.com//
Atlas
http://www.atlasreo.com/index.html
Aurora
http://activerain.com/blogsview/115347/www.res.net
AVM
http://www.assetval.com/
Badisso
http://badisso.com/
Bankers Assest Management
http://www.bankersassetmanagement.com/
Bank of America
http://reointelligence.com/uploads/bank_of_america.pdf
Bayview
http://www.bayviewfinancial.com/
Brighton Real Estate
http://activerain.com/blogsview/115347/www.brightonreo.com
CalReo
http://activerain.com/blogsview/115347/www.calreo.com
(CMS) Carrington
http://activerain.com/blogsview/115347/www.carringtonms.com
Chrisley
http://www.chrisleyam.com/
Citi Financial
https://oms.citiresidentiallend.com/oms/jsp/login.jsp
Countrywide
http://my.countrywide.com/BizPartners.aspx
Electronic Mortgage Corp. (EMC)
https://www.emcmortgagecorp.com/EMCMORTGAGE//
Equity Pointe
http://www.equitypointe.com/
ETC REO
http://www.etcreo.com/
Executive
http://www.executiveam.com/general/registration.cfm?ContentItemID=Registration
Fannie Mae
https://www.efanniemae.com/is/npdcvendors/index.jsp
Fidelity (LPS)
http://www.fidelityasap.com/registration.aspx
First American
http://www.firstamreo.com/application.asp
First Preston
http://www.firstpreston.com/re_broker_registration.asp
AHMSI (First Option)
https://ahmsi3.com/servicing/home.asp
406 Partners
http://activerain.com/blogsview/115347/www.406partners.com
GMAC
REOTRANS.COM
Green River Capital
http://www.riocentral.com/prospectivebroker.aspx
Group Financial
http://www.grpcapital.com/contact/index.html
Goodman Dean
http://www.goodmandean.com/
HSBC
http://www.reotrans.com/
Home Eq
http://www.homeq.com/reo/reoProperties.do
Integrated Asset Services IAS
http://www.iasreo.com/workwithus.aspx
Indymac
http://reo.indymacbank.com/reo.ext/presentation/BrokerApplication.aspx
Land America
http://www.lendersreo.com/application.aspx
Lighthouse Real Estate Solutions
https://extranet.lrescorp.com/vreg/index.cfm
Litton Loan Servicing
https://www.littonreo.com/litton/DesktopDefault.aspx
Loan Servicing Solutions (LSS)
14
Keystone
https://www.keystonebest.com/agent_login/agent_login.asp
MDWEBB
http://www.mdwebbinc.com/contactUs.aspx
Nationstar Mortgage
https://www.nationstarmtg.com/Realtors/RealtorApplication_Step1.aspx
Metro Pacific REO
http://www.depotpoint.com/news/?p=126
National City
http://www.nationalcitymortgage.com/
Nations Reo
http://www.nationsreo.com/brokers.cfm
National Default NDS
http://www.defaultservicingllc.com/become_broker3.htm
New Vista
http://www.newvistareo.com/app.php
NPR Capital
http://www.nprcapital.com/
NREOB
http://www.nreob.com/Public/Registration/Broker/RegistrationAgreement.aspx
Ocwen
http://www.ocwenbusiness.com/bs_loanservicing_res_bi.cfm
Old Republic
http://www.oldrepublicdefault.com/Default.aspx
Olympus
http://www.olympusasset.com/agent/agentdata.php
Owen REO
http://owenreollc.com/index.asp
Phoenix
http://www.assetonemg.com/Website/coprofile.htm
Premiere Asset Services (PAS)
http://www.pasreo.com/
PMH Financial
http://www.pmhfinancial.com/Registration.htm
PNC
http://www.realtyservices.pnc.com/
Premiere REO
http://www.premierebpo.com/premweb/Home/ContactUs.aspx
Real Estate Disposition Corp. (REDC)
http://www.redcgroup.com/index.html
Reo Experts
http://www.reoexperts.net/
REO World
http://www.reoworld.com/
REO Financial Asset Services
http://www.reofas.com/
Single Source Property Solutions
https://www.reotrans.com/index.cfm?
SNSC
http://www.snsc.com/ReoPropertiesBroker.aspx
Sun Trust
http://suntrust.res.net/
Tactical REO
https://www.disposolutions.com/clientlogins/dst/default.aspx
US Bank
http://www.usbank.com/
USRES
http://www.usres.com/vendors/real-estate-brokers/
Wachovia
http://reo.wachovia.com/wbreosubscription.aspx
Washington Mutual
http://www.wamuproperties.com/
Wilshire
https://www.wcc.ml.com/Homes.aspx

Getting rid of the "renters" mentality

First let me start off by explaining what I mean by "renters" mentality. Some people dont think they deserve or can afford a piece of the American dream. They dont understand the benefits of owning their own home or that in most cases a mortgage payment is lower than rent nor do they see the investment aspect of home ownership. They like the idea that if something goes wrong they can just call the landlord to come fix it. The word rent has two different meanings, if your the landlord rent means income for the renter it means a payment. Landlords get paid, renters do the paying. A renters menatality is real and for some people they just cant get rid of it. We all know someone who has paid rent for years then purchased a home. Usually in the first year your able to see if their mentality has changed from renter to owner or if it stayed the same. If it changed they will remain in their home for years to come. If they still have the renters mentality they will loose the home to foreclosure and begin renting again. For some reason victims of the renters mentality can pay rent on time month after month but theres something about a mortgage that makes it hard to make timely monthly payments.

How do we get rid of the renters mentality?

I found that educating renters on the benefits of home ownership is the best way to cure this defect. There has never been a better time to buy a home than right now. Home prices are the lowest they have ever been and the choices are plentiful. If you buy a home right now for $65,000 your monthly payment would be approximately $470 and that includes taxes and insurance. If you live in the home for the next 10 years history shows that you would be able to sell your home for $110,000 or more. Thats a profit of $45,000 for just living and enjoying life in your own beautiflu home. If you were paying that same amount of $470 a month in rent over that same 10 year period you would have paid $56,400 and have nothing to show for it. Just knowing that should make a renter look at purchasing their own home. I hope this has inspired someone to become a homeowner, good luck and God bless.