Just imagine it: You wire your money to the title company as instructed the day before you buy your dream home. You show up to closing, and they ask you, "Where's your down payment?" You think this must be some kind of silly joke, so you say, "You mean the massive wire I sent you yesterday wasn't enough?"
"Wire? I checked a few minutes ago, and we didn't receive a wire from you, but I'll go double check." The serious look on the escrow agent's face tells you this isn't a joke.
"Yes," you say, "I sent it to the updated account you asked me to use via email yesterday."
"... I didn't send you any updated wire instructions yesterday."
After a few eternal minutes of double checking both on your end and on the title company's end, it's clear that you did indeed send the down payment, but you did not send it to the title company. Instead, you sent it to an overseas thief who has now disappeared with your money. How could this happen?
This has been a growing problem in the real estate industry that was highlighted by ABC news station KOMO in Seattle.
What can you do to prevent this?
As an agent:
As a consumer:
Don't get screwed, friends!
If you want to know what Phil Dunphy, roller derby, and dental work have in common, listen to the show this week.
Customer service seems to be a dying art in our increasingly digitally connected, yet personally disconnected world. Kevin and Karen talk about some recent customer service experiences they've had to illustrate why excellent customer service is one of the single most important ingredients to a successful real estate transaction.
Credit repair. It's a frequent question that many real estate agents hear from their clients: "I'd like to buy a house, but I have some problems with my credit. It really is an honest mistake but I don't know how to go about getting it cleaned up." Having bad credit can prevent you from qualifying for a loan. If it doesn't flat out prevent you from getting a loan, it will cost you many thousands of dollars in additional interest payments whether you're buying a home to live in or as an investment.
In today's episode, we welcome back our first ever repeat guest on the podcast, Dave Cole. Dave was previously a guest on the show for Episode 32, when we covered Solo 401(k) plans. Today, Dave returns to the show to talk about the state of the credit repair industry. Listen in as he gives a (very) brief history of the credit repair industry and points out how the business model that most of these services have doesn't work any more, and their customers are simply wasting their money.
Dave shares a much better approach that leverages the law to compel the credit bureaus to clean up your file if they can't produce all of the legally required documentation. It's a 60-90 day process, it costs a fraction of what you might pay a typical letter writing service and best of all, it's guaranteed.
If you want to learn more about the service, watch the webinar Dave created for it.
Tinja Anderson Shiery has spent her entire professional life until recently as a consultant teaching professionals how to craft their messages for success.
One of the many classes she teaches is entitled "Winnings Words", and Kevin was a student of hers in his role in the Oil & Gas industry, and the class changed the trajectory of his career. Listen in as Tinja compresses this 3 day class into a one hour crash course for Karen. If you take nothing else away from this episode, wrap your mind around the art of the sincere and honest acknowledgement.
Tinja has recently started her own business and works every day now to adapt the model she learned from her parents to fit her new role.
You can find Tinja's jewelry business here: www.candibytinja.com
You can also find her on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/tinjashiery
Have you ever wondered what would happen to your property if you didn't pay your taxes? Most people envision the police eventually knocking at the door and throwing you out. The reality in Texas at least is that the knock will eventually come, but it will be an investor knocking, an investor like today's guest, Arnie Abramson.
Arnie has been investing in Texas tax auctions since the early 1990s. With a very long track record of success, he leads the Texas Tax Sales Resource Group, which is comprised of individual investors that have been investing in income producing real estate in Texas for many years. The Group helps members find, bid on, purchase, and own properties that go to public auction in all 254 counties in Texas.
The law in Texas is very favorable to investors in these properties. The winning bidder at the auction is immediately awarded ownership and possession of the property. The ONLY right the previous owner retains is the right to "redeem" the property, a process by which the investor is rewarded with a 25% to 50% profit on his/her investment. If you are or want to be a real estate investor, you should listen to this episode twice!
In addition to investing in tax auctions in Texas, Arnie makes available to his priority members investment in certain tax liens outside of the Lone Star State, through the Lien-to-Deed program, the details of which he also shares in this episode.
Karen and Kevin are both Priority Members in the program, and as Karen says in the episode, just having the knowledge and education that Arnie provides gives us the confidence to go and bid at the auctions, which to the uninitiated are intimidating and confusing. If you decide to become a Priority Member too, we've worked out a discount with Arnie if you call by Monday, March 13!
If you'd like to ask Arnie a question directly, please feel free to reach out to him at arnie@txtaxsales.com.
Effective writing is important. This is why this, the 10th and final Agent Commandment, is about writing.
We have seen far too many examples of horrific writing on the part of real estate agents. You don't need to read very many MLS listing descriptions before they'll start popping out at you. Poor spelling, bad grammar, lack of punctuation. They all jump right off the page and detract from the professional message you're trying to communicate on behalf of your client.
For this reason, we've enlisted the help of Laura Peterson, Author, Teacher, Entrepreneur, Podcaster, and Digital Nomad. On her podcast, Copy that Pops, you'll find a wealth of information on how to write effectively for your newsletter, ads, and blog posts to drive traffic to your destinations.
Listen in as we have a wide ranging discussion with Laura about the impact of effective writing, vomit comets, living in Europe, and International Dog of Mystery, Tuck.
The topic of inspectors has come up in past episodes, so we thought we'd delve a little deeper into the topic with this episode by sharing the top 10 issues that come up during inspections.
After hearing this episode, you will understand the great benefit an inspector brings to the table.
Decrepit cars, interest rates, closing disclosures, and mortgages, how do they all relate?
In this episode, we welcome Patrick Morales back to the podcast for a wide ranging discussion about mortgages.
When preparing to buy a new home so many consumers don't realize they might have to choose between the new car or the new home. Learn about how mortgages work, hidden fees, and what's happening in the market.
Find out what pro-rations are, general closing costs and fees and get into the nitty-gritty of mortgage closing costs.
So many people shop on the interest rates alone, but that's not always the best strategy! You should calculate the total cost of the loan before you sign on the dotted line.
Know before you buy!
Listen in as we discuss the difference between being interested and being committed. It's a huge distinction! Our stand is that agents should be committed to their chosen profession of being a real estate agent!
You want to know what that cryptic message means? You have to listen to the podcast to find out. Perhaps the Spartan King Leonidas will clarify what it means to be committed to your profession. Maybe NFL Coach Herm Edwards can point out how being interested versus being committed has an immeasurable impact on the performance of the team.
Your realtor is a member of your home buying or selling team, and like any major event in your life you want a professional and a committed team member watching your back. We hope you enjoy listening to this episode as much as we enjoyed recording it.
Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast and give us a review on whatever platform you use to listen to the show!
Lately, we have been getting a lot of requests to do some episodes aimed at real estate investors. While we are technically real estate investors by virtue of the fact that are landlords, we don't feel like we've had enough experience to speak authoritatively on the subject, so we decided to do some research and find guests for the show who know far more about real estate investment than we do.
In this episode, we welcome David Cole to the show who shares with us an amazing tool that isn't very well known yet, but is an incredibly powerful tool for real estate investors and/or people who want to be real estate investors.
The single participant 401(k), commonly known as the "Solo 401(k)" plan gives you as an investor unprecedented access to and flexibility to personally invest the retirement funds you have been building up throughout your life. Do you have a 401(k) from a previous employer? Do you have a traditional individual retirement account that you self-funded? All of these funds can be rolled in to a Solo 401(k), where YOU take the role of trustee, enabling you to have checkbook access to the funds for the purpose of investment.
Listen to this episode as Dave walks us through the background, requirements, and rules of this option that all investors should know about!
Dave can be reached at:
Website: http://www.freedomfirst401k.com
Phone: 928-350-8368
Email: dave@freedomfirst401k.com
In today's episode we interview Mike Michalowicz, author of 4 different business books. We had no intention of turning our conversation into a Commandment, but Mike shared so many great insights that we had to do it. Mike is the author of Surge, Profit First, The Pumpkin Plan and the Toilet Paper Entrepreneur. He is also a popular keynote speaker and successful podcaster.
Mike built and sold two multi-million dollar companies by his 35th birthday. Confident that he'd discovered the secrets to success, he became an angel investor... and proceeded to lose his entire fortune. Now building his third multi-million dollar company based on the thesis of Profit First, Mike shares his insights with us on the program.
Although Mike shared a lot of insights and fascinating stories in and about his books, we thought his advice from The Pumpkin Plan was spot on for real estate agents. In order to get noticed, you have to be different! You shouldn't expect to gain the attention from the marketplace by being exactly like every other real estate agent out there, you have to be different in order to get noticed.
Think about it - the human brain is conditioned over millions of years to notice things that are out of the ordinary. If you're watching a freeway with car after car whizzing by, you'll get bored pretty quickly. Wouldn't a person riding a giraffe down the freeway immediately grab and hold your attention? Of course it would!
Remember though, being different doesn't guarantee success, it only guarantees that you'll get attention. What you do with that attention depends on you!
At the end of the episode, Mike fills us in on his hit book, Profit First, and talks about the critical takeaways from that book that can be applied to every real estate agent out there. If you're struggling in your business, whether it's in real estate or any other business, give this episode a listen, you won't be disappointed!
Connect with Mike:
Website: http://www.mikemichalowicz.com
Podcast: http://www.mikemichalowicz.com/category/profit-first-podcast/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mike+michalowicz
Books: Surge - Profit First - The Pumpkin Plan - Toilet Paper Entrepreneur
Come spend some time with us while we heckle a close friend and new build buyer, Scott Sniderwin. Scott recently purchased a new build home here in the Houston area. Although Scott is now a regular listener to the show, we hadn't started the podcast at the time he was buying, so he wasn't plugged in to the commandments, and his real estate story turned into a horror story.
Luckily for Scott, he is persistent, and as he put it “a real pain”, so he kept fighting to get things done properly on his new build home. He walks us through his story of building a new home from contract to final closing to his warranty period.
Listen to the podcast to hear all of the details and how he got things fixed, and what he could have done to protect himself from the get-go.
Recently, we received a listener mail that had a great question: "How will rising interest rates impact the real estate market?"
Since we aren't financial experts, we decided to call in reinforcements in the form of Patrick Morales. Before becoming a Loan Originator, Patrick was a Financial Planner, so we thought he would be a great person to answer this question.
During the discussion, Patrick shares with us what you as a buyer can do to prepare for higher interest rates to take the best advantage of the situation.
He also shares some very useful information for anyone who currently owns a home who had a loan modification done in the last 5 years. If this is you, don't miss this episode!
You can reach Patrick at 832-639-3350 or by email at pmorales@cenderafunding.com.
This is a special episode! We recorded it in front of a live audience at the University of Houston with special guest host, Hank Moore. Hank has been shaping our culture for a generation, and is a living legend in many spheres, including the Non-Profit sphere. Listen to this episode as we discuss how important it is for agents to be committed to giving back to the communities they serve.
Real estate agents, more than any other profession, are intimately linked to the communities in which they do business. It is therefore imperative that we make our businesses about more than just making money for ourselves. A portion of our profits should go back to the community in the form of philanthropy. It's good for the community and it's good for your business.
If your agent can't name at least one charity that they personally support through their work, you should start looking for another agent!
Outdoor living spaces are a huge attraction, especially in areas like Houston where the weather makes them useful nearly year round. In this episode, we interview Deedra Chavez from Bello Domani Outdoor Designs.
Deedra has been in the industry for many years and has a great eye for design. She designed the outdoor living space in Karen and Kevin's backyard and we have been referring business to her ever since.
Deedra shares with us some of the most popular features and upgrades available on the market today, like high efficiency pumps that allow you to greatly reduce the energy cost of running your pool (roughly $15 per month). She also gives us detail on our favorite pool upgrade, the in-floor cleaning system. While we absolutely love this upgrade, there is one... let's call it "unexpected feature" that the system brings to the pool experience. You'll have to listen to the episode to find out the hilarious truth!
We also hear about some of the creative things people are doing by mixing fire and water features with outstanding results. In the episode, you'll also hear about the outdoor living feature that provides an average 130% return on investment.
If you're a new agent, you will likely be approached fairly quickly by an experienced agent who wants you to join his/her team. They pitch it to you as a great deal for you because they have a steady flow of leads from all of their existing marketing efforts, and for a cut of the commission, you can almost immediately start making some money and learning the ropes.
All of that sounds great, and it would be great if that were the whole story, but sadly it's not. Frequently, your responsibilities under this team agreement begin to sound like a job description. Okay, that might be fine for people who need a little structure in their business. If you're in to that kind of stuff, knock yourself out. But the one thing that is common in these team agreements is something I simply cannot condone:
On top of the requirements for you to spend a minimum number of hours prospecting for leads for the team, if your prospecting does turn up a qualified home SELLER, you are required to hand that lead over to the team leader for him/her to handle.
THIS IS NEVER OKAY.
While it does take a lot of work to help a client sell a home (which you can learn about in Episode 10), it's far more time intensive to represent a buyer because of all the driving to showings (and working around your buyers' schedules) that you will have to do. The team leader will try to justify this by telling you they're sending you all the buyers listings, but wait a minute, you're paying the team leader a cut of all of your commissions in exchange for those leads, you don't owe them your sellers too!
Why is this bad? There's a damn good reason the team leader wants to represent sellers (and only sellers). After selling their home, what does a seller need immediately after? That's right! A new home! Typically sellers provide their agents with two transactions, a sell followed by a buy! Sellers are also typically much lower cost clients to acquire, especially if the seller comes to you because you represented them on their original purchase.
DO NOT GIVE UP YOUR SELLERS, FOLKS! A seller that comes to you as a repeat customer is your reward for doing a great job for them the first time around and for continuing to be in touch with them after the sale.
Put yourself in the place of a couple who find a great rental on Craigslist.com. The house was beautiful, it was in a great neighborhood, and it was being listed below market! They were happy with the pictures they saw in the ad, so they called the number. The landlord said there had been a lot of interest in the property, so if they really wanted it, they'd have to make a decision quickly and send in their application and application fee quickly, so they did.
A few days later, they got a call from the landlord to let them know that of the 7 applications that he'd received, he'd chosen their application. Of course they were very happy and eager to know what to do next. The landlord said he was about to go out of town on vacation for a week, so if they'd just mail money orders constituting first and last month's rent and security deposit, he'd meet them at the house on the day the lease began to deliver the keys.
On moving day, they showed up and wondered why there were other moving trucks on the street. It turns out that the person they'd thought was the landlord actually didn't own the property, and the real owner had no idea what had been going on. The scam artist had made the same promises to 7 different callers, and had made off with roughly $80,000 in money orders that had been sent in to cover rents and security deposits. Even worse, the scam artist had all of their personal information from the application and stole their identities, opening credit card accounts in their names!
It's scams like this that underline how important it is to have a real estate agent working on your behalf, even if you're renting a home or apartment. Their services are completely free to you, and they have access to resources that will help to ensure you're never the victim of a scam artist. Listen to this story and more in this episode!
In this episode, we welcome Nicole Normandin to the show to talk about Stuff The Sleigh, the charity we are benefitting at the upcoming live event on December 14.
In the interview, we learn about her, and her personal connection to the mission of Stuff The Sleigh, which benefits pediatric cancer and hematology patients.
Nicole gives us a behind the curtains look at how Stuff The Sleigh delivers its services and what it takes to manage and grow a Non-Profit organization.
Finally, she shares some gripping stories about the children that have benefitted from Stuff The Sleigh.
Don't miss this episode!
Not all offers are the same. There are many ways a crafty buyer can hide costs in their offer that reduce the overall value of deal for you as a seller. This is one of the many reasons why you need a competent, detail oriented agent looking out for your best interests in your transaction.
In this episode, we delve in to some of the nooks and crannies that make up the offer and walk you through your options when you're selling your home. For example, did you know that your buyer's source of financing can have an impact on the total amount of money you end up with in your pocket? I didn't know that either until we recorded this episode!
It's been a frequently repeated position on the podcast that the barriers to entry into the real estate business are far too low, and that results in a lot of unqualified people getting their licenses. These agents frequently get frustrated with how difficult it is to be consistently successful as agents. They frequently take these frustrations out on their fellow agents by making transactions harder than they need to be.
In this episode, we tell a number of stories of agents who refused to maintain their professionalism, and in the process ended up costing their clients money. The upshot of these stories - as an agent, it is your JOB to be professional and dispassionate so that you can act in the best interest of your client at all times.
As real estate dorks, we enjoy watching HGTV (well, 2 out of 3 of us do). There are some great pieces of information you can get out of watching the many great shows on the channel. For example, you can get a very good idea of what styles and finishes you like in homes, and you can get a great idea of what kind of layouts appeal to you.
However, while watching any television show, it's important for you to remember that pretty much everything you see is scripted, and only about half of it is true. For example, on renovation shows it's pretty common for the contractor to give a cost estimate on the spot after eyeballing the house for 2 minutes. This will not happen to you in real life. Furthermore, the prices they quote differ greatly when they are on camera versus how they would answer to you in real life.
Enjoy this episode as we delve in to our favorite HGTV (and other channel) shows and point out the things you should be taking with a grain of salt.
Karen and I have our shows that we watch together to unwind. One of our favorite shows is "Adam Ruins Everything". The show, hosted by Adam Conover is a mainstay on our DVR because it shows the hidden side of many things that we just take for granted in our culture.
A recent episode entitled "Adam Ruins Housing" piqued our interest because, obviously, we're in the business. Before we watched the episode, we saw a preview of it on Facebook, and had a conversation with some friends about some crazy statements that were made in the clip.
After the episode aired, we knew we had to do an episode to rebut the half truths, misstatements, and outright lies that were told about the real estate industry in the first 6 minutes of the show. Listen in as we share the details of the conversation we had with one of the actual sources cited on the episode. Spoiler alert: His study actually stated the opposite of what the episode said.
Jen and Mike finally made the decision to stop being renters and become homeowners. They were excited! They both knew they had great credit since they checked their credit rating with a free credit reporting service, so they called an agent and started shopping. They saw some great houses, and some not so great houses. In all, they went to 30 different properties before they found THE ONE.
It was perfect. Great curb appeal, great school district, close to work, and had more than enough room for their growing family. The kitchen and the living spaces were exactly what Jen had always dreamed of, and Mike could already see himself relaxing in the built in man-cave. Before putting in their offer, they calculated for themselves what the loan payment would be and decided that it would be a stretch, but it would be worth it! So they put in their offer, and after a little negotiation, they agreed on a purchase price of $350,000. They took their executed contract to their local bank where they'd been customers for years, and put in their mortgage application. They went back to their apartment and immediately started boxing up their things. Sure, it would be several weeks before they would actually move, but they were excited!
A few days later, Jen's phone rang. It was Chris, their Loan Officer. "Jen" he began, "I'm not sure how to break this to you so I'll just say it - you and Mike can't qualify for the loan on the house." "How can that be? We both have great credit, we both have full time jobs!" "That's all true, but there's a lot more to your financial picture than good credit and employment. I'm afraid the best you can qualify for based on the information in your application is a $300,000 purchase price."
<end scene>
This is a scene that plays out far more often than most people realize, and when it does happen, it's crushing for the people in Jen and Mike's shoes. Not only have they wasted a lot of time looking for and falling in love with a house they can't afford, but they also will have their perceptions of all of the future houses they CAN afford tainted by the experience. This is why it's so important to contact a Loan Officer before beginning your home search.
In this episode, we welcome Clay Bohannan, Senior Loan Originator and Partner at Encompass Lending Group as a guest host. With Clay, we dive into the many details of the mosaic that makes up your full financial picture.
In this episode you will learn:
Recently, Karen was representing a set of buyers who found a house that they really liked. It was in the neighborhood they wanted, it was exactly the right size for their family, and it (almost) fit their budget. Truth be told, according to the data on other similar homes that had recently sold in the neighborhood, it was overpriced by about $20,000.
In this episode we wrap up the Kevin interview. You'll learn of the triumphs and failures that shape who he is today. You'll also learn who he thinks would win in a fight between Spider-Man and Batman, and what his life would be if Star Wars had never been made.