As the U.S. median home price continues to drop, ForSaleByOwner.com (http://www.forsalebyowner.com) is helping home sellers who don’t want to lose even more of their home’s value by paying a 6 percent commission to a real estate broker. By providing online marketing, property pricing reports, real estate resources and access to legal forms, ForSaleByOwner.com offers all the tools that homeowners need to market and sell their home in today’s tough real estate market. ForSaleByOwner.com offers these “Top 5 Tips” to help people get started on how to sell their home “for sale by owner.”

1. Be Your Own Agent: An agent’s commission cost home sellers 6% of their home’s value. ForSaleByOwner.com customers are able to competitively price their home compared to similar homes represented by agents and still come out ahead financially because they are not paying commission. In addition, separate recent studies by professors at two of the nation’s most prestigious universities, Northwestern and Stanford, determined that unrepresented homeowners are as effective at maximizing the sales price of their home as agents.

2. Use the Internet to Market the Home: More than 84% of buyers use the Internet to search for a home. Putting a home on ForSaleByOwner.com helps home sellers market their home to nearly 2 million people monthly. Online property listings should boast multiple high quality, digital photographs of their home’s interior and exterior. Homes with multiple photographs receive more attention from buyers. The online listing should be combined with a yard sign to attract people driving by the home.

3. Price the Home Accurately: The market in 2008 is very different from a few years ago when bidding wars drove up home prices. In today’s market, home sellers need to become more educated about their local real estate market so that they can effectively price their house. To make it easy, ForSaleByOwner.com provides its customers with a customized property pricing report that contains recent home sales data and home valuation data. Sellers should also research their neighborhood to compare the listing prices of similar houses and use that information to competitively price their home.

4. Consider Placing the Home on the MLS: The Multiple Listing Service, or MLS, is a complete inventory of homes on the market. Sellers should remember they no longer need a real estate agent or broker to get their home on the MLS, and their home can be placed on the MLS through ForSaleByOwner.com.

5. Don’t Be Afraid of the Paperwork: While one of the biggest myths in real estate is that agents handle the legal paperwork, the fact is that other professionals provide these services. Whether a seller uses an agent or goes “for sale by owner,” outside help is needed to navigate through the legal process of transferring the title. A real estate attorney or title company will prepare and handle all of the legal paperwork for sellers.

ForSaleByOwner.com is the nation’s leading “for sale by owner” website. Since 1999, ForSaleByOwner.com has saved home sellers more than one billion dollars by providing premium Internet marketing services, property pricing reports, real estate guidance and information, downloadable legal forms, as well as live customer support, to help customers independently sell their own homes. The company charges a modest fee for its wide range of advertising and real estate resources, priced from $89 to $899. In contrast, a person selling a $300,000 home through a real estate agent would be charged a 6% commission fee and pay approximately $18,000. Prospective homebuyers can browse property database, available at http://www.forsalebyowner.com, at no charge.

Beware

Every Realtor using Sprint PCS that signed up during the initial phase of the E-Key launch that were offered freebies to change their plans should immediately be aware that Sprint is expiring those freebies.  Offers differed in many areas of the Country, so it is impossible for me to break down what problems you may experience.  These expirations come with no warning and you may incur serious charges for downloading your MLS data to your phone, text messenging, peak and off peak times, without refund or explanation.  Realtor beware, read your bill and pay very close attention to the “data usage” on your bill. 

We’ve spent the better part of 4 hours on the phone with customer retention as well as several hours in the Sprint store over the past month resolving these issues to the tune of nearly $1,000.00.  It is Sprint’s policy to address no charges more than two months old so I advise you contact Sprint immediately.  I would also recommend if you are unsure what exactly will or has expired that you contact Sprint Customer Service as soon as possible. 

I can only speak for myself when I say we were never told these plans would expire, nor was I ever told that the discount offered to Reators would expire- We have seriously been mislead, and the outcome is that the new plans offered by Sprint are much higher per month than what we switched from.  A Sprint Store manager stated while speaking to Sprint Customer Service by phone, ”There’s going to be a lot of pissed off Realtors lined up in my store.” The Sprint response was, “The plans no longer exist.” 

According to Customer Retention, these plans offered to the local boards had a life expectancy of 2 years in most cases.  We found it odd that even the Sprint associates that were charged with signing up thousands of agents had no idea of any expirations of the promises being made by Sprint. 

I would assume that other services offering data phones and plans for E-Key such as Cingular will suffer the same fate.

Challenging real estate markets can be found across the U.S. as home prices decline, the volume of sales fall and foreclosures rise. But in some places the biggest challenge has been convincing would-be buyers and sellers that local conditions don’t resemble the national trends.

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April 22 is Earth Day.  I’m one of those believers in the phrase “Everyday is Earth Day”, but for those of you who may not have embraced such a mentality, I encourage you to at least notice tomorrow.

Is this thing on?

Sometimes I feel being active in the RE.net (I hate that term) is like preaching to the choir.  Most of the really active people are blogging on multiple sites, are on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and are utilizing a variety of electronic advertising.  I feel like I’m talking to myself.  Last Friday, on an RE Bar Camp call, someone else shared my mentality.

How many of you will mention Earth Day tomorrow?  Since I’m assuming many of you reading this are already reasonably environmentally friendly due to your online marketing efforts, I encourage you to bring someone else into the fold.  Get someone who isn’t a blogger, doesn’t know what RSS or Twitter is and especially get the people who are environmentally wasteful in their marketing practices to join the RE.net.

Show them ActiveRain, which I personally find to be an excellent tool for agents attempting to jump into the rapid currents of online real estate marketing.

Share with them your favorite sites and online tools.  It’s easier to talk about concepts you are passionate about, so pick the ones you like and talk one person into using them.

How a simple list can grow the conversation

Here’s my thought: Tomorrow is Earth Day, you share this article with someone on the pretense that you are promoting Earth Day, BAM! they’re in the RE.net conversation just by visiting Agent Genius.

Here are some great Earth Day resources that I want to share and hopefully you’ll share with others:

• How to green your life
• EarthDay network
• US Government Earth Day site (check out the links on the left under “Take Action”)
• Treehugger
• CatalogChoice
• StopTheJunkMail
• Get Fresh with Sara Snow (this is a TV show that gives great, easy to follow pointers for being green)

How Twitter is saving the world one lawn mower at a time

Now my one technology anecdote that plays perfectly into Earth Day.  I have become a Twitter fanatic, almost to an addictive level.  I turned it off all weekend (for the most part) and felt like I must have missed out on some great conversations.

Last week, I decided I wanted a push lawn mower for my yard.  I don’t have much grass, so a push mower wouldn’t take much time. Plus I could save my rotator cuff from the terrible pull cord on my gas mower. I thought about electric mowers, but coal still supplies half the energy in the US (I’m on 100% renewable, but if I can save that for something else, all the better).   Gas mowers create as much pollution as somewhere between 95 miles and 3400 miles of driving.  I did some research online, but was still feeling lost.  I sent a message out to the void of Twitter asking if anyone knew some place local to buy a push mower. Within minutes, a new contact sent me a message saying I could have hers, I just had to pick it up.

Skip to the end, I recycled something someone else was going to scrap. I saved fuel by swinging by on my way home instead of having a huge truck deliver it. I’m saving energy every time I mow my lawn.  And it cost me nothing but a few minutes to ask on Twitter and a few minutes to pick it up.  And all because I used technology.

So go out, share some of your favorite real estate marketing online resources.  Expand the conversation while helping contribute to Earth Day.

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Slumping housing market? Not on realty TV. The housing market’s effect on real estate-themed programming is far less pronounced. Audiences are holding up, and new shows albeit with less of a go-go feel are still being churned out.

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Recently the online real estate community began buzzing (because the media was buzzing) about an agent who was being sued for not disclosing material facts.  I read as some hypothesized, some passed judgement, and others invented names and scenarios to explain how they could see this become a trend. I remember reading and wondering why in the world would we assume the worst, disregard the fact that we do not know the facts, and jump on a bandwagon that could really care less about us as professionals- in fact, it’s a great headline when a Realtor is in trouble, and everyone needs someone to blame besides ones own self.In case you missed it, the Agent was cleared of any wrong doing last week and I thought it was important to demonstrate that maybe in these types of cases it would be best not to fuel the bandwagon that would blame agents for all the wrong in this economy- maybe we too should look forward to the facts and then write. You may have already heard, but I think it’s worth repeating over and over again. I’m just sayin…

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Big Top
When you go on a listing presentation do you bring the whole circus?  Do you bring the cats and the rings of fire?  Do you wear the announcer’s top hat and use your authoritative voice to announce the upcoming slide-show?  Do you bring a tight-rope to balance on across the living room? I’ve done the dog and pony show many times.  I’ve brought the slicks, the testimonials, the award announcements, the sales statistics; I’ve brought it all.  I’ve even put my head in the lion’s mouth and cut my commission.   The Clown Show
Listing presentations can become a clown show.  I know they’ll want to talk about the price — too high — and they’ll want to talk about the commission — too low — but they don’t care that I’ve sold a gazillion houses or won the Barnum and Bailey award for 2006.  Or that Homes and Land Magazine doesn’t sell houses.  Not only don’t they realize that cutting commissions are as controversial as dual agency, they don’t care. It’s All About Them
And it should be.  They want to know what I’m going to do for them.  They want to hear me announce that their house is the best I’ve ever seen.  That I’m going to put it up in lights on the boulevard, on bus stops, in magazines, on the divider at the grocery check-out.  That it’s going to sell for more than they ever dreamed, in just one day.  That the first buyer who walks in is going to love it, have to have it, offer an enormous amount of money and pay them to stay while they shop for their new house - oh, wait a minute.  That was another market. 

Lions and Tigers and Bears
I don’t bring the lions and tigers and bears anymore.  I’m sure there’s someone who wants to see all of my dogs in tutus walk on two feet and bark the National Anthem.  Seems to me those are the ones that can never be satiated.  I can twist my body like a pretzel or be the bearded lady, it won’t matter.  Every time I’ve walked on fire to get a listing I haven’t gotten it.  Now I go with the comps, paper and pen.  Seems to work.  I like it.  I end up working with people who are real and aren’t interested in a side-show and I don’t pull any muscles trying to prove I’m the strongest woman in the world. 

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There has been a lot of talk over the last year or so about various mortgage acceleration programs, in fact, I have talked about them since last February (2007) myself. Fueled by United First Financial’s Money Merge Account marketing through an MLM style set up, the latest fad or craze has grown dramatically, leaving one to question whether or not it truly is the best thing out there.Personally, I have fielded hundreds of emails from the first day I posted about these products. Most were from homeowners wondering if it was the right fit for them. Every “hate” mail I received was from a UFF agent, except a few from other mortgage acceleration advocates, even though I never said the product didn’t work.Why? Because I said they were not the best solution, and they aren’t for most people. The laws of money work against them. And that is even more true today.

You see, every dollar you spend towards your mortgage is a dollar you didn’t invest. That means that while you are dumping money into your mortgage, you miss opportunities to make more money elsewhere, and there are plenty of opportunities, even in today’s environment.

Add to the fact that once your mortgage is paid off, you have nothing left. If you had been investing instead, and we’ll just say your rate of return equaled your mortgage for simplicity sake, you would still be able to pay off your mortgage at the same time, but may not want to. If you had started with a $200,000 mortgage, at the mortgage payoff point you would have nothing in investments, whereas if you had invested, you would have $200,000 working for you already. In fact, using the same rate of return, even if you were to dump all of your mortgage payment in at this time, you wouldn’t be able to catch up.

Now, as for liquidity (immediate cash accessible), you have very little, if any, using the mortgage acceleration programs, and the bank can even choose to freeze withdrawals, rendering your entire plan useless. Just read the paper and you can see this happening, even on those with plenty of equity.

Investing can provide more liquidity, which can be used to get you through a financial crisis. Just ask your self this question, which would you rather have, $100,000 in your home or $100,000 cash? Ask anyone getting laid off or facing another type of financial crisis and you will know what their answer is.

What about the flexibility you have by not paying off your mortgage as fast as possible? You have control of your money, not the bank, leaving you the ability to seize opportunities. If your money is locked in your home, you have to “qualify” to get it back out, and you can bet that is getting harder to do these days.

I could go on and on about why mortgage acceleration programs, no matter which ones you use, are not the best options out there. That being said, they are good for some. Who? Those who have very little understanding of how money works, don’t want to learn, and simply remain focused solely on having their mortgage paid off.

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The Market Dictates

Prior to 2006 Realtors seem to be in a constant fight with the lender to get loan packets to the closing table in time for the settlement. Now it’s an issue of getting permission for short sales. In either case responsiveness of the lender has always been an issue. The new twist however, is that they are not only ignoring you as an agent, but stealing your money as well.

Agents have established their commissions, regardless of flat fees or percentage based fees for their services, based on what a majority of the market would bear for these skill sets. Now, at a time, when purchasers are much harder to find, clients are far more demanding the need for highly skilled practitioners is greater than it’s been in a generation, the Lending industry has decided to take your money to offset the damages of their poor investments.

The M.O.

Before I went on staff as an Education Director I was working with a large number of listings, many of which were short sale and near foreclosure clients. My wife inherited these clients as she moved from assistant to primary agent. In watching her; working with other agents and teaching on distressed property sales I have heard the story over and over again about Loss Mitigation officers cutting the commissions when negotiating the short sale.

The agent works themselves to death, the Seller swallows their pride and somewhere in the process, a buyer emerges. The buyer is not likely to pay the asking prices of yesteryear for a home today, because the chances of equity being available in the next few years is low. The offer to purchase is ratified by the principals and then sent to the Lender to review and permission to sell. If you’re lucky to get an answer from the lender it usually involves a cutting of the commission. The agents then have a huge dilemma - they can violate their fiduciary responsibility to the client and go without any money, or accept the theft of the Lender and salvage some money.

Being Left On Hold

Recently my wife had a seller loose a purchaser because the lender took over seven weeks to tell her absolutely nothing. In this case the purchaser made their offer and it was ratified. They forwarded to the 1st Trust, CIT Group, who promptly told her to send it to the 2nd Trust. That was the last prompt thing that was done. The entire point of being the First Trust is that you are in the driver seat. To send it to the second for review was a huge waste of time. She did however get 2nd Trust’s answer in a reasonable amount of time and ensured the 1st trust had a complete packet. She called diligently almost every day and was denied access to the “decision maker” who had the file on her desk. At one point (3 weeks later) she was told that they were still awaiting the BPO. She happened to know the BPO agent and was shown that it was sent in 3 weeks prior. Extensions were made by the buyer, who eventually walked away from the deal, as there were many other options available to the purchaser. My wife spoke to a “manager” two days ago, who was going to look into it. No one has called back and she still has no answer about the permission to sell the home.

Yeah, thanks for taking the seller’s house off the market for two months and loosing the only buyer they had; had in eight months. Way to serve your employer, Ms. “Loss” Mitigation officer.

Giving You A Pay Cut

If you’re lucking to get a lender rep to review the file, one of the first places they go is your wallet. Evidentially they think it’s OK to take your money. Why? There isn’t much you can do. Yes, you can say “no” to what avail? If you do, the transaction dies, your clients hate you and will re-list with a more willing participant. And isn’t it your responsibility to put the clients needs above your own? It’s a mess and there is no great answer. So, I suppose your children don’t get to eat, so that the Loss Mitigation Officer can look better to their bosses.

A Few Questions

1. Since the contract for compensation (the listing agreement) is with the Listing Broker and Seller, who the heck is the Lender to require the commission be split? Wouldn’t this be tort interference in any other instance? (I am not an attorney, so I’m really asking)

2. How would the Loss Mitigation Officer feel if their employer gave them their check and it was 33% of what their promised salary was? How long would they stay at their job, if the Lender explained that the 66% decrease was due to the employer trying to limit their damages for the Lender’s poor risk taking practices?

3. For the Buyer Brokers… Why are YOU cutting your commission, didn’t the Listing Broker offer you a commission in MLS? Did the MLS commission offering, stipulate that you would be required to take less than promised, if they had to?

4. Why are agents working twice as hard for an almost guaranteed reduction in fees for their hard work only to act shocked and surprised that this was happening. Every time an agent comes to me shocked and bewildered that the commission was cut by the lender, I have to ask why they were involved in a listing that they were obviously not trained or experienced enough to handle.

5. Let’s take the lender out of the equation for second. If the Seller wasn’t getting enough money to sell their home and cover their cost, wouldn’t they reject an offer less than what is necessary to cover their financial commitments? Wouldn’t the buyer be required to increase their price if they wanted the house? Why in short sale situations, isn’t the answer to simply tell the buyer, if you want the house; you’ll need to increase your offer price. Your offer simply doesn’t cover the Seller’s bills….

For the Brokers

I can’t think of a better time for Principal Brokers to establish company policies that limit the number of Short Sale listings an agent can carry and to define that only well trained and capable agents be able to handle these special (actually becoming the norm in many markets) situations. How many Listing Brokers want to accept a listing where they may be paying a Buyer Broker more in commission than they are getting in total? Why aren’t Listing Brokers adding clauses to the Listing agreements that if the Seller fails to make timely mortgage payments, or agrees to work with the lender in a short sale, that the listing agreement becomes void?

If the Lender isn’t going to allow payment to an agent for working diligently to reduce the Lender’s loss, by at least getting a buyer for the short sale, than why are agents still taking on these clients?

It’s A Mess

Whereas I am usually careful to try and see all options, I am not immune to the fact that these are troubled times for many markets around the U.S. But in this case the Seller’s are usually paying for poor financial decisions, the Lenders are are paying for loose lending practices; and the agent is the paying for???? I know that some agents could have done a better job of educating the buyer of their options and such when they originally bought, but most agents had nothing to do with the purchase when it comes time to list. So, why exactly is it, that the agent has to pay such a price for the loss of the lender?

( I don’t think I’ve ever used so many question marks in a blog post…)

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Hard week? Hard market? Rough eh? Well, consider these eight things and spread the good news while you’re at it:Fact #1: Some six million Americans are expected to buy a home this year. Six million people in the game make up a pretty big game.

Fact #2: There is still over $23 trillion of value in u.s. housing stock. Home ownership continues to be the basis of our wealth in this country.

Fact #3: The housing market cannot help but grow. Our country’s tremendous wealth, liquidity, and entrepreneurship will continue to drive our economy. 70-100 million people will be added to our market in the next 40 years.

Fact #4: Real estate is cyclical. The biggest fear in good times is that the fair weather won’t last forever—because it doesn’t. But the reality of a cyclical real estate market also provides its brightest hope in bad times—foul weather won’t last forever either.

Fact #5: 2008 is the best year to buy a home in 35 years. 1973 was the last time mortgage rates were this low in a buyer’s market.

Fact #6: First-time buyers have a real advantage in today’s market. First-time buyers can buy at a reduced price without having to sell at one too.

Fact #7: First-time buyers lose money while they wait on the sidelines. First, renters typically pay more state and federal income taxes than homeowners with a mortgage deduction.

Fact #8: Homes sell when they’re priced right and show well. Buyers are looking for value in today’s market. When sellers make their home’s value obvious, they make a sale—it’s as simple as that.

This is an abridged version of the Power Tools newsletter sent to my referral partners.

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