Appraisal

Top 10 real estate posts of the day for 3/17/2010

March 17, 2010 By Dean Ouellette 1 Comment

Here is today’s list of top real estate posts of the day.

1) HVCC and AMCs Violate RESPA?] Here’s a possible solution – Holding the banks more accountable, This is long fairly dry post, but worth the ready. The problem is it almost makes sense, so what chance does it have.

2) An RPR Q&A Overview from Leading RE – So what is this RPR thing everyone has been talking about for six months now. If you want to get caught up quick this is for you.

3) Want Smooth Sailing? The Short Sale Listing Agent and the BPO – If you list short sales read this… “So, if you are a lazy listing agent who has little interest in your deal closing successfully, that’s cool. Don’t go to meet the agent preparing the BPO. But, if you want to be a super successful short sale listing agent and see more closings than ever before, get out of bed and go meet the agent at the door!” – I would take it one step further, meet them with photos on a thumbdrive and comps in hand. They are not making that much money, make their job easier.

4) Online real estate opportunity screams – are you listening? – Why is Marc comparing a house to a pair of sneakers? Read it and find out, then chances are most agents will be kicking themselves.

5) Trulia’s VP of Marketing Heather Fernandez on CNBC: The Search for a New Home – Could there be a trend where after the foreclosures are picked through in a market the market in that city just crashes?

6) Cash for Appliances Program – One of our jobs as real estate agents is to bring value added to our clients. Letting them know about programs like this is one way to do it.

7) Phoenix home buyers, are you being realistic? – A conversation I have with buyers on a daily basis. Yet for some reason few want to believe me until they loose the first 4 houses they make an offer on. Then they start to get it.

8) I Wasn’t Going To Buy This House Until I Saw The Realtor’s Headshot On The Sign – A little comedy for you on this St. Patrick’s Day. Enjoy, it is worth the read. (H/T Jim Duncan)

9) Adjustable Rate Mortgage Talk – Is your market strategy prepared for where your market is headed over the next few years? Which by the way may not be that different than it has been for the last six months.

10) Storytelling through Real Estate Video. Take two. – If you have looked around my blog at all here you know I am in love with video. This is just a “WOW” video when it comes to marketing a house.

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Filed Under: blog, Top Posts Tagged With: Appraisal, BPO, HVCC, marketing, Real Estate Technology, RPR, short sales

Top 10 real estate posts of the day for 3/15/2010

March 15, 2010 By Dean Ouellette 2 Comments

1) Can SMS Real Estate Marketing Attract more Home Buyers? – There will be more text messages sent this year than phone calls made. Why fight it any longer. People like to communicate that way, make it easy for them and place a rider on every sign you have.

2) Gifts from the Bank of Mom and Dad – Part 2: Conventional Financing – In only a way Rhonda can do she takes a boring subject and makes it easy to understand and enjoyable.

3) February 2010 : 4 States Account For More Than 50% Of Foreclosure Activity – What is really amazing about this list is no sign of Nevada or Arizona? The have dominated this list in the last 18 months.

4) How To Succeed in Anything in Life – Don’t Do This And You’ll Fail… Every Time! – OK tell me you are not going to read that one with that title. I did, and it was worth it. Nothing earth shattering, but a good reminder of what we should be doing.

5) Listing Icons: Is Adopting Abandoned Buyers Stealing or Smart? – Now this is an idea I admit I never heard of. But I love it!

6) The Purpose Of Real Estate Photography… – Want to learn something? Read this post! You will never think of photos for a house the same again.

7) The Source of Confusion – What do you get when take one of the top thinkers in the business dissecting the work of another top thinker? You get something that makes you question the very work model which you love.

8) Top 5 Tips for Securing an Accurate Appraisal – Be prepared if the appraisal comes back and you know it is bad.

9) “Gearing Up Your Web Presence” Seminar – I dont agree with those who believe you need to be successful online to be a successful agent, but if you are making it part of your business plan, are you doing it right.?

10) Top 10 Tips for !st Time Homebuyers in Northern Virginia – There are a lot of Top 10 lists out there for home buyers and sellers, This list is as good as any of them.

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Filed Under: blog, Top Posts Tagged With: Appraisal, Foreclosures, gifting down payment, home buyer tips, photography, Real Estate Technology, text messaging

Top 10 real estate posts of the day for 3/4/2010

March 4, 2010 By Dean Ouellette Leave a Comment

Here is today’s list of top real estate posts of the day.

1) Realtor Facebook Fan Page Strategy Gains 4,000+ Local Fans in 12 Days – He is now over 7,000 fans in 15 days. I first mentioned what Dale Chumbley was doing in my Top 10 list on day 2 of his 365 day project. I thought it was going to be a hit, but nothing like this.

2) Shock Value – Lesson learned, keep your house ready to show when you are selling it because you never know when the buyer will be coming through that door.

3) CitiMortgage Tests New Foreclosure Alternative – So Citi is looking at taking homes back with a deed in lieu of foreclosure instead of foreclosing. If other banks followed this my guess is it would have an effect on short sales. Part of the reason it is beneficial for a bank to allow a short sale is because the cost of foreclosing. They would still have carrying costs, but how much of the cost is in the actual foreclosure? Something to watch.

4) How Much Would You Pay for a Viable Real Estate Lead? – A good look at leads, what do they cost when you buy them and are they worth it?

5) Home Inspection — Is it important when buying a home? Any post that every answers that question with a no would never make my list. Talk to your agent about good home inspectors. They know the good ones from the ones who miss black mold. Yup, it happened.

6) Traits of a Great Real Estate Agent – Great advice on being a great real estate agent, but really this should have been titled be a great listing agent. And we all know we need more great listing agents. There are some out there, but not enough.

7) Buyer Agency – is This Realtors’ Dirty Little Secret? – I’m including this because I would love to see more discussion. I know most agents I talk to never use an exclusive buyers agreement. Yet they are represented really in the comments here.

8) OK, not exactly a post here, but I noticed this fancy new brochure that NAR has put out on the HAFA program. I am still convinced, as I have been since November when I did my first video on it, that Vicki Cox Golder has not read this. I’d love to know how much of my dues went to the HAFA brochure from the NAR. Another fine government program that will have the same effect as the last few useless programs.

9) It’s Not You, It’s Your Neighbors – One of the biggest challenges with getting a new loan, be it a new or refinance, is the appraisal. Appraisers were quick to jump prices in the mid 2000’s and now seem just as quick to price homes in the other direction. Even when every indication is prices may be raising in an area. So how do they come up with that price? Blame your neighbors.

10) How Long Do Potential Buyers Need to Wait to Obtain Financing after a Hardship? – It’s a common question we get a lot these days, if I file BK, or do a short sale or have a foreclosure, how long until I can buy a house again?

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Filed Under: blog, Top Posts Tagged With: agency, Appraisal, CitiMortgage, Facebook, HAFA, HVCC, Real Estate Technology, short sales

Top 10 real estate posts of the day for 1/25/2010

January 25, 2010 By Dean Ouellette 2 Comments

1) How not to sell your Phoenix home – Jay shows you how one listing does just about everything wrong. Best part may be I pulled him up in the MLS and everyone of his listings is the same as this.

2) The Bankrate Mortgage Rate Trend Index Was Less than 25% Accurate In 2009 – All buyers seem to ask their lenders the question, should I lock now? Well turns out the lenders are less accurate than flipping a coin.

3) Sucking the Wind out of Sails: Why Mobile Won’t Matter in 2010 – Rob always has a very interesting, thought provoking take on most issues. I find myself agreeing with him a lot, but in this case I think he is reading to much into it. I see his point, just don’t believe in the real life applications if plays that big of a factor. If mobile fails in 2010 it will be because no one is making the mobile app worth using.

4) I Can’t Give You the Good Stuff.. – First, to bad everyone does not have Heather’s ethics when it comes to this issue and second if you are looking for a great marketing idea that will be easy and inexpensive to do, here it is.

5) Outside.in Hyperlocal Search – Most bloggers will tell you hyperlocal websites are the way to go. Here is an interesting new tool that could make that easier for you.

6) Property Appraisal Insight – from Philip Spool, ASA – Sure, but when you have 2 appraisers look at the same house and their values are 20% off, it does make you scratch your head.

7) How to Tell If You’re Going to Be Successful – Look in your car or around your office and ask yourself this, if someone were to look at them could they tell what you did?

8) Shame On You REALTOR.com for Promoting Dual Agency – This is more or less because I want to hear people’s opinions. I disagree with NAR/Realtor.com on many issues, but this one I think the post reaches to far. The agent handles it exactly how it should be handled in my opinion, come into my office and we will talk, and I will show you other people’s listings not just mine.

9) Let’s Play the Trulia Valuation Game! Prizes to the Winner! – Want to win free SEO consulting? Play this game. Although not being allowed to take money from agents I am not sure how it happens.

10) National BLS: The Future is Listing Home Buyers – New model of a buyer’s database instead of home database. The only thing I see why it won’t be big is it is not the best thing for a buyer. The buyer will miss to many houses this way, a MLS search will be much better to not miss houses.

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Filed Under: blog, Video Tagged With: Appraisal, hyperlocal, Real Estate Technology

Top 10 real estate posts of the day for 11/18/2009

November 18, 2009 By Dean Ouellette 2 Comments

1) What exactly is title insurance? – Title guru Bill Risser explains title insurance in a way the general public can understand it.

2) $8000 tax credit tax fraud – Where there is free handouts there will be fraud. Close to 100,000 people have claimed the tax credit when they were not eligible.

3) How short sales affect your credit and other ramifications – Is a short sale going to have an impact on your credit score? You bet. How much? Well that depends.

4) Who are the voices in commercial real estate? – In commercial real estate and all you can find is residential blogs? This guide will help.

5) Homeowner confidence out of whack – But can you blame them? – Homeowners are optimistic about the value of their homes over the next six months, and only half of homeowners think their value dropped in the last year. During the last year 74% of homes dropped in value.

6) Want up to 350% more traffic? Add photos – If you want people to take a look at your listings, put up photos, and it appears by Zillow’s research the more photos the better for traffic.

7) Understanding the Internet buyer, NAR 2009 – Interesting video on Internet buyers, but watch out it will crash your Firefox browser, works fine in Chrome.

8 ) I am pretty sure this is how appraisals are performed now – We recently had one house, two appraisals, two different appraisers and the valued were 24% off. Yea, I’m thinking there may be something to this post.

9) How to plow deep while sluggards sleep – Ken Brand takes a look at 2010 and how you can jump start the year right now. Be prepared now for next year, low interest rates, low prices, extended tax credit all lead to potential. One of the keys is know what questions may come up at holiday parties and be ready.

10) How real estate investors really get done – Attn: newbies – If you are new to investing this blog is a must read, and here is a good place to start.

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Filed Under: blog, Top Posts Tagged With: $8000 tax credit, Appraisal, housing market, HVCC, investing, Real Estate Technology, Title Insurance

Top 5 real estate posts of the day for 9/29/2009

September 29, 2009 By Dean Ouellette Leave a Comment

1) Dear loan underwriters – Please stop asking for pointless time wasting minutiae – It seems with every deal underwriters come up with something new to ask for, almost like it is a contest. Here Jay gives some examples.

2) Zillow COO discusses next wave of foreclosures on Fox Business – Interesting video interview on the “shadow” inventory with Zillow COO Spencer Rascoff.

3) What is my home worth? Beats me – Appraisals are completely unpredictable in the housing industry right now.

4) FHA broker approval delegated to approved DE Lenders: Will this squeeze out smaller players? – Will new FHA guidelines kill the small lender? It’s not the first time we have heard this in the last few months.

5) Measuring influence on Twitter: Who “cares?” – Marc Davidson does a great interview with Klout to determine what exactly Twitter influence is.

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Filed Under: Top Posts Tagged With: Appraisal, Foreclosures, Shadow Inventory, Technology, underwriting

Top 5 real estate posts of the day for 9/28/2009

September 28, 2009 By Dean Ouellette 1 Comment

1) 101 cars, part 101… – Lane Bailey is Georgia real estate agent who is building a niche market around car lovers. Lane started writing a 101 part series on cars I have enjoyed and now that he has actually completed this project we wonder what is next. Congrats Lane.

2) There is a reason 20% down should be required! – A good piece on why maybe we should go back to requiring someone put 20% down on their home purchase.

3) Who hates paper – this guy! – A new Bloodhoundblog.com column on using a tablet in your real estate business.

4) Appraisals kill deals – How the current state of appraisals is hurting home buyers and sellers.

5) Fishing for a few while ignoring the many – Dave Smith is probably my favorite real estate geek when it comes to tech tips. Today he looks at Active Rain and is it worth the investment.

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Filed Under: Top Posts Tagged With: Appraisal, downpayment, HVCC, niche marketing, Technology

Top 5 real estate posts for 8/28/2009

August 28, 2009 By Dean Ouellette Leave a Comment

1) Multiple offers and appraised value: Be aware – Justin McHood takes a look at what happens in the markets where bidding wars are happening.

2) CMA and BPO and Appraisal! Oh my! – What is the difference between the three? This post explains them.

3) Short sales, a buyers perspective – Great advice from Heather. If the price on that short sale appears to be to good, it probably is.

4) How to give your brand an instant facelift – NikNik talks about building your brand online with your avatar, website and social media pages.

5) SEO ranking factors 2009 – Some good tech tips for real estate bloggers, but remember by the time you are done reading it Google will change their algorithm again.

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Filed Under: Top Posts Tagged With: Appraisal, BPO, CMA, SEO, short sales, Technology

Top 5 real estate posts of the day for 8/13/2009

August 13, 2009 By Dean Ouellette 2 Comments

1) Don’t get caught watching the real estate scoreboard – Rothamel talks about how real estate is different than sports, there is no measureable winner and loser by a set standard.

2) How much to borrow to buy a home? – This is always one of my favorite debates. As a “I hate debt” guy my standards may be different, but here is what banks say.

3) Low appraisals .. but why? – I think I could do a top 5 HVCC posts of the day if I really wanted to.

4) What’s a home energy audit look like? – Very interesting video.

5) Technology for real estate agents – Here are two posts from the past day that could help you: Zillow new WordPress plugin for real estate and Five free website analytics tools.

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Filed Under: Top Posts Tagged With: Appraisal, debt-to-income, Energy Audit, HVCC, Technology

Top 5 real estate posts of the day 7/31/2009

July 31, 2009 By Dean Ouellette 1 Comment

1) So many heads in the sand – Why foreclosures happen – There are many reasons why houses actually go to foreclosure, here are a few reasons and a reminder that Realtors can help them avoid the process.

2) My home was appraised, but I don’t agree with the appraiser’s opinion. What can I do? – Good Zillow.com discussion going on about this subject.

3) Are mortgage rates going up or down? – In this Bankrate.com trend survey the group is split 1/3, 1/3, 1/3. Dan Green is predicting unchanged over the next 30 days.

4) HomePath Renovation mortgage process – HomePath Renovation is becoming more and more popular, Justin McHood explains the process.

5) The Realtor – A (not so) funny look – Dale may think it’s pretty scary, but really it is kind of funny.

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Filed Under: Top Posts Tagged With: Appraisal, Foreclosures, HomePath Renovation