Posted August 31, 2015

Fast . . . So They’re Not Furious

InSellerate, a lead-generation company, conducted a study that yielded some very interesting insights:

• 32% of consumers expect a company to respond to an online inquiry within 30 minutes

• 42% of consumers expect contact within one hour

• More than half of the companies studied (56.34%) did not respond to the online or email inquiry at all

Of those companies that did respond, the average response time exceeded 24 hours, and the primary response vehicle was email, which is a passive, relatively non-effective method of contact. The take-away thought from all of this is “no kidding”, of course, but it underscores the wisdom that a lead is only as good as the work you put into it.

Safety Over Sales

According to a USA Today article, realtors in Iowa are taking steps to ensure the safety of all agents. The initiative includes an optional seller contract that prohibits any agent from showing a property to someone they have not previously met and identified. Ideally, the agent should insist that the buyer meet them at the agent’s office where she/he can check ID. If that’s not possible, the agent is encouraged to meet in a public place like a coffee shop. The conventional wisdom behind this, of course, is meeting prospective buyers in public and checking their ID discourages would-be attackers and allows agents to spot red flags in a safe place.

Real estate brokerages and other firms all over the country have joined Open Door Partners (www.meetmeherefirst.com). This is a service in which participating companies open their facilities for agents – even from competing companies/brokerages – to meet with prospective buyers before going out to view a property. The site enables an agent to input an address and find participating companies within a specified radius. In those instances when such a company is not close, it will list a Starbucks location that is convenient.

Bark First, Delay the Bite

There are pending bills in both the Senate and the House to provide a hold-harmless period from the enforcement of TRID through the end of the year. The main argument is that a grace period is necessary to assure companies have sufficient time to test their systems to comply with TRID without the fear of any repercussions. Priority Lending has been ready since the early summer – we’re THAT good.

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Financial Nearsightedness

Years ago when the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created, we had some wacko thought that part of the job of the folks filling its ranks would be to . . . protect the consumer. In some people’s view, this would mean that builders of new homes would no longer be able to dangle the carrot of “free” incentives if the buyer would finance the purchase through the builder’s in-house or preferred lender. To those same people, it just made sense that the CFPB was created to even the playing field and make it so that the consumer got the very best deal available. Well, we were wrong. Builders ARE allowed to offer incentives for using their in-house and preferred lenders despite the fact that sort of goes against the idea that the consumer is getting the very best deal available. And for most consumers, all they see is the incentive, and this computes to less money coming out of their pocket at closing – and they’re right (sort of). The purpose of today’s article is si

Topless Professionals - Nope

Fads come and go, certainly, but you can’t always tell the difference in the moment between a fad and a trend – because refusing to adapt to the trends can be limiting . . . if not disastrous. Let me share a couple of examples where failing to see where things were headed didn’t turn out well. An engineer presented the idea of a “filmless camera” to the executives at Kodak back in 1975, but they laughed him to scorn. In 2012, Kodak was forced to file for bankruptcy because they failed to adapt to the digital world. We all know Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, but how many of us recognize the name of Ron Wayne (and, no, that’s not Batman’s brother)? Ronny was the third founding member of Apple, and he sold his 10% stake in the company in 1976 for $1500. His shares would now be worth over $50 billion. WAY BACK in 2000, Reed Hastings approached Blockbuster and offered to sell Netflix for $50 million. Blockbuster turned Hastings down. Netflix is now wor

Sitting on the Fence Only Gives You Splinters

“I woke up this morning and couldn't find my socks, so I called information. She said they were behind the couch. She was right.” Reading the words of comedian Stephen Wright isn’t quite the same as actually hearing them with his deadpan delivery, but they’re still funny. The same can be said for timeless wisdom: whether you hear it coming directly from the lips of a wizened old sage or you read it in a little missive such as this, it’s still wisdom, right? They say a picture’s worth a thousand words, so you’re about to get 2,000 words’ worth right here: I’m going to show you two graphs that are going to speak volumes about buying power and interest rates – far more than I could convey if I tried to write over 2,000 words (and probably put you to sleep). Obviously, this first graph shows how even a slight change in interest rates can affect someone’s buying power in the real estate market. There’s a fairly big swing between what someone can a

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