The Real Estate Sage at The Real Estate Investment Institute - REII

Stone Tablets In The Second Decade Of The Twenty First Century. Have you ever wondered why we teach Religion to our very young?

Can things that happened two thousand year or so ago have meaning in the second decade of the twenty first century. Can things I learned starting more than fifty years ago and ideas I first published about twenty five years ago have meaning today?

I don't remember when I started Sunday School, it had to be sometime before four 1952 or ‘3. I do remember among all those wonderful stories there was always a Moral. Along came Mosses and the Ten Commandments. The only thing I could relate to was Honor thy father and mother.

We learned so much that seemed so irrelevant.

There was all that begatting, and the prohibitions, the thou shall nots. The only thing we knew was that it was something old people did. We never believed we'd ever be that old. It would be another decade before we'd discovered that girls didn't have cooties!

We couldn't relate to this stuff!

As we aged and various temptations arose,

we found that we'd long ago unknowingly decided how we'd behave.

Some where along the line I discovered I been blessed, I grew up surrounded by truly great people, my Parents, my Grandparents, my Great Grandparents, and their friends. They'd all left their imprint on me.

It wasn't until about twenty two years ago as I was approaching forty that I even analyses why I was who I was. At the time I managed several Loan Originators making some really bad decisions. I couldn't relate to these people. Worse, I didn't know why.

After much sole searching, I came to some answers. I realized why Sunday Schools, Parents, Grandparents, Great Grandparents, and Friends teach the young so much they can't relate to at the time! My decisions in life were formed well before, the questions were ask. All those Great people had influence me. I was making decisions on how I'd behave before I faced temptation! In the Marines we learned our "General Orders" a Marines "General Orders" establish how he behaves when there's no one around to give specific orders.

It was an embarrassing epiphany!

We make our hard decisions based on the rules we'd we accepted for our self long before facing temptation.

There is no harder decision for real estate people than doing what's right when the money is on the table. Good people who've never faced or considered such decisions can make mistakes.

These were the same good people I had hired, they simply lacked the guidance. They need "General Orders" or Commandments. They needed to decide how they would behave before facing temptation.

The next day I first published what have become known as Bill's Rules.

I. Thou shall protect thy license above all.

If I had been writing for real estate agents My Rules would be:

I. Thou shall protect thy license above all.

Commissions v Fiduciary Is It Time To Scrap Commissions? Can you maintain your fiduciary duties when your compensation, your very survival is dependent on a commission paid only at closing?

Should your integrity cause your insolvence? Can you maintain your fiduciary and not get paid? Is the very idea of a commissioned fiduciary an oxymoron?

Should your sage advice require altruistic self-sacrifice?

A trusted, knowledgeable, broker and friend recently wrote disparagingly about a knowledgeable client who excised his option to opt out of a short sale. The very option he as a true fiduciary included to protect his client in such a drawn out situation!

Residential salesmen today face what commercial and investment brokers have always faced, drawn out, long term transactions. Compared to just two years ago today's agents face work and time per transaction and considerably more fall out!

When compensation is totally dependent on a commission at closing can any advice to close be relied on? It matters only slightly whether we're talking about buyers or sellers how can your advice to close be trusted?

We've adopted "agency" which like "listing" implies and on going relationship if should a given offer fail, but we all know damage is done! We know that to move on means more work for the same fee.

"Agency" still has the "agent" dependent on the "seller" for his commission! How can your fiduciary trust you when your compensation dependant on the seller and seller's pay varying rates? Sellers even pay bribes! In addition to higher than normal commissions may builders will pay buyer's "agents" bonuses, often in incredible amounts! How can anyone be trusted to maintain their fiduciary when faced with such legal bribes?

Commissions v Fiduciary Is It Time To Scrap Commissions? No I got it wrong! It should read: Commissions v Fiduciary It Is Time To Scrap Commissions!

It Is Time To Scrap Commissions! It is time to make the last step towards true professionalism, Professional compensations! Not to be mistaken as most do with the amount of the compensation! But, getting paid for the time you work!

More latter.

Modernized Ancient Wisdom

Listing V Selling

Advertising Houses V Institutional Advertising / blog

One score and three lustrom ago our forefathers welcomed a banker turned REALTOR® into their local Board. Part of the ancient wisdom they imparted was:

When you list the entire Board works to sell your listing.

When you're selling your on your own.

When you advertise / blog about a house specific you're trying to attract one buyer.

When you advertise / blog about your company, your communite or yourself you're trying to attract all buyers.

When you blog to educate the public, you learn more than your readers.

When you blog to your peers you find An Educated Competitor Is An Asset

When you read your peers blogs you become a better competitor.

The morals of the story:

It's hard to fail with all the help listers get.

It's hard to fail with all the help bloggers get.

There is no excuse not to advertise / blog to attract the most clients.

There's a place and audience for all of us!

Service is service on ether side of the boarder a~!

Bill

Please, help my wife show all our friend we care.

Bill

Attention!

Parade Rest!

Listen-up!

All active duty servicemen and REALTORS representing them should review Wendy's article. It applies to active duty service home owners everywhere.

Bill

Are you sedulously and asperitly practicing oscurantism?  Are you persistently taking great care an effort to harshly and deliberately hinder the decimation of knowledge?

Do your clients trust you? Or do they prefer Uncle Charlie? Or maybe the TV "House Hunters?"

Are you a real estate "Expert" or a real estate "Professional?"

You know that expert and professional are not synonymous, don't you?

You know that experts are not necessarily professional.

You know that the most useful and trusted professionals are not necessarily experts.

I write in Correl Word Perfect so I started by looking up the two titles in it's dictionary.

"professional > ... a person having impressive competence in a particular activity."

You'll notice I left out the parts about "being part of a professional group" that's just plain wrong! You can be a member of a group with out being professional and you can be professional with out a group! I also left out the non-sense about "being paid" experts are paid, incompetents are paid, totally unskilled labor is paid. Being paid regardless of the amount is no measure of professionalism! Welfare mothers are paid are they professional and our mothers amateur?

"expert >noun a person who is very knowledgeable about or skillful in a particular area."

I might have added "small" as in "skillful in a particular small area!" This is in contrast to a very general  activity, defining the professional.

It use to be said, "an expert is anyone more than 50 miles from home with a briefcase!" After more than a decade traveling around the country with the old Farm and Land Institute, I think I understand that old definition. People 50 miles from home didn't know you weren't an expert, and if you are an expert it's safe to acknowledge you because you're probably not a competitor! Today the Internet has made us all competitors. So today experts really do need to know everything about an ever shrinking subject!

Experts work cheep! How can someone who may charge you several hundred dollars an hour be cheep? It's very simple you can make money on an expert's advice.*

Experts must know the answers!

Professionals must know the questions!

Professionals, real estate professionals coordinate the entire real estate process. To be a real estate professional is a matter of attitude, fortitude, tenacity and knowing the questions! It's not necessary to know the answers, it's necessary to know and ask all the questions! It's necessary to select and control the experts.

The professional's job is to protect his client and get the project done! The expert's job is to answer the questions ask.

It's possible to be both professional and an expert, but why limit yourself?

Experts will always be necessary. Necessary to the professionals! Professionals with broad knowledge are so much more useful! Professionals know there is always more than one way, if any one expert isn't available or up to the job there is always another way to get the information!

Professionals are trusted because they cite the experts!

Agents, who claim way to much "expert knowledge" in a board spectrum are doubted, and rightfully so!

Do you present yourself as a Professional or an Expert? Do your business cards and on-line profiles list you as an expert or even "Specializing" in every thing your license allows? If so, then don't except to be respected!

You are not specializing if you list every possible specialty! Such puffery leaves a bad taste in the clients mouth, like a dentists who was practicing proctology on the patient before you!

Experts are great! But, if you're going to become an expert you'll have to limit your area of expertise.

Professionals on the other hand can practice in all markets because they rely on experts for local details. Professionals can be trusted because they cite the appropriate experts.

Is it possible to be both? Of course, but why limit yourself?

Personally, I've been a professional fiduciary for 36 of the last 40 years. And the only expertise I claim is I'm the world's best expert on the opinions of William J Archambault Jr! On other subjects I know how to get the answers, I'm a real estate professional.

*Those oh so valuable experts go from cheep to outrageously expensive if ask an open ended question or the wrong question!

Are you prepared to be judged on the content of your character? Today is a day of great expiations!

Today is the day we set aside each year to honor the legacy of a man, just a man, infract a flawed man, a man just like us. A man made great by his incredible dream, a dream that we would all reach a point where we judged all men by "the content of their character!"

I'm not going to tell you how to judge men, you'll hear enough of that today.

I want to ask are you prepared to be judged on the content of your character?

Do you have character worthy of honoring the man's memory?

Are you prepared to be judged on the content of your character?

In our sound byte world have you abbreviated "The Golden Rule" to "Do unto others?"

Are you prepared to be judged on the content of your character?

Do you think logicly or hate blindly?

Are you prepared to be judged on the content of your character?

Are you entitled or do you earn your place in the world?

Are you prepared to be judged on the content of your character?

Do you stand for the underdog? Even when he's richer than thou?

Are you prepared to be judged on the content of your character?

When you represent a client do you act as their fiduciary or place your own interest and expediency above the client's?

Are you prepared to be judged on the content of your character?

Misconceptions: Education vs Experience.

Misconceptions: Seasoned vs Inexperienced.

With regards to real estate, sales, consulting, and mortgage lending:

Education vs Experience, education can’t be separated from experience. Education is inexpensive, quick, voluminous, safe, and painless experience acquired vicariously through the literal experiences of others. Experience is the accrued education of one’s lifetime and can never exceed the bearer’s age without formal education. Education allows a student to acquire the experience of another’s life, of many life times. Experience is tactile education! Education protects us and our clients from unnecessary painful and some times fatal experience, but provides us with the value derived from such experience.  

Experience without education can be extremely dangerous in those areas of life that require things to be done right the first time! In real estate it is not necessary to be the most experience to be the best for the job.

On the other hand would you go skydiving with an instructor who knew everything, but had never made a jump? Real estate can be just as scarey as sitting in the doorway of a perfectly good Cessna with one foot on the strut about to jump. One mistake and the real estate can rush up to you and smack you in either scenario. It’s always best to have an educated advisor with some experience.    

Seasoned vs Inexperienced, this is possibly the hardest area for potential clients, for consumers, and fellow real estate people to determine about a possible fiduciary. Seasoning is most often mistaken for accrued time, conographic time has no relevance to real estate experience! We have a saying in real estate about selected people: “They have six months experience many times, over!”  Six months, because that’s about the minimum time required to be a functional illiterate! Many practitioners never grow beyond that point, even worse our market has been so forgiving until recently that some have taken years to reach the six month milestone. In real estate years without practicing simply don’t count.

Now go buy a house!

I spent much of this afternoon listening to a webanar on the revisited Good Faith Estimate, revised to protect the consumers we're told. To Protect The Consumer Ya Right!

To believe this not only requires a a suspension of logic,you'd have to believe that Janet Reno saved the children she had barbecued at Waco, that Mrs Randy Weaver intended to do great bodily harm with a new born baby, and that Ellian Gondolas want to live in Cuba. Only a bureaucrat or moron can find solace in this missed labeled slight of hand.

As I listened I though that, that's livable, but it's nothing new, why didn't they just enforce the old law? Enforcement would have provided all the protection they claim to want. To Protect The Consumer Ya Right

Then I listened further. This law is going to raise the cost of mortgage money to the consumer! This law is going to lower the level of service lenders can provide. This law is going to make providing pre-application disclosures in a readable, usable, easy to understand form a violation. This law institutionalize contusion! This law institutionalize deception. This law institutionalize higher cost. This law helps no one except big banks.

This law serves no useful purpose!

I'd like to make my position clearer, but that would require vulgar jokes and HUD is already one dirty joke to many.

I started the day whimsically, then I buried it see: Self Imposed Restrictions VS The Open Mind

Self Imposed Restrictions VS The Open Mind

PC Thinking Inside The Box                        Unresticted Thinking

In The Box Many Think They See The Light    There Is A Whole World For Those Without Restrictions

The choice is your's! You can go through life suffering from a self imposed tunnel vision or you can look at the whole world!

You can think you see the light or you can experience the whole world!

Those thinking inside the box get only a selected distorted view of the world and every thing else appears as a black abyss.

It matters not wether we're talking politically, socially, religiously, or discussing bushiness, the choice is your's!

The choice is your's! There is a whole wide wonderful world if you'll only expose yourself to it!

"Will I succeed" "Will I Survive?"

"I'm not Karnack the Magnificent!" I wrote three years ago, it's still true today! Our problems are different, we're suffering from our first Anti-American President and an un-American Congress, but we've survived bad administrations before. We've survived other strange real estate markets before. Yet people still ask: "Will I succeed" Will I Survive?"Such questions seeking answers that only God could know, and only psychics and/or fools claim to know.

I have a pat answer for anyone asking such questions, NO! I'm right much more often than wrong! It's not likely that anyone who would ask such questions will succeed.

This might seem harsh. All of us have our insecurities, everyone wonders will I succeed, will I survive, but it's nothing short of foolish to ask such things to anyone this side of God.

Your failure was not preordained by your doubts, but rather foretold by your questions.

Never, never, never ask a question that allows a useless negative answer! Never!

To survive when asking questions that seek opinions, you must word them very carefully to elicit the desired response. 

"Will I succeed?" No, is as devastating as it is useless. Yes, is as reassuring as it is useless. Both, are useless!

Opinions, of any value, can rarely be expressed as yes or no. It's rare for a third party to advise you to take a risk, unless they will personally profit from their answer.

Knowing this, why ask a question that's answer can only cast doubts about the responder?

I'm assuming that you do want to succeed. If I'm right then the question should have been: "What do I need to do to succeed?" as an answer. Don't tell me what I can't do, tell me what I need to do to succeed! Can't be answered yes or no, The answer can also be devastating, but unlike yes or no even a wrong answer can be very useful. Your chances of success go up exponentially when you ask the right questions!

"What do I need to do to succeed?"

 Personally I don't accept "NO"

"Will you succeed?" How should I know? "Will you survive 2007 2010? Are you sure you want to?

If you, speficaly want to know how to succeed I can help! If you want to know how to flourish in 2007 2010, I can make some very good suggestions. If you want a definite yes then contact any of the TV Infomercial Gurus their answer is always, YES, all you have to do is send them a few more large checks!

For a good start consider this: When the market changes or we have a personal slump, you need to do two things! Go back to basics, and adapt! 

The Faith Of A Farmer!  I've never met a farmer with out a profound optimism! I've never met a farmer with out a goal! I've never met a farmer who didn't understand that you do the doable each day always moving towards your goal! I've never met a farmer with out a profound belief in God!

The Faith Of A Farmer!  I've never met a farmer with out a profound optimism! Farmers understand that it's the optimist who plant seeds with the sure and certain knowledge most will grow. Farmers understand that even a bad season or two is no reason to give up your faith, for as surly as some crops fail most will succeeded!

The Faith Of A Farmer!  I've never met a farmer with out a goal! Farmers understand that success depends on good planing. Success has to be defined to be achievable! Farmers have a defined and achievable goals!

The Faith Of A Farmer!  I've never met a farmer who didn't understand that you do the doable each day always moving towards your goal! The shortest route from point "A" to your goal at point "Z" is of course a straight line, but the surest route is going from the point you're at to a reachable point in the direction of your goal. It's may be desirable to go from "A" straight to "Z" but it's seldom possible!

The Faith Of A Farmer!  I've never met a farmer with out a profound belief in God! There faiths very, some even proclaim no faith, but there very actions demonstrate a profound trust in themselves and the Devine!

Do you list or sell "Short Sales?" Do you have the faith of a farmer?

"Short Sales" require a profound faith. They require the faith of a farmer!

"Short Sales" require optimism you till, you plant, you wait, you watch the seasons change, then you reap your rewards!

"Short Sales" require a goal!

"Short Sales" require you do the doable each day always moving towards your goal. Like farming it necessary to tend your crops. There are allot of annoying little things you must do between the offer and the closing!

Like winter wheat "short sales" sprout then they lay dormant for varying periods of time, before maturing and hopefully providing a bountiful harvest.

Do you have the faith of a farmer?  Do you have the faith necessary to succeed at "short Sales?" Do you have the faith of a REALTOR?

Can you spare 30 to 45 minutes?

Can you endure a pin prick?

Can you drink orange juice?

Can you eat just no more cookie?

Can you save a strangers life?

Can you save a Rainer?

Yes! You can!

I don't comment on Lenn's post or comments. So this is being re-blogged with out comment!

Bill

If you do or would like to do short sales you should be a member of this group!

Did I mention that the price is right? It's free!

Bill

Who are you going to work for in 2010?  It's a new market, a different market, so who are you going to work for in 2010? It's a new year, a new decade, a different decade, so who are you ging to work for in 2010?

Are you going to work for the same people you worked for last year, last month, since you started in real estate?

Are you going to work for the same people your Parents and Grandparents did?

Are you going to do every legal thing possible to held your employer?

Are you going to know the rules, all the rules not just those limited to the comfort box in the middle, so you can provided not just good service, but rather out standing service to your employer?

Are you more concerned with impressing faux peers, than who you work for?

Who are you going to work for in 2010?

Any one naming their broker, franchise, or saying their independent you just failed this exam!

You are going to work for the same people you worked for last year, last month, since you started in real estate? You are going to work for the same people your Parents and Grandparents did?

You are going to do every legal thing possible to held your employer?

You are going to know the rules, all the rules not just those limited to the comfort box in the middle, so you can provided not just good service, but rather out standing service to your employer?

You are going to impress those you work for?

If you want to impress your peers succeed and teach them, don't clime into their mediocre box. People in the box tend to step on toes trying to get out. Teach, offer them a hand, help them out

You are if you're going to succeed! 

Who are you going to work for in 2010? 

You are going to work for the clients, your sellers, your buyers!

We're in a service business! Your broker knows real estate, so does the franchise people, you work with them not for them!

Who are you going to work for in 2010?   Your fiduciary!

A Though For Ought-Ten With Few Exceptions Today Is Always A Better Time To Buy Than Tomorrow

"If you have need of housing or cash flow and have long-term stability, there may never be a greater time to buy and/or invest than today!" With few exceptions today is always a better time to buy than tomorrow!

It's time to talk about the positive reasons to own your own home and the over whelming success home investors. It's time to buy! While you still can!

Rates are still very low. Qualifying is still possible. Comparable values have never been better for buyers!

If your life is stable, stupidity is the only excuse for not buying a home of your own. If you lack stability, it should be your primary concern. Today Is Always A Better Time To Buy Than Tomorrow