I talked about how I see potential in disclosing property offers to all parties, in an open, real-time marketplace.  The discussion on Bloodhound Blog was predictably philosophical; xenophobia was displayed by some folks on Active Rain.

The Big Idea was that this added transparency might engender trust among the home buying public, the banks, Wall Street, and the Government regulators.  What I hadn't considered was the benefits to the seller.

Sellers sometimes question if they see ALL potential offers on their properties.

AREBOT.com hopes to change all that.  AREBOT.com announced its worldwide release on BloodhoundBlog:

AREBOT.com, which stands for the American Real Estate Board of Trade,  is the name of the company that intends to open up the demand-side statistics, by voluntary submission of properties, to an online NASDAQ-like market.

AREBOT.com is not intended to be an “auction”.  It is an open, transparent, real-time market.  Each zip code will have a live “ticker” moving across the screen, displaying actual offers on homes.  Each listed property will display a time-dated offer history.  Entries are voluntary and cost nothing to the sellers of the home.  The “price”, if you will, is that they offer the property on this  transparent market.

The Company has authorized me to extend an invitation, to Active Rain real estate agents, to a conference call:

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 1PM  RSVP on Bloodhound Blog

Buyers don't trust real estate agents, lenders, nor appraisers, because we willfully withheld material market data from them.  I talked about this on Bloodhound Blog:

What If The Real Estate INDUSTRY Didn’t Control The Real Estate Market?

Please click the link and read the full article before you comment because you'll look silly if you don't understand the full depth of the problem and proposed solution. 

Here's the problem:

We hid market information from the buyers while the Baby Boomers moved through the home ownership life cycle.   A huge generation, yearning for “The American Dream of Homeownership”, assured strong demand for houses in the post-World War Two housing boom.  Banks were all too happy to hand out money, even when forced to lend by the Government.  Lew Ranieri saw a 25-year boom ahead and found a way to create a shadow banking system that could “bury bad loans”.  Any agent dealing with a short sale understands the problem of buried loans because she’s heard:

“Well, we aren’t quite sure WHO owns this loan”

Kind of sounds like the forensic audit of Bernie Madoff’s books, doesn’t it?  That’s what you hear when the jig is up on a Ponzi scheme:  confusion, wagon-circling, and practiced deflection.  It eventually catches up with the schemers.  I’m firmly in the camp that no matter how many incentives we offer to stave off the inevitable forced sales, or to provide a middle-class tax cut, or to bribe the next generation of buyers, the simple fact remains that we have more houses than we need in this country…and the people just ain’t buying like they used to.

Here is a way the industry can solve the problem:

Prominently display the terms and dates of the rejected offers, verified by participating market professionals, in the MLS system, and you solve the demand side of the equation because you identify the “size of the market”.  Share that information with the banks and they’ll start trusting you.  Show it to the prospective buyers and they’ll throw their arms around you in joy.  The sellers will “get real” about the market, also.

This is why it won't happen:

We all know that ain’t gonna happen because “The Man” doesn’t want to release his clutch on the market.

That’s the real problem.  We don’t have a real estate market, we have a real estate industry created market.

Here is the final solution:

I met a guy last month who thinks he has a solution. It’s so simple it’s silly; an open market, like the NASDAQ, for real estate.  Watch offers for houses, in real-time, be accepted or declined.  NASDAQ Level Two Quotes go beyond the bid and ask; they show the “size” of the market for those prices. The implementation of that transparency greatly reduced the previous NASDAQ market manipulation, that stymied the individual investor to favor institutions.  It isn’t perfect but exposure to that data makes the market operate more efficiently.  Apply that model to real estate and you will quickly determine what the “real” market is for a property.

I talked about how to use the principles of the Millionaire Real Estate Agent, when soliciting business from REALTOR partners, over on the Mortgage Cicerone.   I suggested that originators implement a 33-touch program for REALTOR partners so that you stay in front of them.  The Top of Mind Surefire system does an excellent job of co-marketing yourself, to both the REALTOR and the customer, post-closing.

What can you do, prior to closing a transaction, to demonstrate value to potential REALTOR partners?

I swiped the Loan Toolbox “Gift of Knowledge” idea and found a way to make it more relevant to your local market (and a helluva lot cheaper).

I like to conduct a 30-minute interview with a working, full-time REALTOR and distribute a CD of that interview it to my REALTOR referral base .   It’s much more effective than the Loan Toolbox Gift of Knowledge idea because it positions you as the interviewer. 

Here’s how I do it

If you're an originator and haven't read The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, by Gary Keller and Dave Jenks, you're missing out on a great way to market to REALTORs.  The cornerstone of the MREA plan is database management.  The authors advise agents to "touch" their "met" database 33 times in a twelve month period.  It's a highly disciplined approach and most real estate agents fail to implement it but they wish they could.

Mortgage originators traditionally do a better job at managing databases better than their agent cousins.  Why aren't originators "touching"  thier REALTOR database thirty-three times, then?  If each "met" REALTOR, touched 33 times, can produce three purchase loans annually, a stable of 25, full-time agents can put an originator on the path to 6-7 purchase loans each month. 

Consider this "touch plan" for marketing to real estate agents (opens in a new window)

Admit it.  You’ve wondered if there was a lot of fat in title policies, didn’t you?  I mean, how many claims does a title company REALLY get in this “nobody trusts anyone” market?  We order a title commitment and the title company:

• performs a detailed search of the property’s chain-of-title
• mitigates most any risk
• insures the title and earns an insurance premium.

One would think that this highly-regulated, extremely commoditized business would file premiums within cents of each other, right?

I received a direct mail piece from READ THE FULL POST

I mentioned yesterday that we needed an Experienced Loan Processor and submitted an advertisement on Craigs List.  It was really quite a bargain at $50 (I advertised in two categories).  I was quite pleased with the results.  We had five people submit their resume and four of them actually called us.  I'm reasonably certain that we'll be able to select one from the highly-qualified candidates.

One of the features I really liked is that I could write a long-copy advertisement.  You'll notice from the prose that I tried to speak to EXACTLY whom I wanted; I wasn't disappointed.  My rationale for writing the advertisement like a blog post is that I wanted to disclose as much as possible while entertaining the reader.  I wanted them to get a feel for my personality and marketing prowess.  After all, the processor's income will be dependent upon my ability to generate sufficient business.  I assumed that they were interviewing me as much as I would be interviewing them; I wanted to impress the candidates.

Mr. Rudy Butler emailed me expressing his difficulty submitting through Craig's List:

I was trying to send over my info but it keeps getting kicked back from craigslist. Can you send me a diffrent (sic) email address ?

Always the pleaser, I responded immediately:

try mortgage_loan_officer@yahoo.com

What I didn't expect was the html-laden spammy advertisement for loan modifications. Certainly, Mr Rudy Butler found an innovative way to harvest e-mail addresses to "reverse advertise" his loan modification processing software, by e-mailing unsuspecting employers, under the guise of a help wanted advertisement.  Awfully clever, isn't it?  I mustn't have been in my normally appreciative mood today; I e-mailed him this reply:

I hope you didn't take my email address from the reply I sent you to add to your marketing database.  I returned an email inquiry to the processing job.  I did NOT opt in to receive marketing pieces.  Please remove me immediately.

You see, I can get really protective of my inbox.  I receive close to 400 e-mails daily; 75% of them are unsolicited spam.  I hadn't realized I was in the presence of such online marketing innovation!  Mr. Rudy Butler set me straight, though:

I didn't add you to any kind of marketing list. You were looking for a processor and that what I was offering a software that can do all the Loan Modification processing for you . Its worth checking out. It will cut down on you overhead and increase your profits

Aha!  Silly me.  I dont REALLY need an experienced government loan processor, I need a loan modification processing software program.  It will cut increase my profits!  I must not have understood because I replied:

Please remove me from your list, Rudy.  We don't do loan modifications.

Mr Rudy Butler corrected my testy demeanor (with a last ditch sales pitch):

Okay Brian chill out I dont have a list I got your info off of craigslist but If you dont do Loan Mods then I wont contact you about that. Do you have any clients that need Debt Settlement ? We can settle for 50% with no upfront fees. If not Thanks for your time

I felt I needed to be specific in my denial of his request for consideration of his services:

Please don't contact me, Rudy.

Alas, Mr Rudy Butler had to have the last word:

Okay Brian I will keep that in mind.

Thank you, Mr Rudy Butler; you do that.  Just in case you forget, this blog post can be a perpetual reminder.

PS:  if you were more impressed than I was, you might follow @MrLoanMod on twitter

We're slammed so that's a good thing.  If any of the folks on Active Rain know candidiates for an experienced Loan Processor position, we're hiring one (maybe two) of them.  Our purchase business volume spiked and my wife Debra is taking off for the summer, as of June 10.  She'll come back after Labor Day as a loan originator.

Anyway, I posted this on Craig's List and would appreciate it if you'd forward it to any worthy candidates:

This is the perfect setup for a grizzled, experienced mortgage loan processor. You walk with a swagger because you can recite FHA and VA underwriting guidelines verbatim. Heck, you might even have a DE certification in your background. You were probably aghast at the stupid NINJA loans being funded earlier this decade. You didn't know why originators weren't developing real estate agent relationships and wondered what would happen when Armageddon came to the mortgage industry...so were we.

Armageddon came to the mortgage industry but we're still standing. A little battered and bruised but we weathered the hurricane well; now we're thriving.

How'd we pull it off? Old-school hustle, that's how. We embraced the internet, called a bunch of real estate agents, read the guvvie underwriting guidelines, and started funding loans for first-time home buyers. Imagine working with a team of originators who actually READ underwriting guidelines, court real estate agent business, and do what they say they're gonna do..that's us. The result? We fund a lot of VA(they're the most fun), FHA, CalSTRS, and CalPERS loans. We got a lotta happy sailors, marines, teachers, firemen, and cops as clients.

We mostly broker to the conduits right now (Sierra Pacific, Uniwest, Mountain West, and First Mortgage) but we're not scared to broker to the big boys (Countryide/BofA and Wells Fargo). We have a correspondent relationship with Flagstar but we only fund there if it's in the borrower's best interest. You won't find 4 point loan jockeys here; we pride ourselves on our ethics (and volume).

Here's the other cool part. Our firm has been in the same Kearny Mesa building since 1991. We ain't going anywhere. Our problem? We need you, the seasoned, beat-up but proud loan processor who gets off on funding loans. If you like walking into an originator's office, with a clean underwriting approval for a hard loan, and being APPRECIATED for your professional dedication, you're gonna love working with us.

Are we being boastful? You're darned skippy we are! We love this business and understand that we're saving the American economy...one loan at a time. If we're speaking to you (and you know we are if you've read this far), we want you to stand up and be counted.

PS: Most of you will e-mail your resume and that's okay but the shining star that joins our team will e-mail the resume AND call (858)-777-9751. We expect that our "shining star" will be working with us by June 1.

PPS: If we love each other, we'll set you up in a nice private office, in our Kearny Mesa location. We'll give you an LOS-equipped desktop, access to AUS, FHA connection, the VA TAS, and tools that you need to be a kick-butt processor who can be proud of the job you do. We'll also protect you from "newbies" who want to sap all your experience, time, and energy, Confidently call and e-mail if you want to see if we're meant to be together.

• Location: Kearny Mesa- San Diego
• Compensation: Fee Per Funded File
• This is a contract job.
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Phone calls about this job are ok.
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.