Carolina Mortgage Company was founded in 1986 and is locally owned and operated. Carolina Mortgage Company is one of the largest mortgage companies in Fayetteville and one of the largest VA lenders in NC. Dave Allred, the Broker/Owner and his staff are the friendliest people you are ever going to meet and they know more about mortgages than I'll ever know. Dave is well known in the industry and his company is widely known and respected. Agents rest easy when they learn that Audrey Lewis with Carolina Mortgage Company is processing their buyers' loan for their next closing! Here are several more reasons why CAROLINA MORTGAGE COMPANY can help your business in 2009!
Local Processors
Local Underwriters
Local Loan Originators (me)!
Local Closers
Local Funding
Local Appraisers that you pick! (if not VA assigned)
With us, you get quick pre-approvals that you can rely on with great LOW RATES and we will give you a 1-TIME FLOAT DOWN OPTION on any locked rates up until it closes WITH NO RATE BUMP LIKE MOST LENDERS! In addition to those highlights, here are more reasons to pick Carolina Mortgage Company.
Extremely Fast Closings are No Problem!
No application fee or fee to register the loan!
Only $150 for Govie processing or $200 for conventional loan processing!
Strong VA, FHA, USDA and State Housing Lender.
Carolina Mortgage Company pays the appraiser immediately so they are eager to work with the office on expedited loans, when needed.
I will be working 1:1 with my Fayetteville broker/owner, processor, underwriter, closer and your buyers to make sure your loan closes quickly and smoothly. This will be more HIGH TOUCH for you and your buyers that will help you in getting AND retaining better buyers!
Buyers will be able to meet me at your office or at my new office in Fayetteville, NC right at the intersection of Reilly and Cliffdale Roads.
As always, I am available 7 days a week to make sure you are getting the best service you can for your business.
With many borrowers that I came into contact in previous years suffering from ID theft, I can now offer protection for them and you. Pre-paid Legal, Inc. offers this ID monitoring with restoration services for only $9.95/mo. with their association with Kroll America, a lender in this industry for 30 years as well. ID Theft is now larger than the illegal drug industry and getting bigger every day! ID theft can affect your finances and many other things as well that can take years and a whole lot of money to correct. Without a monitoring service, once you find out that it happened to you, it will be too late. If you are interested in this protection for yourself and your family or if you want to pursue this opportunity for your career aspirations so you can help your clients and friends, give me a call. Join my team and I will help you get started with this additional career opportunity so you can supplement your real estate business in 2009. This is a great way to earn more income while giving you another networking opportunity so it can help your real estate sales that way too.
Pre-paid Legal is another company that I have joined as an associate and you can too. I have attended 2 meetings and researched this company and found it to be a very solid company that was founded over 30 years ago. This company protects your legal rights by assigning you to a regional attorney licensed in NC and SC, etc and access to attorneys throughout the country that can help you when you are traveling as well 24/7. The charge for this service is only around $17/mo for a family plan depending on the level of service you need. Over 50,000 companies offer this service to their employees nationwide as a benefit to their employment! I can now offer this to you too. With the many things that can happen to you in your profession as a realtor or US citizen these days with many suing people at a drop of a hat, having a lawyer at your disposal is now a necessity to protect you, your business and your family. This legal service is very exciting with many free services and if you want to learn more, please give me a call. Did you know that realtors are sued more than any other profession behind attorneys and doctors? This is why need this protection for you and your business! Pre-Paid Legal has a special program just for realtors. Call and I will explain it to you!
It happened to me again at the food court at South Park Mall in Charlotte Friday night! I took a tasty sample on toothpicks from a Chinese restaurant worker and immediately decided to order a plate from their menu. Since they gave me 2 different meat choices to try and since I liked both, I asked if I could get half of each! They were very happy and friendly and they agreed in unison with bright smiles.
Well, just down the mall, there was another vendor with several attractive girls with lotion sample trays that were jumping out at mall shoppers trying to get them to take a sample. I steered as far as I could away from them and they still managed to get my attention every time I passed them by shouting out at me. I declined to accept their offer with each agitating attempt. Even though they were pretty, their pushy sales methods were way over the top and most shoppers were also avoiding them.
Are there any lessons that we can draw from these examples?
Absolutely!
Why don't you put together a tasty offering on your business card of your services and tempt some prospects with this push method of sales?
Here are some ideas:
Free First-Time Home Buyer Guide.
Free "Just Listed" email notices customized for your wish list.
Free Guide on How Stage a House for Showing.
Free Tips for Listing Your Home in a Slow Market.
Free Investor Guide for Home Flipping.
Notice the word "Free" that always appears in the offer? This is critical in this market. Also, make sure to include some testimonies and contact information in each promotion to help them see your value and your personality too. The main thing that these promotions do is to promote your ideas so they can understand how you work and so they will be sold on you before you really meet them. Then, hand these business cards out with a nice simple promotional comment and big warm smile and see what happens.
For you listing agents, here are some ideas to entice your buyers with some tasty incentives on some "listing business cards" that you can promote with some catchy ads like:
New washer/dryer installed if closes by end of February!
Seller will repaint the entire inside to suit new buyers taste!
New granite countertops in the kitchen!
New high-speed desktop PC given to any buyer at closing!
New 52" flat screen TV for the buyer that closes this month!
With many retailers offering tremendous discounts to move inventory, now is a great time to pick up some appliances at a deal that can help your sellers sell before their next mortgage payment is due! Make sure to give plenty of these cards to your sellers too and make sure that they hand them out in a warm friendly manner. Teach them a few things about sales and they'll learn to appreciate you better!
Before you do any of these things, take a look at your picture on your business card. Do you look approachable, friendly and kind? If not, get a new brighter, friendlier picture made and update your cards.
In the book I promoted last week, "Smile and Move", they made the point of saying that just being agreeable is not enough, you have to mean it. For example, when asked to do something for someone, does your YES say, "yes, if I have to" or "yes, it would be my pleasure?"
Some people really have a hard time with this while it comes natural for others. If you look at the successful sales people, you are going to find the latter, more than likely. Also, make sure your cards portray you in this manner too.
Be like the Chinese restaurant vendor and be pleasant in your offering and let your sample sell you for you!
This book also mentioned a study that says that people will remember their very best "peak" encounters (their emotionally-intense moments). When you go beyond expectations, you can create peak experiences and leave people with wonderful memories...
In case you missed it, here's the link for this book.
Here's another neat idea to help you make your business take off in 2009! Refer your prospects to call me by saying "I can have my personal mortgage advisor close your loan with a great rate and fast and easy processing!" This will make me Smile and Move too!
Movers can be a great networking resource for your business. Like the self-storage building owners I talked about last week, these guys are out talking to people just before they actually enter the real estate market every single day. Think about it. Say your dad is moving to an assisted living facility or to an apartment and he asks you to help him. Are you immediately going to call a realtor to list his house? No. But you might have to call a mover, right? Eventually, you might be helping your dad find a good realtor too and these movers might be the first to recommend a great one to you...
These 3rd-party referrals are huge! This is why you need to get to know these type providers and take care of them with your referrals too. You can get ahead of the real estate transaction cycle by working with the service providers that are working with these people early on. The earlier, the better. I have heard that people will use the first realtor that contacts them most of the time so try to be the first one. This is especially true if the realtor takes the time to build sound rapport like in the topic above! Remember the saying..."The early bird gets the worm!"
Other resources that will get you way ahead of the real estate cycle are the HR managers. Call them too and get them to put you on their recruiting team for their next job vacancy that will require a relocation from another town!
Get to know as many people as you can ahead of the real estate cycle and let them know that if they refer their clients to you, you are going to refer your clients to them or you will help them with their career goals too.
Ever wonder why those self-storage businesses are popping up all over the place? It's because demand is high for people that are in a hurry to store their household furniture and belongings and there's usually a future real estate transaction in the future of many of those using these for you.
With any economy but especially this one, people are having challenges making ends meet and this causes marriages to fail and people to move in search of a better job. In addition, our population is aging which is also creating many to seek quick storage solutions.
Here are several things I thought of that may cause someone to use a self-storage unit:
Recent separation or divorce.
Downsizing to a smaller home, apartment or to an assisted-living or continual care facility.
Moving to the area and staying in a hotel.
Moving out of home and fixing it up to sell soon.
Running out of room in their house. (might need a bigger house soon to store it all) "Packrat syndrome".
So, since many people using these storage units might be entering the real estate market soon, why not start networking with the owner and managers of these facilities in your area?
Take them to lunch and sell yourself and also express that you want to start referring clients to them too! This relationship will be a win/win and help their business grow.
Another thought I had regarding self-storage is to use these units to de-clutter one of your listings! This added service for your sellers could help their house show a whole lot better and by having this new relationship with the self-storage manager or owner, you are sure to get the seller's a "special rate".
Think about self-storage warehouses and how they can help your business and start networking with these guys starting today!
Just add these self-storage guys to your 'service provider network list' along with the plumbers, electricians, landscape guys, interior decorators, roofers, flooring guys, carpenters, handymen, etc. When you do, you'll start to see your business take off with tons of new referrals!
Make sure you tell the self-storage guy about your mortgage advisor too
I picked up a take-out pizza while watching a ball game yesterday and when I got my pizza, there was a Red Cross flyer on it. The flyer was promoting the Red Cross's $100 million nationwide disaster relief fundraiser. If you want to contribute, you can go to www.scotlandcountyarc.org or go to the Red Cross website in your town.
Anyway, the flyer gave me an idea. Why not help a non-profit organization or business with a promotion with information about them or with a coupon for their service along with a promotion about your service? Then visit restaurants, retail stores, hotels, etc. in placing these flyers for the organization or business for them to hand out to their customers.
As you are handing out your flyers, don't forget to network to the owners, managers and employees too!
You can help non-profit organizations or businesses with their promotions by doing the printing and legwork to help their cause or their business. I am sure that these managers or owners will appreciate your effort for a win/win for both of you. And since business owners that will be handing your flyers to their customers will be getting some recognition for the effort, you will be helping them help their customers, so it is a win/win/win. But but if you throw in the benefit to the customer, it is really a win/win/win/win! Everybody wins!
Call a non-profit organization or business that you like and ask if you can help promote them with your creative ideas! For your promotion on the flyer, you can just give a website link to your website with a note, "Check out my website for Hot New Listings!" or "Go here to sign-up for my 'Just Listed' emails so you will know as soon as new home properties are listed in town!".
If you try this, put my website links on your promotions and I will help you by pre-approving your buyers for you!
My wife and I used to live in an apartment for 5 years right after we got married and while we never had a T-Rex living beside us like in the picture above, we did have some loud and obnoxious neighbors making our lifes' miserable. For the most part, apartment living was okay but at one point, the guy living below us was working on cars right below our 2nd floor patio! Putting up with neighbors with loud stereos was the most annoying thing we had to deal with in those days.
We also had an angry husband shoot out the glass door below us with a shotgun trying to get his wife out who was inside with her boyfriend. I actually went downstairs and tried to talk some sense to the husband who was still holding the shotgun!! When I finally realized how dangerous this situation had become, I quickly retreated back to my apartment and called the cops. My neighbor across the courtyard was watching and had been screaming to the police on the phone the whole time.
Needless to say, as soon as we saved enough for a down payment to get our first house to get out, we did!
Back then, interest rates were around 18% and there were no 100% financing options or $7500 first-time buyer tax credits!
With conditions just right for apartment dwellers to move up into a nice house and out of a situation that they are tired of, now is the time to prospect for as many apartment dwellers as you can. Do this with windshield flyers or with a postcard mailer campaign to the "Current Resident" to all of the apartment addresses in your area. By addressing to the current resident, you are sure that it will be delivered and this keeps your mailing list current and simple.
Also, check out the "Housing Wanted" sections on www.Craigslist.com and in the local papers for apartment dwellers.
When you do, promote the $7500 tax credit for first-time home buyers (anyone that has not owned a home in at least 3 years).
Also, promote the great mortgage rates below 6% available now with the FED's most recent mortgage bailout plan.
And promote a few properties that could be financed for approximately the same monthly mortgage amount that would represent what those apartment dwellers are paying in their monthly rent.
In order to increase your chances of getting some prospects that are ready to move out of their apartment, add a prize drawing chance from all of those that signed-up to receive your "Just Listed--Hot List"email alert system. This can easily be done using your MLS prospecting manager program once you get their email addresses and some particulars about the type home they want.
Also, try to get them in your office as soon as you can so you can really interview them right so you are able to customize their searches to their real wants and needs as mentioned above.
You can also plug in my cell phone number too in your advertisements if you want so I can pre-approve these prospects for you!! Let's work together with this idea and make some sales to start the new year off right!
The key to finding the perfect home for your buyers is to take more time up-front getting to know them better and probing for more about their preferences for now and in their future. When you do this, you are going to find better homes for your buyers and close them faster too!
I have never been a realtor but I have interviewed over 100 people throughout my career for positions and here's how we did it... We had standard questions and we always had 2 interviewers for each candidate. One asked the questions and the other wrote their answers. The questions were mostly open-ended questions that were always written to get the candidate to tell about a time when they did something or about a situation and how they handled it. We wanted to know about some demonstrated tasks, not how they think they would perform in a hypothetical setting...
This type of interview can be HUGE for you because people love to talk about themselves (don't you?) and this helps them do that so you build better rapport.
In case you are interested in this concept, here's 12 questions I thought of for your buyer interviews:
Tell me about your Thanksgiving dinner; where did you have it? (stop and listen after each question) How did the preparation go? Was the kitchen adequate? What kind of kitchen are you leaning towards now? Are there any features of the kitchen that you are looking for in particular?
Tell me about your childhood home; how big was it and did you have your own bedroom? How many bathrooms did your home have? Do you want your kids to have their own rooms or to share a room? What's your thoughts about a 2 story house?
What kinds of schools did you attend when you were growing up? Were your schools near your home? Have you visited the schools that your children might attend next year? If not, do you want to? (this is a great activity to help you build rapport and meet tons of teachers and other parents too!) Do you have any preferences for the schools yet?
Tell me about your experiences playing in your yard; was it a big yard? What kind of games did you play? Is the yard for your next home a priority?
How many homes have you ever lived in with a fireplace? Who cut the firewood and brought in the wood and got the fires going? Do you want a fireplace now? Wood-burning or gas?
Did you ever have to cut the grass or rake leaves when you were growing up? Did you like doing those kinds of things? What about gardening? What kind of yard does your perfect home have?
What kind of heat do you have in your apartment now? Have you had other types in previous homes? Which types do you prefer for your next home?
Have you ever had a garage or a carport? Is that something that you think you would like to have now? How many cars do you own?
Have you ever had a formal living and/or dining room? Did you use them often? Do you like to entertain? Does your dream house have formal areas?
Have you ever lived in a neighborhood with close neighbors? Did you like living close to others or do you prefer living in the country setting away from others?
What kind of sports or activities did you do growing up? Are your kids following in your footsteps? So a local ball field is going to be a high priority for your family?
Did you or your husband work on cars or have a workshop in your last home or when growing up? Was that something that you or he enjoyed doing? Is this something that we should add to your wish list too?
I think these kinds of questions will help you get to know your buyers much better and these questions will help your buyers really understand the kind of home that they are really looking for too. By digging deeper into their inner feelings and past experiences, I think you are going to quickly find them the perfect house that they will be anxious to buy with you.
This helps you get to their "emotional wants" and that is an important key to sales! Get a colleague to take notes for your next buyer interview and watch how you do this and you can return the favor for them when they need a "note taker". This process will impress your buyers right out of the shoot! When you do, call me so I can help you pre-approve them as part of your interview process!!
This Christmas, let's all promote some great homes that would be just the right Christmas present. Publish your listings with Christmas decorations and you can also mention that you'll throw in the big bow to set if off for them for Christmas.
Our economy and our industry need some new buyers and now's the perfect time to do this with a festive splash!
You probably won't be able to afford a bow like this but you might be able to put on a nice Christmas Wreath. This is also a great way to show off your listings! To help your buyers really get excited about a new home for Christmas, ask them to call me for a quick pre-approval and smooth and easy loan closing.
Remember that our system for processing loans is just what your buyers and you need to get through the holidays. Our pod processing system with our agent help desk is designed to keep rolling along while the other lenders bog down with processors taking off for vacation leaving you out in the cold...
Call me and we'll show you how mortgage loans are supposed to be processed!
A wealth of useful information that can help you prospect, list and close more deals this year. Helping you in your business is my #1 goal. I believe in reaping what you sow and hopefully, once you read my blogs, you'll reward me with some referrals so I can really help you and your business this year! Check out my NC and SC blogs!
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
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