Personal Ignorance Is An Incredible Opportunity! Yes! Personal ignorance is an incredible opportunity! Experience and Expertise are often yoked together along with Pessimist and Procrastination, two teams pulling in opposing directions!

My readers may find it strange that I would praise ignorance, I’ve been fighting ignorance since I first taught credit and qualifying to REALTORS® way back in 1974.

Ignorance is just the lack of education. I love the naively ignorant, those people that just need to be shown the light! I identify with those people! "Don’t tell me what can’t be done tell me what I’ve got to do to get the job done!"

Then there are the stupid! Stupid people are not always ignorant, but it’s hard to tell. Many stupid people are excessively educated, for no practical purpose. An idiot savant is in fact stupid in most subjects. You’ve got to love stupid people, because it’s not their fault they are as they are. Fortunately truly stupid people are few and far between! Most of those that we assume are stupid are simply extremely ignorant. We must remember too, ignorance must be determined within the culture of the individual subject, we need only look around us, people from every "ignorant" third world country in the world have succeed here, proving it’s nurture not nature that separates people. How would we appear in the jungle or desert? With out our tools?

Then we have those oxen with Experience and Education who use it to justify their limations! People with self imposed ignorance. Oxen who comfortably embrace the limitations of their yoke mates. Those emasculated oxen who use their education and experience as an excuse, as a personal barrier, as justification for their own limitations! Oxen can do nothing more than their peers!

Personal ignorance is an incredible opportunity!

Great people come in three forms. The truly great that do the impossible because it was thrust upon them. The simply great that are too naively ignorant to know it can’t be done! Those wonderful people that know almost every things is possible.

(There are few truly stupid people in real estate, yet many an ox! Rightly or wrongly our real estate licensing system requires us to accept our companies’ yoke. Salesmen licensed to a broker must accept the broker’s rule, I’d have it no other way! It is the broker’s job to educate his salesmen. It’s the salesmen’s job to educate/enlighten/convince his broker before deviating from office policy. Both broker and salesmen accept fiduciary to the clients it is that fiduciary that demands that we shuck the yoke of conformity and strive for greatness in service.)

I believe in the rules! I believe in the law! I believe it is those people magnificently, naively ignorant of other people’s limitations can become great!

Rules and Laws One Suggest The Other Dictates! Part 1 of 3 or maybe 4

Rules and Laws One Suggest The Other Dictates! Part 2 of 3 or maybe 4

Rules and Laws One Suggest The Other Dictates! Part 2.5 of 3 or Maybe 4

Yes you have housing choices during economic distress! You could rent. You could move in with Ma and Pa. Or you could stand up and act like an investor and buy your own home!

I got upset after reading a friends blog.

Then I ranted: Fiduciary Or Whore Agent Or Hired Friend

Then I posted a stream of consciousness:

Fiduciary Expertise Attorney Licence Competency

My friend’s a very good agent, he didn’t do anything I haven’t done hundreds of times, when we get caught off guard or when to busy or harried, or we just don’t take an inquiry seriously. What bothered me was one phrase: "...really had no way to buy a home."

Nothing in the blog established an inability to buy! That assumption was as unsupported (in the blog) as the assumption that the buyer could buy.

All that was established was a lack of money! More specifically the buyer was not prepared to prove he had money. Neither of which means he can’t buy.

Nothing posted showed he couldn’t get pre-approved. (My friend probably had more information.)

It’s the idea that with out money you can’t buy in this post reinforces that’s wrong! It’s the lack of pre-qualifying that keeps one from buying!

Thanks to my first broker and a decade with FLI I was taught a higher level of service. You don’t abandon a sincere and truthful client! You might not take them in the first place.

First things first you need to determine what resources the client has. Without cash we have to ask about is the buyer a veteran? Then is there a gift available from family or friends? FHA can accept a gift as down payment. With FHA and VA the buyer can still pick almost any house he can afford. Does the buyer have family or a friend with a house to sell? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will accept a gift of equity if you can prove the relationship.

If all else fails and the buyer needs a home he’ll have to think like an investor. Home buyers dream of specifics, Investors think of benefits. Home buyers want what the want, investors want what they can get. Think like most home buyers and you may need to share your room with a sibling or two.

Thinking like an investor you look for the doable, you look to solve your problem by solving someone else’s! Traditionally that meant houses in foreclosure and REO’s. Lack of equity has made most, but not all foreclosures impractical, new disclosures make it dangerous for Agents to help. The big banks don’t cooperate the way they use to. All of witch contributes to the whining that it can’t be done.

Those proclaiming it can’t be done are right, they can’t do it! That doesn’t mean you can’t do it!!!

REO’s are still a problem to the lenders, but with overwhelming numbers the big banks treat them like sweeping the floor, except most of their janitors are better paid and educated than their REO clerks.

But, there’s still an opportunity! Small local Banks, S & L’s and Credit Unions still treat REO’s as a major problem. It’s still possible to solve a client’s problem by solving a seller’s problem! Small local Banks, S & L’s and Credit Unions have money they need to sell their REO’s! They won’t admit to accepting offers with out large down payments, so don’t ask! Don’t ask present them a written offer!

There are two ways to find such opportunities. You can like most search the local MLS looking for REO’s, preferably with a higher than normal split to the selling office, witch is indicative of a troubled seller or a brighter listing agent. Searching the MLS is easy, but it could comprise you if you later contact the seller. I suggest visiting the Small local Banks, S & L’s and Credit Unions, having coffee with their REO manager and asking the money question! The money question is not asking for the listing, it’s simply asking "what’s your biggest problem?" What ever you do don’t ask if they’d take a creative offer, never, never, never, never! Never created a "NO" it adds another obstacle you’ll have to over come. Write an offer! Witch leads us to the second big no-no. if the property is listed never let the lister present your offer! Present your offer to the man with the problem!

From the Listing point it’s much the same see:

Who Knows More You Or Your Client

I find these relevant:

Friends Acquaintances Strangers In NeedPractical Pragmatic Real EstatePeople Centric Real EstateWoodyatake?

Fiduciary, expertise, attorney, licence, competency are all related, but not interchangeable. It never fails to surprise me how confusing the term "fiduciary" can be.

Many perhaps most think fiduciary requires "Expertise"

in many diverse areas. In fact you don't have to be an expert at anything to be a great fiduciary. An expert is someone with a great deal of knowledge about a particular and necessarily small subject. The smaller the subject the greater the potential expertise! Seldom does a fiduciary have the luxury of working in an area small enough to be fully covered by his personal expertise.

I’m over 60, with over 40 years in lending and real estate, I am indeed an expert in only one subject. If you'll check the glossary of any of my books you'll find I'm listed as the worlds greatest expert on the opinions of William J Archambault Jr! On other subjects I just hope to be well informed.

Because an "attorney at law" is always a fiduciary some think that being a fiduciary includes the power of attorney, they're wrong. Some people believe only an attorney or a real estate agent can be a fiduciary, they're wrong.

I have been honored/burdened to be "attorney in fact" as part of my fiduciary duties for selected clients over the years. "Attorney in fact" and "attorney at law" are all fiduciaries, but all fiduciaries are not attorneys! "Attorney in fact" and "attorney at law" are not the same although an "attorney at law" is the most common "attorney in fact."

All REALTORS® are real estate people, but all real estate people are not REALTORS®. Licenced real estate people used to be fiduciaries of the seller, then came agency, a choice and they could be fiduciaries of the buyer, too. Now days some honestly refute all fiduciary responsibility.

For the record, I'm not an "attorney at law!"

Competency,

fiduciary requires total competency! Competency does not require expertise! You don't need to know all the answers to be competent! Competency requires you to know the questions!

Competency

requires you to ask the questions, and analyze the answers, from relevant experts.

Fiduciary

is a contractual duty to a client! Fiduciary can be established in writing, orally, or legislatively.

Fiduciary

is a duty, an honor, a privilege and a burden!

Fiduciary competent fiduciary is the reason a client trust you.

Fiduciary, Expertise, Attorney, Licence and Competency above all else requires you to become an expert on the needs and capabilities of your client.

Are you a fiduciary or whore an agent or hired friend? Do you prostitute yourself or serve your client? Do you consult a client or service a customer?

In 1774 Edmund Burke, Member of Parliament speaking to of another MP said:

"If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?"

I submit to you:

If life and real estate were a matter of will upon any side, the consumer’s, without question, ought to be superior. But, life and real estate are matters of reason and judgement, and not entirely of inclination; and what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?"

Without need of any paraphrasing Burke also said:

"A representative owes the People not only his industry, but his judgment, and he betrays them if he sacrifices it to their opinion."

A fiduciary agent provides intimate personal services, but not on perverted demands like a whore’s customer! A fiduciary provides his judgment! A fiduciary can never be a yes man, never be a paid companion! A fiduciary excepts to be paid! A fiduciary may bet his fee on his ability to preform, but with little or no likelihood of a professional fee no one can be a fiduciary!

A fiduciary is friendly not a friend! A fiduciary is a fiduciary from the first contact. An agent waste both his and the potential client’s time if they don’t act like a fiduciary from the first contact. Fiduciaries consul, they show you how to get what you want, whores take requests and do if it’s good or not..

It’s a clear line between fiduciary and whore, one does what’s best for you the other does what you request, regardless of the out come.

It’s a fine line between fiduciary and fool, attorneys are the fiduciaries they generally will talk with you once with out a professional contract.

Are you a fiduciary or whore an agent or hired friend? It’s a rhetorical question. 

This is a prerequisite to a lesson in residential real estate. Many years ago I was privileged to spend almost 11 years as an active member of the Michigan CCIM Marketing Group to my ultimata regret I never got the designation. At the time I didn’t see the need mostly because after my first six months with the group I had learned so much, knew what I had yet to learn, but I wasn’t making any sales thought the group.

On the second morning of that monthly marketing session I was complaining about my lack of sales with in the group to the CCIM that brought me in. At that breakfast my friend ask me if I could spare three days the next week. The next Wednesday afternoon he picked me up at my home and we drove to Houhton Lake we checked into the Holiday Inn, I was surprised to find I knew allot of the REALTORS gathered their from the CCIM group. The next morning I attended my first FLI marketing session.

I’d been spending allot of time with the CCIMs, NAR best educated agents. The CCIMs concentrated on the client's finances, some thing my banking experience made me comfortable with. The CCIMs taught, investment analysis. tax law, estate planing and exchanging. I loved it, I couldn’t get enough education and soon I could prove that almost no investment was worth buying! We learned what was ideal and that was what we strived for. My clients, like most investors just weren’t big enough to acquire the epitome.

At the Holiday Inn I was introduced to Chapter # 1 of The Farm and Land Institute, FLI. It turned out that about a third of this new group were also core members of the CCIM marketing group. That was just the first surprise. These people didn’t spend much time talking about their listings, they talked about their clients! By noon I was convinced this was just a bunch of gossips! I was 250 miles from home with out my car.

It got worse! That first evening instead of a class they held a barter session. Barter! No cash allowed! Yard sale or worse junk! Small stuff they dragged in from their cars big stuff they had photos of. Oh My God! It was a long evening.

At breakfast the next morning I was questioning my "buddy’s" sanity. His response was epic.  

That barter session was a class! Barter teaches you to think about benefits rather than cash or cash value.

They talked about their clients because people have problems not real estate! No matter how dilapidated a building is it doesn’t know it, it’s the buildings owner that has the problems.

By the end of the second day I learned what the CCIMs never teach how to sell a two percent return.

How do you sell a two percent return? You find a man making only one percent and double his money!

What was the main doctrine of those FLI brokers? Unlike their better educated friends looking for ideal deals, these simple people-people believed you looked for two people with problems and left them better off for having met you.

I labeled this as a prerequisite to a lesson in residential real estate. I’ll get very specific in the next few days, but if you work with troubled home buyers you must know their finances like a CCIM and their problems like those FLI broker of yore.

Some things we have to remember! It matters not what political perversion you follow. It matters not whether you’re the good witch from the East or the wicked bitch of the West. It matters not weather you’re spouting wisdom or babbling ignorance. It matters not whether you’re benevolent or vindictive. We have to remember real estate like life it self is symbiotic! "No man is an island!"

The vile venomous raft we see vented towards real estate’s different callings harms us all! It matters not who’s attacking who! In public it matters not who’s right. When the venom is flying everyone gets poisoned!

Specifics matter not! After four decades on all sides of the table I could/can and have more true horror stories than most have stories. I’ve been known to rant, some might say I’m doing so. But, specifics matter not we are all interdependent! To publicly rant against each other, especially an irrational emotional tirade harms us all!

We have to remember real estate like life it self is symbiotic! While there are some transactions that only require two specialties they’re rare! "Don’t ask for whom the bell toles it tolls for thee!"

No man is an island

No man is an island entire of itself; every man
is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;
if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe
is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as a manor of thy friends or of thine
own were; any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee

John Donne

1572-1631

"I’m a pretty good negotiator!" So said the guy talking to the camera in front of the pawn shop. So say the star pickers.

Talk about self-delusion!

These self-proclaimed negotiators, these buffoons almost always end up bidding against themselves. They have long since forgotten what polite grader schoolers know, "shut-up, the next one that speaks loses!"

Everyone is a salesman, everyone is born salesman, some are just better than others. I write about real estate investment, lending and borrowing and home ownership, but salesmanship is a lesson in life!

Most people rationalize not investing in real estate, or themselves that can't make the deals. Those going to the TV pawn shops and the pickers prove many can't!

Everyone is a salesman, new born babies cry and Mom sticks a warm nipple in their mouth, they ask for what they want and they get it, that's sales!

Pre-schooler ask for ice cream and then say please, please, please until Dad gives in, that's sales.

Some time before high school polite kids learn to ask once and then wait quietly staring until Dad gives in, that's sales.

During high school some revert to the demanding style of the new born, some to the begging of the pre-schooler, that's sales. Yes, some become timid, afraid to even ask for the chocolate milk they want instead of white.

We're all salesmen. We envy those among us who further develop their skills to ask a question and then shut-up, and wait for what they want!

Life is a sale.

As a kid growing up in the fifties I learned to ask once and stare. I perfected this with a pouty look that usually worked on Dad, occasionally on Mom, and almost always on my Grandparents. My great grandparents unfortunately were immune, I think they had trouble hearing and seeing me, it may have been selective.

Somewhere between birth and puberty the pouty look no longer helped, but ask and stare got better.

I wasn't taught salesmanship I was taught to be polite, but to ask for what I wanted and then quietly wait for an answer. I didn't grow up rich, but I was extremely privileged, thanks in great part to that little lesson.

I was taught to be polite and to ask for what I wanted. I could not have explained this simple technique in high school but I used it and I had a wonderful experience, it helped in collage. In Marine boot camp it let a lowly recruit get a little of his own back from the DI's. Out of the service and into banking, I used this simple method a hundred times a day, everyday.

It wasn't until after I left the bank to sell real estate that anyone explained this simple sales method to me. In my first sales class the instructor ask "what do you do after you ask for the order?" Some poor girl started to answer and the instructor shouted: "Shut-Up!" The girl was reduced to tears. The instructor then explained, "ask for the order, then shut-up... the next one who speaks loses." This is what the TV "stars" and their victims forget!

You're not going to get what you want every time, but if you don't give the person time to answer you'll never know what it takes to get it. People want to say yes just to be polite. If you can keep your mouth shut-up, they will either accept your offer or tell you why they won't. It works every time, in real estate, lending, borrowing, pawn, picking and life.

How long should you shut-up? I often tell the true story of an offer one of my students, Larry Hellner and I presented one night, at 10 PM (Yes real estate offers were presented by the man that wrote them and we tried to do so as soon as possable!) I asked the closing question about 10:30, no one spoke until 5 AM when the wife shouted at her husband to sign the offer!

Once you've made the sale, shut-uo, stop selling and "get-er-done!"　

Don't have any thing to sell, well ask your spouse, "let's go to bed early?" "Not tonight I've got a headache!" Now repeat "headache?" and shut-up (this is a good time to revive the pouty stare), enjoy. Now there is only one reason not to make your next sale, purchase, or kid, fear. I've been in lending and real estate sales for 40 years I've been teaching, real estate, real estate investment, sales, and lending since 1973 and I still get scared with every presentation. Why should you be different from the rest of us? I can't cure fear. To control fear remember that you'll probably never see the people again if they don't accept your offer, in which who cares what they think.

If you know you made an offer in which both you and the sellers win it's there loss not yours, they should be afraid of losing you.

Watch the sellers say "I want $1,200." Then the pawn broker says "I’ll give you $400!" after which the seller says "Would-ya-pay $1,000? $800? $700? $650? $500? All right $400 seems fair."

"I’m a pretty good negotiator!" Right!

Bob Stewart told my friend Jason Sardi "

No matter how much things change here at ActiveRain, using my name in the title of your post is your best chance of getting featured! :-P" SeeAn Open Letter To Bob Stewart. I’m not to proud to take good advice!

Sales, Pawn Stars, American Pickers, Bob Stewart

A favorite word, color, flower, song it all sounds sort of juvenile if not down right childish! Doesn't it?

Have you ever considered why kids have these favorites? I've concluded that child and adult a like, adopt these seemingly frivolous favorites because they are comforting. As adults we too seek comfort and inspiration in these simple things.

I have favorites and they do comfort and inspire me.

My favorite song has to be the Beach Boy's "I Get Around" because it so well describes Lynn Bingham, Tom Guisel, and I in high school and college. It was also contemporary to us. I miss those guys, but the song always reminds me of the good times.

My favorite flower the Tulip. The Tulip always reminds me of digging up those damn bulbs in the fall and replanting them in the spring, something I did for many years with my Mother. Tulips make me feel good.

My favorite color has to be variations of red. My first new car, the only one I ordered to all my personal spec's was Vermilion Red. Brenda and I painted a small, drab bedroom Bright Red once, our daughter was conceived in that room. Red makes me feel good.

Again I don't know if my favorites influenced my life or my life influenced my favorites. (Redundancy is my second favorite word, because it's the way I learn and teach.) I do know that as salesmen, business men, and real estate guru we're bombarded with negativity each day and our own doubts each night. Little things, pleasant memories can help you feel good, feeling good makes for more sales, more success, feeling good can get you through the tough times!

All of which brings me to my favorite word: "FORTUITOUS!" My life has been one fortuitous event followed by another. There is opportunity even in adversity if you look for it, if you recognized it! Life is in deed fortuitous! Don't mistake "fortuitous" for lucky, if a hundred dollar bill blows in your window that's luck, if you use it to publish you first book and sell a million copies that's "fortuitous!"

Our current mortgage crisis is in deed "fortuitous!"

for those that understand. Never have so many need your professional services, more.

Never in our life time has there been so much opportunity. Being in real estate today is fortuitous for you have all the tools in place to seceded! The difference between bad luck and fortuitous opportunity is all in your head!

I wrote this in 2008 it was relevant then and remains so!

I also use "Fortuitous" as an expletive! "Fortuitous" get's a lot more attention than the tripe "F..." or the blasphemous "G... D..." that so many thoughtlessly use.  A good loud "Fortuitous" at such times provides the same adrenalin rush and baffles the obverses.  "Fortuitous" never offends.

Attention all Communicators, Writers, Speakers, Salesmen, Pastors today is a day to calibrate!

Today in 1779 Peter Roget was born. Peter Roget’s thesaurus did more for communicators at the time than anything since the printing press. Peter Roget’s thesaurus today makes all the modern technology interesting.

Roget knew that it’s not enough to have something to say. Many a great idea has passed for lack of a precise word. Many a thought lost to forgettable, droll social intercourse. Roget’s words armed the common communicator what Colt did for the common fighter.

How appropriate today is also the day chosen to protest SOPA. In honor of that protest I have included nothing stochastic.

I Too Have A Dream. Today as we pause in the middle of political debauchery to honor the memory of Martin Luther King, I too dream of equal opportunity, equal housing opportunity! Equal access to security through real estate ownership!

Dr. King talked of people being "stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating FOR WHITES ONLY!" Can we be any less offended to day by limiting home ownership to those with "680 FICO's and 20% Down!"

Thomas Jefferson wrote in our Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." MLK called for "equal opportunity."

Yet today those politicos that shout the loudest about "equal opportunity" would limit the opportunities of those they proclaim to protect.

Somewhere in time "equal opportunity" has come to mean "equality of out come," Since no one can guarantee success, in deed it's against the laws of nature, positively unnatural, many have mistakenly excepted it to mean "equality of out come."

There is only one way to guarantee equal out come, that is to limit success! To limit opportunity! To limit out come!

Our current mortgage crisis is just such a case. In the name of protection, many would deny "equal opportunity"

to all but the chosen people. As Orwell said "All animals are equal some are just more equal."

"Equal Opportunity" must included an equal right to fail. We cannot expand "equal opportunity"

to housing unless we allow buyers an opportunity to fail.

To deny the masses the opportunity for home ownership to protect the few is the same perversion that distorts opportunity with out come.