Real Estate Blogging Seminar Re-cap

August 17, 2007, 8:23, am By 10 Comments

Yesterday’s Real Estate Blogging Seminar held at SEVRAR and sponsored by Grand Canyon Title Company was very well attended. There is certainly a lot of interest out there on blogging and how to use social media tools for business. I want to thank everyone for attending and Adam Saunders at Grand Canyon for all his work in organizing this event.

As I promised I have posted my Blogging Seminar PowerPoint. Like I said yesterday, this is only a reflection of my personal experience with blogging. It is by no means a blueprint.

It was good to see some veteran bloggers in attendance. I don’t know if they learned anything but Jay Thompson (The Phoenix Real Estate Guy), Calie Waterhouse (Decorated to Sell) and Doreen McPherson stayed for the whole thing. I must add none of them threw any rotten tomatoes. What a relief that was for me! Phew.

There was also another seminar across town yesterday. Steven Groves, Greg Gotcher and Dave Barnhart presented relevant blogging materials and it’s a bummer that we had a clash! I would have enjoyed attending. Maye they’ll share their experience on their blog soon.

Update: Read Calie Waterhouse’s take on the seminar.

Filed Under: Bloggers, Blogging, Realtors

Doing business while driving? Here’s a tool you MUST know about!

August 16, 2007, 8:01, am By 2 Comments

Guest Writer Jennifer FurrierI recently worked with a busy commercial Realtor who was losing sleep at night because she was stressing about trying to recall the details of her conversations on the road. She was concerned, with all of the different conversations she was having in a day, whether or not she was following-up on the actionable pieces to her conversations. Well from a professional organizer’s perspective, this isn’t the easiest problem to solve, but fear not, I found a successful solution.

For those of you busy realtors and professionals on the road, this frustration brings up so many different points, but for today, I want to share with you one incredible tool, that takes less than five minutes to begin using, and is FREE!

Can I get a drumroll please…………………………………………..

www.jott.com

Basically, how it works is you call up their phone number and leave a message for yourself or someone else, and that message gets transcribed into an email, and sent to you, or whoever you “jotted” in less than 15 minutes. Now don’t ask me how this works, because that is not my expertise, however, this tool is a fantastic time saver, and stress reliever.

Instead of trying to keep information in our heads to remember for later, (because our brain is for thinking and creating new ideas, and not for storage), leave a message with Jott and then receive an email record of whatever it is you said. And yes, you can “Jott” others. It takes a few minutes at the most to upload your database and then it will ask you, “who do you want to Jott?” and you just say the person’s name, and begin leaving your message.

This is great if you want to confirm a meeting with someone, or have something quick to say, but don’t want to get stuck talking on the phone, but are away from a computer. Also, you get a copy of the email that was sent to someone else. Isn’t that great?

Oh, and the commercial Realtor is getting plenty of sleep! Yep, just another great tool to help us cope with our insanely busy lives. Of course I have many tools for helping people to operate more efficiently, helping their well-being and their bottom line. You can check out my website for more info.

Filed Under: Business Success, Realtors

Would You Like a Realtor With That Loan?

July 24, 2007, 4:18, pm By 4 Comments

Jay Thompson recently wrote about a real estate agent doing double duty as a loan officer on the same transaction. It seems to have garnered quite some buzz. I know real estate agents should be very well educated when it comes to home financing, but it would be hard to wear both hats. It’s better to specialize in one and not have to worry about the other.  How about lenders wanting to cross over?

I will say that when we deal with for sale by owners or sellers without agents, we lenders can be forced into a situation where those whom we are arranging the loan for do need some real estate advice. I do not give any real estate advice under any circumstances. However, in the past year I’ve had to deal with several borrowers not using agents for various reasons. A lot of these cases have also involved first time home buyers.

So, in these cases I’ve had to help with setting up escrow, explaining the ten day inspection period, providing referrals for a good home inspector etc. I don’t advise on anything to put on the contract and absolutely do not even suggest anything. I only provide what is really just commonly available information which the borrower could obtain from other sources with a little bit of effort.  It has helped that I’ve worked with fantastic escrow officers on these transactions.

I certainly always recommend that they obtain representation especially when they are first time home buyers. There is no reason why a buyer shouldn’t! However, often times it is because the seller doesn’t want to deal with an agent on either end, so the buyer is forced into an uncomfortable situation especially when they really love the house. In the past few cases things have worked out really well. I’d hate to imagine what it would be like if things had gotten ugly. Thank goodness I only deal with mortgages.

Filed Under: Mortgages, Realtors
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