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Thank You for visiting MyBlog! I'm Steve Adkins, a REALTOR® with Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Metro Brokers, working out the Hiram office. MyBlog is about my experiences as a Realtor and the many different hats I wear. Some will be funny and some may show the darkside of this profession that usually only other Real Estate Agents see. But please keep in mind I'm not a professional writer, nor have I played one on TV! What you read here may often be in it's rawest form, but it comes straight from the heart and "as I see it". Which may not be politicial correct at times.
If you do happen to stumble across MyBlog, and decide to read it, please drop me an email (steve.adkins@metrobrokers.com) and tell me what you think (as long as it's nice). Have a question or a topic you would like to see discussed, I would like to hear it. And of course, feel free to send gifts any time! :) I love cookies!
Everything you read here is strickly my personal opinion and/or experiences and do not reflect the opinions or advice on the behalf or by Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Metro Brokers, it's staff, it's affiliates or the franchise company. Anything you read here should NEVER be considered "Legal" advice of any type. Never played an attorney either on TV! |
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By Steve Adkins
This blog is a little off topic but will hopefully help a few people.
If you own a computer, and if you are reading this there is a really good chance you do, spring time thunderstorms are upon us. Protect your computer from lighting strikes!
As some of yall know, I use to own and operate a computer repair shop in Hiram, GA. for about 8 years and saw a LOT of computers that were hit by lighting that could have been protected if they had purchased one item..... a Universal Power Supply (aka UPS or battery back-up).
A UPS will help with 2 situations, power surges (lighting strikes, power line arcs, etc) and power outages. Power outages do as much damage as a power surge! Make sure to plug EVERYTHING that connects to the computer into the UPS....EVERYTHING! Printer, monitor, network hub/router, DSL/Cable modem...EVERYTHING! If you have DSL (uses a phone line), make sure the UPS has a connection for the phone line. If you use cable internet, same thing. Those lines MUST be protected! The number one source for damaging surges is the internet connection. Simply turning off the computer WILL NOT protect it in any way.
Now at my home office I have a bit of overkill, 2 surge protectors (one plugged into the other) and 2 UPS's (one for each PC) plugged into the surge protectors. And the DSL connection runs thru the surge protector and then into the UPS. I also have everything except for the printer plugged into the battery side of the UPS so if the power goes out and comes back on I never loose internet connection. If the power stays out, I have 5 to 15 minutes to turn the computer off properly.
If you use a laptop with a wireless connection, lighting can be attracted to the wireless device. In this case it is best to turn off the laptop.
Hope this helps a few of yall out there! It saved a lot of my clients with the computer business! Lighting toasted many UPS's but not one computer was harmed (if they followed my instructions).
Steve Askins - REALTOR
and Past Business Owner to Paulding Computers
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Posted by Steve Adkins on January 12, 2010
http://reopro.ning.com/profiles/blogs/that-troublesome-contract |
That troublesome contract!
I want to spend a minutes to talk about that “troublesome contract” that you know is going to be problems from the very beginning. You just get that feeling from the very beginning. Everyone in this business gets one every so often, right? Or am I just lucky with more than my fair share?
It all started the day before Christmas Eve. I get a call about 3 PM from an agent wanting to show the house to a potential buyer, he’s in the driveway. I tell him about the house and that he is welcome to show the house any time….so he asks me how does he get in? What? I tell him it’s on a Supra lock box, which he could use his Supra key to get in. Then he tells me he didn’t have his key with him. How can you show houses to a buyer without your Supra Key?
This agent was expecting me to drop what I was doing and drive 15 miles to open the house because he was not prepared. More on this shortly. Mind you I was elbow deep in auto repairs with the dash of my truck disassembled as I replace the heater core. Needless to say it would take me 2 hours at best to get there. I told him I was leaving town for Christmas the next day and would be back late Sunday, he could call me Monday to set an appointment….which he did. Surprisingly!
He calls me Monday morning and we set a time for the afternoon, 2 pm. Good, I rearrange my schedule for the day, no problems. I ask him if he was a real estate agent and if he had a Supra key, he said he was and that his key is broken. Yea OK and that bad feeling starts to grow. At 12:30 he calls me again to ask if he can more up the time, that he was already on the way with his buyer. No problems, it’s a light day and I stop what I was doing and leave the office to meet them.
I start thinking this is going well when the buyer walks into the house and starts gasping for breath! She just keeps saying “I love it, I love it”. Good signs from the buyer! I start smiling as I know this trip worked out, the first one like this to ever go my way. The buyer loves the house and they both said that they were going back to his office to write the offer and send it to me that afternoon. As I’m driving back to the office I’m wondering if this was a dream? These “give-me’s” never happen to me! But I’ll take it if it really comes thru.
Well, late afternoon the next day I hear from the agent again. He has a few questions so he can fill out the contracts, no problems as I have gotten use to that. Just before leaving the office around 4:30 pm I get the contract. Cool! Full price, no closing cost, 10-day closing….I’m thinking cash deal! Sweet! The asset manager is going to love this as it’s our last REO property in this subdivision. This is a new construction REO and we started with 11 houses in the late spring. This one had some minor issues and no Certificate of Occupancy issued, of course the bank was not going to finish that one small issue. So it has taken longer to sell then the others, and the bank understands why.
Ok, back to the contract. I keep reading and there are some minor special stipulations that will need to be removed, no problems. Then there’s a check mark in the contract about an FHA Exhibit (but no exhibit) and then the last page is an un-dated letter of ptr-approval from a lender/broker I have never heard of. I start thinking that a 10 day closing and FHA do not play well together! Again, no problems, I’ll call the agent and get this straightened out before sending the package to the asset manager. I called to ask him is this a cash deal or FHA. If it’s FHA he needed a lot longer for a closing date. He says that 30 days will be fine and that it was FHA and that he left the closing cost blank because he wants the seller to pay ALL closing cost. Then he tells me that this is a Neighborhood Stabilization Program loan. Ok, the last one I did took almost 60 days to close, so I told him that the bank will only agree one closing extension. If he under estimates how long it will close because he has not talked to the lender, the bank can and will find the buyer in default and keep all earnest money. So we agree on a 45 day closing.
An hour later he calls back to say that he wants to raise the offer price in hopes the bank will pay more closing cost. We go round and round about this for a few minutes and I tell him to call the loan officer and work out the details and send me a new (and complete) offer. He agrees and sends me a new offer the next day. It’s still not complete, but I can work with it. So I start trying to contact the loan officer to verify the pre-approval letter.
After 3 days and 5 voice messages later of trying to reach the loan officer, the agent happens to call me. I tell him that everything is on hold until I talk to the loan officer. I finally reach her the next day (after 3 more attempts). She’s familiar with the buyer but says that the letter was issued more than 2 months ago and she would have to re-verify everything again with the buyer. She did call me back on New Year’s eve to say that she was waiting on the agent to bring her some documents, he was already a day late in doing so.
I have not heard from the L/O or the agent yet this week, needless to say I have ZERO faith this deal will ever get to the closing table. I don’t want to say that the agent is unprofessional, but he is under trained and has no supervision.
So what’s your “troublesome contract” story? I would like to know I’m not the only one who gets these!
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My instincts were correct on this deal. After talking to the loan officer several times (again this week) she was STILL waiting for this Buyer's agent to bring her some documentation from the Buyer so she could verify income and employment. Needless to say, the bank has rejected this offer. This was the 5th written offer on this one house, must have some bad juju or something?
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by Steve Adkins on September 30, 2009
http://reopro.ning.com/profiles/blogs/master-your-craft |
Here's a blog I "borrowed" (with permision of course) from one of our company blogs. It hits home with some of the discussions around here lately that I have been reading and thought I would share!
Mastering Your Craft
By Michael McFadden
Once you find yourself doing what it is you enjoy, always practice, practice, practice on getting better. Remember the Allen Iverson controversy (2006) “practice, we talking’ about practice”. We’ve heard that statement many times before with how important practice is, but so many times we get very complacent with our performance.
We do just enough to get by! Just enough so that everyone thinks we’re working hard. Do you know what separates the best from average? Practice! I’ve said it a thousand times before, what does Tiger Woods do when he’s not playing golf? Practicing. What do athletes do after a big game? They go back and watch tape and you guessed it…Practice.
But so many times, we get complacent with where our performance level lies, because you figure that, if I work any harder, it won’t make a difference. Trust me, successful people don’t think like that. They’re always looking to improve their craft.
I recall hearing Joel Olsteen say “if you read about your profession an hour a day, for 2 years, you become a professional in the profession.” And the word smartness is “an ability to absorb new facts” according to Bill Gates. Ask an insightful question, have a capacity to remember, to relate things that may not make sense at first, like algebra – (still haven’t got it yet?). That’s smartness.
How do avalanches start? One small snow flake at a time and over a period of time, they begin to pile up on top of each other, creating an uncontrollable force that’s unstoppable.
Whether it’s reading, attending training classes, listening to other speakers and even hanging around other people that share the same interests as you, that’s what improving your craft is all about.
Remember this: Amateurs practice until they get it right, professionals practice until they can’t get it wrong.
It doesn’t matter how good you are at what you do, or how smart you are, always strive to be better at it!
If we want to call ourselves "Professionals" then we need to work on it everyday! Real Estate is NOT a part time job that you do on the weekends when you have nothing better to do! But yet we see more and more folks do just that. Lucky for the Real Professionals, this market has been weeding these "part-timers" out as we go.
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Posted by Steve Adkins in REOPro.ning.com on April 25, 2009 at 2:24pm
http://reopro.ning.com/profiles/blogs/i-finally-understand |
I have to admit, I finally understand! After a week of HELL, I finally understand! But let me back up a step and set the stage for my short story.
Like many agents in this market, I have been trying hard to get in the middle of this REO thing. Working the phone, shaking hands, writing BPO's for months, business events, etc. Finally, I get my first break and pick up 8 new-construction REO's in a partially started subdivision. The bank has been great to work with, but they want maximum value for their houses and are a little over priced, but still a great deal compared to what they once were. Sales have been slow. But that asset manager really like me work and referred me to an asset manager with a national bank.
Finally after 9 months from the first BPO, and missing out on the first group of listings, we picked up another subdivision with 10 houses and 26 lots, all REO’s. Three of the houses were not finished yet, while the others were move-in ready. The bank came in with aggressive pricing, well below my BPO, pricing the unfinished houses at $49,900! One of the three was to the final drywall stage with most of the trim work in. What a deal I thought! And so do half of Georgia I think.
As soon as the listings went into the MLS's my phone started ringing, and ringing, and ringing. Often with 2 or 3 calls coming in at one time. I could not get off one call without one to three messages left while on that one call. The listings were entered into the MLS's about 4 pm on Wednesday last week, by Friday at 3 PM I had already taken 14 to 16 written offers on the three unfinished properties and over 100 phone calls. The bank said no more offers, that they could not handle any more paperwork in a timely manner as I was sending them a new offer every 30 minutes. It was absolutely crazy! Never in my life have I've been in such a "feeding frenzy" like this. And I loved every minute of it!
But the phones have not stopped ringing, or the email inquiries. And because I did not have binding agreements yet, only verbal agreements, I could not change the MLS status to “pending”. And banks can take days or weeks to get anything signed back to you, sometimes not until closing. I continued all week to answer every call, and return every message even so every call was coming in on these three unfinished houses I already had multiple competing offers on. I lost count sometime after the 30th call each day. It was to the point I had to turn my phone off to eat lunch or dinner with the wife. One morning I had to transfer my calls to my senior team member while I was in a CE Class, boy was her blood pressure up when I got out of class! I think I forgot to warn her before having my calls transferred, oops. ;-)
Then by Monday, the "drive-by" calls started. I think every construction worker and investor in three states drove thru the subdivision and called off the yard signs! And of course everybody who saw a cheap home, thinking they could move right in and finish the house little by little. They saw price and never bothered to read the comments.
So now, I finally understand! I fully understand why some agents never answer their phones or return calls. If I didn't have my team to help support me I would not have been able to return every call in a timely manner, if at all. I'm sure I may have missed a couple, as the volume of calls and emails was absolutely overwhelming for just one person. I quickly became an issue, as I could not address possible problems on the offers with the asset manager, which in my book is of the highest priority! And since she is not a real estate agent and not even in this state, she was not familiar with our standard forms. I still have not had time to make a quality flyer to put in the houses.
I have been one to badmouth REO agents in the past, I will admit it, and I did it everyday. I had no idea why they were so unresponsive. I do now! I can see why their service seams so poor as there are not enough hours in the day and you have to set priorities in your daily activity, or you will never get anything done. Luckily I formed my team a year ago and we have become pretty organized, but this last week has opened my eyes to our weaknesses. Changes will have to be made, and quickly if we are going to keep up!
Don't get me wrong, I hate the poor service many in this field provide. It's just not right to everyone involved. I understand why, but I do not like it! It takes work, hard work, to provide quality service. And because of the extra efforts I have made over this past week, we have been able to take an offer on another home in this subdivision, picked up 6 potential buyers for my team members to work with and another 10 showings since Monday by my team only. With another 30 showings by outside agents. I also have agents sitting open houses in the REO subdivision all weekend (without water and power in the main house), with other agents in my office begging to be able to sit open houses. How many people do open houses in an REO property?
Finally, I Understand! |