North Phoenix Agent Blog

Well, I’m a darn fine Realtor and really excellent at translating legalese into everyday English. And I’m super at negotiating around tough spots in contracts, making everybody feel they ‘won’.

But I’m pretty lousy at prospecting for new clients. 90% or 95% of my deals come from my direct mails to my neighborhood or from referrals through past clients. And after 3 years in the biz, that’s not a large enough pool of business to survive on.

So I’m temporarily shutting down the blog while I take a few weeks to figure out how to pay the bills. Cause those mortgage lenders get a little testy when you’re late.

I’ll be back!

From Inman News, “About 41 percent of loan officers responding to a Federal Reserve Board survey in October reported they had tightened lending standards on prime residential mortgages during the previous three months, compared with 15 percent of respondents in a July survey.”

I’ve just learned this first-hand. Had a devil of a deal that took 7 weeks to close because the buyer (not my client, I repp’ed the seller) was a ‘manual underwrite FHA with a DPA’. In English, that means she was a first time home buyer with little cash down, a recent job change + promotion + pay raise (that all had to be verified by hand), plus a Down Payment Assistance grant from AmeriDream and some gift money thrown in by a family member. Whew! What a nail-biter it was.  The lender didn’t make it any easier - he never returned my calls, never replied to my emails or faxes, and treated the 2 agents and the buyer (his client!) like we were hysterical females who pestered him.

The lesson you can take from this, dear readers?

1) Don’t work with a lender your Realtor doesn’t personally know. I’d never work with this guy again even if you paid me. He made the process truly miserable instead of just frustrating. I won’t list his name & company here but if you want it, email!

2) Treat your Closing Date like a suggestion, not a date carved in stone. Make emergency backup plans to extend your lease, or crash with friends, or even just sign a pre-possession agreement that allows you to move into a house you haven’t actually closed on yet.

3) Even if you’re a prime borrower, expect to provide a little extra documentation to prove what you put on your loan application. Prime loans are those that have 10% to 20% cash down payment, a good sized saving account on the side, and a solid job history combined with excellent credit. These loans are still readily available! Don’t believe the Doom & Gloom Media who say you can’t get a loan nowadays. You can! Just get your bank statements, tax returns and paycheck stubs ready to hand over.

4) If you’re not quite a prime borrower, make sure you hire a Realtor & Lender who have recent experience with non-prime loans. The borrower I described in the beginning of this post? Her chosen lender was a poor communicator who hadn’t done a non-prime loan since the credit crunch began in August. She wishes she’d never hired him. She had to beg her landlord for an extra week in her apartment and pay through the nose for it. Three days before close she had to beg a family member for another $1200 gift to satisfy her loan underwriter. The lender’s flippant attitude made the buyer cry twice in the days before close. ‘Nuff said.

Want recommendations of great lenders around town? Email me. I’ll provide you 6 super lenders who I’d bet my reputation on any day of the week. No obligation whatsover.

On the heels of my last post where I bragged about a little love tossed my way by a fellow blogger, I must admit to being completely baffled by Technorati tags. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller?

Any of you 3 or 4 people who read me (and I suspect those 4 people are all bloggers) want to toss me a bone here and ’splain to me how to make Technorati tags work? WordPress’ help files are written in Greek, I swear. I’ve got the little logo on my sidebar. I can add tags to posts, but they seem to only lead one back to a WordPress blog entry, not something on Technorati. I’ve even got a Technorati username profile and I claimed my blog over there.

Baffled. Stymied. Confused.

I’ve put on my best Sally Field impersonation tonight, to let you know that I’ve received a nod of approval from a blogging lender who I really respect. Shailesh Ghimire, the AZ Mortgage Guru of CTX Mortgage named my humble blog as one of his Top 5 Notable Real Estate Blogs in a recent eNewsletter sent to all his clients.

Aw, shucks. You’re makin’ me misty-eyed. Thanks! The other 4 Notables are below. I visit these sites often when I’m lacking inspiration for my own blog posts.

Blog Arizona - A multi-author blog on all things real estate

Jay Thompson - The Phoenix Real Estate Guy. This East Valley expert must live online because he found, praised and promoted my first post! You’ve got my Gilbert referral biz for life, dood.

Butterworth Blog - Another multi-author blog with great insights, especially the most recent post about “When to Change Agents“. Brilliant!

John Wake’s Arizona Real Estate Notebook - John Wake is the absolute emporor of charts, statistics and graphs.

I try to stay away from politics here, but it pleases me to no end when one of George W’s minions gets a public slap in the face for doing something that’s blatantly political and hurts the Little Guy in the process.

You’ll recall that on October 2, the Housing & Urban Development department (HUD) issued a ruling stating they’d disallow any more Down Payment Assistance programs (DPA) as of today. See post about AmeriDream & HUD here.

HUD later ruled on October 22 (for fear of the federal district court’s review) that they’d extend the DPA programs till next February.  Yesterday a federal district judge handed down an injuction against HUD. He said their October 2 ruling lacked “reasoned analysis” and was based on “flimsy support”. You know you’ve made a big boo-boo when a federal judge calls your lawyers ”flimsy” in public.  Ouch! Somebody over at HUD is gonna lose a job over this.

The good news for first time home buyers? HUD can’t shut down DPA programs. You don’t need to save tens of thousands of dollars for a down payment. Good folks like AmeriDream will continue to help by gifting you the down payment (by asking the seller for a donation which covers your cost).

Take that HUD! Score one for the Little Guy and bring on the buyers. Gawd knows we need ‘em now more than ever.