America's #1 Mortgage Broker

I don't quite know how to write this because I've never had to do it before.    In 14 years of mortgage lending, I have never seen banks treat their good San Diego customers this way.  As you probably know, many big banks and mortgage companies have 

and closed the home equity lines of credit to San Diego County homeowners.  Apparently, Countrywide did just that last week. They spun the whole thing as the "Preserving American Home Ownership" initiative but you and I know that the only homeownership they were saving was their employees'.  I must admit, those banks and mortgage lenders did some pretty stupid stuff these past few years.  They made loans to anyone who could fog a mirror based on the idea that home prices would skyrocket faster than a thermometer in the Arizona sun.  Well, we all know that what goes up... comes down (and goes back up again) so you're probably in as much in shock as I was.  Let's face it, the banks

PICKED UP THEIR MARBLES AND WENT HOME, LIKE SPOILED CHILDREN

At first, I was angry.  You see, I live here in Solana Beach and many of my neighbors, with really good credit, had this happen to them.  They all know me as "America's #1 Mortgage Broker" (at least that's what GOOGLE says about me) so they call me or grab me after Church to ask me all sorts of questions.  Believe me, I didn't get home until 2PM this past Sunday; I was surrounded by continued

A conforming loan limit of $650,000 and an FHA loan limit of $729,000 are being telegraphed as part of the Economic Stimulus Package of 2008.

Inman News reports that Congress backed a temporary loan limit increase to $625,000:

The government-sponsored enterprises, or GSEs, may soon be allowed to back loans up to $625,000 nationwide and $700,000 or more in high-cost areas, according to published reports on the negotiations.

The Bush administration had previously tied any increase to the conforming loan limit to tighter regulatory oversight of Fannie and Freddie, where accounting scandals led both companies to fire top managers and restate several years of earnings.

Of course, that’s only the first step; the proposal has to work its way through the Senate and be signed by the President. While the common knowledge has been that President Bush won’t allow a GSE loan limit increase without greater regulatory oversight, mortgage insiders believe that he backed off that condition today.

The word inside the Beltway is that the deal has been fast-tracked for approval (by The Senate and President) under the following terms: new loan limits, click here

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Here is this week’s short-list of Odysseus Medal nominees:

• Jay Thompson — Bureaucrats Gone Wild, Todd Kaufman, Loudoun County Assessor — Starring in “Bureaucrats Gone Wild”
• Michael Wurzer — Open Letter, Open Letter To Yahoo!, Google, Trulia, and Zillow, Encouraging Data Standards
• Jay Thompson — RSS Feeds, RSS Feeds - The Full vs. Partial Conundrum
• Kris Berg — Alphabet Soup, Alphabet Soup
• Morgan Brown — 2008 Musings, 2008 Musings - It’s going to suck a little less, depending who you are.
• Troy W. Garris — Dodd Exits Presidential Race, Dodd Exits Presidential Race; Focus Turns to Lenders
• Dustin Luther — Zillow RE Auction, I may have found the Tellar in Zillow’s Cellar!
• Dan Green — Mortgage economics, High Unemployment Rates Are Good For A Lot Of People
• Jay Thompson — Keyword Stuffing, Keyword Jammed Posts are Polluting the “RE.net”
• Mike Price — Armchair Quarterbacking, Armchair Quarterbacking Real Estate 2.0
• Dan Green — Political Calamity, How Real Estate Markets Respond To Political Calamity Around The World
• Brian Brady — Todd Kaufman, The Todd Kaufman Problem Is Your Problem, Too
• Krista Baker — 5 Steps, 5 Steps for Planning any Marketing Campaign
• Russell Shaw — Todd Kaufman, Can Loudoun County Assessor Todd Kaufman tell me what to say and not to say?
• Jay Thompson — Free the MLS!, Free the MLS! Another Board Forbids the Use of the Term “MLS”

Should California home buyers float or lock the mortgage rate?  Should California homeowners refinance their home? 

It's important that you read my full report; I can sometimes get long-winded when I answer those two questions.  I mean, a report about mortgage rates ain't as sexy as Uma Thurman, right?  Sometimes, when I'm reiterating my advice, I rely on other respected professionals' opinion, to reinforce what I'm saying.  My opinion changes as often as the market changes so you have to keep coming back.

I'll cut to the chase:

If you're buying a home I think you should cautiously float the mortgage rate, right now.  Here's why:   The economic figures are weak and the unrest in Pakistan has investors buying fixed-income investments like mortgage-backed securities.  That drives mortgage rates lower.   That could turn on a dime so it is important for you to check in daily. I'll be shocked if I don't change to a lock recommendation before next week is out.

If oil keeps flirting with $100/barrel, the threat of higher rates will be omnipresent.  Get while the getting is still good if you're planning to refinance.

Home purchasers should CAUTIOUSLY FLOAT their mortgage rate at application.

I'm pitching, in the bottom of the ninth, at Bloggers Connect.  It ain't gonna be easy; I'm facing Dustin Luther, one of the ten people to watch in 2008 (picked by Inman).  Dustin should be no stranger to most of you.  He is, without a doubt, one of the few "tech guys" that truly understands what you and I, practitioners, really do. 

Dustin hosted the Relevance on The Internet seminars, sponsored by his old employer, last year.  It was the beginning of a formal workshop about RealEstate2.0 and blogging for business.  His post, Linkation, Linkation, Linkation is the one post every real estate or mortgage practitioner should read before she starts blogging for business.

Oh... I think I just said a nasty word.   

You see, that's going to be the focus of what I'll be talking about, with Dustin, at Bloggers Connect; business.   Here's another nasty word from the tech community;

Money

I want to see you make gobs of it.  I want to see that because I think you deserve it.  Certainly, the tech guys want to make it, too.  If they didn't, they wouldn't be doing what they do.  The relationship between our business and the tech business didn't start off as cozy as it is today.  It started off with the tech crew realizing that our businesses are inefficient and that the margins are big.

They wanted to disintermediate you and make a boatload full of bucks along the way.

Guess what they found out?  Real estate markets, by their very granular nature, are inefficient markets.  Until the country turns into a slew of 2500 sq. ft, tract homes, the markets will remain inefficient, by their standards.  After they discovered what you and I have known, for decades, what did the tech guys do to recover their investment?

They sold you leads and "enhanced" listings on the very site you built; Realtor.com. That worked for a while as the weak marketers transferred their dependency from brokers to lead generators.  Shame on your brokers and MLS providers for providing the very content they dangled in front of the consumer as lead bait.  You worked your collective asses off to secure those listings, released it to the lead gen sites, to have buyers sold back to you.

When the lead gen model died, the tech crew migrated to Web 2.0 or interactive marketing as a way to build up more dependence.  Zillow wants your listings, Trulia wants you to give away free advice, Active Rain wants your expert commentary, and your old buddies, Realtor.com got into the blogging craze..on YOUR backs.

That's all well and good.  My question is...where's the quid pro quo?  Please don't start talking about the "sense of community" to me; that and a good magazine ad will get you listings.  The question is this...

How can YOU profit off interactive marketing?

The answer is simple; bridging the digital divide.  That's what I'm going to talk about- making e-contacts become real connections, that turn into dollars and SENSE. 

If that's "hard sell", so be it.  I've been on the practitioner's side from day one; I ain't gonna change now. 

Gosh, I hope you are.

People restrict themselves when they consider the possibilities for their life.  You are probably on your "second career", as most of us are.  Your career may have been in corporate life, small business, child-rearing, or education.  You made a conscious choice to take charge of your life and pursue the entrepreneurial life of real estate or mortgage brokerage.  Perhaps external forces pushed that "conscious choice" but the very act of closing your first transaction made you a REALTOR or loan originator.

Maybe you've been successful, maybe you've been a failure; that doesn't matter today.  Today is a blank canvas and you, dear readers, are artists.  If you're not, you're thinking is all wrong.

READ:  Realtors Should Stop Selling Houses

What CAN you do?   Can you close 400 transactions a year, like Russell Shaw?  When you do, can you close 2000 transactions a year, like Russell Shaw wants to do?  Our dreams are our reality and this market has been robbing so many of you of the delightful pursuit of the ridiculous.  Rise to your level of incompetence; that's the best thing that could ever happen to you because it means you're living BEYOND your ability.

Tony Gallegos talks about "changing armies" today at the Mortgage Cicerone:

Changing armies and the honest self assessment that is often required to do so are really the questions at hand. If you are currently in a work environment that does not meet your personal standards for quality, ethics or orientation toward the customer, you should consider moving on. Too often, LO's will stay with an "army" that is wrong for them. The reasons can be endless:

• Do not have the time
• Do not have the contacts
• It's really not that bad here
• Lack of visibility in the market

Is your "army" dedicated to the ridiculous notions you had when you entered the business?  Do they share the frivolous thought that you can eclipse Russell Shaw and become one of the top 25 REALTORs in the country?  If they don't, you're fighting in the wrong army.

So thoughts really are things. The beauty of this is that you may choose your thoughts rather than have your thoughts choose you. In the beginning, it’s difficult to change your thought patterns and replace them with new positive thoughts. There is some resistance. This is normal. You may have spent years generating patterns of thought that don’t even support you. If you’re not putting thoughts in your head, then someone else surely will.