I get this question probably 2-3 times a week if not more. Here is my favorite saying….

“Everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die.”

Everyone wants REO because they think it is a cakewalk and you just sit around waiting for someone to send you tons of listings that you don’t really have to do anything for. I cannot tell you how many times I have sat down with an agent and told them what they need to do, from how to write their resume’s to even giving them lists of companies to apply with. THEY NEVER FOLLOW THROUGH!

So answer these questions and make a note on whether you REALLY want to be an REO agent.

1. Are you willing to work 60-80 hours a week?
2. Are you willing to take a reduced commission of 1.5% to 2.5% and then many times pay a referral fee out of that?
3. Are you willing to be on call anytime an asset manager calls or emails? Even in the evenings and weekends?
4. Are you willing to evict families, disabled people, veterans, tenants, people down on their luck?
5. Are you willing to clean up piles of garbage, clean yards, toilets, repair broken fences, deal with water leaks in the middle of the night during storms?
6. Do you have your crackberry attached to your hip at all times to check email non stop?
7. Do you have a credit line of $50,000 or more? You will need to front expenses for repairs, cash for keys, rekeys, emergency repairs etc.
8. Do you undertand quickbooks and accounting in order to track your expenses and reimbursements?
9. Do you have a sense of urgency? In other words are you prepared to get tasks completed within 24 hours or less?
10. Are you technologically savvy? Can you adapt to a variety of computer programs and systems?
11. Are you willing to travel 6-10 times a year at your own expense to attend REO conferences and seminars? Usual cost is $5,000-$8,000 a pop.
12. Are you a good manager of people and time?
13. Do you have staff available to assist with tasks and duties?
14. Are you willing to put in the time to prospect, call, email, write to generate new business?
15. Are you prepared for the fact that if you make ONE mistake, you can be cut loose and not receive future assignments and you will never know why?
16. Average sales price of an REO is $120,000. Average commission is $2400.00. Do the math and figure out if this is for you.

If you answered yes to all of these questions, then you are prepared to be an REO agent, if not, get out there and do what has always been required and that is prospect, hold open houses, advertise, call your database.

Funny thing about real estate is everyone wants to make all the money but they don’t want to think of it as a job and do what is required to get paid such as having a regular schedule and going above and beyond to get the work done and create advocates for your business.

In 2005 when I saw the market changing, I jumped online and researched what other agents in other areas were doing. The common thread was BPO’s and REO’s. I started doing BPO’s for $50.00 each (now many pay even less) and have done over 5000 of them so far. I started following REO blogs and websites. I went to conferences.

I networked with agents all over the country and lenders that I had met over the years. I spent hours upon hours learning new systems, documents and forms.

Two of the companies I now work for took me a minimum of 2+ years and a ton of persistence to get in with them and at the end of the day it came down to someone I had met an event where I spent more hours networking than sleeping.

Are REO’s still out there? Absolutely but just like weight loss there is NO MAGIC PILL!

Success comes from HARDWORK and PERSISTENCE.

I’m sitting in my office this evening… and yes it is late. I don’t usually work this late at night, but I had a lot going on this week and needed to get caught up.

I was feeling a little frustrated by all the changes and negativity in the real estate market and frankly feeling a little sorry for myself.

Sometimes things change so dramatically that you just want to get off the merry-go-round.

Sometimes changes are so big and so exciting that you think “that can’t possibly be real”!  It will never work!

Ideas are thrown out as unreasonable, unrealistic, and impossible.

I have two posters on the walls of my office the first one is a picture of Michael Jordon and it says:

“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career.  I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed!”

This quote always reminds me that anything worth having takes work and is never easy.

The second one helps me realize that nothing is impossible. I don’t know who wrote this but in some places it has been credited to Steve Jobs of Apple.

To the Crazy Ones

Here’s to the crazy ones.  The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They are not fond of rules and have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify them or vilify them.  About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.

Because they change things.  They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people. Because while some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

And it’s the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world who actually do!

So I am not feeling sorry for myself anymore I am feeling inspired, creative and ready to take on the world!

Better get some sleep though….

Today I was talking with a local realtor who has been in the business a couple of years and is just starting to feel comfortable with all the language and processes involved, but he said “I feel so disorganized and chaotic, How do I change that?”

I sat there silently for a moment and thought to myself “what did it feel like when I hit that wall?” The truth is I hit it every day.  Every day, I look over a process or system that we have developed and wonder how can I make it better? Is this process still effective” Does this system still accomplish the goal it was intended for?

I always think that “One day it will be done! One day the whole system will run perfectly with no glitches and then and only then… I can breathe easier! Okay then I wake up from this fantasy world and realize that IT WILL NEVER BE DONE! The life of business is that it is ever evolving, constantly changing and if we settle for what we have now we may never get to the good stuff.

One of my favorite quotes is by Maya Angelou who says “When you know better, you do better”. The greatest part of that quote to me is that I can let go of my failures and near misses and chalk it up to I didn’t know any better, but now I do, so let’s make it better.

The first trick to getting it done for me is that I give myself the room to screw up, make a mistake, learn the hard way and realize that it is progress not perfection because it will never be DONE, it will only get BETTER!

The second MOST IMPORTANT trick I find is ACCOUNTABITY! When I choose to hold myself accountable or ask someone else to hold me accountable my results SKYROCKET!

Why does the simple act of telling someone you are going to do something makes the difference in results?

It seems that as much as we say we don’t care what others think…. WE DO! We don’t want to look stupid, or a failure or incapable of doing things so we PROVE it to them! We show up when asked, we do what it takes…

Who is holding you accountable and does it work for you?

Comment below let me know.

I was out with a client the other day shopping for a home when we came across the perfect house. They were very excited and couldn’t wait to get back to the office to write an offer. But “Hold on a minute”, I told them. Let me call the listing agent and check the status.

Here is what I was most excited about:

• The agent actually answered her phone
• She was very pleasant and kind even after she found out I was another agent
• She was prepared and had the information I needed available
• Had done her job and knew the comparables in the area
• Had all reports on the home readily available and emailed them to me

Now why would these things excite me? Because unfortunately the NUMBER ONE REASON deals don’t come together and most fall out are simple…

…….because of the EGO’S OF THE AGENTS!

It seems that somewhere along the line real estate agents forget that there is MORE than one client in a real estate transaction… the OTHER real estate agent, the lenders, title/escrow people, inspectors are clients too!

Now I understand the fear factor. The one that says we are in competition with each other. But the real truth is … If you are building your business the RIGHT way, then we are NOT each other’s competition. If you build your business by building relationships with the people that buy and sell homes from you, then they would never consider using ANOTHER real estate agent.

So what is with the BIG OLE EGO?

Most sales people have large ego’s and are driven by the fact that they are good at what they do. Now don’t get me wrong, CONFIDENCE in your abilities is a good thing but when I think of EGO I think of someone who is not CONFIDENT but COCKY. What is the difference? In my book you can back up CONFIDENCE with knowledge and experience. Cocky… well that is what starts bar fights.

Let me give you some examples of a COCKY agent:

• Doesn’t return phone calls to other real estate agents. In fact doesn’t even take phone calls (like some recent REO Agents)
• If they do take your call, the minute they realize you are another agent, the attitude screen pops up.
• They respond with “I’ve been in the business for 20, 30, 50 years!”
• They talk to you in a rude, condescending tone
• You MUST use THEIR preferred vendors (supposedly the seller requires it…hmmmm)
• If they even respond to your offers, it is within their time frame not the time frame of the contract.
• They seem to have something to prove…. Not sure to whom….

I’m sure you might have one or two to add to the list, but you get my point.

Now here are some examples of a CONFIDENT agent:

• Returns phone call and emails promptly (same day most the time)
• Are pleasant and polite on the phone.
• They offer detailed explanations of how to best handle a situation
• They encourage cooperation between agents.
• They are helpful and respectful of your time and the time of others
• They are flexible and open to new ways of doing things
• They always put THEIR clients’ needs and best interests first.

Which one are you? And how does this affect you and your clients.

For some reason agents believe that they know better than their clients do about what the client WANTS. The agent wants to feel like THEY are the expert and others should listen to them.

I have been in this industry long enough to know that what goes around…. Comes around!  And being a COCKY agent is a very short sighted way of doing business

Take the time to take the “personal feelings” out of your transactions and do what is best for the client. In the long run….EVERYONE WINS!

I saw a post on Facebook today that said “This year is NOT starting out the way I wanted it to”. The first thing that came to mind was ….Speed Bumps! You know those pesky bumps in the road every few feet that either make you slow down or speed up depending on whether you are in a rental car or not!

Let me give you a few recent examples and maybe you will understand what the heck I am rambling about.

Speed Bump #1. A few days before Christmas I was going crazy as usual, running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get everything done and feeling like I was the only one doing it (having a little pity party I am sad to say). I had a 9am dentist appointment and it was 8:30. I was rushing out of my closet and tripped and fell and landed on my knee. Now I am a pretty tough cookie and have birthed FOUR children and it was not as painful as landing on my knee. This cannot be happening to me right now! Three days before Christmas! I pulled myself together and somehow drove myself to the dentist (not the smartest thing to do). The dentist politely told me I was crazy and that I better go straight home and take care of myself. I laughed to myself until I started to get up and realized that I clearly was not going to be walking.

Speed Bump #2. I was driving down a neighborhood street the other day and came across several speed bumps. I was getting very irritated and after about the third one was thinking, what the heck! Are these really necessary?  All of a sudden, two small boys ran into the street chasing after a ball. Had there not been speed bumps, I most definitely would have been going faster and this situation could have been tragic.

Speed Bump #3. It was Monday, which usually are pretty busy days, catching up from the weekend and getting the week in order. I was actively working on the finishing touches of my Power Point Presentation for my Tuesday Tuneup the following day which just happened to be about Getting your Priorities straight. I still had a very full afternoon of prep work, when I received a phone call from my son’s middle school that he was sick. So, dropped everything and rushed to his school to pick him up.. Not only was he sick but he was throwing up none stop and was getting an increasing fever. After 20 towels and a midnight run by my husband to the only 24 hour Pharmacy that happened to be almost an hour away, we finally got his stomach to settle down and to sleep about 2am, only to wake up the next morning to our other son Jacob now showing the same symptoms as Jon. Two kids sick…. Four hours to a full house ready for training.

So how does this relate to life? It seems that sometimes we are SO focused on our destination that we clearly are NOT paying attention to the things and people right in front of us. I find that when I am doing too much this, and focusing too much on that, suddenly a speed bump appears. Something that makes me slow down, focus, pay attention to what is important.

The “perks” of all these speed bumps was that each one caused me to slow down, look at what was right in front of me and take in the beauty that surrounded me in my family and those that I care most about. It made me set aside whatever detour I was on and focus on the road in front of me.

Speed bumps are not designed to be a ROAD BLOCK that stops you from moving forward, but simply a reminder to slow down and pay attention.

Getting your PRIORITIES in order helps you stay focused on the road and makes sure you slow down long enough to see what is important. Every 90 days the focus of our Tuesday Tuneup is Getting your Priorities Straight to get REAL Results! Check the Tuesday Tuneup Schedule for the next one and make it a point to attend.

I would love to hear about your own favorite Speed Bump!

Just in case you have been on the Planet Mars for the last three years…. I wanted to let you know that the Real Estate Market….SUCKS!

For some that is…. But not EVERYONE! There is saying that “Great Agents do well in ANY Market”! Is that really true? I don’t know if they do WELL but the difference between Great Agents and the Average Agent is simple…  When a market starts to change, One is paying attention and the other one isn’t!

I clearly remember, almost to the day back in August of 2006 when I put a home on the market and two weeks later I STILL didn’t have any offers. I thought hmmm… that’s weird! I double checked my pricing and it was priced correctly. I ran statistics for the area and BINGO noticed that other homes were sitting on the market as well. I immediately got a sick feeling in my stomach and told my husband… “ I think the winds have just changed”!

I started talking to other agents and funny thing was they kept saying… “No things are fine!” But when I would talk to people outside the real estate industry they concurred with me.  Now I am certainly not saying that I was the only real estate agent who saw it coming.

The majority of the agents who had been around for a long time and were consistent Top Producers were seeing and saying the same thing. Many of those agents were already jumping ship and starting to dive in head first to the REO Market, taking classes, getting certified, signing up with banks.

How did they know? They paid attention. They kept a close eye on the market, watched statistics, kept their finger on the pulse of the market.

So I believe that the winds are shifting again.

Are you paying attention? And if so, how?

I would love to hear your opinions and feedback.