Yesterday we were delighted to welcome Deborah Miller of Intero Real Estate in the Bay Area to the HomeGain headquarters in Emeryville, CA.

Deb Miller is a member of online marketing programs, AgentView and AgentEvaluator. Since the real estate market has changed over the years since she began the programs, she felt it would be a key move to meet with the HomeGain Team so they could assist her in updating her marketing strategies and positioning.

Think that you would like to reevaluate your current positioning with HomeGain programs to give your business an extra boost? Give us a call at (866) 512-7918 or email us. The HomeGain Team is always here to help!

Photos of Deb Miller’s Visit: Continue reading this post

So, we’ve all been reading about the changes that have occurred…and continue to occur…in the lending industry as a result of the backlash caused by subprime/no money down loans.

The process of getting a loan has become more and more complex and lenders will tell you that every day brings a new regulation (or two…or three…or more) that puts obstacles in the way of approving loans.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think the industry needed to change…but the pendulum has obviously swung much too far.

This hit home last week when I heard from past clients/friends who were trying to refinance their current loan.

Here’s the story:

This couple (let’s call them The Jones’), with a combined income of over $300,000 a year, impressive credit scores, no ongoing debt except for their current mortgage and current liquid savings of abut $800,000 had applied to refinance their $700,000 mortgage.

The Jones’ filled out all the required paperwork, supplied two years of tax returns and provided a check for the appraisal and application fee.  The lender/investor said that there was only one appraiser who was acceptable to them and, since that appraiser was only available on a date when the homeowners were going to be out of town, the Jones’ made special arrangements for a friend to meet him.

And then they waited….for over three weeks for the appraiser to come up with a value on the property. Continue reading this post

HomeGain.com and the HomeGain Real Estate Blog both have won the Standard of Excellence Award for website development in the Real Estate category in 2009.

HomeGain.com and the HomeGain Blog received scores that were above average in the overall Industry and against other WebAward.org, aka Web Marketing Association, entries. Points were awarded using the following criteria: Design, Innovation, Content, Technology, Interactivity, Copywriting, Ease of use.

WebAward Judges comments included:

“The HomeGain.com site design is open, clean and inviting. The method for division of site services is excellent. This makes it quite easy for the site visitor to select their path.”

“The best selling point for the HomeGain.com site is the wealth of content. Content aggregation is used well throughout the site. “

“Nice blog which follows many best practice elements, good use of photography, compelling elements for the blog visitor to interact with.”

“HomeGain Blog is focused on Real Estate and has attention grabbing posts — content is king!” Continue reading this post

This next video features Lise Desormeaux of RMR Real Estate Marketing Results at the August 2009 HomeGain Nation Live Real Estate Forum in San Francisco.

Lise presents powerful tips to REALTORS® who work with home sellers for maximizing the value of the home sale through professional home staging.

Lise refers to HomeGain’s Home Sale Maximizer™ guide for homeowners as a “must have tool” when selling a home.

Watch the video of the Home Staging session: “How to Sell the Value of Home Staging to Sellers”

Keep checking back as we will be adding more videos over the few weeks!

Watch more session videos

Also see more HomeGain Nation videos on the HomeGain YouTube channel and on the HomeGain Nation Blog. Continue reading this post

In many cases, the perception of an online consumer is that they are not real. The result is that they are not treated as a true prospect and, clearly, deals will not close due to this situation.

This perception is understandable since an online consumer is represented on a computer screen as a series of characters in an email address or in their name. The person is not standing in front of you. They have no pulse and you cannot look them in the eye.

Their preferred method of communication is email which, by its nature, maintains a certain level of anonymity. Due to this desire to remain anonymous, the online consumer controls the frequency, or even possibility, of contact.

This same desire prompts an online consumer to register false contact information on a real estate agent’s web site whether or not entering contact information is even necessary for the consumer to gather the information they want.

Clearly, this is a huge source of frustration and, in some cases, expense for an agent.

But, on the other hand… Continue reading this post

Instead of doing my usual educational post, I figured I would tell you a quick story that is the reason I stayed in Real Estate.

When I lost my Internet Company in 2000 after the big bubble burst, I was offered several jobs from Radio groups to handle their national Internet efforts.  They were pretty high paying jobs all over $200k per year.  However, after talking with my girlfriend, now my wife, I realized that I just didn’t want to spend every day of  the month traveling.  I had just done that for the past several years and I was beat!

A friend of my better half was in Real Estate and she kept telling me I should get into Real Estate.  It’s a lot of work but with my personality I would do great…so she told me.  Continue reading this post