We’d like to welcome Stephanie Decker of Staged Homes, LLC in Mill Valley, CA to our team of HomeGain Guest Bloggers! Stephanie will be our designated home staging expert, blogging about ways to help Realtors work through home staging issues and work effectively with home sellers.

With more than 20 years in the Interior Design industry, and her California Real Estate license for the same amount of time, she combines her Interior Design experience with her real estate knowledge to successfully stage properties ranging from under a $1 million to over $5 million. Ms. Decker is an advocate of home staging, speaking and writing about its value in the real estate community.

Look for Stephanie’s first blog post on Monday!

If I wasn’t constantly being told be the TV, radio, newspaper, and magazines that we are in a financial downturn, would I know that from my every day life experiences over the last year?

My answer is no.

My life has gone on pretty much unchanged from what it was prior to this “down turn.”  No, that’s not right.  Truthfully, it is much better. My business has remained very good. As a matter of fact, the last couple of years were the best in my career.  There have been a lot of eager buyers — eager to buy a home, and eager to take advantage of the $8000 tax credit.

In some ways, business is much easier now.

Sellers are much more willing to deal and try harder to put a sale together and keep it together.  Also, builders are paying nice bonuses for selling their homes — homes that I probably would have sold anyways to the buyers that I have.  Everyone seems much more appreciative of my efforts — co-op agents, builders, mortgage lenders, title companies, etc.

As far as listings go, sellers have been less likely to try to cut commissions. Continue reading this post

We are pleased to announce the HomeGain AgentEvaluator® Top Performers™ of 2009.

Many HomeGain real estate agents and brokers had successful years, despite the downturn in home prices nationwide. We are proud to recognize these agents for their high level of accomplishment in association with HomeGain’s AgentEvaluator marketing program.

In addition to highlighting the 2009 Top Performers Nationwide, by Region, by State, and Rookie Agents of the Year, HomeGain recognizes agents who had impressive results and are deserving of honorable mentions. (Read the PRWeb press release)

HomeGain is proud that we can quantify the many successes of our AgentEvaluator agents in 2009. We look forward to continued success for all of our member agents in 2010.

Before announcing the Top AgentEvaluator Performers below, here are some 2009 AgentEvaluator highlights:

2009 AgentEvaluator Highlights:

• HomeGain recognizes 53 of its member real estate agents who have received Top Performer awards based on nationwide, regional and state achievements.
• Overall, in 2009 HomeGain’s top five Realtors earned an average of $146,885 in gross closed commissions from their HomeGain AgentEvaluator business and an average of 21 closed home sales (transactions).
• We now have a  total of 895 member agents in the AgentEvaluator Silver, Gold, Platinum and Million Dollar Clubs based on the following criteria:

- 2 agents are Million Dollar Club honorees, having earned over one million dollars in gross lifetime commissions from HomeGain business
- 22 agents are Diamond Club honorees, having earned over $500,000 in commissions
- 352 agents are Platinum Club honorees, having earned over $125,000 in commissions
- 282 agents are Gold Club honorees, having earned over $75,000 in commissions
- 237 agents are Silver Club honorees, having earned over $50,000 in  commissions

And the 2009 Top Performers for AgentEvaluator are…

Continue reading this post

In just five weeks, on Monday, March 1, HomeGain will kick off its second HomeGain Nation Live Real Estate Forum in San Francisco.

HomeGain Realtor members* are invited to attend this complimentary, 1-day event to network, discover new strategies and learn how to advance plans for a successful 2010!

We are also pleased to offer member attendees a complimentary Sunday night reception, Monday lunch, and a 1-night stay at the world-renown Fairmont San Francisco.

If you have not received your invitation, or would like more information, please email us and include your contact and/or membership details.

Follow the event on Twitter #homegainnation to get clues for how to win some great prizes at the event, including: Continue reading this post

HomeGain Advisors Group – January 2010 Conference Call

The HomeGain Advisors met for their quarterly meeting last week on Thursday, January 21st. The Advisors represent top real estate agents across the country who provide insight into HomeGain products and services, market trends and Realtor behavior.

We had several interesting discussions with our Advisors board last week that are worth sharing with our Blog readers — about home buyer tax credit, appraisals, forced registrations.

Home Buyer Tax Credit

Firstly, HomeGain Advisors in all regions of the country expressed hesitation in terms of how effective the first time buyer tax incentive is currently. In previous calls, many mentioned that most of their business was coming from buyers who mentioned that their motivation to purchase was based on the tax incentive.

In a call prior to the positive comments, they had expressed doubt about how effective the tax incentive was going to be. Clearly, there has been some change. They are attributing the current lack of impetus to the fact that many consumers are still not aware of the incentives and they were doubtful that the April 30 deadline would be extended.

Appraisals

A couple of Advisors spoke about the difficulties they had closing deals due to problems with appraisals. Continue reading this post

As a consumer, have you ever walked in to a store, let’s say an electronics store, seeking the advice of one of the helpful salespeople and found that their lack of knowledge throttled their confidence level to the point that they were really of no use to you and as they try to muster an answer to a question about which TV to buy, you lose confidence in them?

There are pros and cons for each TV and you as the consumer need answers to make the right choice but you can’t get them because your salesperson does not have any confidence that they know the answer. As a consumer, we unconsciously pick up on subtleties of people like this salesperson and we lose confidence in them very quickly! We naturally gravitate towards those who we automatically recognize as confident about their work.

So it goes with real estate agents working with home buyers or sellers.

I encourage that you spend some time every week working on aspects of your business that can help you increase your confidence. It doesn’t matter if you are new or have been in the business a while. If you know what you are doing it will show through loud and clear to your clients in that ever important first impression. That’s confidence. Continue reading this post