HomeGain Advisors Group – April 2010 Conference Call Recap

The HomeGain Advisors met for their quarterly meeting last week on Thursday, April 22nd. 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 Group last week that are worth sharing with our Blog readers — about market conditions, overcoming issues created by appraisers, and whether there may be implications from either terminating or extending the first time buyer tax credit .

Market Conditions

Agent Advisors in Massachusetts and Maryland reported that the market (and business) is good. Maryland foreclosures and short sales are drying up. Colorado is seeing an uptick — although there are still a lot of foreclosures, there are less short sales.

Arizona and Florida real estate agents reported the market continues to decline, with lots of foreclosures and people still defaulting. In Florida, it was reported the real estate market has 40% short sales — and one agent commented that he had only 4,968 listings vs. over 8,000 at the same time in previous years.

Appraiser Issues 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

Homeownership is a part of the American dream. As a public policy, it’s been a powerful magnet for talented immigrants. From the early promise of 40 acres and a mule for every man and women who would homestead to the Levittowns of post World War Two, America has always promised its people greater rewards.

I took a short look at some of the institutions charged with public policy that made home ownership easy and how they are still playing a big public role.

The New Deal

President Roosevelt’s New Deal created policy and institutions to encourage people to become homeowners. Facing high levels of mortgage foreclosures during the Great Depression, the Roosevelt Administration, created the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) and the Federal National Mortgage Association. Fannie Mae established the 30-year, fixed rate, fully amortized mortgage as a standard. The FHA was created to insure those mortgages, to cushion the loss and so incentivized investors to take risk. Huge capital markets are created to draw pools of money into the housing industry to fuel a politically mandated public homeownership program. Continue reading this post

There are a few open slots for tomorrow’s webinar!

Join us for an exclusive Professional Education for Real Estate Brokers webinar, titled: “Online Marketing Terms, Tactics, and Tips to Survive”.

Date: Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Time: 10am PST / 1pm EST

Cost: No Charge

This 45 minute online real estate seminar will cover Broker best practices in online marketing to gain business from the growing numbers of online buyers and sellers.

You will learn how to:

1. Increase your marketing success online.
2. Determine what online buyers and sellers are seeking (and what they hate!).
3. Evaluate and differentiate online marketing.
4. Explain online marketing terminology (such as SEO, SEM, SERP, and SMM). Understand how each term can affect your business.
5. Increase recruiting, retention and transactions for your office. Continue reading this post

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