Today HomeGain announced that it is inducting 18 AgentEvaluator® Find A Realtor® club members, bringing the total to 73 inducted agent members this year — and whom together have earned over $6.8 million in gross lifetime real estate commissions. Read the press release.

HomeGain last inducted 27 members into its clubs in July, and is now inducting an additional 18 members (see below for club agents’ names):

• 5 new HomeGain Platinum Club members (totaling 369 agent members who have earned $125k or more in gross real estate commissions from HomeGain leads)
• 7 new HomeGain Gold Club members (totaling 303 agent members who have earned $75k or more)
• 6 new HomeGain Silver Club members (totaling 260 agent members who have earned $50k or more)

“We are pleased to induct these new club members and highlight their remarkable level of achievement,” stated Louis Cammarosano, General Manager at HomeGain.

HomeGain has 26 agent members in its Diamond Club (who have earned more than $500k in gross commissions) and two members in its Million Dollar Club (who have earned more than $1,000,000 in gross commissions).

HomeGain AgentEvaluator Award Club members have earned over $100 million dollars worth of real estate commissions since 1999 when HomeGain was founded. Award Club membership has grown to include 960 HomeGain members.

Newly inducted agent club member comments:

Continue reading this post

Please give a warm aloha welcome to new guest blogger, Alex Cortez of Hawaii Life Real Estate Services LLC.

Alex is a Realtor® who specializes in high-end property sales in south Maui.  He also contributes to the Bloodhound Blog and BiggerPockets, and is an active participant, sometimes moderator, at Agentsonline.net, Realestateforum.com, and RealEstateWebmasters (REW).

An online marketing and SEO enthusiast, his expertise lies in strategic marketing campaigns and client representation.

We look forward to reading Alex’s posts!

The term “short sale” was hardly even heard of 4 years ago.  The name alone is so ironic in that it usually takes 3 months to a year to close.

Most Realtors® won’t even show them as now a days you are lucky if they close at all. They are without a doubt the most frustrating of all sales. Still I guess we will be forced to live with them until someone let’s the lawmakers know that enough is enough.  We need regulations and rules.  Realtors are either getting rich or running for the poor house.

Fannie Mae recently passed a regulation that prohibits banks from negotiating the buyers commission or reducing them. A small but great victory for buyer’s agents who are at the mercy of the listing agent.  Most of the time they offer 2.5% – 3% and state on the MLS that if commissions are reduced they are split 50/50.

Well I guess we have to take the word of the listing agent and their escrow officers on this.

I recently had a listing agent tell me that they reduced the total commission to 3% and I was to settle for 1.5%. She then accidentally forwarded me an email from the bank negotiator, who allowed a 7% total commission.  Talk about dishonesty and greed.  Unfortunately it is very prevalent in this market.  I did manage to get my 3% but with a lot of Broker to Broker combat.

How I long for the old days. Continue reading this post

Want to make your real estate agent cringe? Say any of these 5 things:

“We would like a tour.”

This usually translates into, “We don’t know the area. We are not ready to buy but would like you to drive us around for several hours showings us the area to see if we like it.” Despite what you may think, real estate agents love to sell homes but really do not want to give tours. If you have been selling real estate for awhile then you have probably given a tour. From my personal experience, people who are unwilling to hop in their own car and tour themselves around are not ready to buy.

“I’d rather find a house and then deal with financing.”

Years ago when just about anyone could get a mortgage this was not such a big deal. However, today it is a different story. Lending guidelines have changed dramatically. The last thing a real estate agent wants to do is go out and show a bunch of houses only to find out later that the buyer cannot get a mortgage. It seems like the pendulum has shifted too far to the other end. I have recently seen some very qualified buyers not get approved for financing. Continue reading this post

Reputation often plays a huge role in a Realtor’s business. Think about how much damage an unhappy client can do to your income. Those clients tend to blab to more friends, more often and with more emotion about a bad a real estate transaction than a happy client who talks about a good one. Unhappy clients can cause damage even though it may not have been your fault.

The measure of your reputation is not only what you do but what others might say about you as well. Your reputation is earned whether you like it or not. Here are some tips to managing your online reputation.

Monitor Yourself

It is good to know what is being said about you. I use Google Alerts to monitor anything written or said about me. Google will email you when they find out a webpage, newspaper article or blog that mentions your name or what ever search phrase you want to track. It is a great way to continually monitor yourself, family members, stories or anything else you want to keep track of.

Delete or Compete

If you do find some embarrassing or inaccurate information about you on the web contact the website owner and ask them if they would be willing to remove the content. It is probably best to not get ugly and start a war. This usually just fans the flame and creates more controversy. Continue reading this post

The weather forecast looks good for this weekend in many states, and Max the HomeGain Gorilla loves to attend barbecues! He’s searching for homes to visit as part of the HomeGain “Share The Smiles” campaign, so…

If you are a real estate agent or broker who has a Max Gorilla already, take a photo of him with you at your Memorial Weekend BBQ and email it to us so we can post to the Max Photo Gallery.

Don’t forget to include your contact info so we can credit your account with 25 Max Points!

Or upload the photo to the HomeGain Fan Page on Facebook.

If you are someone who has found a Realtor through HomeGain who helped you buy or sell a home, send us a photo of you at your home this weekend and we’ll send you a Max Gorilla!

Remember to tell us who your Realtor is, your name and city/state (maybe even a short story, too) so we can post your photo on the Share The Smiles page.