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Lawton Stokes

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Banks Refuse To Account For Bailout Money

01-01-09
Lawton Stokes

click here for Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Article

First, PNC announced they were using bailout money to buy National City. Now, Parkvale Bank and S&T Bank are taking bailout money, too.

These banks are not passing through the bailout money to businesses or consumers. They’re using the bailout money to buy other banks and thereby increase their “footprint.” How does that stimulate the econoomy? And now they’re using the bailout money to help automakers. This is absurd!

Here’s a great article on the misuse of the bailout money. Congressmen get angry about the misuse, but are they really going to do anything about it?

Further reading here, here, and here.

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Achieve Realty Launches Career Center

12-30-08
Lawton Stokes

Wexford, PA, Every year brings new challenges to real estate agents, and staying ahead of the curve is critically important to agents who desire to meet those challenges. To help its’ sales professionals reach even greater results, Achieve Realty, Inc. announced the launch of a comprehensive online career center exclusively for its agents.”In order to recruit and retain high-quality agents in this fast-changing market, broker/owners need to differentiate themselves and one way we’ve chosen to do so is to offer first-class online training for our agents,” says Kristen Stokes, President of Achieve Realty, Inc. “The real estate industry is changing fast and this change is creating lots of opportunities. Our continued success depends upon how we take advantage of those opportunities.”The Career Center includes the following educational and training services for agents:

  • Individual web-based business planning tool for each agent with weekly marketing to-do lists and accountability tracking;
  • Over 100 hours of skills-based classes covering such topics as experienced agent training; negotiating, prospecting, farming, team strategy and internet marketing;
  • The largest online real estate mentoring library of money-making strategies delivered by over 200 of the industry’s top producers;
  • Access to online licensing and continuing education (CE) classes;
  • Online Access to a wide range of real estate designations classes such as ABR, ASR, CNS and AHS;
  • Special reports covering such topics as customer acquisition, profitability, bundled services, business planning and technology;
  • Additional resources including: daily industry news, blogs from industry experts, online dictionary and career newsletters; and
  • New online courses and content added every week.

This project has been in the works for many months with the industry leader in career development services, RealtyU, a California company. “We are excited to work with a company as progressive as Achieve Realty, “says Bill Shue, President of RealtyU. “This company has made the commitment to invest in the future of its agents and to create the best trained agents in its market.”

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Check Out Floorplanner

12-30-08
Lawton Stokes

Are you buying a new home, doing a room make-over, or moving into a new office? Then an easy way to map out your floor plan and your ideas might come in handy.Floorplanner is the easiest way to create and share interactive floorplans. Using a simple set of drawing tools you can make a floor plan within minutes and arrange your furniture anyway you want. You can save your designs and print or share them with your family, friends or co-workers. Floorplanner is easy to use and works just in your browser with no extra software or plugins that you need to install.

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How To Choose A REALTOR(R) in Pittsburgh, PA

12-29-08
Lawton Stokes

In making your decision to work with an agent in Pittsburgh, PA, there are certain questions you should ask when evaluating a potential agent. The first question you should ask is whether the agent is a REALTOR(R). You should then ask the following questions:

  • Does the agent have an active real estate license in good standing? To find out this information, click here.
  • Does the agent belong to the Multiple Listing Service (MLS)? Multiple Listing Services are cooperative information networks of REALTORS(R) that provide descriptions of most of the houses for sale in a particular region.
  • Is real estate their full-time career?
  • What real estate designations does the agent hold?
  • Which party is he or she representing - the buyer or the seller? This discussion is supposed to occur early on, at “first serious contact” with you. The agent should discuss Pennsylvania's particular definitions of agency, so you know where you stand.
  • In exchange for your commitment, how will the agent help you accomplish your goals, show you homes that meet your requirements and provide you with a list of properties he or she is showing you?
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What Is An Administrative Fee?

12-29-08
Lawton Stokes

The “Administrative Fee” (aka Brokerage Fee, Technology Fee, ABC Fee) is a flat dollar fee that real estate brokers charge to buyers and sellers above and beyond the real estate commission. The charge ranges from $100 to $395.
This fee has been implemented only during the last several years but already, consumers and real estate sales associates have become complacent with it. If consumers refuse to pay it, many brokers collect the fee from the sales associate.

Many brokers instruct their agents to explain why this fee is charged. Here's one explanation: "The Pennsylvania Real Estate Commission has increased the time period for which brokers must store their files. We, therefore, must pass this increased cost along to the consumer." This explanation is false. The Pennsylvania Real Estate Commission has not increased the time period for which brokers must store their files.

Here's another explanation: "The fee is to pass on the cost our broker has had to endure by implementing expensive technology." This is also a bogus claim.

The law that applies to this fee is called RESPA (the Real Estate Settlement and Procedures Act). Generally, RESPA requires that all fees charged at closings must be reasonably related to the value of the service provided. Therefore, if the broker is not actually providing services above and beyond what they were previously providing, they can't charge the fee.

The class action bar has taken note of the fee and a lawsuit has been filed in Federal Court in Alabama to challenge the Administrative Fee. Read more about the lawsuit and NAR's perspective in this Washington Post article.

For an even more comprehensive analysis of the fee, click here for ALTA's view.

Achieve Realty does NOT charge an “Administrative fee.” This results in an immediate, obvious savings for buyers and sellers

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