Chris Ormsbee

Open House Rules - Crime Watch and Safety

Perusing other active rain blogs, I came across an article about Open House Crime and risks associated with open houses especially in these tough times we are in.

I figured good blog topic!

Basically the article was saying that some crooks are swiping stuff during the open houses and that the best prevention was to either not have them at all or to remove all valuables from the home before having one.

It also pointed out that most open houses aren't effective and don't result in the sale of the home. If anything they are known to try to find new buyer or listing clients that walk in to check out this house and they don't already have a Realtor.

I would sum the Open House risks to the homeowner as follows:

1. You might have something stolen. Valuables such as jewlery, a valuable trinket or decorative item (especially anything small that could go in a pocket or bag), possibly drugs, pills or medications.
2. Some burglar could be casing your home and your valuables. This could include larger valuables.
3. People might get your carpet dirty or worse an unruly kid might break something.

I would sum the Open House risks up to the Realtor as follows:

1. The client might accuse you of stealing something if something gets stolen.
2. The client might try to blame you and hold you liable for either stolen, broken or dirty goods as a result of the open house.
3. You could get robbed or shot opening up to the public (a risk we all accept every day, just going to work).

So what can you do about it as a Realtor?

Well I see the choices as follows:

1. Dont hold any open houses, convince your clients they don't work.
2. Hold open houses and abate the risks by the following:

• • Make everyone sign in even if they use a fake name something is better than nothing - also a good place to point your camera (if you have one).
  • Bring a Buddy - Have more than one person attending the open house - this provides an extra body to watch the door or follow people around and it also gives you someone to talk to when you are there and there are no customers touring the home.
  • Bring Protection - Bring the level of legal protection that makes you comfortable: taser, mace, gun, cane, your karatee black-belt friend... (Note - an oozy would be overkill for most neighborhoods :-)
  • Bring a Dog - could cover the Buddy and the Friend (make sure your client is ok with it and don't let the dog be the cause of a broken item or a "messed" carpet.)
  • Use a Hidden Camera - See if the client has a hidden camera, if not you might invest in one and set it up so it captures all the faces at the door. You hopefully will never have to watch it, but if something bad happens it could save your job, your client or maybe your life. If you are concerned about the privacy aspect, I would say post a sign and or tell the people that the client has hidden cameras present.
  • Remove Valuables - Have the client remove any serious valuables from the home before holding an open house.

What can you do about it as a Homeowner or Seller?

1. Know the Risks
2. Know and Implement the Prevention or Protection Methods
3. Make sure your Realtor knows the risks and has some type of plan to control them.
4. Just don't do it. Go for the virtual tour and scheduled showings accompanied by a licensed Realtor. This is just another key reason to hire a realtor, rather than going it alone and trying to sell it yourself. But hey if you are determined take what steps you feel are reasonable and go for it. Nothing better than negotiating with a buyer on the spot (if you know what you are doing). I actually suspect FSBO Sellers have better turn out because of the otherwise more limited access, yet they are also probably more targeted by the crooks as they figure the home owner is unsuspecting while the Realtor is more aware. (If you breed pit bulls - you probably are fine! :-)

What about you Buyers?

1. You can be respectful, friendly and polite and wipe or remove your shoes - There is no reason to make it unpleasant for anyone. The Realtor should be friendly enough, they may want your business but if you don't want to give it to them, just politely tell them so. That you aren't ready, That you are working with someone else, That you have a friend that is a Realtor and you are going to use them...
2. Maintain your kids - Listen, I am a Dad. I understand and I know. I have two kids. Sometimes it scares me to take them places. Fighting just bursts out! Out of no where and they start fighting, hiting punching etc. I can't always stop them, but I can remove them. Do this enough and usually they will behave, but never say never. Kids are unpredictable to a certain extent. Curiosity and touching are the other main kid issue.
3. Don't bring your dog - obvious and self-explainatory.
4. Avoid using the restroom if possible, not only is it possible you or a child could create a mess or odor problem, it presents a risk I have recently heard of with perscription theft. People stealing pills and usually when someone goes to the bathroom they lock the door and are alone (significantly increasing the temptation level for the unscrupulous individual).
5. Understand and respect any security measures in place. If you are afraid to sign in for fear of being bombarded with calls or mail or email, just tell the agent or home owner that you don't want that or what level of communication you would accept, like if they drop the price of the home by 50% you might want them to call you don't you think (even if you didn't like the house!)

Final Thoughts

Knowing that the potential for crime or damage at an open house is possible, discuss it with your client and assess the risk reward.

If you are forced to hold an open house for your client... Watch out for crime, trust your gut, be prepared and minimize the risks to the best of your ability.

Obviously also factor in your local area and crime rate to your decision as this is probably the biggest single factor of risk and the one you can control the least. If the home is in a neighborhood with a high crime rate. I personally would think twice. Depending on your local law enforcement or police force, you might also notify them and ask them if they can send a patrol car or officer by at some point.

Get the Best Results

We find the best results and the only way we will do an open house is if we are arranging a tour of several open homes within our office, this shares the advertising costs and provides more homes for a prospective customer (or crook I suppose) to check out.

Use your Realtor Tour

Obviously we always do Realtor MLS tours where we take the rest of the trust worthy local board member Realtors through our properties that we list. This DOES WORK for us.

Proceed at your own risk.

Have a Great Day! Chris

Chris Ormsbee is a Realtor and is a licensed Real Estate Agent in the State of Colorado. He is part of the Montrose Gold Team and works for Century 21 Action Realty in Montrose Colorado. Century 21 Action Realty is located at 1245 E Main St. Montrose, CO 81401 and our phone number is (970) 209-0252

Chris Ormsbee is NOT a Security Advisor, Lawyer, Accountant, CPA, Surveyor, Structural Engineer, Financial Advisor, Judge, Jury or a Normal Guy, but he does occassionally sleep at a Holiday Inn Express.

Besides Commenting here, you can Contact Chris Ormsbee (especially if you want to buy or sell real estate):

Chris' Cell Phone is (970) 209-0252

Chris can be friend-ed on Facebook. His user name is Chris Ormsbee

Chris also has other blogs pertaining to Real Estate:

http://www.YourCOREAdvisor.com/blog

http://www.MontroseGoldTeamBlog.com

Chris is also "diverse" and has

http://www.TheDivorceWorkshop.com - a divorce counseling and advice site.

http://IdeasThoughtsWhatevers.blogspot.com/ - a discussion about Internet Marketing Ideas and trial "sales pitches", wild wacky ideas and politics abound and some content may be oriented to adults - surfers beware!

Growing Clients - Marketing to Boost Real Estate Business

Over the last couple weeks I have been conversing with an old Tenant of mine from when I used to own an old warehouse that I rehabbed the front of.

He rented the back of it which was basically just still in its original warehouse condition with a couple of unit heaters and two huge swamp coolers (evaporative coolers for the politically correct). Coach Kirk (Bruce Kirk) uses it to teach gymnastics. He runs Snow Shadow Gymnastics there. He teaches a traditional olympic style program and the sport of gymnastics.

It is truly amazing to me what the human body can do, because mine can't. :-)

Coach Kirk and Snow Shadow Gymnastics have been in that space for 11 years now. I know he has struggled over the years to grow and maintain his business in our small town. We are all constantly having to market and get the word out about our product or service in order to obtain or "grow" new clients.

Once you get new clients you need to maintain them and or help them prosper, so they can help you. All of this is Marketing!

So Coach called me the other day asking about some space I have for lease. He asked how much it was. I knew it was quite a bit more than what he was paying now. So I decided I would see if I could help him out a bit to get a boost in business to grow his clientelle and or product offering, so he could eventually afford to rent or buy a bigger space. Who knows if or when he would be able to move where I might get paid a comission, but I figure the best way for me to get better is to teach! Plus I have always liked Coach Kirk.

He called today and had registered a domain name www.snowshadowgymnastics.com (not there yet) and was trying to get the hosting setup and publish his site from MS Publisher. I told him to stop by and I would see if I could help him. Since I was in the middle of updating Active Rain I decided to write about it. He didn't have the publisher file of his website with him so we didn't get that done, but we did get him a gmail account, a blogger blog setup http://snowshadowgymnastics.blogspot.com and a twitter account and looked at a few affiliate marketing options he might explore.

You might be thinking "Huh or So What!", but what I am postulating here is that the easiest thing for us to talk about with our clients or our sphere in many cases might be what we deal with daily... Marketing!

Marketing is something we do daily in the Real Estate business and as a rule I would say most of us are quite good at it. Trying to present something in its best light while being honest and maintaining integrity, plus we are all a very creative bunch.

We know from numerous teachers and programs that we all have been exposed to over the years that we need to develop a sphere of influence that thinks of us and our business when someone else they know mentions Real Estate or whatever your business is. This person - your key sphere of people you have a deeper relationship with - recommends you to the people they meet in need of your services. This goes a long way in building up your credibility before you even meet new clients.

I left Coach Kirk my Flip video camera to play around with to try to get some video for youtube and his blog. If he gets the hang of it I am sure he will go buy his own. I want the HD version anyway and Christmas is just around the corner. In the mean time he will try to upload his website he designed and play around with twitter and facebook a bit.

That is my son Nik saying "Huh" in body language! (pictures make a blog better - IMO)

So do you have some special knowledge you might share with one of your sphere or friends? My guess is if nothing else, you probably know more about marketing and internet marketing than the average business owner or purveyor of goods or services, so share your knowledge, invest a little hands on time and think of the future bonds and the deep relationships you will reap from them. Plus it just makes you feel good to help someone.

So go out there and

• Grow your Clients
• Share your Marketing Knowledge - Teach to Learn
• Boost your Real Estate Business or Whatever Your Business Is
• Build your Sphere of Influence by Sharing

If nothing else sharing your marketing knowledge with clients and discussing how to grow new clients might give you something else to talk about if your football team is losing like the Denver Broncos are at the moment. (Thats just depressing!)

Have a great day! Chris

Chris Ormsbee is a Realtor and is a licensed Real Estate Agent in the State of Colorado. He is part of the Montrose Gold Team and works for Century 21 Action Realty in Montrose Colorado. Century 21 Action Realty is located at 1245 E Main St. Montrose, CO 81401 and our phone number is (970) 209-0252

Chris Ormsbee is NOT a Lawyer, Accountant, CPA, Surveyor, Structural Engineer, Financial Advisor, Judge, Jury or a Normal Guy, but he does occassionally sleep at a Holiday Inn Express.

Besides Commenting here, you can Contact Chris Ormsbee (especially if you want to buy or sell real estate):

Chris' Cell Phone is (970) 209-0252 (970) 209-0252

Chris can be friend-ed on Facebook. His user name is Chris Ormsbee

Chris also has other blogs pertaining to Real Estate:

http://www.YourCOREAdvisor.com/blog

http://www.MontroseGoldTeamBlog.com

Chris is also "diverse" and has

http://www.TheDivorceWorkshop.com - a divorce counseling and advice site.

http://IdeasThoughtsWhatevers.blogspot.com/ - a discussion about Internet Marketing Ideas and trial "sales pitches", wild wacky ideas and politics abound and some content may be oriented to adults - surfers beware!

Improve Sales with the Help of Extraordinary Minds!

It doesn't matter if you are in Montrose Colorado or Miami Florida, the Real Estate Business is tough right now by anybody's standards. Some Realtors that have properly positioned themselves to take advantage of short sales and foreclosures or REOs are doing pretty well, but still this market isn't what it used to be...

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

As I tell my clients, I can't just make buyers magically appear and I can't always convince someone that wants to sell to sell for what they can get in this market...

So what do you do?

Well I am not sure!

I don't profess to be a Real Estate Business building guru and I have only been in the business for 5 years and based on this year and last I am not sure I have it right, but I am always looking for other options to improve my business, improve my customer service and even my attitude and outlook.

So I personally seek out lots of external advice and seminars and things. I was just alerted to the fact that Rich Schefren and Jay Abraham, two extraordinary people with great marketing minds have come together and formed what they are calling "The League of Extraordinary Minds" and they are offering a 6 week free seminar for a limited group of people.

I think Realtors are a group of people that need this possibly more than any other business right now.

Plus I like FREE!

And I even like FREE Advice even more, especially when it is coming from someone that I think knows something I don't.

I don't know everything and I never will, but I sure enjoy trying to learn more about anything that interests me and Marketing, Sales and Business building are key to almost any business, but especially us free spirit Realtors.

If you are interested you can check out this page at

http://budurl.com/BrilliantMinds

The seminar signup starts on October 15th (Tommorrow) at 3:00 PM EST. So don't delay if you are interested in mind melding with a bunch of smart people with Extraordinary Brilliant Minds.

This picture I took in Montrose Colorado is what I call the "Light Tower in the Sky Above Montrose" It represents to me the "Guiding Light" we all seek out in our lives.

I know I will be on these calls. I want my light as bright as I can make it.

This isn't just for Realtors by the way, it is for anyone that is interested in getting great business building advice and marketing strategies from over 50 expert advisors, authors and trainers... that all have Extraordinary Minds

If your into this kind of stuff like I am, then enjoy! If not, go on trying to "create buyers" and "convince sellers"...

Here is the link one more time...

http://budurl.com/BrilliantMinds

Have a wonderful BRIGHT and BRILLIANT day!

How to find a Free list of Foreclosure Homes in and around Montrose Colorado

There are hundreds of web sites out there that try to "sell" you a list of foreclosure homes, bank owned properties, REOs and pre-foreclosure home leads.

Some of these sites actually do a good job of condensing data and making the process simple, yet many if not most, regurgitate data recorded at the court house without cross referencing or checkin the status in other locations, like the local MLS.

This is where a Realtor can come in very handy, especially a Realtor that knows the Foreclosure process and how to find and negotiate the purchase of homes that are in the process of being Foreclosed and those that have been through the Foreclosure process and are now Bank Owned or REOs.

Most people looking for "foreclosure homes" are investors or people that want to be investors, but more and more there are people just looking for a "screaming deal" on a home for themselves.

The foreclosed homes range in value and our service area is very diverse. The cheapest foreclosed home listing the Montrose Gold Team currently has listed is $155,000 and the highest is probably going to be priced about $1,000,000 to $1,250,000.

The best generic advice for a Free Foreclosure List

Access the county web site (where you are searching) by googling the "county name" and selecting the "real" government provided county website. Then look for a page or tab for the trustee or possibly assessor or if they have a search function to search the site type in "Foreclosure List". In general Government Websites are wonderful for providing tons of "FREE" information (we actually all paid for it, so use it)... You should always migrate to them in research.

In Montrose Colorado you can access the Free Foreclosure List at:

http://www.montrosecounty.net/treasurer/foreclosures/

Then if you have Microsoft Word you can click on the "Active" link and it will open on the same page in Word. Otherwise you can right click and select Save Target As and save the ".doc" file and then you can open it with SWriter - OpenOffice.org's free word processing application.

Other sites you may need are the Assessor's site at:

http://eagleweb.montrosecounty.net/eagleassessor/web/splash.jsp

and the Online Recorded Records Searching Site at:

http://oncore.montrosecounty.net/Search.aspx

Unfortunately Montrose County Charges for access to the viewable "online records" but you can view the "header" information for free and search to see if documents exist in a party's name...

All of the Homes and Properties below have been through Foreclosure. They are now considered bank owned or in one case FDIC owned because this property brought the small bank down!

This home below is in the Hastings Mesa Area off of Elam Ranch Rd is a bank owned property and went through a foreclosure.

It is about 40 minutes from Montrose and about 20 minutes to Telluride... It is all solar and wind powered for electricity and is heated with propane.

Access is limited during the winter and requires snow mobile or snow shoe access. However if plowed daily, it could probably be kept open year round. This home was purchased for $1.8 Million and had $1.5 Million in Debt on it. It had been on the market for 6 months at a price of $1.5 Million and didn't sell. So it will probably be priced around $1.25 Million.

We have small neighborhood homes like this:

We have a local Golf Course Community where the whole community with the club house and undeveloped lots for sale was Foreclosed! We have many homes in this community that have been foreclosed or are in the processes of being foreclosed.

This home below is on Painted Wall in the Bridges Golf Course Community and is listed at $375,000. It is under contract and set to close at the end of September.

Below is a picture of the club house at The Bridges Golf Course Community.

It is owned by the FDIC. They are accepting any bids over $7,000,000 starting tonight 9/18/09... Original defaulted debt was approximately $24 Million.

There are all types of Foreclosed Properties and Homes...

The Foreclosure process is the same for commercial and residential property but slightly different (longer for farm ground).

After the bank gets tired of not being paid, usually about 3 months of non-payment, then they will file a Notice of Election and Demand (NED) which starts the foreclosure process and requires the Public Trustee for the County to set the Sale Date 110-125 days after the filing of the NED.

The Owner must file a notice to Cure at least 10 days prior to the Sale Date if they intend to Cure, so if you have an owner whos home has started into the foreclosure process, it is a good idea to get this Notice from the County and file it immediately to leave their options open.

The Foreclosure List is just the beginning, then the research and the phone calls and visits begin. A Realtor can be very helpful here unless you have done several of these and know all the ropes.

If a home is "pre-foreclosure" you may be able to wrap the note, or save the home owner if they aren't too far underwater. You basically have a "motivated seller".

If a home is "in foreclosure" then you will likely want to try to get the Bank to do a Short Sale. If the homeowner has a lot of equity again you might be able to wrap their note, cure it and assume ownership of the home.

If a home is "going to foreclosure sale" - you can show up at the courthouse at 9:00 on Wednesday (in Montrose Colorado), bring your cash and make a bid and purchase the home there.

If a home has "gone through foreclosure" - it is now considered "bank owned" and is often referred to as an REO which stands for Real Estate Owned (by the bank).

Hope this helps!

If you have any specific questions about how to find foreclosed homes that are bank owned, homes in the foreclosure process or homes that are about to go into foreclosure, please call or leave a comment and I will try to answer your questions.

So hopefully you know someone with about 8-10 Million and you will have them call me to buy this foreclosed Golf Course Community full of homes that have been foreclosed or are in the foreclosure process as we speak. Realize there are many viable "real" families living here as well, paying dues and golfing.

Chris Ormsbee is a Realtor and is a licensed Real Estate Agent in the State of Colorado. He is part of the Montrose Gold Team and works for Century 21 Action Realty in Montrose Colorado. Century 21 Action Realty is located at 1245 E Main St. Montrose, CO 81401 and our phone number is (970) 209-0252. Chris Ormsbee is NOT a Lawyer, Accountant, CPA, Surveyor, Structural Engineer, Financial Advisor, Judge, Jury or a Normal Guy, but he does occassionally sleep at a Holiday Inn Express.

Besides Commenting here, you can Contact Chris Ormsbee (especially if you want to buy or sell real estate):

Chris' Cell Phone is (970) 209-0252

Chris can be friend-ed on Facebook. His user name is Chris Ormsbee

Chris also has other blogs pertaining to Real Estate:

http://www.YourCOREAdvisor.com/blog

http://www.MontroseGoldTeamBlog.com

Chris is also "diverse" and has

http://www.TheDivorceWorkshop.com - a divorce counseling and advice site.

http://IdeasThoughtsWhatevers.blogspot.com/ - a discussion about Internet Marketing Ideas and trial "sales pitches", wild wacky ideas and politics abound and some content may be oriented to adults - surfers beware!