Diana Perez, B.S., Realtor®

There was an interesting article in The New York Times on Monday, January 12, 2009 "Release of More Bailout Money Gains Favor", by David M. Herszenhorn and Edmund L. Andrews, which stated that under the threat of a subpoena, The Treasury Department will be under investigation scrutiny with several major financial institutions with copies of several signed contracts they signed with Wall Street with the $700 billion bailout.

While the first $350 billion bailout money has already been spent, President elect Obama plans to foresee that the second half of the $700 billion will be to "increase lending and preventing new financial crisis and not enriching shareholders and executives...imposing tough conditions on companies who are getting aid..." And the bailout money really goes out to...

The article also states that the FDIC will be regulating how the banks are utilizing the bailout government money. In a minuscule comparison, that's like the FDA saying that they will label every toxic ingredient in the packaged foods that we consume. We will see about that - I want to hear and see some action!

Tracking the first $350 billion bailout money:

There has been debate over bailing out automakers and what they have to do with the financial crisis. Beside the point, now that automakers are getting bailed out of the financial crisis too, will the pharmaceutical companies or hospitals be next? Think about it - too many uninsured patients going to the doctor because of the financial crises and foreclosure hardships have caused them congestive heart failure and so on, so the hospitals have way too many expenses...just a thought.

While we wait for the financial crises to subside we can focus on what is important to us as real estate professionals - make deals, make it happen! Despite the circumstances, I believe that if you want something so bad and put your mind and energy into it, life itself will bring it to you, and if doesn't, it was never meant to be. Use your imaginary button and click NEXT! Just the other day my friend told me, "somethings gotta give" on a plan that I was hoping for. The plan didn't go through, instead, I received something greater. Life was after all, on my side, I just had to learn to be patient. You have to grab life by the horns!

Here is an inspirational song - hope you like it! It was inspired to me because it sickens me to see and hear that people are making money out of other people's innocence. There is a lyric to a song that goes something like this "I'd rather you hurt me honestly than mislead me with a lie" can't remember the artist. To me, that's the real estate buyer/seller interpretation of "I'd rather you hurt me honestly by telling me the truth that I cannot buy or sell a/my home at this time than mess with me, my time, and my money and me and you can get along just fine."

Live Like You Were Dying by Tim McGraw - Live, Love and Laugh!

With the holidays gone and a new year to welcome and to embrace, we hope that the new beginning of the calendar year brings forth the resolutions that we promise to ourselves in the journey of our goals and in our real estate career paths.

But how long does it take to write up a business plan and goals for the upcoming year only for it to dissipate as the seasons come and go and another new year is right around the corner? Timing is everything. Use it wisely and it will make a big difference in your sales numbers. Waste it and what is the purpose of having a business plan and setting goals to begin with anyway?

Unless we are veterans in dealing with our business plans' timeline, have a clear direction and distinction of our goals' predisposition and are mentally focused, it can be a difficult, daunting, and precipitous experience staying tuned in our career paths to become better in what we do the best, The Art of Real Estate Salesmanship.

Real estate has changed a lot in the past couple of years. Nowadays it is no longer about going to a real estate class, passing the exam and placing your license with a broker. But we can heed and learn to ‘listen', ‘see' and ‘open' ourselves to the opportunities that we face in today's challenges with the housing and financing industry and working with it as opposed to against it.

As new technologies embark the Internet, we hope that we can stay focused on better customer care, staying in touch more often with our past clients, become better at blogging to communicate with future buyers and sellers, develop better communication systems, socialize and maybe even learn something new from our colleagues, seminars, webinars, even reciprocate the same to a real estate newbie - remember, we were there once before.

Keeping in mind the real estate sales and number of homes sold should not only be a priority goal but the art of salesmanship as well.

Laws of Attraction Quote of the Day:

"Agents will have to take action to succeed, but most agents who fail, fail because they don't possess the proper mind-set required for prospecting, and they don't understand how the law of attraction and action work hand in hand" ~Tamara Dorris MA - Active Rain member and author of Think and Get Rich in Real Estate Sales, Train your Brain for Success!

About a year ago, me and my friend spontaneously decided to go for a ride to Naples, Florida which is on the west coast of the peninsula. After doing some driving around and getting a bite to eat off of 5th Avenue, we decided to head towards the beach.

Upon returning from walking around I notice that there was a handbag hanging from a parking meter. It was probably invasion of privacy, but me and my friend decided after minutes of debating whether to look inside the handbag or not to look for the person's picture ID and decided to go ahead and do it. We then walked around the beach and started calling out the woman's name to every woman that resembled her - nothing.

All that time we kept talking about how this woman might be desperate looking for her purse, wondering and retracking her steps - she might even not have realized yet that her handbag was missing. We also kept thinking, "Is this the right thing to do?" but we did it anyway. I know I will would be very happy if someone took the time to do the same thing.

We also decided to call someone off of her cell phone contact names and called 'dad' but no answer - we left a message. After about 10 minutes, we see a woman get out of her car looking desperate - we knew it was her. We called her by her name - she didn't look too happy and didn't even say thank you after we explained to her the measures that we had personally taken to 'look' for her. Not that it was such a big deal - you could only feel violated when you find out that your personal things and identity has been stolen when you lose your wallet or handbag - mind you she had a lot of money in there. We didn't touch it or count it but she had a few hundred - the money was scattered.

We felt uncomfortable with the way that she reacted but felt good at the same time because deep down we felt that we did a good deed. Instead of the woman thanking us and being grateful that some caring people had found her purse and took the time to return it to her, her reaction made us feel uncomfortable but someone else might not have been so ‘nice' and actually walked away - and she would have to make appointments to get an ID at the DMV, lost money, credit cards, she might have lost a lot more than money, her identity, and the list goes on.

We don't know if her negative reaction was due to the shock that she was in of 'losing' her purse more than actually 'finding' it but we were at least relieved and glad that she got her handbag back and intact.

Four days ago I went outside of my house to get my mail. A man across the street doing some work called out my name and said that he found my wallet. My wallet? Yes, it must have fallen out of your handbag when you checked your mail yesterday. I could not believe it! My money and everything was intact! I gave the man a hug and was almost in tears because it was Christmas money in there, personal and company credit card and my identity as well. I was with the same friend that went with me to Naples and we looked at each other in disbelief but with relief. We immediately remembered the lady with the handbag at Naples beach and laughed! The moral of the story - it pays to be nice and honest.

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

Related Article: NYT by Brad Stone 4/7/09

Lost in the Real World, Found in Cyberspace

Miami Beach's City National Bank has received a 5 Star rating with it's over $1 billion in assets from Bauer Financial and Bankrate.com and was given an A+ rating from Street.com in it's 3^rd Quarter for 2008 according to MSN Money Central and PR Newswire.

According to a recent article by The Miami Herald - Nine Banks in Miami-Dade & Broward Counties Earn Top Ratings. Among them are Coral Gables based First Bank, Coconut Grove Bank (Miami), Flagler Bank (Davie) and Floridian Community Bank (Ft. Lauderdale).

What gives banks an A+ or 5 Star rating? How important should the rating of your bank be to you? Should you care?

Banks are financial intermediaries - a depository institution which accepts deposits from the public and then lends those deposits to borrowers. The profits that come from a bank are from lending out these funds. The banks charge an interest on those loans, and from charging for services such as ATM fees, and check-printing charges.

Banks are not for just depositing money, having a checking account and writing checks. The bank's must have $5 million in real estate banking value and have by law in required reserves $2 million in the vault and $8 million in accounts with the Federal Reserve.

Banks earn their revenue by lending out their deposits. For example, a bank which has too many bankruptcies or home foreclosures - its total assets are less than its total liabilities - is when banks become insolvent, weak, and get a poor rating, even close.

Bank ratings are as follows:

A - Excellent 5 Stars - Superior
B - Good 4 Stars - Sound
C - Fair 3 Stars - Performing
D - Weak 2 Stars - Below Peer Group
E - Very Weak 1 Star - Lowest Rated

Top rated bank's success spared sub-prime loans. Did your bank suffer from the sub-prime crisis that our nation is facing today? Is your bank a top or weak rated bank?

Find out if your bank, thrift, or credit union is safe. How safe is your bank?

Bank failure: What to do next? By: Laura Bruce - Bankrate.com

Most importantly, even if you do not want to change your bank to a higher rated bank, make sure that your bank is FDIC insured.

When a tenant abandons an apartment and leaves personal property behind, what are the proper steps to take of disposing of the tenant's abandoned personal property?

As a property manager, I witnessed a landlord removing a tenant's abandoned personal property as I went to visit my friend at the apartment complex where she resides. The tenant's were late in paying their rent and God knows what causes lie on the reasons for abandoning the rental unit.

The landlord kept ranting about irresponsible tenants and how they had left personal things behind from the silverware to furniture, TV, DVD player and some clothing. Out of curiosity, I asked the landlord how long had the unit been abandoned. The landlord said that the tenant had just called and was going to pick up their ‘stuff'.

But the landlord said that they were entering the unit and taking the tenant's ‘stuff' as collateral for the rent owed. And they did. When the tenants came back they found that their apartment was empty. Apparently, the landlord had not changed the door lock. Big mistake! The tenants then called authorities to file a burglary report.

Immediately, the police came by and asked the landlord to return the tenant's personal property as it is against the law for a landlord to enter a unit and take tenants' ‘abandoned' personal property regardless if they owe rent or not.

The proper procedure was for the landlord to evict the tenant's with the proper eviction documents. Evictions are a process but when done properly, they will save the landlord from getting sued or actually going to jail for theft.

Even if the tenant's do not pay rent and leave the premises, there are steps to take to avoid any legal action against the landlord. Not fair, but laws are laws and guidelines are guidelines.

Alas, both landlord and tenants have a procedure to go by of the right way of disposing of abandoned personal property might the tenants moved out whether they owed rent or not.

The following link is a general guideline (California State) to go by.

U.S. Landlord.com

For Florida Landlords:

Florida Landlord/Tenant Act - Division of Consumer Services