Jon Graham CRS, ABR

Have you thought about how your business went last year? Were you a quitter, a survivor, or a gogetter? In this market/economy you absolutely have to be a gogetter to be successful. Here are simple tips to propel you to success in 2009:

1) Call all of your clients looking to buy or sell at least once per week to let them know what's going on with the market and their property. Great time to ask for a referral!

2) Database your conversations and communications with your clients and reference them during your next communication(ex. "The last time we talked, you were going to get a MRI done on your knee. How'd that work out?". Listen for clues of special events and information important to them.

3) Purge your database and work the remaining contacts.

4) Return phone calls whether you feel like it or not. It's better to be the bearer of bad news rather than no news at all in our industry. Good news makes for an easy call but make it anyway!

5) Don't be too busy to attend family, social, or community events. Great places to network and propect but don't be a shark going in for the kill without listening and being classy about it. Be the magnet, not the repellant!

6) Be prepared to educated your buyers and sellers on the 'current' market and programs. This takes effort on your part to educate yourself so you become the expert!

7) Under promise and over deliver. Only promise the standard, what you know you will do with your hands tied and eyes closed so if you go above and beyond, as you should, your clients are pleasantly surprised instead of sadly disappointed.

I bid you great success in 2009!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!

This Blog comes in the form of a question. Is there relief in this market for a military member who owes more on their home than what it is currently valued? Is a short sale possible or even advised if they plan on purchasing in the area they are being re-assigned? I do understand that short sales hurt your credit but not nearly as bad as a foreclosure. Here's the scenario:

Joe The Soldier (smile) purchased a home just 2 years ago that appraised for $400k plus which was the purchase amount. Joe received assignment orders to a location in another state. He wants to purchase in the area of his new assignment but has yet to sell his home because the values have drastically dropped over the past year. Joe isn't trying to make a killing, he just wants to break even or pay a minimal amount to get out of this home so he can make the next purchase. His home is on the market and listed at the lowest possible price he can afford to sell but not even a nibble.

Joe talks to G.I. Jane who is assigned in another state but in the same situation as he is currently. She states that she obtained a letter from her realtor requesting she be allowed to do a short sale on her home without the reprocussions of negative credit because of her situation and in accordance with the Servicemembers' Civil Relief Act (SCRA). I, Joe The Soldier's realtor, googled SCRA and searched the JAG website but found nothing relative to his particular situation. May i point out that he is not behind in his mortgage? I plan on putting a call in to the local JAG office to present this scenario and questions I have about this delima.

Any information you may have would be greatly appreciated.

By the way, here's the link to the website i went to: https://www.jagcnet.army.mil/852573F600760E8C/nav?openform&ewb=312012726&est=Servicemembers%27%20Civil%20Relief%20Act&noly=1

Here we are at the end of the year 2008 and we made resolutions, promises, commitments, and on and on and on... We were determined to make 2008 the best year we've ever had! How did it turn out for you? The economy did you say? Yea, whatever! Granted, there was a hit in our industry because of the economy or is it the other way around?

If you ever get a chance, read a book called, 'The Go Getter' by Peter B. Kyne. It talks about an impossible task of delivering a blue vase under impossible odds. A good friend, colleague, and brother in Christ told me the story and since I just obtained a Sony e-reader, I decided to get the e-book and browse it myself.

I guess my point is this: To have a goal is great but without a vision, map, and tasks to get you there you will probably get way of track and possibly missing your target altogether. So if I may suggest to you a slightly better strategy for 2009:

1) Start with a workable goal

2) Map out your vision to reach that goal

3) Develop the tasks necessary to reach every goal you set

4) Last but certainly not least, it wouldn't hurt to have God in the plan!

To help you really get on the 2009 horse, here's a late Christmas gift from me to you; the link to the free download of guess what! THE GO GETTER! Click on the link to go to the download page; if clicking doesn't work, copy the URL to your address bar and hit enter: http://manybooks.net/titles/kynepete1225712257-8.html

Wish you the best and pray God blesses you and your business!

Well, well, well! Here we are again. It's two days after Christmas and we've had quite some time to think about and even appreciate the gifts we received this year. Some we really liked, and some not so much. We received some gifts from people we really love, honor, and respect. We also received 1 or 2 from (let's be honest) someone we know doesn't really care for us or vice versa! :-)

So how do we really catagorize our gifts? I would say that most of us have mainly 2 categories:

1 Gifts we want to keep

2 Gifts we need to get rid of somehow.

Now the keeping part is easy. All we have to do is find the space in the closet, house, garage, yard, or office to hang, place, or park them. The hard part is what to do with the gifts we've decided to get rid of for some reason. Here's a thought before you do: Are you above getting rid of a gift just because it may be from omeone you don't care for or you know doesn't really care for you? Talk amongst yourselves!

a) There's always the garbage which in Whoville always ended up in the hands of 'The Grinch' but in reality anywhere else doesn't do you or anyone else any good!

b) You could donate them to a local charity or homeless shelter. That could make you feel good about helping someone and provide their need at the same time.

c) You could throw them into the vortex in your closet, garage, basement, or attic. Just makes spring cleaning a bit more involved.

d) e-bay, amazon, or some other online company may be a good choice. A little pocket change for you.

e) Last but certainly not least, would you consider re-gifting? If so, here are a few rules of etiquette you should consider:

1) As mentioned previously, don't give them away just because you didn't get them from your favorite person. Consider whether or not you can really use the gift; especially if it's in great condition or new.

2) Think of someone who may be in need of or able to use the gift.

3) Never brag about where you got the gift originally because even if the person isn't around when you give it, words have an uncanny way of making their way back to the subject. Save yourself and someone else an embarrasing moment.

4) DO NOT re-gift to the original gifter's family members or friends!

5) It's really okay to re-gift if you received more than 1 of the same gift. You can always say you're not sure which one you actually gave away; especially if you really kept the other one!

So there you have it. Hopefully this can relieve some of the pressure of what to keep and what to give away. So I hope you all had a merry Christmas and I bid you a happy, prosperous, and successfull New Year!

Joshua 1:8 ...and thou shalt have good success!

As a realtor or any field in which you use or need contact management programs and databases, it is evident that your choice of phones is extremely important. Protecting your database and contacts is paramount, especially if you're an independent contractor! If you lose your contacts, you lose credability and ultimately business.

I consider myself a semi-techy guy and try to keep up with at least the necessary changes in technology to hang with my clients and make my business a smoother operation. I know, I know, what did we do before cell phones? Can anyone answer that? Can anyone even remember?

I have owned and effectively operated a Treo 700p for nearly 3 years and it was pretty cool for me and did just about everything I wanted. I was disappointed in the fact I had to purchase a bluetooth gps adapter and pay an additional $9.99 a month because the phone cannot run my provider's navigation system. Then came the advertisements and hype about the Samsung Instinct. It had a pretty good navigation system that came with my mobile plan and I didn't need an adapter! It also had several other cool features that I really liked. One of the features was that when I received my voicemails, I didn't have to call into my voicemail to see who called and left messages, but I just had to look at my messages and even had the ability to pick which one I wanted to listen to by touching the screen no matter how many messages I had.

That was all pretty cool but then I began to notice that occasionally I would try to bring up a contact that I know I put into my phone just to find that it wasn't there. I discovered that the Instinct can only hold 600 contacts and would kick one out each time you input a new one in that exceeded the 600 contact limit. So I was losing contacts without realizing. Thank the Lord I am a backup kind of guy, so I was able to retrieve contact information from my computer. So I began to weigh the options, pros, and cons. So I decided that the coolest phone isn't always the best phone. What's practical and more importantly, contact friendly, is more likely to be the one for the business person. I learned my lesson and went right back to my Treo. Next maybe a blackberry but you better believe I'm going to do my homework before I let go of something that works!