Russ Gordon, Real Estate Broker Colorado Springs and Pikes Peak Region

I regularly come across unfortunate homeowners who have gotten behind in their mortgages for one reason or another. The reasons range from the loss of a job to unexpected medical expenses, to rising credit card debt which starts to impact them because of the excessive interest they are paying.

I can rarely fault the homeowners for being in this position. Either the situation was out of their control or they're in trouble because of ignorance as to how to manage money. We've done a lousy job teaching our children through the public educational system or at home (the previous generation didn't have much instruction either.) The availability of easy credit is a trap that many have found themselves in and with incomes having taken a serious hit in the last several years, often these crises have crept up on families like quicksand slowly engulfing an unfortunate hiker.

It doesn't take long for a financial crisis to hit the security that we call our homes. With the mortgage payment being most people's biggest expense, fairly soon payments are missed and the bank is calling. The first and best option is a loan modification that will make the housing situation more affordable. Unfortunately, few people have been able to take advantage of these programs. The morass of red tape and beaurocracy have made the possibility of a loan mod very rare, so it isn't long before the bank files a foreclosure action against the homeowner.

Hopefully, before the situation gets to this point, the family has either stumbled across a well-educated real estate professional or has sought out the advice of someone who is well versed in the options available to a them. A Realtor with a designation as a Certified Distressed Property Expert or Short Sale and Foreclosure specialist can give solid, current advice as far as what direction to proceed to avoid a foreclosure.

Why not just let the property take its natural course at this point and allow the foreclosure to happen? There are several reasons to choose a short sale over a foreclosure: first of all, a short sale is a better option for your financial future. The impact on your credit score is less (remember that there is also a significant impact just by missing a number of mortgage payments) but a short sale can minimize the "hit" to a FICO score by some 50 points or more.

Secondly, the odds of purchasing another home sooner are much better with a short sale. It's not uncommon for someone who has gone through a short sale to be able to purchase a home again within 12-18 months whereas with a foreclosure, it is much more likely to be 3 - 4 years before this is possible.

In our area, we have a large number of military and civilian contractors who work for the military. If you are one of these folks, many times you need a security clearance to maintain your position. A foreclosure can threaten that clearance, whereas a short sale typically does not.

Finally, there is the factor that creditors view short sales and foreclosures very differently. Future creditors will see a short sale as a family's attempt to honor at least some portion of their obligation to the debt. Even though the mortgagee knows they will not walk away from the incident with any financial gain, they are making the effort anyway. A foreclosure or a deed in lieu of foreclosure is more often than not viewed as a relinquishment of all responsibility for a debt and does not cast a positive light on a borrower.

Short sales are work, but preserving any part of your valuable and hard-earned credit makes it worth the effort. I highly recommend that as soon as you seen trouble looming and anticipate getting behind on your mortgage, you contact a local, well-educated real estate professional to give you good counsel for your financial future.

You know you've had conversations about it for months. "It's coming...It'll be here in a few months...Wow, I can't believe it's going to be 2012! It's just around the corner."

Well, it's here. No more anticipating the last couple of digits on the calendar dramatically flipping over and the world changing with awesome fringe benefits for your business and personal life. The change may not be particularly obvious- well maybe for the first few weeks, everyone will be a little more enthusiastic about things, but pretty soon everyone will settle into the same routine as last year (did you hear that? LAST year.)

YOU, however, will not settle for the mundane or routine. YOU will not allow a comfortable, placid feeling to wash over you and lull you into another mediocre year. YOU will make a decision to make a change- perhaps not to change the world, but you will make some significant changes in your little part of the world, and who knows, in the process you may have an impact on the people who move in and out of your circles. I don't want to discourage you from shooting for the moon, but maybe just reaching for the stars will help them to line up into some wonderful alignment that opens a door you never expected.

However, these changes are not going to happen unless you take action now. Write something down, tell someone about your plans- oh, and HAVE A PLAN. Remember, a plan is just an outline for your actions. The best plans are simple and straightforward. The best plan have clear, definable outcomes and have enough simple, achievable steps to allow you to have SUCCESS early on and often.

Here's your first goal: visualize yourself one month from now looking back on a string of small victories- little significant changes and accomplishments that you haven't ever accomplished before.Picture yourself having called a few people and catching up with them, joining a club or a group of some kind that will further your personal growth or career, or having learned a new skill.

Picturing the success will give you enthusiasm for actually doing what you need to do to break out of the routine.

It's a small start, but MAKE IT HAPPEN and you'll be surprised how different things look as you start talking about 2013!

Sandra Bullock is having marital problems. Tiger Woods is having marital problems. The real estate and mortgage industries and the conservative and liberal parties are having marital problems and it seems they just can’t get along- irreconcilable differences. With all these problems, what IS working?

Although it looks bad on the surface, there’s a lot that is RIGHT with America. We just have to get back to the basics. The Constitution (even though it’s a bit dusty right now) and the ideas of a free market, a government by and for the People and a belief in Divine Providence are still alive.

It often takes a crisis before people will awaken from their comfort zone. Our natural reaction is to see crisis as bad and something to be avoided, but most of our advances are born out of crisis. The beauty of our political system is that it there are checks and balances: three branches of government that are in “cooperative tension” with each other. When something gets out of balance, as it has many times in our history, the people (who ARE the government) recognize it and take steps to correct things.

That’s what we’re seeing happening right now. There’s a crisis of confidence brewing, but there’s nothing wrong with the system. The engine of our Nation is brilliant in its design and flexible enough to accommodate change. The fuel it needs to run though is equal parts of integrity, ingenuity, faith, compassion and vision for a better future.

Sandra Bullock and Jesse James will get through this- maybe not as a couple, but they will put their lives back together and move on. Tiger Woods has already steadied himself and is back on the golf course and it looks like his marriage may survive. The real estate industry is being civil with the mortgage industry and, well, the liberals and the conservatives are at their best mildly cooperative and at their worst like two selfish children. Hopefully they’ll mature soon and start working towards a better America.

Whatever happens though, it’s critical that we believe in the future and in believing, we take the small actions every day that, when added together, change the future.

Everything you do and everything you say, every transaction you conduct and the people you associate with all affect people's perception of you. In a world where trust is a valuable commodity because it is so hard to find, you must guard this particular characteristic jealously.

A good reputation is built in a number of ways. The most obvious way is that you do what you say you will do. Keeping appointments on time, following through on business commitments and being a person of your word are key to building your reputation. Incidentally, this is not just with your clients, it's also with your colleagues and other business associates. Being on time for appointments, communicating if you're going to be running late and being courteous- in fact, going the extra mile every time demonstrate your character. These are the basics- however, there are many more things that affect peoples' perception of you.

Have you ever heard the term, "guilt by association?"

Whose company do you keep? It's not always a good thing, but people do evaluate you on the basis of who they see you are spending time with. It's important to evaluate all your relationships on the basis of whether they enhance, or diminish your reputation. Do the business associates you refer your clients to have the same reputation that you want to promote? Remember that whenever someone you personally refer doesn't live up to your clients' expectation, it diminishes your reputation. Your clients perceive those you surround yourself with as an extension of you.

Several years ago, when I was young and inexperienced, I worked for someone who seemed to me to be the essence of great success. His business was growing and he knew a lot of people and seemed to be making a lot of money. As time passed, certain things started to bother me. When I mentioned my boss's name or our firm in the community, the reaction was either very subdued or, in some cases cold or negative. As I began to better understand the subtleties of the business and my boss would share a new marketing strategy, I started to question the ethics of some of his approaches to garnering a larger share of the market. His actions weren't blatantly unethical, but he was constantly flirting with the "dark side" and the people that knew him didn't like it. Instead of being a competitive negotiator in business deals (which is fine) people walked away from transactions with the feeling that they didn't want to do another deal with him. Basically, he was not respected. Eventually I made the decision to leave the company because I realized I had nothing more to learn there and, in fact, if I stayed, my reputation would eventually be linked to his. It was really after I left that I began to really understand how poorly he conducted himself.

I would imagine that, right now, you can think of two or three people that you'd prefer to never do business with again. Either they are arrogant, unprofessional or just mean and they take all the joy and satisfaction out of a transaction. You may find yourself wondering how they even stay in business and, in some cases, these people are quite successful, which is astounding.

If you could somehow surreptitiously observe a typical day in your own life as you interacted with clients, business associates and even friends and family and were truly objective about what you saw, would you want to do business with yourself? Are you the kind of person you would refer to your Mom and Dad to handle the sale of their home? Good character and your reputation are a legacy that you leave to your family, your community and the industry you represent. Guard them jealously. They are the currency of your success!

Most folks have jumped on the bandwagon of technology to one degree or another, but there are skeptics who say there's too much emphasis on the tech and not enough on the touch. So who's right? Maybe everyone.

As social networking and cloud computing grow exponentially, you have to make a choice. You either stay with the veteran methods of marketing, communicating and running your business or you adopt the new methods (and hope to be able to keep up.) The good news for the "old school" is that you don't have to - and shouldn't- give up all the old ways of doing business.

No matter how adept you become at utilizing blogging, twittering, facebooking and other social networking techniques, at some point you will have to talk with clients face-to-face or on the telephone. It's also important to remember that no matter how good you are at navigating the Internet and social media, most Realtors can't expect to get all their business from that source.

Incidentally, to effectively use social media, you have to be able to communicate well in writing and address relevant topics that hold the attention of your audience so being able to forge a great article or blog is pretty important.

But what about social media and high tech connections to the "cloud?" First of all, once you get the basics down, the whole thing is kind of fun. I think it's key to view the whole thing as much more than just a marketing endeavor. Use the social facet of Facebook for keeping in touch with old friends and acquaintances across the country or overseas. Weaving the fact that you're in the real estate business is as simple as commenting on something interesting and relevant that might have happened that day or that week. When I say relevant, I'm talking about a subject that the non-real estate professional can understand. So, don't get into an in-depth monologue about the subtleties of the short sale process using real estate vernacular. It's great to give the reader an overview of these subjects, but don't assume he cares about the minutia of your interactions with the bank negotiator. A lot of real estate people don't even want to talk about that.

The hardware part of the equation is also a kick. I just got a Motorola Droid and I have to say, it can do everything my laptop can do just on a shrunken down scale. I tweet, blog and take pictures and videos. I haven't begun to explore all the free and low-cost add-on programs I can easily download. Real time, GPS enhanced product location capabilities using a camera fed bar-code scanner is just a sampling of what this little thing can do. I can view listings, respond to corporate lead texts and e-mails and record voice notes.

Wireless laser printers that operate through a home or office network, bluetooth everything and good quality videos made possible by a myriad of portable flash drive cameras like the Flip make our jobs easier and more effective and more interesting.

So, the challenge as a professional is finding a balance between the tech and the touch. Having a group of colleagues to share with is key to not getting bogged down (or "blogged" down- sorry) with the huge spectrum of options. Be honest with one another. If you find yourself "hiding" behind e-mails or marketing pieces, re-group and start making phone calls and stopping by clients homes to say "hi." You got into this business because you're good with people. Enjoy the journey and have fun with your sphere of influence.

Remember, there's no substitute for human interaction, but it sure is fun to spice things up with a little tech!