Antonio & Alexia Cardenas "The Realtors In Motion" Remax In Motion

I joined Active Rain about 3 months ago, and I must confess that I am addicted to this group of professionals. I have learned a lot from the members of this group, there are tons of useful tips on how to handle almost anything relating to real estate. I have pick up a few marketing tips that have made a difference and I have met some wonderful people who's knowledge is so generously shared that I have nothing but admiration and respect for them.

During this time I have had two of my clients move out of the area. In the past I will look for the nearest office or look up the CRS or GRI members on that area and hand over my clients without knowing much about the individual except the number of years in the business and the professional designations, I figure if I have those designations and they do too, then, they are like me... wrong!

When I posted my first seller referral I received lots of inquiries, I particularly asked that the agent must be CRS or GRI, I screened them and found a wonderful active rain member who right now has a new $850,000 listing. This Realtor was new to AR also but had the designations I wanted and she lives 5 minutes from this listing, took action, followed up with the client and with me. Good feeling!

My second referral is an all cash buyer for about $600,000 but this time I actually went to the AR web page of the individuals and read some of their post in their blogs, looked at the inventory of homes, cheked the ability to reach them, the 800 numbers, I called them on the cellular and actually was able to pick the best Realtor I could possibly find.

Both of my clients are absolutely delighted with the individuals I found for them. But by sending buyers and sellers referrals out, I have learned that the receiving agent must meet a few requirements in order to compete for and win the referral: Numbe one: Quick response of course, a couple of hours after the posting the referral was assigned. Professional web site, if you don't have an online presence but my client does, there will be no connection! Professional designations like CRS, GRI, E-Pro at least, this will tell me how commited and updated you are in the industry. A toll free number, I will gladly pay for the call if someone is going to give me a listing, wouldn't you?

I also appreciated the brief introduction some of them had when requesting the referral. Some did ask for the referral, others just told me how wonderful they were. The better ones even gave me tips! Like: "a part of that city carry Mello Ross taxes that are high, be careful you get an agent who knows the area well..." That was great! I used that in my interview with the Realtor that ultimaltely got the referral and warned my client to keep an eye out for that.

The ones I did not care for were those whose geographical area was not what I was looking for. Or those Big Designations-long experience-leaders of a team who wanted the referral but when I asked who will handle the client, they told me their "buyers agent" who happen to be a new Realtor with just a few months of experience, ouch! That is a no-no for me! If I give you a referral based on YOUR experience and knowledge, YOU must handle the client! Please remember that the client will give me feed back and I will have no problem looking for another Realtor if you drop the ball.

Taking buyers and sellers of real estate out of the equation, I thought it was going to be difficult to find anyone who could possibly be enjoying this depressed market, but once you start looking carefully you will find them! People who are actually having a ball in this market! There are some real estate service providers who are enjoying an all time high because houses aren't selling.

Home stagers: They are running out of furniture and since they make money by renting it, the longer it stays put the better the margin of profit. Staging houses to look good is their job. But on a market where PRICE seems to be the only issue, sometimes staging doesn't even help. To borrow a line from the politicians that applies very well to our real estate market: If the pig has lipstick... it is still a pig!

Appraisers: Almost everybody wants to know how much is their house worth, banks want to know the true value of their properties, equity lines of credit need to be adjusted, and an appraisal is the key. I recently discovered a new twist: A review appraisal when providing new purchase loans. Just over 3 weeks ago, at the last minute the lender required 2 more appraisals to verify the value! An appraisal to appraise the appraiser? The buyer refused to pay for those appraisals and the loan officer took that loan to another lender, there was a 3 week delay but we closed the escrow. We used to have only ONE appraisal per house, no wonder the appraisers are busy people.

Property Managers: The high number of foreclosures have been a boom for these people, they don't have enough rentals to go around, their vacancy factors are very low, and they are getting pretty good tenants, former homeowners who know how to take care of a home. A foreclosure prevents them from purchasing another house for years until their credit improves. Good property managers are in high demand right now.

Landscapers: I always thought that these people have a very steady job. Weeds keep growing, trees go out of shape, lawns turn brown and die, houses for sale with un kept landscaping loose value, nature simply goes all out if the gardener quits, and everybody notices his absence.

The Sign Company: What a good job to have right now. Their existing inventory of "For Sale" signs is all out; some of their signs have been planted for good in some cases... like in one of my listings! I have a house that has been for sale for almost 2 years with a for sale sign planted on the same spot, I think I noticed the other day that it has sprout some twigs and leaves, if it ever bear fruit I'll quit selling real estate!

"Credit Restoration Consultants"... whatever that is... they are making money too! You see, not EVERYBODY is suffering from a bad real estate market, some of them are actually having fun!

The challenges of this "Buyer's Market," are very unique, with inventory of homes for sale at an all time high, plus banks getting ready to acquire more properties via Foreclosures and then ad them to the list of "For Sale" homes, having an offer is sort of... a privilege, a blessing.

But what if you, Mr. seller, get a "Low-Ball" offer on your house? Recognizing that an offer is an opening salvo for the beginning of negotiations is critical. Unfortunately, some sellers get right down... offended by a low offer. They refuse to take it seriously and a rejection is the result that kills any chance they could have had of getting to a mutually agreeable compromise with the buyer.

After 23 years of selling real estate full time I have learned to counsel my clients, the sellers to be open minded, especially on this market and to understand the logic of a buyer who makes an offer. Yes, prices are low but don't blame the buyer for trying to get an even better deal. Would YOU Mr. seller do the same if you were in the buyer's shoes? Of course YOU wouldn't!

Engaging the buyer in negociations even with his "Low-Ball" offer, keeps the buyer looking at YOUR house, look at the big picture! If you want to sell the house, there is a reason. Keep the main goal in mind, if you are selling to buy a bigger or smaller house, I recommend you give more than you thought you could give because you will recover all that and more when you switch from Seller to Buyer, you will get even with the next guy!

If you manage to sell your house on this market, consider yourself lucky, a low bid offer could be the key to your future plans being realized sooner than expected. Don't lock yourself into an unreasonable price. Remember, the best price for the house is: "What the buyer is willing to pay and the seller is willing to accept" Now, go ahead and take another look at those... "Low-Ball" offers.

While rushing to get home today, I was stopped "dead on the road" so-to-speak by... a funeral parade. It reminded me of an important funeral that gets talked about in almost all of my family reunions.

My aunt Carmen (her real name) is one of those women that can get almost everything right in life except a good man. An attractive 40 something, twice divorce, active person, Carmen one day announced to the family that she had finally found the right man, she was in love... again. Welcome "Alfonzo". (His real name,). And after they met they had the most wonderful time of their lives... all 3 weeks of them! That is when they had the first big fight and parted ways... for a few days... only to re-connect a few days later.

For the next year & half, they fought, split apart and reconciled almost weekly. She would find him with other women all over town, he would tell her he will be in one place and then she will find him in another place with another female companion.

All come to an abrupt end when she discovered he had 2 other girlfriends, a pregnant wife... and two kids! Aunty Carmen loved this guy so much, and kept coming back to him, time and time again, but this time, it was different, her heart could not be mended anymore, in their last fight, she even threatened to kill him!

On a rainy Saturday afternoon my aunt Carmen got dressed in all black including a veil and drove towards the cemetery, she waited for a couple of hours crying inconsolably, all alone in her car. Finally here it comes, a funeral procession entered, cars and people followed the hearse, my aunt got out of her car and joined the mourners, she cried as hard as any family member of the deceased, she even participated on throwing a handful of dirt onto the casket, she cried so hard that it moved people to gave her their condolecenses.

The picture we got from her was that she did look and felt miserable in that graveyard, soaking wet, with dirt all over her, swollen eyes from crying, and the family of the deceased trying in a hostile manner to find out who she was. To this day, we do not know weather the deceased was a man or a woman, and as she told us the story, we were in tears... tears of pain! We were laughing out so hard, wondering what the grieving family thought of this stranger in their funeral. But for Aunty, she had buried her man. For all intends and purposes he was for her as dead as a doorknob, granted we all knew he was very much alive and well, frolicking perhaps with yet another woman.

The big test come just 2 weeks after that funeral when Carmen and a girlfriend of hers come face to face with "Alfonzo" and his date at a restaurant. He come to her and asked her how she was doing, she looked at him directly in his eyes and asked him who he was. He was horrified when she told him that she had just attended his funeral! The man of her dreams was dead and buried forever; the stranger in front of her was no one she could recognize. Her heart had finally healed.

Now anytime I see a funeral I wonder if the cadaver is the only think being buried that day.

When we received an offer on a house we have listed, the very first person we contact, even before the seller, is the Loan Officer who provided us with a pre-approval letter. We need to assure the seller that this offer is good, or not so good depending on what we know about the buyer's qualifications from the loan officer's report.

As frustrating as it is, most loan officers do not want to divulge any information at all! Granted, we know the confidentiality agreement created with his client: the buyer, our buyer now. Some of them refer us to the agent who wrote the offer, The Selling Agent, who in turn does not provide helpful information either. To me this is like... for the next 30-45 days, you will be living in my house... and you don't want to talk to me? All we want to know is how well have you qualified this buyer. The seller will make plans based on what you tell us! So please, talk to us! Give us a fair report, we will help you with extensions when needed if we know what YOU are working on with the buyers loan.

Some of the best reports we have ever had is when the loan officer gives us a good report of his client,"... we have run his credit report, we have verification of funds, his paystufs shows good tenure in his job..." etc, etc. He does not have to give us every detail but the Seller will feel better knowing that there is a good relationship established between the buyer and his lender. If there is a delay the seller will most likely go along with it if he/she knows how easy of difficult the loan is going to be. Surprises at the last minute is what creates problems for everybody in the transaction, especially when we are led to believe that "all is fine" (that in my book is a red flag)

We all know the consequences of getting a loan officer that does not perform on time because he/she did not do a complete job of properly qualifying the borrower before granting him/her a well-written letter of pre-approval.

In my inbox I get flyers and brochures from almost every lender in town. We all know how important is to have loyal clients and how much it cost to generate a new one. After 23 years selling real estate in the same area, I have lenders I work with on a regular basis, but I am always open to looking at alternatives and new financing products.

The day I receive an offer on one of my listings, I began working with a new lender weather I like it or not! Because of the that loan officer can call me daily... for about 30 to 45 days, (the length of the escrow) and I will have to take his/her call. I might be so impressed with this "new Lender" that I might become his/her client.

Sadly this does not happen, most lenders just want to talk to the Selling Agent, their client. How easy would it be for them to take every opportunity to impress one new Realtor every time there is an escrow open, the Listing Agent should be treated like a new client, you have been given the opportunity to work with a potential new client, why do you ignore him/her? After all, the LA represents the other half of the transaction, the happiness of his client, the Seller is equally as important as the happiness of the loan officer's client, the Buyer.

Most loan officers I speak to want to tell me how they work, and how good they are. During a transaction the lender can show us how they work, (which is by far more effective of course!) But most lenders just miss that great opportunity to gain a new client. Keep an eye open for the Listing Agents...Do a good job of communicating with him/her about the transaction and you might gain a brand new client.