Red Bank, NJ

Here is a checklist of possible documents you might need to complete your home loan.

This will help you get the necessary form and documents that are most often needed when apply for a loan. By making sure that you have these items on hand when you go to apply for a loan you greatly decrease the time it takes to get you the money you need.

Completed Loan Application
Signed and dated by all loan applicants

Income Documents
For Hourly or Salaried Employment:
Original W-2 for the past year AND
Original paycheck stub showing year-to-date income (within last 60 days)

For Self-Employment, Sole Proprietor:
Complete copy of previous year's federal tax return
Copy of year-to-date Profit and Loss statement

For Self-Employment, Corporation:
Copy of Form 1120 for previous year
Copy of year-to-date Profit and Loss statement
Complete copy of federal tax return for previous year (including all schedules)
Original W-2 for the past year (if applicable)
Original paycheck stub showing year-to-date income (if applicable)

For Retirement Income:
Original Social Security Award Letter or Pension Award Letter

For Rental Income:
Copy of complete tax return for previous year (including Schedule E)
Copy of lease or rental agreement for all properties

Other Income (You do not need to reveal alimony, child support, or separate maintenance income information unless you need it for qualification purposes):
A 1-year history of receipt AND
A copy of the fully executed divorce decree, if applicable AND
Evidence of 1 full year of receipt of payments

Asset Documents
Originals of the two most recent account statements for all checking, savings or other asset accounts
Obligations (debts other than consumer credit accounts)
A copy of the fully executed divorce decree indicating the amount of child support, alimony or separate maintenance payments, if applicable

Property

For Refinancing:

Copy of Mortgage Statement(s)

Copy of Home Owners Insurance

For purchase loans
A copy of the fully executed purchase contract

Take Care,

Nicholas Napoletano

Targeted Mailings

Direct mail is a great way to reach more people, faster. The key to a successful direct mail campaign is the list that you are mailing to. The type of list you need to acquire depends on the type of business you want. You could mail to lists of people who have owned their house for 5 years, people with bad credit, people with great credit, people with kids of college age, people in foreclosure, or just about anything else you could think of.

Determine first whom you want to mail to. Look in the yellow pages under mailing lists or list broker and these people will help you find the right list. There are also companies that cater to the real estate and mortgage industries. For example, there are companies that can help you get lists of people with certain interest rates, or with a certain amount of equity.

After getting your list, you need to write a letter that tells the consumer why they should take the action you want them to. What benefits are in it for them? Sell the benefits of what they will get by doing business with you. Make it a personal letter, coming from you, not a large company. Then make it easy for them to contact you. Offer them something for responding quickly. The more time goes by after they read your letter the less chance they will ever contact you.

Hand address all your letters if possible, and use real stamps, not bulk mail or postage meters. Make your letter seem personal. You do not want it looking like junk mail.

Mortgage Companies (This is my favorite part...lol)

Up until the late 1980's Realtors were the #1 source of business for the mortgage industry. Realtors controlled the buyers and could get them to go to any mortgage company they wanted. It's still that way with most buyers. But the mortgage industry since then has started marketing directly to consumers. That's why nowadays mortgage companies are great sources for buyers.

Mortgage companies all want to work with Realtors. (hint, hint ;-) Most of them still depend on Realtors as their #1 source of business. If you are going to be in the business, you will need your clients to go to a mortgage company. Don't make a rookie mistake and not use this leverage.

Many trainers teach that you should not tell your buyers what mortgage company to use. This makes some sense, but if you do your homework and choose a good one there are many more benefits than pitfalls.

First of all you do not want to recommend a large company where you don't know anyone personally. Almost all real estate firms own their own mortgage and title companies. They want you to send them business. But do these companies ever send you business? I doubt it. What you need to do is find a broker or a particular loan officer that can work with your clients individually and provide great service. This person needs to be available to you and keep you constantly updated through the entire loan process.

And when people approach this person looking to buy a house and they do not yet have a Realtor, expect that person to recommend you. You send them business and they send you business.

A good mortgage company will also have great follow up systems to handle prospective prospects that are not yet ready to buy. If at all possible delegate your follow up duties to the mortgage company. Let them do the work, but make sure those prospects are returned to you once they are ready to buy or sell.

Summary

We've gone over some ways to jump-start your business very cheaply and quickly. The purpose of this report was to get your mind flowing with ideas on how you can generate leads in a hurry. Take these techniques, use them, improve them, and succeed with them. They have worked, are working, and will continue to work.

Don't get fancy and spend money on things you don't need right away. Spend 70% of your day prospecting for leads, calling your sphere, cold calling, passing out cards, etc.

Do these things religiously and I guarantee you'll have enough business to keep you very, very busy.

Warning: Once the leads start coming in and turning into sales, do not stop prospecting. The leads that you generate are all future business. If you have no leads you will have no future income. Don't get so busy putting out fires that you ignore prospecting and marketing.

For more ideas and inspiration read the following:

How to Sell Anything to Anybody by Joe Girard

Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson

101 Ways to Promote Yourself by Raleigh Pinskey

Good Luck and Good Selling!!!

NN

CLASSIC HORSE & CARRIAGE RIDES

Dec. 6 - Dec. 21, 2008

Every Saturday afternoon, Bridge Avenue across from The Galleria & Murphy Style Grill, 26 Broad Street. Ride through the downtown in an old-fashioned carriage and enjoy the sounds and sights of the season. FREE. 1-5pm

HOLIDAY HARMONIES

Dec. 6 - Dec. 20, 2008 every Saturday afternoon
Downtown Red Bank. 12-3pm Traditional carolers, choirs, brass bands, rock, folk, jazz & blues musicians bring holiday tunes to the sidewalks of Red Bank. FREE.

Sphere of Influence

Everyone that you know has to know what you do. Anytime they hear the words real estate, you want them to think of you. But don't count on them to remember, you have to drill it in their heads.

First, make a list of everyone you know. Friends, family, previous co-workers, previous customers, neighbors, church members, club or committee members, people who you buy things from, etc.

Second, send them each a letter saying that you are now a real estate agent and 10 cards for them to pass out.

Third, call each of them 3-5 days after sending the letter to make sure they read the letter and ask them if they know anyone who needs your help.

If we figure conservatively, every person knows at least 100 people. If each of your 100 people know 100 more people that's 10,000 people that you can reach.

Your 100 contacts need to hear from you at least once a month. Either by phone, fax, email, or letter. Your name needs to keep hitting them again and again. If you call once a month, that is the most effective and cheapest. And as you meet new people and have more clients, they need to go into your database as well.

Out of 100 people, at least 10 will move every year. That is 10 potential clients a year. These 100 people will each know 10 people that move in a year. That's 1000 potential clients for you every year. But only if you keep in touch with your 100 and continue to ask for referrals.

The top performing realtors and real estate agents get that way by mining their databases. They get to the point where people come asking for them and wanting to work with them because so and so said they should. That's the best kind of marketing you get.

Advanced stuff: Who do you know that already has a database of people and will recommend you to them? Is any one of your 100 a salesman, small business owner, attorney, accountant, doctor, dentist, etc? These people already have a client list established. Get them to recommend you to their list and watch the referrals grow exponentially.

More advance stuff: If you work at a large company, see if you can go through the old files and call cold clients. This works especially well if the broker who did the transaction is no longer with the company.

Bird dogs

A birddog is basically a person who brings you a lead in exchange for something. Now let me stress that you must know your state's laws regarding giving gifts and payments. (Refer to my blog about RESPA) But if you get creative, you should be able to come up with some way to reward people for referring people to you. Joe Girard author of How to Sell Anything to Anybody was a Chevrolet salesman for many years. He would give each customer a birddog kit with 25 business cards and the promise that he would pay them $25 for every person they sent him who bought a car. It worked wonders for him, and he is now listed as the Greatest Car Salesman by the Guinness Book of World Records.

Your sphere of influence and all your contacts should know what you will give them if they send you a referral. You can even put it on your business cards. But don't do anything illegal. There is a way to do it legally in every state, you just have to find it.

You probably cannot pay money, but many Realtors give out movie passes or gift certificates for restaurants. If you do the same people need to know that you do this in order for them to go out of their way to recommend you.

Cold Calling

If you have no money at all and plenty of time, pickup the phone and start calling people. Use the cross-reference directory in your office or library to choose a neighborhood and call every house. Yes, it's tedious and a lot of people will hang up on you. But this is the quickest way to drum up business.

In the real estate training systems, they tell you to cold call for 3 hours every day. You keep calling until your 3 hours are up or until you get an appointment with a potential customer. These 3 hours will be the most productive of your day.

Good Selling

NN

What is RESPA? This question has been asked to me a lot recently from people in my networking groups to consumers. So I figured there's probably other people who do not know what it is and thought this post would be helpful.

RESPA stands for (Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act), a federal law enacted to protect consumers from abusive or excessive fees in real estate transactions. Among the requirements of RESPA are rules regarding cooperative marketing and referral kickbacks.

In short, a loan officer cannot offer anything in exchange for business referrals. In times past, it wasn't uncommon for loan officers and mortgage brokers to give gift certificates or larger-valued items to people who referred them business. Now, anything beyond a simple "Thank You" is a violation of the law, and can be prosecuted.

(Conceivably, this is to keep the loan fees down, as a referral bonus or thank-you gift from the loan officer could mean higher costs for the person getting the loan.)

Any loan officer who isn't heeding the law is putting both himself and YOU, the referral source, at risk of fines up to $10,000 and even up to a year in prison time!

Below is a link where you can find more info on RESPA laws.

Take Care and Good Selling

NN

http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/res/resp2607.cfm