Daily Archives: March 7, 2011

Why You Need a Buyer’s Agent In Bedford NY | Bedford NY Real Estate – Robert Paul’s blog | Bedford NY Real Estate

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10/29/2010

Why You Need a Buyer’s Agent In Bedford NY | Bedford NY Real Estate

Why You Need a Buyer’s Agent In Bedford NY

Whether buying or selling a home, you need a real estate agent to help with the transaction. A real estate agent has access to information not available publicly that can help in pricing the home or determining if the asking price is fair. Additionally, an agent will help in dealing with potential buyers, marketing the home and handling the details of the sale or purchase.

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Proprietary Knowledge

In Bedford NY, homes for sale appear in a locally-produced publication called the Multiple Listing Service. While much of the information on Bedford homes in the MLS can be found on the Internet, not all of it can. You need a real estate agent to help with the purchase or sale of your home because an agent will have access to all of the MLS information.

This proprietary information includes the actual sales price of each home sold, not just the listing price. Additionally, the MLS information will include the number of days a home was on the market prior to closing. Both pieces of information are valuable in knowing how to market your home or evaluate the appropriateness of the price asked for a home in the area that you are considering.

Expertise and Experience

Buying or selling a home is a complicated process. Many homebuyers or sellers feel they need a real estate agent to help them navigate all aspects of their transaction. A real estate agent is experienced in pricing homes, preparing homes to be marketed and attracting potential buyers. Agents are experienced as well in dealing with potential buyers and moving the home through the closing process.

Dealing With Buyers

If you are selling your home, you need a real estate agent to handle calls and questions from potential buyers. Additionally, a real estate agent will show the property, meaning that you don’t have to be available to do so. And if offers are made, a real estate agent acts as a go-between during negotiations. The negotiation process can become emotional, and many people feel they need a real estate agent to keep this process professional.

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Help in Marketing

As mentioned above, including a home in the Multiple Listing Service advertises the property to a wider pool of potential buyers. However, there is more to marketing a home than publicizing that it is available. In addition to exposing the home to a wider market, an experienced real estate agent also can help prepare the home to be marketed to its best advantage. A real estate agent will know the strengths and weakness of a home as seen through the eyes of potential buyers and can help stage it to be most appealing.

Help in Closing

Closing the sale of a home requires correctly completing extensive paperwork. Even accepting an offer in the form of a contract needs to be correctly executed. Money can be lost or sales of opportunities missed if this is not done correctly and in a timely manner. An experienced real estate agent should have experience in completing the complex documentation required to buy or sell a home.

Bedford NY Homes

Bedford NY Real Estate

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Real Estate Marketing in Bedford NY – Robert Paul’s blog | Bedford NY Real Estate

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10/27/2010

Real Estate Marketing in Bedford NY

 

10 Tips for Building Customer Loyalty

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Customer Loyalty matters, because selling more to current customers is easier and cheaper than finding and selling to new ones. Loyal customers tend to buy more, more regularly. And they will frequently recommend your business to others.

Here are 10 tips for you to consider if you are sincerely interested in having a business that is notable for its customer loyalty and referrals. I propose that these tried-and-true tactics with interpersonal strategies can deepen relationships with customers, establish greater levels of trust, and build stronger customer loyalty.

1. Understand the true purpose of marketing 

Effective marketing is in large part about building trust and developing relationships.

The purpose of marketing is to "create and maintain a strong feeling with customers so they are mentally predisposed to continually choose and recommend you," according to Tom Asacker, author of A Clear Eye for Branding. Successful marketing also requires being relevant and unique, which brings us to Tip 2.

2. Identify and build your brand 

We're not talking about your logo, marketing "look," or tagline, although you should have those tools in your marketing kit. Branding that builds genuine customer loyalty goes beyond what the eye can see. It's branding at the emotional, sensory, and gut-feeling level.

Your brand is what your business is known for, how you engage with customers, and what people can depend on you to consistently deliver. It's a compilation of your most-important strengths.

What should a customer who is referring someone to your business say about you? "They go out of their way to find resources and solutions for me." "The staff is warm and caring; you can feel it the minute you walk through the door."

Identify your brand, and leverage it to see customer loyalty and referrals increase. Don't be shy about showcasing your uniqueness and strengths.

3. Tap into what customers want

To appeal to a customer's needs or desires, you must first understand their motivations, values, and priorities. Each customer has unique needs and wants.

Being tuned in to what customers want and being sensitive to their evolving needs will help you become more resourceful and innovative over time. That is an excellent way to set yourself apart from other businesses and help you build memorable, lasting customer relationships.

4. Understand what customers actually are paying for

We like to believe customers are paying for our expertise. Yet most clients or customers cannot evaluate our expertise and so they simply assume we are experts by virtue of our brand credentials.

What customers can assess is whether they experience positive outcomes, if the relationship they have with you is meaningful, if they feel valued, and if they receive a high level of service. If you're selling a service, you're selling a relationship.

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5. Outcomes matter

Practicing good interpersonal skills and maintaining solid customer relationships are important for developing customer loyalty. But what really matters to customers are results they can see, count on, and talk about.

Customers might come to you a few times because you have the right product or service for their needs, but they won't keep coming to you based on your business personality alone. Customers must trust you to help them; they must see results and learn something from you to make it worth their while to continue as your customer.

Remember, customers refer friends and family members with comments such as "I've never seen such great service before"—not "Customer service staff are great conversationalists."

6. Integrity leads to trust, which leads to a relationship

Integrity involves fundamental behaviors such as keeping your word, being honest, providing a consistent level of service, and being reliable. Businesses that demonstrate a high degree of integrity are seen as trustworthy.

Building trust requires the businesses to continually put the customer's interests ahead of their own and display a genuine "other" orientation. You demonstrate that by being interested rather than interesting, and by not treating every interaction as an opportunity to share your message.

All that adds up to doing business with integrity. Without integrity, there is no trust, and without trust, there is no enduring relationship.

7. What have you done for me lately?

One of the most common mistakes businesses make is focusing primarily on the early part of the sale. They wrongly assume that once a customer is happy, that customer will stay happy and continue to use the services.

Each customer's experience is the sum of every small experience that customer has while in your place of business. Ask yourself, If I were this customer right now, what would I really want in terms of product, care, and service?

Remember, your customer is always thinking, What's in it for me? What you do (or fail to do) at every point during a customer's course of care makes an impression.

8. Never take loyalty for granted

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A successful external marketing campaign will encourage people to try you out, but only good outcomes and an authentic relationship with you will keep them coming back.

Customers' willingness to return to your business depends only partly on their need for your product or services. They can easily choose another business or provider, or even a different product, if they are not happy with what they experience.

Never take loyalty for granted. Never underestimate the power and value of the one-to-one relationship customers have with you and your staff.

Customers return to where they feel connected, where they have a sense of belonging, where there is mutual esteem, where they are treated with respect, and where their care results in positive outcomes.

9. Word-of-mouth marketing isn't new

Third-party endorsement or customer referral has long been the foundation of marketing.

What is new is that the bar for what customers expect in the way of service is higher today. Being good isn't good enough to get customers talking about you. Outstanding is the new good.

Polls repeatedly show the quality of customer service is on the decline across industries. When you consistently exceed expectations, customers become "raving fans." Those are the customers who refer their friends, relatives, neighbors, and co-workers.

10. Know and appreciate your ambassadors

In his bestselling book The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell says people who refer fall into one of two categories: connectors or market mavens.

Connectors are social. They have a gift for knowing people and naturally make connections among their network.

Market mavens are people who have "the goods." They have a desire to be of service and influence others. They are databanks of information, they know how to get the best deals and the best service, and they share information with enthusiasm.

According to Gladwell, "Word-of-mouth begins when someone along the chain tells a connector or a maven." Learn to recognize those customers, cultivate them, and express your appreciation accordingly.

 

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Bank regulators push for principal write-downs | Inman News

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Bank regulators push for principal write-downs

Robo-signing settlement back on track

By Inman News, Monday, March 7, 2011.

Inman News™

State attorneys general and federal banking regulators are reportedly closing ranks in their efforts to reach a settlement with mortgage lenders over alleged shortcomings in procedures employed by loan servicers in foreclosing on borrowers and considering them for loan modifications.

The nation’s biggest mortgage services received a proposal from state attorneys general and federal regulators last week that outlines formulas they would be required to use when considering borrowers for loan modifications, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous sources.

If accepted by lenders, the formulas would force them to offer more borrowers principal write-downs, the Journal said, which are considered to be more effective in preventing foreclosure than lowering a borrower’s interest rate or extending the loan term.

Anonymous sources told the Washington Post that government negotiators have set a goal of reaching a settlement that prevents 1.5 million new foreclosures.

Banks have objected to mandatory principal write-downs because they could encourage borrowers to default on their mortgage in the hopes of having some of their debt forgiven — an unintended consequence sometimes referred to as "moral hazard."

The 27-page proposal — which did not address the issue of a potential financial penalty — was put forward by state attorneys general, the Journal said, who indicated they had the backing of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

But the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, which regulates the largest banks, was not named as being on board with the proposal. The Post said the OCC has already sent draft orders on loan modifications to banks it has jurisdiction over, and is working on a possible settlement that would govern only those institutions.

The Federal Reserve is conducting a review of alleged robo-signing practices, but would likely support the settlement being negotiated by state attorneys general and HUD, the FTC, Justice Department and CFPB, the Post said.

One issue that’s caused the breach in the ranks of federal regulators is the size of any financial penalty. State attorneys general and some federal regulators are said to support a penalty of at least $20 billion.

The OCC views $20 billion penalty as excessive, the Post reported, while the FDIC and Elizabeth Warren — tapped by the Obama administration to start up the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — want a larger financial penalty.

Sources told the Post that banks are open to a $20 billion penalty if it is shared by several institutions and takes care of most outstanding foreclosure-related issues.

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Scaling back housing finance: fallout feared | Inman News

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Scaling back housing finance: fallout feared

Flaws in Obama's mortgage reform plan

By Jack Guttentag, Monday, March 7, 2011.

Inman News™

Editor’s note: This is Part 1 of a multipart series.

The document the administration recently sent to Congress outlining its game plan for housing finance has both scale-down and ramp-up thrusts. The scale-down thrust, comprising most of the report, involves shrinking the federal government’s involvement in the market.

The ramp-up thrust would create a new federal program designed to support the private market. This article is about the scale-down.

Backdrop

The point of departure for this proposal is a post-crisis housing finance system in which only about 10 percent of all new home loans are strictly private. The remaining 90 percent are either acquired by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, or insured by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).

Further, qualification requirements set by the strictly private market are far more restrictive than they were before the crisis, which is the reason their market share is now so low. Before the crisis, risk-based pricing was widely practiced, making loans available over a wide range of risks.

Today, only a sliver of risk-based pricing remains. For the most part, risk-based pricing has been replaced by risk cutoffs. At many lenders, borrowers with a credit score of 800 have to put 20 percent down, and borrowers who put 40 percent down still need a 700 score to qualify. Some lenders will go to 10 percent at 680, but limit the loan size.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have tightened their requirements, but by much less than the strictly private sector. The agencies today will accept a credit score of 620 at 20 percent down, and 680 at 5 percent down. However, risk-based pricing is extensive and many borrowers with mediocre credit, small down payments or both, choose to opt out.

The average down payment on new loans is about 35 percent, and the average FICO is about 765. The agencies have also tightened their documentation and appraisal requirements significantly.

FHA has the most liberal requirements, which are little changed from what they were before the crisis. FHA accepts 3 percent down with a credit score of 580, though many lenders require higher scores so that they won’t be tarred with originating too many loans that default. FHA has also increased its insurance premiums.

What scale-down means

The crux of the Obama administration’s scale-down plan is a gradual phaseout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, combined with a reduction in the scope of FHA operations. The ultimate goal seems to be a system in which the strictly private market would account for about 85 percent of the traffic, and FHA would have about 15 percent.

The report suggests a number of ways of accomplishing this, including reductions in the maximum qualifying loan size at all three agencies, and increases in insurance charges. The first reduces the number of borrowers who qualify, while the second forces price increases by the agencies that would make the strictly private market more price-competitive.

Implications and consequences

The volume of risky loans, already down sharply from the post-crisis tightening of qualification requirements, will shrink further as the scale-down proceeds. Because a large proportion of risky mortgages are generated by disadvantaged groups, this approach constitutes a reversal of what had been public policy for at least four decades, which was to encourage homeownership among such groups.

Sometime this year, the regulatory agencies will promulgate new rules implementing provisions of the Dodd-Frank bill that require them to define "qualified residential mortgage" (QRM).

These are low-risk loans that exempt originators from having to assume 5 percent of the risk of loss. The split in the market following implementation of this rule will further disadvantage weaker borrowers, since non-QRM loans will carry a higher price if they are available at all.

Softening the blow

The report recognizes the need to go slow and cautiously, but offers no concrete ideas on how to soften the blow. Here are two.

1. The administration ought to set up a task force to determine whether the existing regulatory structure, including the bank examination process, is unduly constraining the strictly private market. If government wants lenders to expand into the space vacated by Fannie, Freddie and FHA, government ought to make sure that it has not itself constructed roadblocks to such expansion.

2. FHA should extend its tentative steps toward risk-based pricing to a comprehensive system in which the insurance premium on every loan reflects the risk of loss to FHA of that loan. This will help keep FHA financially sound, reduce concerns if FHA is pressed to expand into some of the space vacated by Fannie and Freddie, and neutralize political pressures to liberalize terms unduly.

Thanks to Guy Cecala of Inside Mortgage Finance.

Next week: The ramp-up proposal.

The writer is professor of finance emeritus at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Comments and questions can be left at www.mtgprofessor.com.

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