Posts Tagged ‘Intero Real Estate Services’

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The Consigliere Files: Importance of Inspections

By Christopher Moles | March 19th, 2012 0 Comments

A frivolous small claims complaint recently gave me opportunity to look up the law concerning agent indemnity when it comes to making disclosures to a buyer via a professional property inspection report.

Cal. Civ. Code § 1102.4

According to §1102.4, brokers and agents are not liable for any “error, inaccuracy, or omission” of any information conveyed by a public agency or a licensed contractor to the buyer. §1102(b) states that the conveyance of information from a contractor or public agency to the client relieves brokers and agents of any further duty to convey the same information.

This means that agents are generally held harmless for facilitating the transfer of inaccurate information from the inspection report to the buyer, so long as the agent is acting in good faith and the agent does not know the information is false. This also means that agents have generally met their duty to disclose certain information so long as the inspector included that information in his report.

Limitations

Of course, if the broker or agent has information that is not discovered by the contractor, and the broker fails to hand that information over, then the broker and agent may still face civil liability for fraud and negligent misrepresentation. So agents should always disclose and hand over the information they have, regardless of whether it is disclosed somewhere else.

Even with that limitation, the presence of a thorough property inspection report often ends up being a brokerage’s best defense when a disgruntled buyer starts to complain about non-disclosure and misrepresentation.

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Monday Morning Mojo: Just Lin, Baby!

By Tom Tognoli | March 19th, 2012 0 Comments

I typically write Monday Morning MOJO myself each week, but this week while I was reading Forbes Magazine I saw a great article on Jeremy Lin and knew I needed to send this as a MOJO. Whether you are a basketball fan or not, unless your head is completely in the sand, I am sure you have heard of him. The article is a month old, but it is an AWESOME article with some GREAT lessons. Check it out.

Lin-sanity has swept up the NBA over the last week. Now it seems like the phenomenon has gone worldwide.

Friday’s 38 point performance by Harvard grad Jeremy Lin for the New York Knicks against the LA Lakers was his greatest performance yet as a starter, since he burst on to the scene and propelled the team to 4 straight wins.

Lin now has over 200,000 followers on Twitter. He’s got over 800,000 on Weibo – including 200,000 new ones in the 24 hour period after beating the Lakers.

But there’s more to this story than basketball. This isn’t just a modern-day, real-life version of the Hoosiers movie. The Jeremy Lin story is incredibly popular because we can all see a little bit of ourselves in this man’s struggles and now successes.

What can all of us learn from this young man — and how can we apply these same lessons to our own lives when we go back to work on Monday morning?

  1. Believe in yourself when no one else does.Lin’s only the 4th graduate from Harvard to make it to the NBA. He’s also one of only a handful of Asian-Americans to make it. He was sent by the Knicks to play for their D-League team 3 weeks ago in Erie, PA. He’d already been cut by two other NBA teams before joining the Knicks this year. You’ve got to believe in yourself, even when no one else does.
  2. Seize the opportunity when it comes up. Lin got to start for the Knicks because they had to start him. They had too many injuries. Baron Davis was gone. The other point guards were out. Carmelo Anthony was injured. Amare Stoudemire had to leave the team because of a family death. Lin could have squandered the opportunity and we would have never have noticed. But he made the most of it. You never know when opportunities are going to arise in life. Often, they’re when you least expect them. Make the most of them. Don’t fritter them away.
  3. 3. Your family will always be there for you, so be there for them. It wasn’t until a few days ago that Lin got his contract guaranteed by the Knicks for the rest of the season. Before that, he could have been cut at any time. He had to sleep on his brother’s couch on the Lower East Side to get by. His family always believed in him and picked him up when he could have gotten down on himself. That made him continue to believe. If you want your family to believe in you like that, you’ve got to be there for them too when they need it.
  4. Find the system that works for your style.Lin isn’t Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. He’s not a pure scorer. He’s a passer and distributor – who can also score very well. It didn’t work for him in Golden State or Houston – where he was before landing at the Knicks. But Mike D’Antoni’s system at the Knicks has been perfect for him to show off his strengths. You’ve got to do your best to understand what your strengths are and then ensure that you’re in a system (a job or organization or industry) that is a good fit for those strengths. Otherwise, people overlook the talents you bring to the table.
  5. Don’t overlook talent that might exist around you today on your team.You probably manage people at your own company today. Are you sure you don’t have a Jeremy Lin living among you now? How do you know that “Mike” couldn’t do amazing things if you gave him a new project to run with? How do you know “Sarah” isn’t the right person to take the open job in London that you’ve been talking over with your colleagues? We put people around us in boxes. He’s from Harvard. He’s Asian-American. Not sure he can play. How many assumptions have you made about talent around you? Don’t be like the General Managers in Golden State and Houston, and let talent slip through your fingers. With all their money, scouts, and testing, they didn’t have a clue what they had in their hands. Do you know what your people (or even yourself) is really capable of? Take off the blinders of assumptions you wear when you look at the world.
  6. People will love you for being an original, not trying to be someone else.You’ve got to be you. You can’t be some 2nd rate copy of Michael Jordan. There will never be another Michael Jordan. Just be Jeremy Lin — yourself. Whatever that is. That doesn’t mean you don’t work hard — it just means you find what you’re good at and do it. Fans will love you for being you, just like they love Jeremy Lin. Judy Garland said it best: “Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.“
  7. Stay humble. If you one day are lucky enough to have newspapers want to put you on the cover in order to sell more, don’t let it get to your head. It’s been remarkable watching how humble Lin remains through all this media frenzy. It makes his teammates and fans love him that much more.
  8. When you make others around you look good, they will love you forever.I didn’t know how good Tyson Chandler was, until I saw him playing with Jeremy Lin. Lin has set Chandler up many times over the last week for easy dunks because he drew the defense and then passed the ball. That’s partly why the Knicks are playing so well. They are all working harder to share the ball with others. And it’s beautiful to watch. And when the media swarms Lin, he tells them how good his teammates are. Do the same with your peers and reports.
  9. Never forget about the importance of luck or fate in life.Some people believe in God, some in destiny, some in luck. Whatever you believe in, be grateful for it.
  10. Work your butt off.Lin couldn’t have seized his opportunity if he hadn’t worked like crazy for years perfecting his skills. There are no short cuts to hard work. Success is a byproduct of that. If you’ve got a Tiger Mom who’s always pushed you to work hard, great. If not, let your conscience be your own Tiger Mom! Get up early, stay up late. Nobody gave Lin any free passes. Why should you get any? You can only control what you control and that means you’ve got to work harder than anyone else you know.

I hope the Lin-sanity continues. And I hope we all can apply these lessons to our own work and family life.

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Cool Apps: Ban.jo Connects Your Offline and Online Worlds in Real Time

By John Thompson | March 16th, 2012 0 Comments

This week was the infamous SXSW Interactive conference in Austin – the venerable event that connects digital nerds and artists for a major tech and social fest. Some of the most talked about apps coming out of SXSW this year were those that pull location-based information to help you connect with people “in the real world” (aka, a world not seen through a glass screen, but rather right in front of us!).

These apps strike me as useful for real estate agents for a number of reasons. For one, we are the “local experts” in the neighborhoods we sell. And two, we’re also seriously mobile, rarely chained to a desk and almost always out and about, looking for places to get our work done between meetings and showings.

This week’s Cool App is Ban.jo, a social discovery app that collects the geographic data across all your social networks and displays it across a proximal app. So if you have fellow agents, past or current clients, vendors or friends who’ve supplied location-based input to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare or Instagram, you’ll see who’s nearby right now and have the opportunity to connect.

This concept may seem a bit creepy to some folks at first. But again, this app only pulls the data that others have willingly offered up by checking in or updating their status on one of the aforementioned apps/networks.

I think these types of apps could be really cool not just for being able to catch those otherwise missed connections (Oh, you were in the area on Sunday? Wish I’d known that! I was there too and we could’ve met up.), but also for some “ear to the ground” local and social listening. Imagine the real-time insider information you can pick up about a neighborhood just by opening this app and seeing what folks in your network are doing/saying.

Banjo is available on Android and iOS. Go out and experiment!

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Thursday Thoughts: Great by Choice: Epilogue

By Gino Blefari | March 15th, 2012 0 Comments

“One should…be able to see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make them otherwise.”
- F. Scott Fitzgerald

This week we come to the end of Great by Choice.  I hope you were able to find a little insight into some of the most successful companies in the world and apply it to the everyday challenges you might come across.

What can we conclude after finishing this book?

Success is not always about how innovative you are, or about taking risks, it’s about being empirical (basing decisions on observation and experiment) and disciplined.  Relying on evidence over your gut instincts and preferring consistent gains to blow-out winnings.

It’s about looking at the basics, keeping a steady pace, staying true to your original plan and being methodical with changes or adjustments. Thinking through decisions instead of instantly jumping into action.  Being prepared for every possible scenario that might come your way and sticking to the plan when that scenario arises.

It’s about creating the Level 5 Ambition through fanatic discipline, empirical creativity, and productive paranoia. “The greatest leaders we’ve studied throughout all our research cared as much about values as victory, as much about purpose as profit. As much about being useful as being successful. Their drive and stamina are ultimately internal, rising from somewhere deep inside.”

Let’s face it, in a forever changing market, uncertainty and chaos are constantly around the corner.

How do you plan to conquer it?  Will you be Great by Choice?

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Intero Cool Apps: Camera Awesome Lends a Touch of Pro Photography to iPhones

By John Thompson | March 9th, 2012 0 Comments

It’s nothing utterly profound to realize that most prospective home buyers won’t take a second look at a listing that has no photos. And yet, these listings are still out there. Every day, you see listings with either no photos, really bad photos or just one or two photos.

This is a pretty huge missed opportunity – and one that can be addressed pretty easily and at a very low cost compared to the old days of paying big money for great-looking photography. In fact, great photos are right at most of our fingertips now with the amazing quality of the iPhone built-in camera.

This is precisely why I wanted to highlight a new iPhone photo app called Camera Awesome. The free app takes your iPhone photos up a notch and adds just a touch more professionalism.

Camera Awesome gives you more to work with when taking a photo with features such as visual guides to help with composition like a level to help ensure the horizon is straight and a grid that splits the screen into thirds. The app also has a multitouch feature that enables you to focus on one part of your image while adjusting exposure on another part.

In terms of editing, Camera Awesome also delivers. The app lets you adjust sharpness, temperature, vibrancy and contrast after you take a photo. It also includes basic photo filters like those you see in apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic. You can crop images and also use preset visual effects and frames.

The app includes a sufficient number of options that are free with the option to buy others if you want. I found the free ones to be more than sufficient, though.

Of course, you can also share photos right from the app if you’re looking to add something to Facebook or Twitter, for example.

All around, I think this one is well worth trying out. Photos are such a great tool in real estate and apps like Camera Awesome really make it easy to impress!

You can download Camera Awesome in the iTunes App Store.

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Cool Apps: LocalMind Opens Up Info about Local Spots

By John Thompson | March 2nd, 2012 0 Comments

Help your clients get a pulse on the neighborhoods they’re interested in with LocalMind, a question-and-answer app for iPhone that lets you ask questions about a general area or a specific location.

LocalMind is like Yahoo Answers meets location-based services. It enables users to ask a question using the app on their phone and get answers from people in the area. Some examples of things people ask and answer/provide insight for:

How crowded is it at that restaurant?
What’s the best thing to order on the menu?
How late is that place open?
Where can I find the cheapest gas around here?
Where is the best nearby playground for toddlers?

These are all things prospective buyers would likely want to know while out sampling a neighborhood. LocalMind gives a forum to ask and answer these questions, and leave local tips about what to see and do.

Instead of trolling dozens and sometimes hundreds of reviews on Yelp, you just ask a question about your chosen location and get real answers from real people.

Questions generally get answered by users in the area within just a few minutes. The people answering questions get judged according to a bunch of different criteria, including their number of check-ins on Foursquare (which gives the LocalMind team an idea of whether their knowledge is just in passing or derived from a deeper experience of a place).

The app also looks for answers from people who share your interests. For example, if you’re looking for East Coast-style pizza, the app will look for people that like pizza, and then restaurants, then restaurants in the particular neighborhood, city and region you’re asking in. Once an answerer has passed these hurdles, they will be highlighted for an answer that best matches your inquiry.

Check out LocalMind and refer it on to your clients who may be new to the areas they’re looking to move to. It can help them discover insider tips that may even help them decide whether or not an area or neighborhood is a good fit for them.

LocalMind is available for free download in the iTunes App Store.

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Thursday’s Thoughts on Leadership: SMaC

By Gino Blefari | March 1st, 2012 0 Comments

“Most men die of their remedies, and not of their illness.” – Moliere

This week were coming back to Great by Choice with a look into Chapter 6, SMaC.

We’re going back to the beginning, creating the foundation on which to build your business. Start with a basic set of guidelines to create a recipe of success for the business.  These should include both “Do” statements and “Do Not” statements.  These are not strategy or culture based, core values of the company, purpose or tactics, these are SMaC(Specific, Methodical and Consistent). SMaC is the operating code for turning strategy concepts into reality. In all 10X cases, their original SMaC recipe has lasted many years; amazingly enough, a number of these companies have not changed any parts of their recipe since the start of the business.  The key to putting together a solid SMaC recipe is organizing practices that can last for decades and apply across a wide range of circumstances.  General but not too general, specific but not too specific.

Here is Southwest Airlines SMaC recipe created by CEO, Howard Putnam in 1979.  Keep in mind it is a verbatim reproduction excluding one abbreviation that couldn’t be deciphered.

  1. Remain a short-haul carrier, under two hour segments.
  2. Utilize the 737 as our primary aircraft for ten to twelve years.
  3. Continued high aircraft utilization and quick turns, ten minutes in most cases.
  4. The passenger is our #1 product.  Do not carry air freight or mail, only small packages which have high profitability and low handling costs.
  5. Continued low fare and high frequency of service.
  6. Stay out of food services.
  7. No interlining…costs in ticketing, tariffs and computers and our unique airports do not lend themselves to interlining.
  8. Retain Texas as our #1 priority and only go interstate if high-density short-haul markets are available to us.
  9. Keep the family and people feeling in our service and a fun atmosphere aloft.  We’re proud of our employees.
  10. Keep it simple.  Continue cash-register tickets, ten-minute cancellation of reservations at the gate in order to clear standbys, simplified computer system, free drinks in Executive service, free coffee and donuts in the boarding area, no seat selection on board, tape-recorded passenger manifest, bring airplanes and crew home to Dallas each night, only one domicile and maintenance facility.

These points have helped Southwest to stay on track.  They create a specific framework for decisions and actions.  Anyone in the company could be faced with a decision and have the resource to give an accurate answer based on their SMaC recipe.

Of course, the occasional scenario arises that forces a company to amend the SMaC recipe, but creating a solid recipe and sticking to it as much as possible is what has made the 10Xer successful.  They were disciplined in staying true to their original foundation and when change was necessary, they thought through every possible scenario within their recipe and then weighed out all the options before moving forward cautiously with the amendment. “Change is not the most difficult part.  Far more difficult than implementing change is figuring out what works, understanding why it works, grasping when to change and knowing when not to.”

What is your SMaC recipe and does it need amending?

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Healthy Saturdays: More Chemicals?!

By Kira Olson | February 28th, 2012 0 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, Yahoo News revealed the gruesome truth about ammonium hydroxide (aka pink slime) in McDonald’s hamburger meat.  This week, the public talk is about arsenic, a poisonous chemical classified as a Class 1 carcinogen, often used in herbicides and pesticides.  According to the EPA, “arsenic has been linked to cancer of the bladder, lungs, skin, kidney, nasal passages, liver and prostate.”  Other side effects of consumption can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, partial paralysis and blindness.

Where is arsenic found?  It exists not only in meat products but also in the American water supply.  In animal products, the purpose of using arsenic is to reduce production costs and create aesthetically pleasing meat.  According to labels on chicken feed with arsenic, the products claim “increased rate of weight gain, improved feed efficiency and improved pigmentation.”  Unfortunately, some arsenic stays in the environment, meaning vegetable crops can also be affected by unsafe factory farming practices.

According to a recent Dartmouth College study, products sweetened with brown rice syrup such as organic infant formulas, cereal bars and sports foods may contain unsafe arsenic levels.  Brown rice syrup is a common alternative to high fructose corn syrup, especially in “organic” products.  The contamination is believed to be a result of “traditional cultivation of rice products previously used for pesticide-reliant cotton farming.”  In the study, one infant milk formula containing rice was found to contain 6 times the arsenic allowed in drinking water (10 parts per billion)!  This is of particular concern, since the lower body weight in infants may increase exposure risks.

Earlier this year, a Consumer Reports investigation uncovered significant levels of arsenic in apple and grape juices as well – out of 88 samples tested, about 10% of juices (from 5 brands) were found with excessive levels of inorganic arsenic.  In response, U.S. Congress introduced a bill to limit the amounts of arsenic allowed in juice products (“APPLE Juice Act of 2012”).

Although changes are being made and the word is getting out about these chemicals in our foods, more needs to be done to advocate for health and safety issues.  Currently, there are no U.S. regulations for arsenic in food.

Be the Difference
Tell the FDA: Set Arsenic Limits in Fruit Juice – http://www.change.org/petitions/commissioner-food-and-drug-administration-set-arsenic-limits-in-fruit-juice-to-protect-kids

Come hear ProAnox speak about Why New Years Resolutions Don’t Work and learn strategies for success this Tuesday, 2/28, at 6pm at Intero Santana Row!

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The Consigliere Files: The Fannie and Freddie Mortgage Forbearance Program

By Christopher Moles | February 27th, 2012 0 Comments

This month, Freddie Mac instituted a revised policy which offers 12 months forbearance to certain borrowers who fall behind on payments after losing employment. A similar revised program will be rolled out by Fannie Mae on March 1st.

Forbearance and the Program

Forbearance is a special accommodation made by lenders to borrowers which temporarily postpones the borrower’s contractual duty to make a payment. Forbearance is not debt forgiveness. Interest accrues as dictated by the contract and the debt remains. However, borrowers are not required to make periodic payments during the forbearance period.

The mortgage forbearance programs of Fannie and Freddie each grant a 12 month forbearance period to certain unemployed borrowers. The program is not guaranteed, and there are specific criteria that must be demonstrated before a borrower may qualify for forbearance consideration. Those criteria are as follows:

  1. The mortgage must be secured by the borrower’s primary residence (second homes and vacation/investment properties will not qualify);
  2. The borrower must document recent loss of employment;
  3. The borrower must demonstrate that forbearance can reasonably prevent default;
  4. The borrower’s monthly expenses generally must exceed the household monthly gross income by more than 31%;
  5. The borrower may not have cash reserves in excess on 1 year’s estimated expenses; and
  6. The home cannot be financed with an Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured, Veterans Affairs (VA)-insured or Rural Housing mortgage.

If a borrower qualifies and is granted forbearance, the borrower is relieved from his duty to make payments for up to 12 months. During that time, the borrower is not considered in default and credit agencies are informed that the borrower is “paying as agreed.”

The Goal

Of course, the idea is that these types of programs will help keep people in their homes after unexpected job loss. All lenders who offer forbearance do so with hopes that the forbearance period will be time enough for the borrower to get “back on his feet” and in a position to pay his debt as originally agreed. However, forbearance in this housing market has become much less common amongst private lenders because the issue is not so much under-employment but over-leveraged property. After forbearance, many borrowers end up right back where they were 12 months earlier – stuck making payments on a loan valued much more than the property, plus 12 months of accrued interest.

Time will tell whether these programs have any meaningful impact on borrowers and the housing market. More information on the programs can be found here.

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Monday Morning Mojo: Do It, Delegate It, or Delete It

By Tom Tognoli | February 27th, 2012 0 Comments

Do It, Delegate It, or Delete It

By Tom Tognoli
COO, Founder
Intero Real Estate, Inc.

Come on….You have 1,000, 5,000, 10,000 emails in your inbox.   Like you are ever going to go back to email number 3,498 and deal with it.  I know we have the best of intentions to go back and deal with it, but you are dreaming.  It is not going to happen or by the time you do, it is going to be too late and the person who sent you the email is going to feel like you have blown them off.

I find it completely mind bogging the number of emails most people have in their inbox…not to mention the number of saved voicemails. I know some of you may find this sick, but I go to bed with my email and voicemail inboxes empty everyday…and I get over 300 emails and probably 20 voicemails a day.   I know this may not be a typical Monday Morning MOJO topic, but this is truly one of those things I see holding so many people back in life and business.  People are completely overwhelmed and behind because they fail to act and instead procrastinate…not just on email, but on everything.  Ladies and Gentlemen, today with the amount of information we have coming at us each and every day we need to be able to evaluate information quickly and act on it…not procrastinate on it.  Because if we do not evaluate and act we continue to bury ourselves deeper and deeper until we eventually suffocate ourselves, our businesses, and our lives.

We are in the information age, and information is coming at us like a rushing river.  It is never going to slow down…it is only going to increase and get faster so get over it and quit complaining.  Embrace it and look at it as an opportunity, not a detriment to your business and life.  To succeed in business and life we need to DEAL WITH IT!!!!  I hear many people say if you really need something call me, don’t email me.  Give me a break.  I am sure the same thing applied when the phone was first discovered.   People would say if you really need something jump on your horse and come see me or send me a letter, but don’t call me.  Does that make any sense today. No Way.  Neither does not doing it, deleting it or delegating it NOW.

Here is a little trick I do to keep on top of my emails.  I focus on deleting the not so important emails and spam throughout the day.  I don’t necessarily try and deal with everything that needs my attention immediately.  I simply try and whittle down my inbox throughout the day so that when I do sit down to work on replying and dealing with my email I can focus on things that really need my attention and not the junk or the things that I am simply cc’d on that do not require a reply…I just simply scan those throughout the day so I know what is going on and then delete them in the spare minutes I have between calls, meetings, and other stuff.  Reality of it is of the 300 emails I get a day probably only 30 to 50 require some kind of a response.   The rest are junk and/or things I am getting cc’d on.  I am sure the same thing applies to you.

Information is power, but only if we do it, delegate it or delete it.

Make it a great week!!!!!!

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