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Cool Apps: Help Clients Organize Priorities and Property Detail Notes

By John Thompson | February 10th, 2012 1 Comment

Here in Silicon Valley, many agents have come to expect their real estate clients to be a bit high tech. Suggest they bring a pen and paper to take notes on all the houses you show them this Sunday and you may get puzzled looks. Pen and paper? That’s so old-school.

Wow them a bit more by suggesting an app for that: House Hunter.

House Hunter is an iOS app that works on iPhones. It makes it easy to take notes while house hunting and organize features and priorities so you can remember later and compare the homes you’ve seen.

It’s good practice anyway to have your buyer clients list out priorities for their home before you start looking at properties. House Hunter captures it all and uses the priorities to score homes your clients see against what they’ve deemed important. And after they’ve seen a handful of houses, most people naturally start to forget details about each one – or remember things a bit differently.

Another cool feature is that your clients can share their notes with you. Now you know where their heads are at: is it really the fireplace or the extra office space that will break their decision? Remove the guessing and give them details to compare.

House Hunter also has a mortgage calculator – always a good thing (if it works well, that is), and stores photos (nothing jars the memory quite like a good photo).

I can also see this app coming in handy for yourself when on broker tours. You can refer to your notes and images later and remember what you’ve seen – and easily share with clients. Then you have it for easy reference on your phone later too.

The app costs $3.99 in the iTunes store. Give it a test run and see whether this could be a solid decision-making aid when searching for the next perfect home.

Unlicensed Places of Business

By Christopher Moles | January 30th, 2012 1 Comment

A good real estate agent is always working. Sometimes it’s easier for an agent to have documents and correspondences sent directly to his home so he can avoid taking an unnecessary trip to the office or he can impress certain clients with a particular zip code. While not overtly improper, using a non-brokerage office address for business can have unanticipated consequences.

California Business and Professions Code Section 10163
An agent who uses his personal address in advertisements and material documents can be perceived by the Department of Real Estate as running an unlicensed place of business. Every real estate brokerage’s “place of business” must be independently revealed to and licensed by the DRE. California law delegates the DRE Commissioner full authority to determine whether an office is being used as a “place of business” for real estate brokerage purposes and every such place must have an on-sight broker representative to oversee and manage licensed activities.

Audits
The DRE may audit any individual salesperson and responsible broker suspected of operating an unlicensed place of business. Normally, the DRE comes across a business card, flier, or website which seems to direct clients and cooperating brokers to a physical address not belonging to the salesperson’s broker (usually it’s the salesperson’s home address or second job). From there, the DRE may conduct an audit or a less formal inquiry to determine the extent of business operations being conducted at the location.
If the Commissioner determines that an unlicensed office exists, the Commissioner may remedy the situation by requiring that the location become licensed (evoking tax and zoning dilemmas) or restricting/revoking the responsible party’s license.

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Of course, agents reveal their home addresses to clients and cooperating brokers for any number of reasons – most are completely proper. Audits normally result when a non-brokerage address is posted on an advertisement or a material document to the transaction. As such, it’s advisable to have agents refrain from ever putting home addresses on their business cards, fliers, or any other medium used as the first point of contact with clients and the general public. More obviously, an agent should never post his personal address in lieu of his broker’s address on a listing agreement, agency disclosure, or purchase contract.

Cal Bus & Profs §10163 is reproduced as follows:

“If the applicant for a real estate broker’s license maintains more than one place of business within the State he shall apply for and procure an additional license for each branch office so maintained by him. Every such application shall state the name of the person and the location of the place or places of business for which such license is desired. The commissioner may determine whether or not a real estate broker is doing a real estate brokerage business at or from any particular location which requires him to have a branch office license.”

Change or Die?!

By Tom Tognoli | January 30th, 2012 0 Comments

What if a well-informed, trusted authority figure said you had to make difficult and enduring changes in the way you think and act?

If you didn’t make those changes, you would die soon. A lot sooner than you had to.

Could you change when change really mattered?

Yes, you say? Try again. Most likely you wouldn’t change.

Don’t believe me? Let me share with you the odds – 9 to 1. That’s 9 to 1 against you.

Do you realize a SMALL percent of the population consumes the VAST majority of the health care budget for diseases that are very well known, and by in large behavioral? We are sick because of how we choose to live our lives, not because of any environmental or genetic factors beyond our control. They say it could be as much as 80% of our health care budget is consumed by these behavioral issues – smoking, eating, drinking, stress and lack of exercise.

Could behaviors be driving issues in more than one area of our lives? Could we ultimately be in control of the aspects we felt were a product of conditions outside our control?

Do you want some more proof of the challenge we all face in change?

There was a study done back in 1995 of people who went through bypass surgery (open heart surgery). Of those studied, within 2 years from surgery 90% went right back to their old unhealthy lifestyle. So, if the fear of DEATH doesn’t initiate change – is there any hope? More importantly how do we get our stubborn brain to stop resisting change so tenaciously. Why do we fight it even when we KNOW if we don’t it will kill us?

Well, knowing that motivating people with the fear of death wasn’t the right approach because 90% went right back to where they were before, the study tried a different approach. They decided to change the patients focus. Have any idea to what? The joy of LIVING.

The study took 300 patients and put a 100% daily effort into focusing their minds on all the daily things that make life great. They coached them on their mindset, their attitude, their daily habits, and surrounded them continually with the RIGHT influences. It was this change of focus – taking it away from the fear of death and into the joy of living – that allowed 77% of the patients to sustain the lifestyle changes.

What changes do we need to make? Where is our focus – in fear or in joy?

It’s time to make some changes now!

Download and read Alan Deutschman’s complete Change or Die article, my inspiration for today’s Mojo. It’s an eye opener – definitely worth taking the time to read.

Make is a GREAT week and a GREAT life!

Morning Mojo: EXPANSION!!!!!!

By Tom Tognoli | January 9th, 2012 0 Comments

Every quarter when a company reports their earnings, the analysts talk about the company’s earnings as a factor of top line growth or expense reduction. Is the company expanding, innovating, and doing more business so it can thrive in the years to come or is it just cutting and slashing expenses, holding on for dear life, to hit its profit numbers for investors? During any crisis or recession all smart companies will cut expenses and become more conservative, however, the best companies know that to succeed in the years to come it is about being innovating and doing more…not less. Actually the best companies not only know how to survive in challenging times, but they know how to capitalize on them and propel them to even greater long term success. They know the best time to expand is when everyone else is contracting.

This does not only apply to business but it really applies to everything in life. So, my question for you as we get 2012 rolling is do you have an expansion mindset or a recession mindset? Are your fired up about the possibilities or terrified about the “what if’s?” Over these last few years of uncertainty and recession I know firsthand, the natural instinct is to hold on and become much more conservative about everything in life. The term hunker down and take cover comes to mind. And although when we are in the midst of attack we need to be smart and do whatever we can to survive and not get slaughtered, we can’t stay in the proverbial bunker forever. At some point we need to take what we have learned from the struggle then get back on the horse and ride it again. Because as we all know the longer we wait the harder it gets. The economic and world turmoil we have experienced these last several years has really taken its toll on so many people’s physique, confidence, health, families, friendships, faith and of course their pocket books…mine included. I see so many people still completely paralyzed…people are literally afraid to make a decision and do anything because they are so focused on the worst case scenario and not the potential opportunities. Unfortunately they did not get back on the horse soon enough and now years later even the sight of it causes them to sweat.

Look…I know…I am not sitting here on my soap box telling you that I have not experienced some of this myself. I have had many sleepless nights these last few years…lying in bed staring at the ceiling running through all of my potential disaster plans and how I would survive if this happens or that happens. But if you have not shaken it off by now and gotten back to being focused on the possibilities and become expansion minded, now is the time. We can’t simply hold on to what we have and think that is good enough. Things never stay the same in our F-5 (faith, family, friends, fitness, and finance)…either they are getting better or they are getting worse. Life does not stand still and the only way it will get better is if you get back in the game of life and start taking some risks and really GOING FOR IT!!!!!!! Kind of like your New Year’s resolution to lose weight and exercise more…right? If we don’t do anything we know what will happen. No action really means negative action.

Get in action NOW!!!!!!!!

Thoughts on Leadership: Great by Choice

By Gino Blefari | January 5th, 2012 0 Comments

For the past few weeks, I have been listening to the book GREAT BY CHOICE: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All by Jim Collins. This book is that good and powerful. It’s also my second time reading it. Jim has authored and co-authored six books that have sold in total more than ten million copies worldwide. They include: the international bestseller Good to Great, translated into 35 languages; the classic Built to Last, a fixture on the Business Week best seller list for more than six years; and How the Mighty Fall, a New York Times bestseller that examines how great companies can self-destruct.

For the next several weeks I would like to share the book Great by Choice and Jim Collins’ insight on how the choices we make determine our success.

Jim Collins is a student and teacher of enduring great companies – how they grow, how they attain superior performance, and how good companies can become great companies. He has invested nearly a quarter of a century of research into the topic.

His most recent book Great by Choice, co-authored with Morten Hansen, shares the principles for building a truly great enterprise in unpredictable, tumultuous, and fast-moving times. Based on nine years of research, it answers the question: Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not?

Great by Choice distinguishes itself from Jim’s prior books by its focus not just on performance, but also on the type of unstable environments faced by leaders today.

With a team of more than twenty researchers, Collins and Hansen studied companies that rose to greatness – beating their industry indexes by a minimum of ten times over fifteen years – in environments characterized by big forces and rapid shifts that leaders could not predict or control. The research team then contrasted these “10X companies” to a carefully selected set of comparison companies that failed to achieve greatness in similarly extreme environments.

The study results were full of stimulating surprises such as:

The best leaders were not more risk taking, more visionary, and more creative than the comparisons; they were more disciplined, more empirical, and more paranoid.
Innovation by itself turns out not to be the trump card in a chaotic and uncertain world; more important is the ability to scale innovation, to blend creativity with discipline.
Following the belief that leading in a “fast world” always requires “fast decisions” and “fast action” is a good way to get killed.
The great companies changed less in reaction to a radically changing world than the comparison companies.

Great by Choice is classic Collins: contrarian, data-driven, and uplifting. He and Hansen show convincingly that, even in a chaotic and uncertain world, greatness happens by choice, not chance.

Stay tuned for next week’s Thought on Leadership which will cover Chapter 1: Thriving in Uncertainty.

Cool Apps: Make Your Mobile Google Calendar Even Better

By John Thompson | December 9th, 2011 0 Comments

Schedules rule your life in the real estate business. Time is often of the essence – even when it’s sometimes a hurry-up-and-wait situation. Keep yours in check by streamlining and taking the beauty and depth of features of Google Calendar online with an easy app on your mobile.

CalenGoo takes your Google Calendar on mobile to a much more sophisticated level.

The calendar app gives you a fast, like-the-real-thing interface that syncs your Google Calendar with your Android or iOS device.

Easily add appointments and move meetings around with a drag-and-drop interface. Set reminders, copy and send appointment dates and times via email or text, and search your calendar by keyword. CalenGoo puts it all at your fingertips.

You can even work on your calendar offline – it will sync back up when your reunite with your Internet connection.

The best part, though, is that it’s still Google Calendar. No learning a new system, sacrificing formatting or risking synching mistakes that can occur between two different calendars. And you can invite people to meetings right from the app.

Sync CalenGoo with Google Tasks to read and manage your task lists from your smartphone or tablet. Choose whether reminders come to you as pop-ups, email or text messages.

If you’re a Google Calendar fan, try CalenGoo for even more awesomeness.

Check out CalenGoo for Android here, and iOS here.

Thoughts on Leadership: Leaders Follow Core Values

By Gino Blefari | December 8th, 2011 0 Comments

With 2012 quickly approaching; full of promise despite these challenging times, I look forward to continue to share with you, each Thursday some weekly leadership thoughts. Ralph Nader once said, “I start with the premise that the function of leadership is to produce more leaders, not more followers.” At Intero, we strive to embrace this concept. It is always with great pride that we share with all of you, the remarkable growth and pre-eminent position Intero has achieved since it was established in 2002. Central to that success has been our principal of empowering people, more specifically, our agents, employees and customers.

I want to share a piece on Core Values that my good friend Merle Whitehead, President and CEO of Realty USA, the largest independent real estate firm in New York, shared with us at our most recent Trendsetters Meeting in Anaheim, CA, during the idea exchange portion of the meeting. Merle had a vision early in his career as a real estate agent. He wanted to grow a company that would be the real estate resource for consumers in New York State. He has achieved this and more.

These core values he shared with us at the Trendsetters Meeting are valuable advice and information that can help you as you develop your business and career and in your own pursuit of better leadership. The chart below demonstrates appropriate behavior as “In Bounds” and inappropriate “Out of Bounds.”

I believe every leader must understand, value and practice each of these core values Merle Whitehead put together:

Thank you Merle Whitehead for sharing this piece. If we all embrace these core values, we will find within ourselves a greater desire to succeed and to perform at a higher level because we represent something larger than ourselves. My hope is that each of you has your most successful year ever in 2012. Strive to make it so and recognize yourself as a leader among leaders.

Morning Mojo: 21 Gun Salute

By Tom Tognoli | December 5th, 2011 0 Comments

People measure success by the money they make, houses they own, cars they drive, toys they have, or title on their business card. The true measure of success is none of that stuff. The true definition of success in life is how much you have loved and been loved.

He was a great leader, father, and friend to many. With hundreds of people in the room he was honored with tears, smiles and laughter. One of his best friends, Roger Malech, gave him what he called his 21 gun salute at the memorial. He shared with us the 21 most important things he taught him. Based on the number of people in attendance at his memorial I think he taught them to us all. This past week we honored the life of one of Intero’s original Founders, Kevin Moles…a man who defined success. Kevin unexpectedly passed away at the age of 55 a few weeks ago, this is his 21 gun salute.

1. Cowboy boots go with anything – even a Tuxedo.

2. It’s okay for a man to smell good, I mean really good. No man smelled as good as Kevin. I remember more than once my wife would come home and I would say, “Why do you smell like men’s cologne?” and she would say “I saw Kevin today and he gave me a hug”

3. There’s no situation so bad that a little Beach Boys won’t help.

4. A party is not a real party unless Hank shows up. And we all know he was talking about Hank Williams Jr.

5. It is possible to pass another car on a freeway on-ramp. I learned this first hand because I was with him when he passed Kristi Pritchard on the Leavesly on-ramp.

6. The top speed on 101 between the Dunne and Cochrane exits is 130 MPH.

7. It’s completely acceptable to take 2 hours off in the middle of the work day and see a movie, even if it’s just the movie “Joe Dirt” and it’s playing in Kevin’s family room.

8. The best way to solve a problem is to start by putting your feet on your desk.

9. The worst day selling real estate is better than the best day picking strawberries. Kevin had this fantasy of loading up all the agents on a bus for a mystery play day. He wanted to take them all to a strawberry farm on a summer day and have them pick strawberries for 4 hours. He was convinced that this was the way to stop the whining about how difficult selling real estate was. We never did that but I can’t pass a strawberry farm to this day without being thankful that I am in the business I am.

10. In the term “Independent Contractor”, the word “Independent” is greatest, by far.

11. You never know what the tide will bring in. This is from the movie “Castaway” and it references when Tom Hanks is hopeless and can’t get off the island but is looking out to sea and notices a piece of an old port-a-potty floating in the surf. He eventually uses it as a sail to get off the island. When Kevin would tell me “You never know what the tide will bring in”, he was offering hope. It was his way of saying keep going. Keep looking to the surf. Don’t give up. Life may give you a port-a-potty but you can use it to sail to freedom. Kevin really believed that.

12. The most important recruiting technique is to keep the people you have happy.

13. The second most important recruiting technique is to be attractive to other agents.

14. If you treat a group of people with respect and love, give them what they need, and then leave them alone, they will follow you anywhere. This was proven 9 years ago when 42 of us left the company we worked for and joined the first Intero office here in Morgan Hill. We didn’t know what Intero meant, we didn’t know what to expect, and we didn’t even know what our commission splits were going to be. None of that mattered because we wanted to be with Kevin. Last week I was talking to Ira Marshall, a financial planner that Kevin used. He told me that every time he met with Kevin, Kevin would share concerns about the agents. He would talk about them by name and asked Ira if he could meet with them and help them. Ira told me “Kevin had a love affair with his agents. He really did care about them. It wasn’t just about business.”

15. If the term “generous to a fault” were true, Kevin was the faultiest man I’ve ever known.

16. Real men can kiss and hug each other.

17. Real men can say “I love you” to each other. Often times, including the last time I saw him, Kevin would ask me “Who loves you baby?” I would say “Ummm you?”

18. Real men admit their mistakes. One day, after his divorce, Kevin and I were having a heart to heart and he said “I really screwed up Rog. Tesha is the best woman I’ll ever know.”

19. Yesterday is a cancelled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is legal tender, spend it wisely.

20. God can use us, however flawed we might be, to have an incredible impact on others. I am not the same man I was as before I met Kevin. He was a friend, a brother, and a mentor. He will not be forgotten because I feel like I owe him a debt that can never be re-paid. He was instrumental in helping me get sober 15 years ago and I dedicate the rest of my days of sobriety to him.

21. You can’t outrun God. Kevin wrestled with God his entire life and we had many discussions about spiritual things. The last time I saw him it was very evident that his wrestling was over. He had made peace with God and told me He had committed his life to Jesus and had been baptized. That doesn’t mean his troubles were over but it does mean that I will see him again. I look so forward to that and I can’t wait until we can both share a glass of wine (without the burden of addiction) with Jesus and I will hear those familiar words “Who loves you, baby?”

We love you Kevin and we will see you in Heaven.

Thoughts on Leadership: To Lead is to Serve

By Gino Blefari | December 1st, 2011 0 Comments

As we enter into the heart of the holiday season and we are surrounded by reminders of the spirit of giving, we should not forget what that implies; namely, that there are so many in need.

At Intero, we have always strived to create a different kind of real estate company – a company that focused on more than corporate profits and selling houses, one that endeavors to create an atmosphere that allows its people to continuously grow personally and professionally.

A center point of that philosophy is the Intero Foundation. We understand the universal law that you “must give in order to receive.” And by that we mean contributing to our communities. One of our core values is commitment, and we therefore take great pride in belonging to a company in which everyone is encouraged to donate to the Intero Foundation. We earn our living by serving our community and this gives us an opportunity to give back to them.

As a company and as individuals participation in the Intero Foundation allows us all to serve the communities we live and work in. It also serves as a foundation of leadership. Empowered by Intero agents and employees, the Intero Foundation has given over $1.9 million in grants to nonprofit organizations that support children in need. In 2011 alone, over $200,000 was granted to organizations benefitting children in need.

Another center point of the “must give in order to receive” philosophy is Intero’s business partner, Cause Insurance Services. Cause Insurance Services, LLC is the first ’cause-driven’ insurance brokerage firm in the United States. Based in San Francisco, California, they are focused on providing a broad range of insurance products and services to the consumer and commercial marketplace. They work with the country’s leading insurance carriers to deliver the world’s first cause-driven insurance platform. Their clients are provided with the best insurance at competitive pricing, and, at the same time, giving to the charity of their choice. 20% of their commissions earned are forwarded to the client’s charity, in the client’s name.

In partnership with their charity sponsors, clients and ambassadors, their mission is to ‘change the world one policy at a time.’ The Company believes their pioneering approach will provide a new source of annual giving for the clients of Cause Insurance Services and the charities that they support. This will create a unique platform upon which to build a stronger community.

Cause Insurance Services as well as Intero and its agents have always believed in the importance of giving back to communities in which we serve, and 2011 was a perfect example of ‘paying it forward.’

In his book The Other Side of Leadership, Eugene B. Hacker writes, “The true leader serves. Serves people. Serves their best interests, and in doing so will not always be popular, may not always impress. But because true leaders are motivated by loving concern, than a desire for personal glory, they are willing to pay the price.”

As we give without expecting to receive – be amazed how the universe will reward your generosity.

Consigliere Files: MLS Rules Forbid the Listing Agent from Passing Negotiator Costs onto the Selling Agent

By Christopher Moles | November 20th, 2011 0 Comments

Occasionally, selling agents see an MLS statement that reads something like “cost of short sale negotiator to be split between listing broker and selling broker 50/50.” This type of offer makes sense for listing brokers because they do not want to pay the whole negotiator’s fee out of their side of the commission. However, it is improper and unenforceable under MLS rules.

MLS Rule 7.12

According to MLS Rule 7.12, a listing broker must make an unilateral and unconditional offer of compensation to all MLS participants. Cooperating broker compensation may be either a percentage of the gross selling price or a lump sum dollar amount – or a combination of both (like 2.5% + $1,000). Rule 7.12 states, “The amount of compensation offered through the MLS may not contain any provision that varies the amount of compensation offered based on conditions precedent or subsequent or on any performance, activity or event.”

When a listing broker uses a short sale negotiator, the listing agent is essentially hiring another party to perform those professional services that are the ultimate responsibility of the listing broker. Legally, the negotiator is being paid to do part of the listing broker’s job. While this is not necessarily illegal, the MLS rules do not allow one participant to subsequently adjust the compensation previously offered to another participant based on the costs incurred by the first participant. Rather, the MLS requires that all offers of compensation be clear, definite, and final upon posting.

The Effect

In effect, Rule 7.12 disallows the listing broker from requiring that the selling broker directly pay all or part of the negotiator’s fee. If the listing broker posted on the MLS “Compensation 3%” and “short sale negotiator fee to be 1% paid 50/50,” the net result will be 3% to the selling broker, 2% to the listing broker, and 1% to the negotiator. The MLS and the governing trade union will refuse to uphold the negotiator fee stipulation.

Therefore, if a listing broker wishes to properly pass along the cost of a short sale negotiator, the listing broker must decrease the total amount offered as compensation on the MLS in anticipation of the negotiator’s cost. For example, if the negotiator was to charge 1%, and the total sales commission was 6%, the listing broker should offer 2.5% in cooperating broker compensation. This means that the selling broker is guaranteed his 2.5% and the listing broker will still keep 2.5% after paying the negotiator 1%.

The Commission Reduction Exception in Short Sales

A major source of confusion for some MLS participants comes by way of the commission reduction exception found at MLS Rule 7.15.2. Rule 7.15.2 permits listing agents to split lender mandated gross commission reductions with selling agents under certain circumstances. The rule provides that the listing agent can decrease the selling broker’s compensation if the lender requires the gross commission to drop. To do this, the listing broker must have clearly identified how reductions will be apportioned and the listing broker must have posted that the sale and gross commission are subject to lender approval. Example: “Commission 3%. This is a short sale and gross commission is subject to lender approval. All commission reductions will be split between cooperating brokers 50/50.”

Of course, this exception only applies when lenders subsequently reduce the gross sales commission and it has nothing to do with negotiator fees or other costs incurred by only one side of the transaction.

Posts Tagged ‘Intero’

Cool Apps: Help Clients Organize Priorities and Property Detail Notes

Unlicensed Places of Business

Change or Die?!

Morning Mojo: EXPANSION!!!!!!

Thoughts on Leadership: Great by Choice

Cool Apps: Make Your Mobile Google Calendar Even Better

Thoughts on Leadership: Leaders Follow Core Values

Morning Mojo: 21 Gun Salute

Thoughts on Leadership: To Lead is to Serve

Consigliere Files: MLS Rules Forbid the Listing Agent from Passing Negotiator Costs onto the Selling Agent

Gino on success

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