Looking for some free fun this weekend?

My wife and I went to the Big Band concert at the Kannapolis Village Park Amphitheater a few weeks ago.  It was a great free concert.  This weekend is the Beach Music Festival.  Friday @ 7pm - The Tams, Saturday @ 5pm - The Entertainers, Saturday @ 7pm - Jim Quick & Coastline.  Take a lawn chair or a beach blanket and enjoy the music. 

The City of Kannapolis also has a free movie night as well as other entertainment.

read comments (0)

Sale at a loss or walk away?

A friend of mine sent me this article.  Some times as Realtors we forget the emotion and mental stress sellers deal with when facing a foreclosure or a short sell.  We are often wrapped up in the mechanics of getting the listing priced correctly to attract a buyer, dealing with the bank and its seemingly endless bureaucracy, and getting the deal to the closing table.
 

This article reminds me that sellers don’t often treat this as a business decision because they are so emotionally tied to the home they live in.  I look forward to your comments on this piece.

For more REO information you may be interested in a post I wrote a year or so ago called What is an REO?

 

 

 

 

 

 

read comments (0)

Are you having a hard time getting a response to your Short Sale offer?

I received the following email from Abigail Jennings last week regarding the problems we are facing with mounting short sales.  She was out of town this past week in regards to this issue and working with the Banking Commission.  She shared with me that the Banking Commission was unaware of how much difficulty we are having in communicating with the banks about short sales.  Please follow the advice below to help get a response to your short sale offer.  Please comment here and let us know if this gets a response for you in a timely manner.  Thank you Abigail for your hard work to this point.
—————————————————————————————————————————
Dear Lake Norman Area Real Estate Agents,
 
I have good news for you regarding short sales that I am eager for you to try, and please let me know your results.  Thank you so much to those of you who sent me your short sale nightmares.  It is amazing how similar all of our short sale experiences are.  Recently, I had a very good conference call with the Banking Commission regarding the growing problem of short sales and the many issues that we are facing getting our short sale offers accepted (or even responded to!).

It is going to take an actual law to make the banks do what we need for them to do.  My goals with a new law are for 1) the banks to have a timeline to respond by, 2) an automatic acceptance policy if the offer is within a certain percentage of the loan, 3) and an incentive for bank employees to keep loans out of foreclosure.  These goals may be lofty, but we’ve got start somewhere!  While this will be a timely process, I have a new solution to tell you about for those in current need.  Please make sure every agent you know gets this information! 
For a short sale solution within 7 days:
The commission would like for the consumer to file an online complaint if the bank is not responding to your offer in a timely manner.  Please stand over your customer’s shoulder to make sure they do this if you have to!  It is very simple.  They need to check the box under Complaint Type and choose Foreclosure.  Usually the banks get 3 weeks to reply, but if the customer checks Foreclosure, the banks must respond to the Commission within 7 days.  If it is even more urgent, please ask your clients to call the Commission directly.  For those of you currently in short sale limbo waiting for an offer, please have your clients try this today, the waiting may be over soon!  Here’s the link: https://www.nccob.org/online/cts/complaintOnline.aspx
We are very lucky to have a Banking Commission who truly wants to keep homeowners out of foreclosure.  So far this year they have kept 1400 NC homeowners from going into foreclosure and they earnestly want to help us with a solution to the short sale issue too.  Please keep me posted on your results, and I’m going to continue working with the Banking Commission and their legal counsel to see a law implemented to help us all.

Also, please refer to these links if you know of homeowners facing imminent foreclosure:
http://www.ncforeclosurehelp.org/  or http://www.nchfa.com/Homebuyers/HOhomeprotectionpilot.aspx
 
Sincerely yours,
 
Abigail

Abigail Jennings, President
Lake Norman Realty, Inc
20117 West Catawba Avenue
Cornelius, North Carolina 28031
www.LakeNormanRealty.com  
704.892.9673 Phone
704.896.8924 Fax
http://www.linkedin.com/in/abigailjennings
 

read comments (0)

Coldwell Banker United, Realtors ranks #5 and #9 nationally for 2008

I’ll keep this brief because no one likes to hear me toot my own horn, but I am very proud of the company I keep and want to give some recognition.  In the July/August 2009 issue of Realtor Magazine, pages 31-38, Coldwell Banker United, Realtors for national company rankings in 2008 came in at #5 in Transaction Sides and #9 in Sales Volume.  Great Job!   

Allen Tate Company came in at #11 and #17.  Congratulations.  It looks like those are the only two companies local to the Charlotte area who made the top 100 list.  If I am missing anyone please let me know.

There is a 7 min. video out with interviews of some of the top 100 companies talking about what they a doing to make through these tough times and prepare for the future.

read comments (0)

Apuapalooza on Lake Norman this weekend

If you are on the lake this Saturday or crossing the HWY 150 bridge you are going to see a ton of boats tied up!  2009 Aquapalooza will be hosted at the newly remodled Midway Marina just south of the HWY 150 bridge.  There will be band and fun on the water in “Noodle Bay”.

 Check in at 10:00am

WRFX broadcast 10-12

Spongetones take the stage from 1pm-3pm

Festival ends at 5:00

For more details see the informational sheet or the Charlotte Observer article. 

read comments (0)

Piedmont HealthCare FRIDAY AFTER FIVE-Statesville

TOMORROW EVENING FRIDAY, JULY 24, 5:30 – 8:30PM

The Scott Davis Band – Scott played last year at Friday After Five and was such a hit we brought him back again this year.

Piedmont HealthCare Friday After Friday Summer Concert Series featuring THE SCOTT DAVIS BAND. This a FREE concert held on West Broad Street from 5:30 – 8:30 pm in front of Mitchell Community College between Kelly and Mulberry Streets.

Beer, wine, soft drinks and food will be available for purchase.

PLEASE NOTE:    NC ABC Law specifically states that each person must purchase their own beverage and only one at a time.

SPONSORS: Piedmont HealthCare, Griffin Insurance/Nationwide, City of Statesville, WSIC/Iredell Broadcasting, Silver Eagle, Downtown Statesville Development Corporation, Greater Statesville Chamber of Commerce

Cathy Morris, IOM
Special Events Coordinator
Greater Statesville Chamber of Commerce
115 E. Front Street
Statesville, NC 28677
704-873-2892    

read comments (0)

ReBar Camp Charlotte gets a plug

Attention Realtors:  In your July/August issue of Insight Magazine by the NC Association of Realtors Barbara West writes a piece following up on REBar Camp Charlotte from the spring.  The article is on page 17.  Chad Huck, one of the co-organizers, brought this to my attention today.  Lori Bee and Debe Maxwell were quoted in the article.  I think Barbara West did a very good job covering this event! 

For those that may not know, a ReBar Camp is a conference that follows a very loose organizational structure and leaves the day’s events and learning up to the participants that attend the event.  For the first event of this kind in the area I think it went pretty well.  There will be improvements next year and I hope you will be in attendance next spring.

read comments (1)

Twitter Demistified

I had a lot of questions in my office after my last FaceBook/Twitter post.  Today I taught a fun Twitter class and below are a few notes I thought of relating to the subject on my way to the office today. 

Enjoy the video.

[flv:/video/twitter1.flv 480 360]

I use http://tweetgrid.com and Tweet Deck to monitor Twitter.  One is totally web based and the other is a software download that is more expandable.

read comments (0)

What’s up with all the @, # and RT in FaceBook status updates?

If you have friends like mine on facebook.com then every once in a while you will see a status update start off something like “RT This link bit.ly/uHOJb rocks @toddlongre #ReBCClt“.

So what does all of that mean and why are they talking in some weird code language?  Well you have just dipped your toe into twitter. If you are reading this from my blog you will see a widget titled “What am I doing”.  That is my latest twitter post, which is most likely also my last facebook status update.  I have my Twitter post (or tweet) automatically posted to facebook for me.  

The cliff note version of twitter is it is a micro blogging/social networking site that allows for 140 character post.  The RT at the beginnings of the post means the person posting the message got it from one of their friends and they are now Re Tweeting (posting) it for all of their own friends.  The @ symbol before a twitter id, such as toddlongre, is a shout out of sorts to that individual.  In this case it would be giving credit to the friend that sent them the post originally.  In a post such as “hanging out with @TheChadHuck and @kaotichic66 at the lake” would just be id-ing the people the poster is hanging out with by referencing their twitter id instead of saying their name.  The reason for doing this goes a little past twitter 101 but basically TheChadHuck may want be monitoring all of this twitter stream that specifically is directed to him.  A filter of sorts.  The #ReBCClt at the end gives this tweet an anchor to a certain event or tag.  (more on this later)

Oh and that bit.ly/uHOJb.  that is a shortened longer url so it would fit inside the 140 character limit.  Check out www.bit.ly.  You can shorten any url and personalize the shortened url as well with a free account.

Time Magazine wrote a terrific article on Twitter and how it is finding a unique niche.  One thing that I found especially interesting is that Twitter didn’t create these RT and @ symbol mechanizius.  They have been created and extended by the users.  the # symbol has no meaning at all until everyone at a conference who is tweeting about that conference uses #rebcclt in every post they write that day.  Then you have twitter users who can’t attend but want to know what is happening at the conference so they search by #rebcclt and like magic everything is sorted by time stamp related to the conference.

Setup you free twitter account at www.twitter.com then follow me at toddlongre.  you can then send me a direct message by putting a “d” in front of your message and only I will see it.  You can write: d toddlongre I have setup my twitter account, now what do I do?

I’ll help you from there.  I’ll warn you.  Twitter took me a little time to understand and for a while it was like looking at a garbage can expecting something miraculous to happen.  If you are easily discourage then twitter probably isn’t for you but at least now you know what all those # @ RT are doing in your geeky friends facebook post.

read comments (1)

I’ve been thinking……..about the future of a National MLS and public sold data.

It probably won’t be very long before Realtors are no longer the keeper and sole distribution point of the information regarding real estate data.  Remember the old MLS Books!  Now those were the days when agents had full control of ALL the data.  As a matter of fact before that the Agent who had the listing was the only person that knew about the house being for sale because there was no book to publish to the other agents.  Now fast forward to a few years from now: Client will have full access to all listings, pendings, and SOLD property data.  The question is what will they do with that information with out knowledge of the market, real estate cycles, marketing, staging, negotiating and so on?  Watch this video for my thoughts.

[flv:/video/mls.flv 480 360]

read comments (1)

NAR to fight HVCC

If you are practicing real estate right now you know that the appraisal process change passed in to law in May is not working! Appraisers working in areas they don’t know, inexperienced appraisers, unregulated appraisal management companies. NAR isn’t speaking out in public but is laying out a strategy to lobby Congress to fix this bill. Charles McMillan, President of NAR say this new system is causing hardships and delays for both buyers and sellers with “delays in closings and cancelled sales, which result in artificially low existing home sales.” Sound like one of your deals lately. I know the agents in my office have had very strange appraisal issues of late and there is very little that can be done to resolve an inaccurate appraisal. NAR is somewhat pointing the finger at HVCC for slower than expected home sales for the summer.

This should be interesting, NAR against or with Mortgage Lenders, Appraisers and Congress depending on how you look at the situation. Stay tuned.

read comments (0)

Mecklenburg Investors beware!

read comments (0)