Broadpoint Properties, a North San Diego County Real Estate Brokerage, has just moved to a new location. We are now bigger and better than ever before! Our office now boasts over 4000 square feet of workspace, including two conference rooms, and a gorgeous lobby. We are situated in downtown Escondido, directly across from Bank of America. Street parking is available. Additionally, there is a large parking lot behind the building.

If you are local or are visiting North San Diego County this month, we could love for you to join us at our Grand Opening Party.

Please Join Us…

Date: Thursday, August 26, 2010

Time: 4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

Place: 220 West Second Avenue, Escondido, California

Food  • Drink  • Live Music  • Surprises

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Day 2 of our whirlwind trip to wine country in the Napa Valley north of San Francisco began with a quick walk around the hotel grounds along the ocean in Pismo Beach, then up Route 1 along the Monterey Coast to Big Sur.

If you have never done this drive it is quite remarkable with incredible views along the way at every turn at the edge of the continent. There are places to stop and enjoy the views, which you can’t do quite as well while driving. The ground squirrels at the one viewpoint were quite appreciative of all the handouts.

The area is constantly changing with rock and mud slides and areas where the road is deteriorating and must be repaired. There were 3 such major areas this trip with minor delays; one in particular was an amazing engineering undertaking on the hillside – one has to wonder if at some point nothing more can be done to stop the inevitable deterioration and erosion.

We stopped at Nepenthe Restaurant which has been on the mountain in Big Sur for decades and offers what may be some of the most dramatic dining views anywhere, at least where I have been. A wonderful visit and lunch with my cousin in Monterey gave us a nice break before heading up the freeway to Calistoga at the north end of the Napa Valley. Freeway traffic was a real treat with one major accident on our side, and a totally burned out bus on the other. Temps were in the mid to high 80s, which after the chill in Carlsbad was a treat.

Once in the Napa Valley the drive up the main road is spectacular, with wineries, familiar and not, at every turn. While it was tempting to stop there were far too many hours spent in the car and dinnertime was approaching. We stayed at a charming small hotel and spa, Eusospa, in Calistoga (I give them a big shout out for service and their massages) ust a couple of block from the heart of town with a fabulous dinner at Jole. I even checked in a couple of times on Foursquare. More later.

Enjoy the pics – they don’t do justice to the scenery but you get the idea.

I love to park on the sideline and watch heads roll. That’s what I’ve been doing with HomePath and Fannie Mae. But, finally, today, I’ve decided to put my car in drive.

Have you been following the saga of HomePath (the Fannie Mae division that managers the inventory of Fannie Mae owned homes) and the restrictions imposed on the number of listings assigned to individual brokers? 

Apparently, last month, HomePath issued an REO Announcement that imposed a limit of 30 on the number of REO listings that a broker of record could have at any time. According to various online sites including www.realtoractioncenter.com, “the announcement warned companies that handle Fannie’s REO inventory to apply the 30-property limit strictly and noted ‘100% compliance’ was expected.”

The Realtor® Action Center website further reported that NAR immediately heard from members raising concerns about the impact of such a low, arbitrary limit on their businesses. The report stated that “NAR agrees that Fannie should not have an inflexible limit on the number of REO listings. Instead, Fannie should rely on documented success and professional performance of real estate brokers.”

On July 9, HomePath released another REO Announcement that relaxed the rules announced at the end of June. ”The July 9 announcement states that Fannie Mae, as a general rule, does not allocate more than 30 active REO listings from any one Fannie source at any one time. It stated this has been long-standing practice. The new announcement went on to acknowledge that some higher-performing brokers can handle more than 30 properties at one time and still exceed Fannie’s standards.  Accordingly, Fannie Mae will approve special exceptions to the 30 listing limit in appropriate circumstances. In addition, the Announcement notes that the 30 listing limit is applied per source, so brokers may have 30 properties directly from Fannie and 30 from an outsourcer, without requiring Fannie approval. More information is expected soon.”

I’m sure that Realtors® have strong opinions both for and against this issue. On the one hand, many of us live in communities where individual Realtors® were assigned well over 100 REO listings a few years back. This massive influx caused some of those Realtors® to devise systems which limited contact with the public and encouraged a less personal approach to real estate. On the other hand, many might argue that if you are intelligent and organized enough to manage a large influx of REOs, why not be permitted to take on such a large assignment? It is also notable that the commission is not great on REO listings; many Realtors® find that they earn the best REO income by developing a large REO department.

I’d love for you to weigh in and share what you think about this. It is certainly a hot button topic. The goal of this post is to generate a conversation, and I hope that it will accomplish that goal.

I know of one crew who is clearly against the policy… That’s the crew at Keller Williams. Thanks to Lani Rosales’ post on Agent Genius, I was pointed to a letter written by Mark Willis, the CEO of Keller Williams to the President and CEO of Fannie Mae.

So, what do you think about the policy?

Day 1 was beautiful, once we got 45 minutes north of Carlsbad and the sun came out. Good thing. I had visions of a trip along the coastline with more marine layer.

We paid a quick visit to Surf, CA  (top photo) – yep that is the name – nothing but a beach and, oddly, an Amtrack stop by Vandenburg AFB.

Driving through Lompoc the evidence of the horrific fires from last year were much in evidence.

We stayed in Pismo Beach, which is a small, charming seacoast town about 3.5 hours north of LA. Fabulous views from our room, as you can see. Lots of seagulls, including the one who hung out below our balcony clearly waiting for handouts.

Today we head up Route 1 to Big Sur, which has incredible views. Should be fun.

Last week I wrote a blog post about how to create a database of individuals who are in your sphere of influence. This post is a follow-up in which I will review how to use the database of leads or prospects in order to generate business. The sphere of influence is one of the most important components to your ability to build a real estate business. Marketing to this group of individuals is vital to sustaining your real estate career and your position was in the real estate community.

What is the one thing standing between you and your ability to make more money?

The answer to this question is ‘leads.’

Recently, I offered my clients (real estate agents) the opportunity to participate in a lead generation program that would cost them nothing except for the price of postage. I explained that this program would help them to generate all sorts of leads-and probably many short sale listing leads.

Many of these clients expressed surprise when I explained that one of the keys to generating more short sale leads is to target your own sphere of influence. Here’s my theory: everyone knows somebody who knows somebody who may need to sell their home right now in a short sale.

With our national unemployment rate at around 10%, there certainly must be some friend of a friend who needs your real estate services today. Marketing to your sphere of influence (and the subsequent referrals that come from this marketing) is vital to sustaining your real estate career. Many individuals ask what they should send to individuals in their sphere. The answer is simple: individuals in your sphere need to know that you are in the real estate business and that you are successful. In order to demonstrate this, I would not advocate sending recipe cards or ball game schedules (although I enjoy cooking and love the Boston Red Sox). The best marketing pieces would advertise recently listed or recently sold properties. You want the idea that you are in real estate business to be on the forefront of them mind of those in your sphere of influence.

These marketing pieces can come by way of regular mail e-mail or via telephone. Additionally, sites such as facebook or twitter (which allow for social media communication with friends and friends of friends) can help to remind your sphere that you are in the real estate business.

When creating the database, do not focus on the number of people in your sphere. It is not the numbers that matter; it’s the relationships. Will the individuals on your list recognize you at the supermarket or when you are at the gas station? Those are the individuals that should be in the database.

Generating a well-crafted database and marketing to those individuals in the database on a regular basis will go a long way towards creating leads-leads that will fuel your real estate career for years to come.

I’ve learned over the years to be prepared for traveling with all my electronic gadgets.

Having left behind chargers for my phone, the battery charger for my laptop (that was expensive to replace while traveling) and other things, I have taken to putting all my power cords and such in a plastic bag to keep stuff in one spot, but also remind me of what to pack :

batteries for my Flip

laptop power cord

bluetooith charger

power cords for my cell phone and camera

USB cable to downloand digital photos

camera and Flip

It seems to work well as I have not left anything behind these last few trips. Now I’m ready to go.

I wrote an article some time ago that you could buy a detached home or condo in the North San Diego County area for under 0,000. That’s still true, although the inventory in this price range has shrunk, and there are limitations on what and where you can buy. 

The follow summary DOES NOT include mobile homes or manufactured properties which are land lease. This summary also does not include housing for seniors (55+ communities). 

Many communities in North San Diego County do not have inventory in this price range. If you are interested in searching for homes for sale for under 0,000 in other areas check out the links. 

The following data are for condos (including townhouses) only:

There are a total of 625 condos for sale in these communities, thus units under 0K represent about 13% of the total inventory. 

There is only 1detached single family home for sale in these communities for less than 0,000, located in Vista. 

These data include short sale and REO listings, including those homes that already have offers being considered by REO and short sale lenders. 

Search for Condos under 0,000 in North San Diego County  

Search for Single Family Detached Homes (including mobile homes and land leas properties) under 0,000 in North San Diego County

Question: How much does it cost to list your Escondido short sale?

Answer: Nothing!

In San Diego County right now, there are over 3000 active and contingent short sale listings for sale.* Some parts of San Diego County have more short sales then others. Escondido has more short sale listings then some of those other communities.

One of the agents in my office took a short sale listing recently and the seller had some very good questions about costs. The seller was concerned about the commission. This seller wanted to know how much it would cost to list his Escondido short sale.

Great question with a simple answer. In a traditional short sale, the commission is paid from the seller’s proceeds. In a short sale, there are no seller proceeds since the seller owes more on the home than it is worth. So, in a short sale, the mortgage lender pays the commission out of the proceeds.

The next question that came up was with regard to the listing agreement. If the seller agrees to a 6 percent commission on the listing agreement and the mortgage lender approves less, who must pay the difference?

If the mortgage lender happens to reduce the commission below the amount on the listing agreement, then the agent will only earn the commission approved by the seller’s lien holder. By law, all costs associated with a short sale must be reported on the final settlement statement at closing. This includes all commissions paid to listing and selling agents. Because of this, the seller would not be responsible for the difference between the commission on the signed listing agreement and the approved commission on the short sale approval letter.

There are other costs associated with an Escondido short sale. These may include Homeowner’s Association dues, title insurance, home warranty, and escrow. Each short sale is unique and the amount approved by the lien holder is different on each and every short sale. Generally, most of these costs are paid for by the mortgage lender. However, if you have your home listed as an Escondido short sale and have received a short sale approval letter, it is a good idea to review the costs with your Realtor® and your escrow officer just to make sure that there are no unanticipated expenses at close of escrow.

*Statistics are obtained from Sandicor Multiple Listing Service. ‘Active’ refers to properties with no buyer. ‘Contingent’ refers to short sales with an accepted offer, currently waiting lender approval.

FYI: Photo has nothing to do with the post. Just for grins!

We all remember high school – a time marked, in part at least, by being part of the “in” group…or not. It was a big deal. For many, perhaps traumatic, depending on whether you were in or out.

Folks generally knew which group you were part of. And we were painfully aware as well. Some groups also arose out of how much money your family had…or not. Or where you lived. And other characteristics. It was often not nice to not be part of the “in” crowd but sometimes you had no choice. Someone ELSE made that decision.

Cliques continued in college, depending on the school, whether you were a frat guy or in a sorority, along with other groups, too. Perhaps you were part of the party crowd. Or maybe one of the studious ones.

Being part of the “in” crowd, or not, is still a big part of our lives. So much of it revolves around technology and the “IN”ternet these days. 

Are YOU part of the “in” crowd??

Do you use a Droid? Android? Blackberry Storm? iPhone? Something similar?

Do you have at least one Facebook Business page?

Do you Tweet? And Retweet? Use Hootsuite? Know about Twellowhood?

Do you check in with the newest darling, Foursquare?

Is there an iPad in your collection?

Are you “skyping” with clients and prospects?

Do you eyejot? Have you scribd? Are you a Screenr?

Is a Flip video camera in your pocket or purse at all times? And do you use it often?

Are LOL, IRL, F2F, BTW, IDK, IMO, OMG, TMI and similar abbreviations automatic?

Do you TM, IM, EM, DM and leave VM?

Are you on ActiveRain and active?

I like to think I AM part of the “in” crowd. I try, at least. But it seems that whenever I go to some sort of convention with a focus on technology I end up feeling I am not really quite there. And perhaps I won’t ever be.

Or when I think I really AM with it, someone else comes along to make me realize “dude, you ain’t with it at all.”

I’m OK with that. I do what I can and what I enjoy and it works for me.

In reality, I think most of us ARE part of the “In”ternet crowd, unless you are living under a rock. And there is still so much that has to be done face to face with our clients.

How about you?