Meet Virginia....and Georgia

DotLoop is putting its Pepsi bottles away as we head down to Atlanta tomorrow for the 2010 REBarCamp Atlanta. We'll be sure to eat lots of peaches while showing lovers of technology how they can simplify their lives with online negotiations.

Speaking of lovers, DotLoop will keeping it real at the REAL Show: the Virginia Association of Realtor's Convention & Expo October 1-3. If you're in town, join us in booth #204; this weekend will be sweeter than maple syrup.

Take Me Out To The Cleaners...

Let's play a game.

Imagine you're rich. Super rich. Now, imagine you want to build yourself a clubhouse. Fun game so far, huh?

This clubhouse will be built in the middle of town, only you don't want to have to pay for it. So, you convince your neighbors to pony up their money to pay for your shiny new clubhouse. Well, not so much convince as blackmail. See, if they don't give you money to pay for the clubhouse, you will leave and take the town's prized tourist attraction because, well, you own that, too.

So, they agree to build your clubhouse. Once built, you charge your neighbors an exorbitant fee to enter the clubhouse.

Sounds like a rotten deal, huh?

Interestingly enough, that's exactly how most city stadiums are built. Sport teams are no doubt a huge part of a city's culture (indeed, the Cincinnati Reds, DotLoop's own hometown team, won their division last night and clinched the playoffs, causing all sorts of excitement in the city), but often, the city never really owns the team. Or the stadium that is built by public tax dollars.

But don't stadiums bring in revenue for the city? Yes and no. Yes, they bring in some new tax dollars, but no, not enough to offset the cost of building the stadium.

The bottom line: sports teams are great for a city or region's culture and helps them brand themselves, but when private teams reap most of the benefits, shouldn't they be the ones paying for the facilities?

Of course, the resale is where the real money is at. Just ask Detroit, who sold their Pontiac Silverdome last year for a whopping $583,000. That's a lot of money, until you realize it cost the city $55.7 million to build it in 1975.

You can buy an awful lot of Cracker Jacks with that kind of money.

Happy Little Trees

With fall upon us, many of you no doubt are starting to do some home fix-ups. It is, after all, the perfect weather for painting without panting (no humidity - whoo hoo!).

I painted this weekend myself, actually. As I was going over the old paint, I was careful to stay within the lines, until, at one point, I went outside the parameters just a bit.

At first, I freaked out. Being the perfectionist that I am, I wanted to make sure that the new coat of paint covered the old exactly.

But then it dawned on me: I don't have to follow the same old worn pattern. After all, I have a brand new bucket of paint and can make new lines and new boundaries with my paint brush. I have the power to create an entirely new design.

This is great news, especially since the old lines are faded. After all, it's been two whole years since the economy began to crumble. By now, the old paint has chipped off. The question then, is, are you still following the old path, or are you forging a new one?

I challenge you, then, with your new paint bucket, to go and create bold new brush strokes. Maybe you've decided to take on that challenging listing or make your office completely paperless. Maybe you've even decide to embark on an entirely new career path altogether.

It's completely up to you. With all the doom and gloom about the current economy and with everyone wanting to badly to return to the spreadsheets of 2006, we often forget that this crisis is as much an opportunity as anything else.

So, instead of lamenting that the old paint is peeling off, brush away those paint chips and go create a masterpiece.

Don't miss the forest for the "happy little trees".

Foreclosures, Forgeries, and Fraudulant Financing

It's been three days since official start of fall and two years since the official fall of Lehman Brothers.

Only now, though, it seems that the question of "how did this happen?" is finally being answered.

The heat is hammering down on the foreclosure and mortgage industries, as it was just revealed this week that thousands of mortgage approvals were shuffled through and never checked. Many more were forged.

As the paperwork piled up, no one bothered checking to make sure that "Bogus Assignee" was a real person (yes, this actually happened) before approving them for a $500,000.00 mortgage. Others simply signed off on forms using a title they did not hold.

Hopefully, it's a lesson learned. Financial dealings are too important to be bogged down by mounds of paper that can easily be manipulated, lost, or forged.

DotLoop finds all of this fascinating, if only because it speaks so loudly about the need for transparent and accurate documentation. With DotLoop, not only is every change documented and attached to a form's history, but changes have to first be approved by a client before a form can be signed.

Who knew verification and approval were such novel ideas?

Pump the Brakes

While we always have multiple projects going on at the same time here at DotLoop, this week seems especially busy.

But we can make it - we always do. I think the key for us each of us to focus on one thing at a time before moving onto the next project. By week's end, things always seem to fall in place.

No doubt as agents, you've had your fair share of full plates. If you're lucky enough (or skilled enough), you might even be overflowing with work right now.

How do you get through it? Do you focus on one thing at a time or multiple things at a time? How do you handle multi-tasking?

More than likely, you don't.

Scientists are seeing more and more evidence that multi-tasking is a myth, that what we call "multi-tasking" is really just rapid attention shifting. We basically are taking tiny bites of a cornucopia of meals at a time instead of fully digesting one plate at a time.

Between bites, however, we need to refocus, losing productivity despite our "multi-tasking" which, ironically enough, is designed to make us more productive.

But getting one thing done, then moving onto the next actually allows for a greater yield of activity at the end of the day.

I'm sure Jeffrey Stephan wish he had thought of that. The 41 year-old document processor for Ally Financial recently admitted that he signed off on thousands of bank foreclosures, without reading a single one, a requirement for the job. The main reason was the shear amount of documents that needed to be reviewed and hand-signed: up to 10,000 a month.

Now, those who had their homes foreclosed on have ammunition to fight back and call shenanigans on the very banks who tried to do more than one thing at a time. It's sending shock waves throughout the mortgage industry.

Not to say that having another document processor wouldn't have helped, but he did admit to "shortcuts", including taking a glance at the borrower's names and a few other number before signing off, and not even reading the rest of the files.

Sometimes, when your plate runneth-over, the best advice is: when you're in a hurry, slow down.

Reading, Writing, and Real Estate

Last month, the DotLoop Blog examined what not to do with your website. Among the suggestions were to not use Glamour Shot images of yourself or brag about how awesome you are.

Today, let's go a bit deeper and discuss probably the most important part of your site - the writing.

Great writing can make a ho-hum site shine and bad writing can make a gorgeous site bland. A site's writing is what truly separates it from the competition. Here are three tips to make sure your site is a shining example of crisp and clear composition:

Practice Good Grammar - If you don't know your its from it's or their from there, then there's a good chance you're not paying attention to the details. And in real estate, details matter. Good grammar isn't about looking like an elitist; it's about looking competent. This includes the ever-important apostrophe placement, too.

Say Something - Everyone likes flowery adverbs, but don't forget you're also a business person. Your words need to say something of value, not just empty fluff. Same thing with your listings. What does a "cute cottage" mean, anyway?

Be An Expert - Talk about the local area, not just the specific home. Is there a local jazz bar around the corner from your listing? Do you have working knowledge about short sales and can you lucidly explain the process to your clients? Maybe you have a great tip on how to clean out gutters on a second story home. The more knowledge you can share, the better your brand will be.

Take a look at your site and check to see if you need some editing. Remember - your site's copy is how it communicates to the outside world. Make sure it has something to say and that it says it good, er, I mean well.

Pirate Phonics - Do Your Clients Understand Your Real Estate Lingo?

As many of you probably know, Sunday is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, a day to celebrate swashbuckling and decry land lubbers.

It's a silly day, one that I never had heard of until a colleague here at DotLoop mentioned it earlier this week.

It got us thinking, though: every industry has its own "language" - real estate is no different. But how helpful is that to your clients?

Do your clients, for example, understand what a short sale is? Or what it means to be FHA certified? Do they know what escrow means or why they need to sign a certain document and only initial another?

A purchase contract, after all, like most legal documents, is not designed to make it easy to understand, but to legally protect certain parties by using obscure, sometimes archaic (sometimes Latin) language.

Your job, then, as an agent, is to translate the legalese and help them navigate the choppy waters and keep them from walking the plank.

After all, with a real estate transaction, your clients are looking to you to be the captain of the negotiation, to keep a watch out for them from the crow's nest, and to help them set sail on their new life in their new home.

Arrrrrrr you up to the challenge?

Is Home Ownership Outdated?

As a record number of banks carpe domus ("seize the home"), and as jobs keep shuffling around in a more mobile, fluid society, one has to ask: is home ownership outdated?

And I don't mean in terms of fads, as if owning a home were akin to owning a bean bag chair or a lava lamp. Fads come and go, but the underlying structure stays the same.

What I'm asking is whether the underlying structure is changing. After all, it used to be that you could graduate high school, get a good manufacturing job with enough pay and benefits to provide for your family, and retire with a healthy pension. One job in one town for one life.

Owning a home made sense. You stayed put and your grandchildren were raised in the same hometown as you. You paid off your mortgage and maybe fueled your retirement off of its sale, leveraging its increased value.

But in today's world, that kind of life is as anachronistic as the milkmen and paper boys that went along with it. By 2006, workers between the ages of 18 and 38 changed jobs an average of 10 times; many times, switching cities to do so. And, with housing prices falling, a home is no longer a retirement tool.

This new way of living will end up drastically changing the way we work and live. As Richard Florida's new book The Great Reset points out, American society most likely (and in some cases already is) going to become a 'rentership society', rather than an 'ownership society'.

That's not to say ownership will disappear altogether. Indeed, it will end up making good real estate agents that much more in demand, and it will mean those out to own a home will be doing so for the right reasons, not just because they heard it was a good investment.

Papa's Got a Brand New Bag

As you may be aware, DotLoop is going convention crazy this week, stretching ourselves from Texas to Ohio (and soon to be in Virginia).

If you're attending the 2010 Keller William Mega Camp in Austin, Texas this week, look for us at Booth #500 and come get your free complimentary mesh bag to haul around your stuff, courtesy of our friends at American Paper and Plastic Company.

They will also be available at the upcoming Virginia Association of Realtors' REal Show: VAR's Convention & Expo 2010 Conference in Virginia Beach on October 1st.

So stop on by. And remember: with DotLoop, simplified real estate transactions are in the bag.

Overleveraged & Underwater

A good agent knows that any home buying process doesn't begin with scoping out neighborhoods or searching online for open houses.

It starts with a trip to the bank to get pre-qualified for a loan.

But in the midst of the chaotic economic downturn, such pre-qualification has gotten pretty prickly, with banks now necessitating a perfect credit rating and ties to royalty just to be seen.

Consider the case of the Britos, a San Francisco couple who pre-qualified for a $650,000 home loan in 2006 and who now only pre-qualify for $280,000.

As the article points out, the receding loan amount is maybe a bit of an over-correction in the market.

Still, at its peak, the ratio of borrowing leverage for states most affected by the housing crash (think Arizona, Florida, and California) were as high as 15 times a borrower's income. Talk about risky.

During the housing boom, the old standby of "your house should be no more than three times your salary" went out the door, replaced by "get as much as you can and then buy more than you need."

And we're all see the effects of that logic.

What do you think? Would you rather have people qualify for less or more?

Just Another "Convention"-al Week

It's a busy week here at DotLoop. Not only have we launched our new features, but we're attending several conventions and conferences around the country.

We'll be live in Austin, Texas at the 2010 Keller William Mega Camp (look for us in booth #500).

We're saddling up for another show in Galveston, Texas at the 2010 Texas Association of Realtors Convention and Trade Expo.

A bit closer to home (in our own hometown of Cincinnati), we are at the 2010 OAR Convention today. This is the 100th anniversary of the convention, and we're excited to help OAR celebrate!

We'll just be getting over our jet lag when it's back on the road at the Virginia Association of Realtors' REal Show: VAR's Convention & Expo 2010 Conference on October 1st.

Whew!

Our Thoughts & Prayers To Those Out West

Yesterday was a tragic day for our friends out west, in particular those neighbors in San Bruno, California.

A ruptured gas and a massive explosion roared through the residential neighborhood yesterday evening, destroying hundreds of homes and killing six people.

Our hearts go out to those who have lost loved ones and their homes from this tragic event.

Boulder Colorado also lost many homes in rampant wild fires now threatening the city.

In a week commerating the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, we hope that these tragedies do not go unnoticed and we hope you put a thought and prayer out to those who lost not just their homes, but in a sense, their lives.

Is It Green Or Is It Greed?

The construction industry has a 17% unemployment rate, but one sector not suckered into job losses are green buildings.

Accounting for up to one-third of all new construction in the US, green buildings are the hot new trend in construction. They're the asbestos of the new millennium, only without the carcinogens.

But what makes a building 'green' anyway?

For most, having the designation of a LEED certified building seals the deal (or is that insulates the deal?). LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, a term created by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a non-profit consortium of builders and designers.

But does the point-based system really make buildings greener, or just the wallets of its council? As far as new construction is concerned, do we really need any more buildings, or would it be 'greener' to simply rehab older buildings and bring them up to modern code?

It may be time to question some of the assumptions one makes about what makes a home environmentally sound.

After all, like most movements, the green movement seems to be more about making money than saving manatees.

Are You Ready to Evolve?

Real estate agents are an endangered species.

And, like dodo birds, jobs already lost in real estate are not likely to come back anytime soon.

That's according to the new report from the Labor Department, which speculates that most or all of the 8.4 million lost jobs will be regained by 2014.

The catch?

The new jobs will most likely be filled by two categories: high paying, high skilled jobs or low-paying, low-skill jobs. The middle, it appears, has been sliced out and shipped out overseas.

Of course, as a real estate agent, you no doubt have already seen what having less real estate agents is like on the industry. Perhaps the job-losses were long-overdue residual effects from having too many "me, too" agents.

For the fittest who've survived, however, your evolution is not yet complete.

The real estate world will continue to rapidly change, from less inventory with lower prices to clients who demand paperless, real-time collaboration and updates. Your job is to evolve and grow as this change occurs.

The best part, though?

No matter the changes in the economy, they'll never be able to outsource real estate agents.

What Is a Browser? (And Do You Need To Know?)

Do you know what a div is?

A what?

Exactly. You probably think I'm lying, but computers aren't magical. They are just language and microchips.

But you don't care. Nor should you - you're too busy getting your work done. Here at DotLoop, we understand that, which is why we create tools to simplify your lives, not add complexity to an already complex world.

As Google points out in the video below, most people don't know how the Internet works, but most people nonetheless use the Internet.



Most people don't know how their car works, either (something about internal combustion), but they drive one every day.

Your clients don't necessarily know how real estate works; they just want their house sold.

Folks just want things to work. At DotLoop, we get that, which is why we are constantly tweaking and updating our site to make it more efficient, more robust, and more useful.

Look for some changes next week and enjoy your holiday weekend.

For the record, a browser is software used to render the Internet onto your computer screen. Think of it as a window into the web. Google, by contrast, is a web site that helps you search the Internet. It's a search engine, not a browser.

Easy, right?

The Economy Tsunami - Are You Prepared?

This economy is a strange, fickle little creature, and it may be years before we see an upswing.

At least, that's what Jeremy Grantham's predicting. This fabled recovery, he says, will not happen in 2010, but around 2016.

You know - the future.

Of course, he may be just another Economic Nostradamus and might be completely wrong about his "seven lean years" prediction. This downturn, after all, may last even longer.

Our economy is only as fickle as we are, though - we've been impatiently waiting for a recovery for the last three years. Now that it's lasting longer than we had anticipated, it seems a good idea to start thinking long-term about changes we can all make to wade through this economy tsunami.

Here are three areas you, as an agent, can start to cutback on to wade through this recession.

Office Supplies
Between the manila folders, costly ink cartridges, and burdensome storage cabinets (which take up precious office space), the cost of business has always been a bit on the high side.

With today's technology, however, you can run a completely paperless office, saving you space, waste, and haste. DotLoop's paperless online transaction system, for example, means you'll never have to worry about costly paper fees (or paper cuts) again.

Fuel
How much time are you spending stuck in traffic? How much money are you wasting on gas? Fuel costs add up and can eat into your revenue faster than you think. With more cars on the road today than ever before, even a quick trip downtown can waste hours and gallons.

Luckily, with e-mail, eSign, and eFax services so readily available, you can save your gas for when you really need it - to get to the closing table.

Advertising
There are only so many channels agents use to get their name out there; unfortunately, most are not only out-dated, but downright costly.

With free services like Facebook and Twitter allowing you to be your own brand manager (and more easily and effectively connect with your audience) why would anyone still use a billboard or bus stop bench to get the word out?

These are just three areas you can curb your spending to survive this wave of slumped sales. I'm sure you can think of even more.

And hey, even if this economy come back swinging again soon, think about how much more efficient, effective, and economic you will be as an agent.