Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Online Newsletter for January 16

Quote: “Excuses should be laughed at, not dignified as they often are today. Excuses and responsibility cannot coexist. If there’s anything in our life that’s not the way we want it to be, we are responsible for changing it. Whether it’s something big or small, we are still responsible, and each time we give an excuse we diminish our respect, our credibility, and our integrity in our own eyes as well as the eyes of others. Each time we make an excuse, we reinforce our propensity to make even more excuses in the future, and excuse making becomes an infectious cultural habit. As humans, we love to rationalize our ineptitude. Unless we make a commitment to the choice of excuse-free living, we’ll always be able to find fresh excuses. The next time we feel the urge to utter an excuse, we should all remember the slogan of the Paralympics: What’s Your Excuse? THE ONLY THING MORE DAMAGING TO OUR CHARACTER THAN MAKING AN EXCUSE IS MAKING THE SAME EXCUSE TWICE.” From The War on Success by Tommy Newberry, an absolute must read.

GOING PAPERLESS – IMPORTANT ISSUES

For the system to properly work, everyone MUST use the latest edition of the Market Center Addendum to the Listing Agreement dated November 2009. It has a provision that the Sellers initial to authorize an email broker acceptance of the file. THIS IS IMPORTANT!

Uploading files seems to be misunderstood. When you take a listing, put all of your forms into one pile. Then, one form at a time, sort the pile into three piles. The first pile would be all forms that MUST be uploaded to the MLS system like Property Disclosures, Lead Base Paint, etc, These forms would require a Purchasers signature/initial to complete the sale or of particular interest to the purchasers like a survey. The second pile of forms would all forms that are NOT LISTED in the list of forms on the paperless home page. Examples of these would be Surveys, Short Sale Documents, Plat Maps, anything not listed in red or black on the home page. The third pile would be those forms listed on the paperless home page BUT WHICH ARE NOT GOING TO BE UPLOADED TO THE MLS, examples, Listing Agreement, Addendum to the Listing Agreement, Tax Roll, etc. Then go to the bottom of the paperless home page, highlight ALL the documents that are being uploaded to the MLS. If there are any documents being uploaded like a Survey that you want to make available to a purchaser then it should be in this pile and you need to use the MISCELLANEOUS feature where you can NAME the document being included.

You will know you have done this correctly when you see on your Dashboard the files you have uploaded and the file contains the names of ALL the documents you have scanned and uploaded.
Anyone having problems with this, please attend a Technology Thursday class or the Monday M&M which is now at 9:30.

OTHER ISSUES: If you are listing a property FOR SALE and FOR LEASE, you must enter it twice. Please understand, if it is sold, you then have to close out the LEASE folder as well as the FOR SALE folder. One goes into the closed sale section of our files and the other into the withdrawn section.

EVERY LISTING, REPEAT, EVERY LISTING requires a Addendum to the Listing Agreement. This is the document that insures you are in compliance with the REALTOR Code of Ethics as well as giving the Broker authority to accept the file by email instead of a paper response.

GARBAGE IN – GARBAGE OUT: If you are using forms that have been faxed and faxed and subsequently reduced and faded, that is exactly what you will be saving to the permanent file. Scan your documents as FULL SIZE documents not severely reduced copies that are impossible to read. Remember, you will only be able to retrieve what you have saved to the file, good, bad or indifferent in quality.

MISSISSIPPI LISTINGS AND SALES – are to be included in the paperless system. Forms specific to Mississippi should be entered as MISCELLANEOUS until such time as the home page of the paperless service can be amended to include a Mississippi Only section.

BROKER NOTE: The paperless system is truly remarkable. The home page should be used by everyone as a check-off list of all documents. Remember any listed in RED are required but there will be times when even required documents are not applicable in which case you simply add a note saying so. If you submit your file and have not accounted for at least all the required forms you should automatically know it will be incomplete and require additional work. While the paperless system will save hundreds of dollars in paper costs its true value is insuring compliance with the law, rules and regulations of our industry and I know that is what we all want.

25 BEST HOUSING MARKETS FOR 2010:

More housing markets are forecast to experience appreciation in 2010 as the nation's real estate markets move closer to stabilization. The Best 25 Housing Markets named annually by Housing Predictor hold the strongest likelihood of housing inflation of all 250 market predictions issued.
Rank Real Estate Market Forecast

1. Cleveland, OH 10.4%
2. Columbus, OH 9.4%
3. Cincinnati, OH 8.8%
4. Toledo, OH 6.5%
5. Lafayette, LA 5.4%
6. Des Moines, IA 5.1%
7. Arlington, VA 4.8%
8. Juneau, AK 4.2%
9. Davenport, IA 4.2%
10. Baton Rouge, LA 4.0%
11. Austin, TX 3.6%
12. Marquette, MI 3.2%
13. Fargo, ND 3.1%
14. Charleston, WV 3.1%
15. Iowa City, IA 3.1%
16. Shreveport, LA 2.9%
17. Bismarck, ND 2.9%
18. Rapid City, SD 2.8%
19. Philadelphia, PA 2.7%
20. Grand Rapids, MI 2.7%
21. Sioux Falls, SD 2.7%
22. Morgantown, WV 2.6%
23. Omaha, NE 2.5%
24. Bellevue, NE 2.3%
25. Pittsburgh, PA 2.3%

Note: While Slidell is not specifically listed, three Louisiana municipalities are and that is good news for our area. St. Tammany was virtually unaffected on an internet map that tracked the unemployment throughout the entire country over the past 5 years or so. That too is good news for our area.

HELPING ANIMALS: www.FREEKIBBLE.com for dog lovers and www.FREEKIBBLEKAT.com for cat lovers gives food to dogs and cats in shelters when you correctly answer a daily trivia question. You can also sign up for them to send you a daily email that would then make this automatic for you to remember all of our furry friends!!!!!! Thank you Dana Kelm for the information.

WCR LUNCHEON: Friday, January 29, 11:30 at Todd Schaeffer’s Family Restaurant, 348 Robert Blvd. $20.00 Members; $23.00 Non-Members. To make reservations, call Stephanie Turnage 710-0585 or Kelly Bernard Ferrer, 788-6602.

A VIDEO YOU WON’T SOON FORGET: www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=9xwCG0Ey2Mg

10 TIPS TO BE YOUR BEST, by Jon Gordon: http://www.jongordon.com/newsletter-011110-10tipstobeyourbest.html

TAKE THE AMERICAN HISTORY EXAM at www.AmericanRevolutioncenter.org. 83% of Americans fail this exam.

WHERE IS SALES? WHERE IS SALES? HOW ARE SALES? By Jeffrey Gitomer. http://www.gitomer.com/articles/ViewPublicArticle.html?key=ajcdMibak3PdgseleaeLBw%3D%3D

BOOK: THE FIFTH AGREEMENT by Don Miguel Ruiz. Ruiz wrote The Four Agreements which was a national best seller and was discussed at several Team Leader Mastermind Sessions; it is really a great book. Ruiz has a new book out expanding on the Four Agreements that is explained in this link: http://www.elabs6.com/functions/message_view.html?mid=474994&mlid=20949&siteid=12346080&uid=007a532802

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