Real estate cold, real estate TV hot

NEW YORK --

Real estate may have cooled considerably as an investment, but not real estate television.

House flipping and home renovation programs are still big hits on cable. While "for sale" signs sprout on lawns across the country, TV programmers are like developers who plow ahead with new housing projects anyway.

A new season of the A&E Network's "Flip This House" - one of a troika with TLC's "Flip That House" and Bravo's "Flipping Out" - premieres Saturday night.

A&E has several new programs in development. At least six new ones are beginning on TLC in the next year, starting with "Date My House," where former "Bachelor" Bob Guiney hosts a program where potential buyers spend a night in a home on the market.

HGTV had its highest prime-time ratings ever in January. Nine of its top 10 series deal with the housing market, including "House Hunters," "My First Place," "Hidden Potential," "Buy Me" and "Design to Sell." The network did a special Feb. 29 theme day of "taking the big leap," or investing in that first house.

"What's driving interest right now is that people are worried about it - 'what's the value of my home? How can I increase interest in my home?'" said Jim Samples, HGTV president. "And then there's the 'life goes on' factor. People are still changing jobs, families are still getting bigger. If anything, they tend to nest in this environment."

Samples has a personal interest in the topic. He's in the process of selling a home in Atlanta and buying one in Knoxville, Tenn., where HGTV has its headquarters.

He admitted, though, that one of his first questions last fall upon taking over HGTV was how the housing market downturn would affect HGTV's programs.

HGTV essentially built itself on the public fascination with property. At its start, the network had shows on crafts and landscaping, but now the home is the focus.

"House Hunters," which premiered in 1999, helped introduce real estate as a prime TV target. When TLC's "Trading Spaces" became a sensation, it proved that renovation and decoration could be entertainment instead of simply chores.

The network has concentrated recently on reviving that franchise, even bringing original host Paige Davis back after a two-year absence.

"Flip That House" will become more reflective of the economy, said Brant Pinvidic, TLC's senior vice president of programming. Not every "flipper" gets rich quick. The show will make sure every time at the end to clearly outline how each investor did, he said.

"If the programming reflects the attitudes in the community and what people are feeling it will do better than if the programs feel outdated," Pinvidic said.

The new "Date My House" reflects how a seller's market has become a buyer's market, he said. "At its core it speaks to the sellers who are now saying, 'what can I do to reach the buyers on an emotional level and make them commit to my house,'" he said.

Robert Sharenow, senior vice president for alternative programming at A&E, said he believes the market has made people more interested in finding out how to make the most of what they have, and programming should reflect that need.

"Flip This House" is expanding its cast of characters for the upcoming fourth season, adding renovation teams in Atlanta and Los Angeles to join returning "flippers" from San Antonio and New Haven, Conn.

HGTV said it has resisted house-flipping shows to concentrate on helping viewers make their own homes more appealing and livable and, as a result, more valuable.

"The real estate market is always going to have cycles and when we plan programming, we look at it in a three-to-five-year time frame," Samples said. "It wouldn't be a great decision to be making programming decisions based on how the market is going at the moment."

Peter Schiff, author of "Crash Proof: How to Profit from the Coming Economic Collapse," said he could understand why networks still love this programming. Some are essentially infomercials for real estate agents and people in the home renovation business, he said, and advertisers love supporting the genre, too.

He's not very surprised that the market downturn hasn't led to a downturn in real estate programming.

"The myth dies hard," Schiff said. "It's going to take awhile for Americans to understand the reality that what happened in real estate the last decade was a fantasy."

House-flipping shows increasingly create a false sense of hope in the eyes of homeowners about the value of real estate as an investment, he said. Of course, difficulty in obtaining loans will dash those hopes.

The better home shows will focus on helping people learn do-it-yourself projects to increase the value of their homes, he said.

A&E's Sharenow said he believes programs like "Sell This House" and "Flip This House" have proven themselves immune to the whims of the market.

"These shows at their core are about how to buy and sell your house," he said. "These questions are just as relevant now as when the market was robust, and it was easy to sell your house."

"Serve with Integrity"

Friday was the George Washington’s Birthday that many of us grew up celebrating, and last Monday was the new federal holiday honoring George and our other Presidents. That got me thinking about George, and the first thing that came to mind was the old cherry tree legend – the one about “I cannot tell a lie.” Of course there’s “Honest Abe” also.

What a legacy to be remembered as being honest, as someone who told the truth. I don’t think we’re talking about tactless truth where you tell people that their shirt is ugly or that they should get a haircut or that their joke wasn’t funny. I think we’re talking about an admirable character trait that serves a person in life as well as beyond that.

Look at how many years have passed since Washington or Lincoln served in the Presidency, yet honesty is still ascribed to both. It is not limited to them. It’s just that when we think of them we also think of their character.

The trait of being honest is part of a larger set of character traits called integrity. This is what you stand for. It’s also what you won’t stand or put up with – how you won’t go against your own core beliefs.

My senior year in high school, I was a member of the Key Club, the high school organization of Kiwanis International. That year, the theme of the annual oratorical contest (which I incidentally won for my district) was “Serve with Integrity.”

At that time, integrity wasn’t a concept that was being taught in school. I’m not sure it is today either. Needless to say, I had to do some research before I could prepare my address.

That was a great experience and one I still remember. I think “Serve with Integrity” is a great life motto.

It means regardless of what we’re doing – building homes, selling them, advertising them, designing them, decorating them, inspecting them, appraising them, lending money on them – that we are known as a person of integrity. That we are not more interested in the sale or the paycheck than we are the customer. That we truly believe in what we are doing and consider it to be an admirable calling. That we approach our work with a wholeness and completeness that allows us to give our all in the pursuit of it. That it requires and receives our honest effort and our honest dealings with our customers. No shortcuts. No hedging.

This is what I mean by “Serve with Integrity” and I think our customers will admire us for it and want to work with us.

THE Key to Real Estate Success...Always be Prospecting!

A majority of your time in this business will be spent prospecting...that is if your goal is to succeed. ABP (Always be Prospecting) It is the most basic, critical element of success. It is imperative you develop and follow a plan. Build your plan around annual, monthly, weekly and daily prospecting activities. Demand of yourself a weekly minimum number of prospecting contacts. If you are new to the real estate business, 90-95% of your time should be spent asking for business. Do not let pending contracts or any other activity take you out of the business of prospecting every day. Prioritize your prospects, track your results and maintain a simple follow up plan. No other task in the real estate business can be performed until you have a person who is ready, willing, and able to buy or sell.

Regardless of what prospecting method you use, the goal is the same! The main objective is to establish rapport, put the client at ease, minimize their perception of the threat you represent and always direct your dialogue towards their needs. Your goal is to turn a prospective lead into an appointment with a motivated buyer or seller.

When qualifying a prospect you must ask a lot of questions to help you determine their needs and whether pursuing them is the best use of your time. Remember: Questions Attract...Statements Repel. Listen carefully to the answers, take notes and show concern and a willingness to help solve any problems or needs that you uncover. The answers you receive are not only the client’s needs, but also tell you what methods to use to meet those needs. These answers will also help you personalize your proposal to secure the client.

You may get objections. Do not be afraid. Objections are a good thing. Objections are simply another form of a question or concern or an indication that you have not totally gained their total rapport. It can simply mean a prospect has not made a decision. Always remember, for every no you are one step closer to a yes. When you have determined that the client is motivated to make a move in the foreseeable future, close.

My Real Estate Website Doesn't Produce Leads

This seems to be the number-one concern among real estate agents these days ... a website that doesn't produce any viable real estate leads. Or one that doesn't produce any leads at all.

Sometimes the answer is obvious. Other times, it calls for some speculation. For example, some websites have such obvious problems that you can spot them at a glance. Maybe there are no lead generation systems in place at all, or perhaps the website doesn't function properly.

In other cases, however, the website may appear to be well-designed from a lead generation standpoint, but it still does not produce any real estate leads. This is a tougher scenario to evaluate.

In the latter case, the lack of real estate leads could just be because of the market. After all, if there's not a lot of real estate activity in your area, you can't expect a steady stream of leads to pour through your real estate website. In many cities -- from Nashville to Tucson and elsewhere -- this is what we are seeing right now. And in this case, you simply have to look at your traffic stats. Are you even getting any traffic on a daily basis? If not, you have no hope of producing real estate leads from the website.

If your stats reveal a steady stream of website traffic day in and day out, but you are not getting any leads from the website, then there is something lacking from a lead generation standpoint. In such cases, these are the things I usually troubleshoot first:

Does the website offer any reason why people should contact the agent, or fill out the form, or whatever the conversion goal is? If not, this needs to be addressed first and foremost.

Are the conversion points easy to find, or is the real estate website in such a messy state that visitors can't find their way around? This is a usability issue, and one of the ways you can spot it is through high percentages of people who hit the home page only to leave right away (without clicking further into the website).

These are the things I would start with when troubleshooting a real estate website with good traffic levels but poor lead generation. Often, it's just a matter of cleaning things up and presenting something of value that people would want.

I also see a lot of those "Free Reports" offered on real estate websites, presumably for lead generation purposes. Many of the so-called reports I encounter are poorly positioned in several ways. First of all, they will consist of information the web visitor can easily find elsewhere online. For example, "Top 10 Tips for Buying a Home" is so worn out and overused that it's sad really. Without much effort, I could probably Google that phrase and find it plastered all across the Web.

So who is going to offer their email address in exchange for a generic article they can find on thousands of other websites? Consumers are web-savvy these days, and they know how to ignore useless info and find the good stuff.

So let's say you took the "free report" concept and injected it with steroids and other performance-enhancing substances ... metaphorically speaking of course. Let's say you created an actual e-booklet, in PDF format. And let's say that it was all about the local real estate scene in your area. Suddenly, the booklet becomes something that people cannot find anywhere else, thus the perceived value of the item increases.

Now let's take this further and hire a graphic designer to create a "virtual cover" for the booklet -- one that you can use to promote it on your website. People believe in what they see, so sometimes a little visual entice is all it takes to get people to starting filling out those web forms.

But we're not done yet. Let's create a press release and distribute it online to announce this insightful new guide to the real estate scene in [your town] ... jam-packed with recent sales statistics, development news, residential reports and more. A must-read for anyone planning to buy a home in [your town].

I've shared enough. You get the idea. But suffice to say these are only steps 1 through 7 of about 15 steps I would take ... if I were serious about generating leads through my real estate website. I offer these kinds of ideas and strategies all the time, but very few people implement them. And do you want to know why?

Because nobody ever said lead generation was easy!

Those who put in the extra effort will reap the extra rewards. And those who keep peddling their "Top Ten Tips for Buying a Home" will probably find another line of work at some point.

Purchasing A New Construction Home: What You Should Know

by Victoria Stankard

If you’re in the market to purchase a new construction home, you’ll want to be an educated buyer. Many home buyers desire a newly-constructed home because they offer more energy efficiency and design options. You can customize many things such as flooring, appliances, counter tops, cabinetry, appliances and wiring (TV, audio, computers and phones).

Buying a new home instead of a resale home requires some preliminary research on your part. It’s good to know the pros and cons of purchasing a new home so that you know what to look for as well as what to look out for. Without doing your homework before you buy, you may find that your new home fails to measure up to the standards you expected.

Check Out Your Builder

You’ll want to find out as much as possible about the builder of your newly constructed home. How long has the company been in the business of “new construction?” Go online and check for any complaints against them. If you type in the builder’s name followed by “complaints,” you’ll be able to access what people have to say about their experience. You can also type the builder into the Better Business Bureau (BBB) for more dirt if there is any.

Keep in mind, even the best builders can not please everyone. But if you see page after page of disgruntled customers, take it as a red flag warning to dig deeper into the builder’s reputation. Speak with others who’ve used the builder in the past and more recently. This will be the best ways of finding out how a builder’s customer service, craftsmanship and professionalism measure up. Investigating your builder can be time consuming, but pays off ten-fold if it helps you avoid making a costly mistake that you’ll regret later.

Location Is Key

Once you have decided on the builder, the next step is researching the neighborhood you want to live in. A good place to start is the local town or city zoning board. If there are open vacant fields in your surrounding area, find out what they are zoned for. Don’t take the sales rep’s sales pitch as gospel when it comes to describing the plans for the area. Remember, they are there to “sell you” how fabulous the neighborhood is and will be. Do your own sleuthing and get the facts.

You’ll also want to find out about the schools in your area. Makes sure those zoned for your neighborhood are highly-rated whether you have school-age children or not. This is one of the main things buyers look for, if and when you should decide to sell your home down the road.

Pros and Cons

There are two sides of the coin to every decision so it’s best know what you can expect about both. Here’s a list of the pros and cons of purchasing a newly-constructed home:

Upside

• Customized options and upgrades
• Less maintenance
• Updated building and safety Codes
• Energy efficient and innovative usage of space
• Comes with state of the art amenities
• May have recreational facilities like playgrounds, community pools, clubhouses and gyms
• New building materials tend to be safer because they don’t include such things as lead and asbestos
• Comes with construction and appliance warranties

Downside

• Resale can be difficult in a sub-division before all the homes have been built
• Delays in construction are common place
• Can cost more than existing homes due to escalating land values
• Dealing with noise, dirt and construction until all the homes are built
• Additional costs such as mandatory HOA fees and other assessments
• Higher taxes due to impact fees may be charged, in order to expand new services to your area.
• Unwanted developments or businesses may continue to be built on neighboring land

Before you sign on the dotted line of a new construction home, make sure you’ve checked out the builder, researched the surrounding neighborhood and assessed the pros and cons of purchasing a new construction home.

Mortgage Meltdown Has More to do with Fraud than Anything Else

Recently, I was discussing the mortgage meltdown with a reporter who made the mistake of asking me who or what I believed was primarily responsible for the mortgage meltdown and housing crash of 2007. My reply consisted of a single word: “fraud.” My conservative estimates target fraud as being responsible for at least 80% of the problem, and most of this fraud was perpetrated by industry insiders (both in the Real Estate and mortgage loan industries) on the consumers.

Of course, there is plenty of blame to go around. If consumers were not so greedy, using their homes like ATM machines whenever they needed an equity fix, perhaps the problem would not be so widespread and so deep. If fiscal conservatives were in charge of running the government at federal, state, and local levels, maybe we would not have a culture built around deficit spending. If politicians hadn’t agreed to ship manufacturing jobs overseas and open our markets to free foreign competition, maybe Americans would have more money to make house payments. If we had universal healthcare coverage, people wouldn’t end up in bankruptcy whenever they needed surgery.

I could go on, but from what I have witnessed in the Real Estate and mortgage loan industry comprises a concerted effort on the part of industry professionals and insiders to fleece the consumer. Cash back at closing schemes caused a huge part of the problem. When homeowners purchased their homes, many of them would borrow in excess of the property’s true market value–sometimes hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars more than the home was worth. They were then stuffing the proceeds in their pockets as if they had earned it.

Some might say that in this case, consumers are clearly at fault. After all, they were the ones who benefited most from the scam. However, in a huge majority of cases, professionals were advising these homeowners, telling them that this was a perfectly acceptable practice, that “everyone was doing it,” and that you were almost stupid for not doing it. The professionals would even conspire to defraud the banks, lining up appraisers who were known to appraise houses at whatever target value the buyer, seller, and agent decided. In return, the appraiser won more business, and the loan officer and real estate agent “earned” higher commissions. Everybody wins!

Another tactic that mortgage lenders used to suck in clueless buyers consisted of selling consumers on adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) that had teaser rates. When housing prices were spiraling into the stratosphere, fewer and fewer people were able to afford to take out a conventional mortgage to purchase a home. They simply didn’t have the income and savings required to obtain loan approval at the current interest rates. Instead of denying these high-risk lenders loans, the industry simply lowered the initial interest rate, so more people could qualify. Loan officers downplayed the fact that the interest rates would probably rise significantly months or years down the road. They told the buyers that they could simply refinance if the rate was too high. Unfortunately, when credit tightened, homeowners could no longer refinance with a conventional mortgage. Foreclosure became imminent.

During the big party when housing prices were on the rise and interest rates were dropping, mortgage brokers and the loan officers who worked for them, turned away few if any applicants. If you didn’t make enough money, they would encourage you to fudge the numbers on your loan application. To boost your credit score, you could simply piggyback on someone else’s credit card (this little loophole has been fixed). In some cases, the loan officer would simply have the applicant sign a blank loan application, so the loan officer could fill in the required information later–information that would be sure to win the applicant loan approval.

And this is just the day-to-day fraud. Professional con artists are also responsible for boldfaced scams that have ripped off homeowners and lenders alike. Armed with the Internet, technology, and know-how, these fraudsters could produce forged paperwork to score millions of dollars in mortgage loans for homes they never even bought.

What we are seeing now is fraud fallout. The system has been bruised and battered for too long. The very professionals who rely on the industry to feed them and their families have caused the problem, and many of them are now nowhere to be found. They scammed the system and left hard-working Americans to pick up the tab.