Would you read an e-book on "How to Buy Real Estate?"

At a family holiday dinner, a writing sample of mine from long ago was passed around as it detailed my family's history and lineage, sparking a number of interesting conversations.

After everyone had been able to get their two cents in about their holiday dinners, my aunt suggested I begin writing as everyone appreciated my writing style. Since the two things I know the most about are real estate and football, and there are already a lot of well established writers about football, I thought it might be interesting to give this a try.

Would you, specifically as someone who already goes online to find out information about buying a home, want to purchase such a book? How long should it be? What would you want covered? What might you pay (if anything) for such a book? How important would interactivity with the author be (i.e. the ability to ask for clarification or elaboration in real time)? Would you see the benefit of this as opposed to the various blog sites available?

All thoughts and criticism are appreciated.

Client Satisfaction

In many businesses, customer service matters very little. WalMart, Taco Bell, McDonald's, and other corporate business models operate on volume and market presence, with customer service being somewhat of an afterthought.

After all, if you want cheap items or food, you'll probably happen to pass by one of those before anything else that could sway you pops into your head. Having that much market share is great for these companies, but not as great for your experience as a customer, because what it really means is that your experience there doesn't have to exceed expectations, it just has to meet them.

Where customer service and client satisfaction DO come into play is when NOBODY has a firm hold on the market. By definition, real estate agents, as much as some like to think they do, will never have the type of grip on a market that the aforementioned corporate giants do. There are far too many individual, personal and emotional factors in this decision, and the decisions are made far too infrequently. I've yet to meet the person that thinks as much about their Realtor as they do about where they are going to get their next meal.

So what it really comes down to are a number of questions that all relate to client satisfaction. What was the experience like? Does it now trigger mainly positive or negative emotions? Would you want a friend or relative to have a similar experience? Do you trust this person with as large of a decision as purchasing a house can be?

For these reasons, there is nothing more rewarding to a Realtor than being recognized for their ability to satisfy clients. So, with the disclaimer that I do not know whom was polled or how big the sample size was, I was recognized with the award that appears in the top left of this page, and I have found that I am quite satisfied myself.

Full circle.

Postponed (No Reason)

I've become a more avid follower of Trustee Sale action, for a couple of reasons. First, because I am looking to secure a transactional financing source, and second because I have a particular client that wants to buy a particular property, that has been scheduled for auction for the last 3 months or so.

What I've come across is a seemingly never-ending sequence of postponements, the timing and predictability of which are uncanny, and usually a reason is stated such as "Beneficiary's Request", "Bankruptcy", etc.

For the first time this morning, I literally saw "No Reason" given as the reason for the postponement. While I thought this as honest as this process had ever been, it made me curious. Why would a lender/servicer delay a FC for "no reason"? I know that a lot of things are counter-intuitive, but usually they are at least in the best interest of the institution holding the bag.

I'm not usually at a loss for where to take pro-active steps on the disposition of a property. When you have an agreed upon short sale where the lender out of nowhere decides to increase the approval price, that generally means they want to foreclose. Ok, fine, we'll try to buy it either at Trustee Sale or as an REO. However, when the LENDER then uses a number of stall tactics to delay the FC, I'm really confused.

Anyone out there experience something similar or have any advice on where to go here?

Top 4 Reasons Not to Screw with the Mortgage Interest Deduction

As you may have heard during a quick snippet on NPR or from your favorite partisan talking head, the Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform recently published its final report, including a proposal to limit the mortgage interest deduction. Obviously the MBA and NAR Lobby are in full-fledged damage control mode, which of course amounts to precisely the type of "partisan" rhetoric you would expect from such groups, but I thought I'd offer some information with a bit more cogency and concrete reasons as to why this is a particularly awful idea. Here goes:

1) Banks

There is very little liquidity in mortgage markets, and this is mainly due to the faucets of lending being turned off in favor of saving capital for a rainy day. The alarming drop in mortgage applications as of late means buyers are already lacking confidence in proceeding with their transactions. Limit one of the main reasons why home ownership is beneficial (the MID), and you will limit transactions in the part of the market (over $500K) that still has the farthest to fall. This is also the part of the market where lenders make the most money. So if the goal is to get lenders on their feet and lending again, capping the MID @ $500K is a bit like cutting their legs out from under them, and then saying they can only lend with one ARM (hopefully the negatively amortizing one) tied behind their back.

2) CPA's & Financial Planner's

While most W-2 borrowers file a fairly simple return, the business owners of the world have long been known to play with their tax returns until they are advantageous as possible. This is, of course, best done with the help of a professional. Salaried employees usually make the transition into utilizing a professional (if they haven't already) after they've purchased a home, because far more things need to now be taken into account. One of those things is properly accounting and planning for the MID. If that is eliminated, it's one less reason to use a professional, which in turn hurts small business, and makes me want to think of a pun almost as poor as the one used in the previous paragraph. Again, hurtful, and not helpful to our overall economy.

3) China

Currently, due to the fact that Chinese RE is over-priced and ours, by at least some metrics and forecasts from major universities is considered under-priced, foreigners are picking up as much US RE as possible. These are usually investors or at the very least non-citizens who would not be able to utilize the MID anyway, so they would not see its limitation as an aggravating factor in their decision to purchase RE. 75% of domestic buyers on the other hand, according to a recent Harris poll, find the MID to be "extremely or very important". If China owns our long term debt and our real estate... let's just say that's not good and leave the rest of it to our individual interpretations and/or expletives.

4) Home Prices

Well sure, this is the most obvious one that of course the MBA and NAR lobby have already beat to a pulp, but it's worth mentioning here. Beyond the obvious supply/demand issue, there is another issue that is perhaps more subtle but equally important. If a current homeowner loses their mortgage interest deduction over the $500K limit and is maxed out at their current limit $1.1M (for an owner occupied property), there is a $600K delta which they used to be able to deduct which they now cannot. What this may lead to, in our world of over-leveraged homeowners and rampant consumer debt, is even more foreclousres, as the lack of a tax credit could make the difference for some homeowners between surviving and sending their lender "jingle mail". The last thing our economy needs now is more foreclosures, but capping the MID would certainly be another contributing factor.