Investors now buying 4.5 times as often as home buyers!

FHA Waiver Offers Boost to Real Estate Investors

As if the conditions for investing in real estate in the current market could get any better, the FHA’s recent ruling stands to further fuel investor activity, while accelerating the recovery of the real estate market.

Rampant “flipping” of investment properties had once been cited as a contributor to the real estate market’s meltdown. As such, the FHA pulled the plug on insuring properties held for less than 90 days.

Savvy Rehab & Resell investors are often adept in getting fixer-uppers ready for sale within that timeframe, however, and to encourage more dollars to flow into housing, the FHA temporarily waived its “anti-flipping” rule in 2010. Last week, it announced an extension of the waiver through 2012.

This is good news for real estate investors, the agents who serve them, the communities that are getting renewed and the homeowners who are moving in!

Hear more on the FHA’s recent decision. Then share this link and spread the word among your sphere!

Does Your Sphere Know the Value of the Company You Keep?

Yesterday morning, I was the featured guest for a Fox News segment on end-of-year tips for homeowners.  We covered a range of home ownership topics—from why the current market is possibly the best ever for buying or investing in real estate, to tax-saving advice for homeowners whose properties have dropped in value, to energy tax credits, to foreclosure avoidance.

Whenever possible, I make it a point to seek out and take advantage of media relations opportunities as they arise. I see national television appearances and even local newspaper coverage as a great chance to represent you and to reinforce the value of the CIAS designation. It’s an ongoing strategy and I cannot urge you enough to cultivate the media in your own market.
The fact is, successful media relations is very much within your skill set as a top-producing real estate agent.  It’s a matter of consistently reaching out, adding value, knowing your scripts, and owning the message.
Remember: there are at least two ways to view any issue. Opportunity in Chaos is one of the underlying tenets of our company.
Always be prepared to position housing news to your advantage.  On the surface, there’s nothing good for a homeowner in the fact that their home values have declined, but as I mentioned in on Fox this morning, declining home values can mean lower property taxes.  Make it your job to point this out to your clients.
After viewing the above broadcast, consider forwarding it to your sphere (including local reporters), via Facebook, Twitter or email. Include a value-added message along the lines of: “Here are some end-of-year housing tips for you from the company I’m connected to for training and expertise concerning our real estate market!”

Let’s Get Some Perspective!

The media has latched onto a new word for describing the housing market: “moribund.”

I picked up The Economist this morning, which is published in over in London, and there is was again: a reference to the “still-moribund housing market.” On either side of the Atlantic, the most top-of-mind discription of our real estate market is synonymous with “dying or near extinction.”

What’s painfully lacking right now, within a media that is all about regurgitating the same, one-sided reports, is PERSPECTIVE.

No one knows better than we do that housing is in the middle of some serious challenges, but our job is to not get drawn into the over-the-top negativity and need for sensationalism. Leave that to the media.

The fact is, there are lots of angles from which we can view the housing market and for you and your investor clients, real estate is anything but “moribund.” It’s smoking hot—the best buyer’s market in our lifetime.

Capitalizing on this fact is not something to be guilty about or to even feel a need to do quietly. Housing is not going to recover until millions of REOS that are dragging down the market (and can be snatched up for 40% below market value in many cases) get off of banks’ books, and at the same time, homeowners who are stuck in a mortgage that they can no longer afford, manage to negotiate a short sale with their bank and begin to rebuild their lives. Often this means moving into a rental property, at least for the short term, as housing trends shift from owning to renting.

The fact is this: talking trash about the housing market doesn’t serve anyone. It only promotes paralysis. Now is the time to talk opportunity—focusing on rock-bottom mortgage interest rates, bargain-basement home prices, and the power that residential real estate investors have to breathe life and excitement back into the market.

The opportunity facing CIAS  agents and your real estate investor clients reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from U.S. anthropologist, Margaret Mead:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

No one is better equipped than a CIAS (Certified Investor Agent Specialist) agent to help real estate investor clients to seize the awesome opportunities in this market. If you have not yet achieved your CIAS designation, click here to learn more.

 

 

 

 

 

You are key to the real estate market’s recovery

“All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.”
Henry David Thoreau

This week, when we got the news that the Charfen Institute ranks No. 21 on the 2011 Inc. 500 List of the fastest growing private companies in America, it was a profound affirmation of the power we all have to emerge from a setback stronger than ever before.

This recognition is a celebration of all of you, our members, and your determination to find solutions and opportunity in the midst of chaos.

When you witnessed the end of business-as-usual in the real estate business, you took action and started building your business from another angle, and in the process, you’ve kept the market moving forward. Every time you help an investor to purchase a distressed property, you move the real estate market one step closer to recovery. It is your determination and your proactive understanding of this market that is helping to build wealth for hundreds of thousands of Americans.

Less than four years ago, Cadey and I were in bankruptcy court and numbered among the many casualties of the U.S. real estate market’s boom and bust.

Having learned a lot of lessons, we started over with zero debt, zero investor funding and some hard-won wisdom about leverage, personal worth and the need for values and a vision, to help others avoid the traps that we had fallen into. Since 2008, our company has grown by more than 8,000 percent. At the same time, we’ve joined the ranks of real estate investors who recognize this market for the opportunity that it is.

Because we’re an educational company, we’ve tracked all the steps that we took in building the Charfen Institute, verified it in the marketplace through research, and the LEAD Experience was born.  Looking to learn more? Check out our LEAD Experience website.

 

Stock Market Volatility Sheds a New Light on Safe Havens

After the events of the past week, the news is no longer whether the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up or down. The news is that the stock market is volatile. Period. At any given day or any given moment, the stock market might be up or it might be down, but but wild swings have started to feel like the new normal.

Let’s recap: Last Monday, August 8, following Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. Credit Rating from AAA to AA+ the Dow dropped by 635 points, losing 5.5 percent of its value.  The following day, the Dow was up 430 points, rebounding by 3.98 percent.  Wednesday, August 8 was a down day with the Dow dropping 520 points, and then Thursday and Friday were both up days with the Dow gaining 423 points  and then another 126. At the end of the week, the Dow was down by 1.53 percent — a surprisingly subtle shift given all of the drama.

It’s anyone’s guess what this week holds, but we can be fairly sure that the roller coaster ride will continue.

What an awesome opportunity this is for you to offer some perspective and clarity to your clients.

Last week, the stock market did what the stock market does. It rises and it falls. Always has. Always will. While stock market investors were having all they could do to keep their blood pressure down, were your real estate investor clients essentially enjoying business as usual?  We’re starting to hear a lot about investors seeking “safe havens,” and could there be a safer haven in this market than the great real estate deals that you are on top of?

The real estate market’s “sawtooth” recovery  is subtle, if not boring compared to what’s going on in the stock market.  My suggestion for you and your clients: step away from the drama and start building wealth in the form of solid real estate investments.

We’re constantly updating resources to help real estate professional tap investment opportunities in the current market in a way that builds wealth and builds business. Click here to learn more.

 

“How do you play this market?”

That’s a question that was asked of me during a  CNBC interview yesterday morning.    

Even though we’re all hearing that uncertainty reigns, you need to remind your clients that there are awesome deals out there. Discounts of 15 to 20 percent below market value are available any day of the week from REO and short sale inventory. Home prices are predicted to drop again slightly, but the average consumer who finances a home will do better today than if he or she waits and ends up not being able to take advantage of historically low interest rates. The national average for a 30-year fixed stood at 4.33 percent this morning.  Who among us ever thought we’d see rates anywhere near that level?

The bottom line is that the government’s issues have become tangible for any consumer who has ever tried to get financing with a less-than-optimal credit score. But housing affordability is incredible and indications are that if prices have not already hit the floor, they are very close.

 

 

FOX NEWS: Alex Charfen answers the question “How do we turn housing around?”

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INDUSTRY EXCLUSIVE BROADCAST – Fannie Mae Direct Connects with Agents to get Short Sales Closed

In an unprecedented program, one of the nation’s largest mortgage investors is reaching around its servicers and engaging with Realtors directly in an effort to get more short sales closed.  Traditionally, investors are neither seen nor heard in the short sale transaction. Through Fannie’s new Short Sale Assistance Desk, a direct connection between the investor and the Real Estate Agent is created, short-cutting the time involved in getting transaction approved.

This exciting broadcast includes:

• How agents can access the short sale assistance desk through their local MLS.
• How to get the short sale assistance desk for your MLS if you don’t have it yet.
• Understanding the 4 triggers that allow you to contact the Short Sale Assistance Desk for resolution.
• The amazing time commitments and deadlines that Fannie has committed its servicers to keeping.
• Clarification on the goal of the entire Fannie Mae organization as to exactly how many foreclosures they want to have.

Fannie joins other major organizations like Bank of America and the US Treasury who have appeared with host Alex Charfen on the Charfen Institute National Broadcast Network to make major announcements to the Real Estate Industry.  No other organization in the real estate industry equals the Charfen Institute’s number of live broadcasts or the quality of their content.

The recording of this historic broadcast is located here.

Fannie Mae’s Marcel Bryar, VP, Introduces the Short Sell Assistance Desk—Live on CDPE Broadcast