April 2008 The New Quick Mortgage Minute
Weekly Newsletter for Your Business! 
 
Sam		 Dear Sam,
 
Are you enjoying this beautiful spring weather with your family and friends?  We were out planting our vegetables and flowers in our new community garden plot and this gave me a real estate idea.
 
Why not take some pictures of your listings, then take pictures of other listings and meet with your sellers?  When you do, get them to talk about if their home's curb appeal is helping or hurting their chances for a sale!
 
Then, offer to get a good local landscape architect to sketch out some ideas and quote a price for some quick and cheap 'make-overs'.  This will allow you to show your worth and will allow you to roll out some new promotions for their house that are sure to generate some interest.
 
curbappeal
 
Since the buyers aren't going to want to see an ugly house and are not going to want to get out of the car at a house with bad curb appeal, this can make you a hero with your sellers! 
 
Sam Thompson, Senior Mortgage Advisor
Carolina Mortgage
 
843-230-7929
 
justone1
 
That's all I want!  For every realtor that reads my emails to close just one loan by the end of this year!  Will you do that?  Will you do it soon?  I would really appreciate you if you do and I want you to see how we do it and then, I am sure that you will keep calling us for your clients!
 
Call me!
 
Gas prices soaring again!
 



gasprices

 
This sign says it All!
 
With the soaring gas prices, we all have to work smarter in regards to our driving habits and work habits.  Here are a few ideas that you might not have thought of yet...
 
1. Carpool whenever you can and wherever you can.  It can be fun and safer too.  Just offer to drive this time and ask if you can ride with them next time!   Take initiative to suggest first to get the ball rolling!
 
2. Get all of your buyers pre-approved before you start riding them around town.  Now, more than ever with the credit tightening, you cannot afford to ride people around until you know they are financially able AND that they have a strong desire or urgent need to buy now.
 
3. Get a car with better gas mileage or make sure yours is tuned up and that your tires are inflated properly for better miles/gallon performance.
 
4. Give your prospects some listings to drive by on their own and then ask them to let you know the ones that they want to walk through.  Then you can schedule appointments to show them just those listings.  This will save you a ton of gas and time!
 
5. Advertise for buyers by saying that "With gas at $3.50/gallon, it is costing you around $.15/mile just for the gas alone so if you are commuting 50 miles, (one way) a day, you are spending around $300/mo for gas so maybe you need to think about moving closer to your work."  Then promote your listings in areas where you would expect there might be workers commuting long distances to work. 
 
6. Plan your day better to maximize your trips by combining things on the same side of town.  Make sure to prioritize with less driving around in mind.
 
7. Communicate on an office whiteboard, trips across town or to neighboring towns that people are planning for the day/week so others can see where opportunities are to carpool or help drop off something or to put up a sign, etc.
 
8. Think about mailing vs. personal delivery of papers that you might need back from your clients.  The higher price of postage is a concern but if you do the math, you might find that it is a whole lot cheaper just to drop it in the mail.  THIS WILL SAVE YOU A WHOLE LOT OF TIME TOO!!
 
Back in the early 1980's I carpooled to Wagram from Laurinburg to J. P. Stevens which was only 10 miles one way with as many as 4 other riders!  If I remember right, I only put around 5000 miles on my car per year back then and I did it for 4 years!  It was inconvenient at times but was worth the effort.
 
We have to think about how we can save and I am sure we can save a lot if we take the time to do it.  Maybe the higher gas prices will help us change our driving habits and then maybe we can wean ourselves off our dependency of foreign oil!
 
 
 


 
Weekly Tip -  Where is everybody?

shakingbushes

Are you out shaking the bushes for buyers?
 
In my office visits last week, I only found around 10% of the agents in the offices.  I am sure that is because you all were either out working or out looking for new prospects!  That's great but I hate that I missed seeing you guys...
 
In your travels, please be sure to tell your prospects as well as your qualified buyers that the FHA guidelines might be tightening very soon.  Several lenders are now requiring minimim credit scores for FHA loans of 580, 600 or 620!  So, help yourself and your buyers by STRONGLY RECOMMENDING that they call me or somebody to get REGISTERED and PROTECTED ASAP!!
The rule I tell a borrower is that if you have several good trade lines on your credit report with some collections that you can pay, we can probably pre-approve you, regardless of the score right now.  So far, we are not requiring a minimum score for an FHA loan but it might be coming soon.
 
Also, for FHA loans, we can use 3 sources of alt credit (rent, insurance premimums, utilitity bills, phone bills, doctor bills) that can be documented with cancelled checks or by the provider (if in the borrower's name) for at least 12 months.  This is okay for buyers with little or no credit but not for buyers with bad credit.
 
Just ask your buyers to call me or give me their numbers so I can get them registered and protected for them and YOU!!
 
DO IT TODAY, PLEASE!!
 
Weekly Mortgage Commentary Snippet
 Rate Lock Advisory - Monday April 21st.

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This week is fairly light in terms of economic news scheduled for release. There are four reports scheduled, but only one of them is likely to cause much movement in mortgage rates. Accordingly, there is a fairly decent possibility of seeing a fairly calm week in the mortgage market.

The week's first piece of data is one of the least important of all four. The National Association of Realtors will post March's Existing Homes Sales numbers Tuesday morning, which are expected to show a drop from February. A similar report to this one and actually the week's least important data- March's New Home Sales will be released Thursday morning. Both of these releases give us an indication of housing sector strength and mortgage credit demand, but unless they vary greatly from analysts forecasts, I don't think they will cause much movement in mortgage rates.

For the entire report click here.


 
Great youtube video about the housing cycle!

Housing cycles cartoon: lessons learned you ought to watch!

Click here to watch now!  It is very well done and informative! 

Take a few minutes to watch a pretty baby-blue house that's for sale ask a wise old bespectacled brown house for advice. It's in this instructional cartoon by John Burns Real Estate Consulting, and it's aimed at homebuilders, who could probably use a bit of grade-school comforting these days. John Burns' bottom line is reassuring: "Remember, every down cycle is the beginning of the next up cycle."