President Barack Obama has announced a new initiative to curb the high incidence of foreclosures that have plagued his administration from day one. Speaking at the James Lee Community Center in Falls Church, Virginia, on February 1, President Obama announced that his Executive Office is sending to Congress a new home mortgage refinancing plan that [...]
I have heard some rumors stating that on February 29th, Facebook will be launching Timeline for Brand Pages (Fanpages). Of course, there are always pros and cons to every change. What I want to tell you today is how you can benefit from this change. The Timeline Cover Facebook allows you to create [...]
We are living in the social media age of instant gratification. Everywhere we turn whether it’s Facebook, Google or our best friends blog; answers to our most pressing questions have never been more readily available. The Internet has become our go-to resource for content, but wading through the muck can be a challenge. As [...]
Secret #1: Position yourself to ride the Facebook wave! (first of a five part series) Chances are you have probably heard the buzz about social media marketing being the “NEXT BIG THING,” yet many mortgage professionals are still wondering what all the fuss is about. I can relate. In fact, when I first started hearing [...]
Like most mid-tiered mortgage operations, you have probably toyed with the idea of opening additional branches to better serve your customers’ needs. It’s important that your loan operation’s expansion is efficient in order to continue providing your customers the convenience and service they have come to expect from you. Efficient expansion means you can feel [...]
Recently I was sorting through my database of more than 1,000 “contacts,” and made a surprising discovery. Sure, I am communicating with a thousand people, but outside of my family and friends, I am not really connecting or fostering many real relationships at all. My client relationships are “a mile wide and an inch deep” [...]
AN ADMISSION It really galls me to no end that I have to admit that someone had a good idea before me, but it happened. …Ok, it happened. George Carlin, back in 1973 (I looked it up) came up with his “Seven words you can’t say on television” routine as part of an album [...]
Back in the 1990s I spent a few years in the insurance/securities business. It was a decent gig back then; a lot of regulatory oversight, but not so much that I felt like I had an SEC investigator camped out in my lobby. Over the course of time, that changed, and it got to be [...]
I have long joked that being a mortgage loan processor who does not own a home makes me the real estate equivalent of a vegetarian butcher. My problem, like many of our clients, had always been that I did not have a sufficient down payment nor did I have a family member who could gift [...]
Well, I’ll tell you what… the economics profession sure has lost some points these past couple of years, wouldn’t you say? Sort of like the intelligence community did during the Bush presidency just a few years back. It pains me to see the profession relegated to being “The Pips,” to Barack Obama’s “Gladys,” if you [...]
