Las Vegas Real Estate Blog

You may develop the successful mortgage marketing plan, but if you are unable to implement it as it’s too pricey, or because you do not have the time to commit to it, then it’ll fail. Here are 7 low-cost, no-cost, mortgage marketing tips you can put to use right away:

First mortgage loan originator tip – Make Selling a Subconscious Element of Everything You Do. Now, this does not imply you need to turn into an “in your face” mortgage broker, but you must develop the perspective that each exchange with somebody may be that “big break” for which you have been looking.

Second mortgage broker marketing idea – Supply a Low-cost, No-cost Way for Prospects to Experience You or Your Service. Offer something at no cost like an e-newsletter, or a free mortgage loan review. By giving prospects a no-cost opportunity to meet and / or have interaction with you, you make it less complicated for them to think about choosing you over competition. Here’s helpful mortgage marketing tips for sending email mortgage newsletters.

Third loan officer tip – Ask for Referrals from Clients, Friends, Associates. Like anything in life, if you want something you have to ask for it. If you’re not attending your closings, you’re missing the biggest opportunity to get referrals from clients. Here’s a mortgage broker marketing idea for getting referrals from realtors.

Fourth mortgage loan originator tip – If you do nothing else. Start a free loan officer tip line. Offer a free daily, weekly, or monthly tip recorded on your voice mail. The mortgage loan originator ideas should be related to current mortgage planning news. Include your mortgage site at the start or end of your message to drive traffic and develop more familiarity with who you are.

Fifth mortgage broker marketing idea – Write a loan officer newsletter. This is a good way to let your clients know about your expertise. Don’t focus too highly on making it a sales letter. As an example, you can talk about current events but include extra information on how they can protect their investment, use their mortgage to create wealth, or share which home improvements give them the biggest bang for the buck.

Sixth mortgage marketing tip – Use your vehicle as a mobile advertising banner. Show your name and mortgage site clearly on all your cars. You may not need to have a big banner on the side of it but you might think about the likes of a fender sticker or a little sign in the back window.

Seventh mortgage marketing tip – Promote on your faxes and emails. A newsletter gives a general feel of your expertise, while a banner ad on your faxes and emails build your brand. Include a tagline that describes your service and the way to get in touch.

All the above have one single purpose, to raise your credibility with all you come into contact with in your business life, patrons and providers alike. Try using some or all in your business and you may find that it’ll make a quantifiable difference.

Yes, there is chaos on Wall Street. Yes, it will no doubt affect the national economy.
The relevant question for this column is, “How will it effect the Las Vegas economy?”

Pending single family transactions are at the highest level of the whole year at 6466 today at 11:30 AM. That is up 143 over the August. We have been above 6200 since our record keeping began in June, and have yet to break 6500. Given numbers for closed transactions with pendings at these levels, I would have to say things look good of September. We should see closed numbers comparable to July and August.

Closings usually drop in September and remain lower through fall. As we have mentioned, our current buyers are not the usual suspects.

Mid-month closed transactions at mid-day stand at 866. This is higher than July 15 or August 15. They would be higher if we look again after 5 pm, and we may, but no matter. The word “strong” remains descriptive.

Listing totals remain flat. Homes priced under $150/sq ft – my definition of affordable – are slightly up. Demand is strong. Supply is steady – thanks to banks slowly feeding in REO’s. Virtually no new homes are being built. When the average dude can again get a mortgage to buy a house, what do you think will happen to prices?

AIG, an insurance company they say, is in trouble today. Will they continue to insure Florida and the Gulf Coast? And where will people move to escape high insurance, high snow drifts, and high California prices? Demographics being what they are, I still feel plenty will see Las Vegas in their headlights.

You can read a lot of doom and gloom out there. Misery loves company. I think the “doomers” are the guys who missed the last boom, now they are happy that people are suffering, and because they don’t have a dog in the fight, because they want to see the bottom to fall out instead of building to recovery, and because they aren’t buying now, they will miss the next boom as well.

The rest of us can take heart. The glass is also half full. After the election, the winning party will begin to get a handle on the financial nincompoops, and as Peter Sellers once said, “There will be new growth in the spring … in the garden.”

If sales remain at or near the current levels for the next couple of months, we will match the fall closing totals during the “boom” and we will have done it without the usual Las Vegas buyers.

Yes, there is chaos on Wall Street. Yes, it will no doubt affect the national economy.
The relevant question for this column is, “How will it effect the Las Vegas economy?”

Pending single family transactions are at the highest level of the whole year at 6466 today at 11:30 AM. That is up 143 over the August. We have been above 6200 since our record keeping began in June, and have yet to break 6500. Given numbers for closed transactions with pendings at these levels, I would have to say things look good of September. We should see closed numbers comparable to July and August.

Closings usually drop in September and remain lower through fall. As we have mentioned, our current buyers are not the usual suspects.

Mid-month closed transactions at mid-day stand at 866. This is higher than July 15 or August 15. They would be higher if we look again after 5 pm, and we may, but no matter. The word “strong” remains descriptive.

Listing totals remain flat. Homes priced under $150/sq ft – my definition of affordable – are slightly up. Demand is strong. Supply is steady – thanks to banks slowly feeding in REO’s. Virtually no new homes are being built. When the average dude can again get a mortgage to buy a house, what do you think will happen to prices?

AIG, an insurance company they say, is in trouble today. Will they continue to insure Florida and the Gulf Coast? And where will people move to escape high insurance, high snow drifts, and high California prices? Demographics being what they are, I still feel plenty will see Las Vegas in their headlights.

You can read a lot of doom and gloom out there. Misery loves company. I think the “doomers” are the guys who missed the last boom, now they are happy that people are suffering, and because they don’t have a dog in the fight, because they want to see the bottom to fall out instead of building to recovery, and because they aren’t buying now, they will miss the next boom as well.

The rest of us can take heart. The glass is also half full. After the election, the winning party will begin to get a handle on the financial nincompoops, and as Peter Sellers once said, “There will be new growth in the spring … in the garden.”

If sales remain at or near the current levels for the next couple of months, we will match the fall closing totals during the “boom” and we will have done it without the usual Las Vegas buyers.

Las Vegas is selling single family homes a little faster than we did in July. The number of contingent SFR contracts stands at 3809; the number in pending is 2630.

What is pending vis-a-vis contingent? Given the odd contract scenarios foisted upon innocent buyers by the investor-sellers, there is no difference in this context. Both mean a property is in contract and is rolling the dice, trying to pass “Sold” to collect $200.

Never before have I had a seller respond to my offer with an un-executed (no signatures at all) counteroffer that I am supposed to have my clients sign and send back to the seller so the seller can decide if they still like what they wrote. Ridiculous. But, that is what is happening, so if you want to buy or need to buy, just be very patient. Things are a little different in the land of Oz.

And, the rising number of single family homes in contract is the fuel for this fire.
Also, my watch on affordability shows that single family listings in the watch area (all of the valley but 101,201, and 202) shows the number of listings at or below $150/sq ft (5092) have fallen slightly and the total number of listings in the same ML areas (14509) are each about 200 units below what they were on August first. Fewer listings, not as many below $150/ft.

We’ll see what the monthly totals bring but it looks like August “total single family closings” will rival or exceed July. The big news might be that with Pending and Contingent sales remaining so strong, we might match the sales totals set in 04 and 05 in September and remain higher than 04-05 for the rest of the year.

BULK SALES of REO’s – and other myths:

I have been checking into this very seriously and have learned from bank corporate property managers and brokers that, so far in Las Vegas, this isn’t happening. There are rumors of it happening, but a source at Wachovia said that, though they were considering a mini-bulk sale agreement on 100 REO homes over the coming year where-in the buyer had yet to qualify by showing them the money, they had no need to do this and knew of no other banks that were.

If it happens it will dry up REO’s fast so that prices can rise. Yeah.

But, most of my sources have said that since the banks can sell all the REO’s they bring to market at market price within 80 days of taking possession in the foreclosure, they don’t need to give away money. Las Vegas closed 3000 single family homes in July – here we just track MLS.
So, if you want to buy one hundred homes (30 MIL) or four hundred homes (100 MIL), to the market, the larger figure is just an extra 13% that the banks will collect next month anyway without you. Why give a big cash buyer 70% off when they can sell to 400 cash buyers for 3% off. That’s right. Most of the REO sales are cash.

Either way, the end will be the same. Foreclosures will slow down. The inventory will be absorbed. And prices will rise, as has already begun.

Live long and prosper.

The light at the end of the tunnel is not a train.

(City Center Photo by J. Meinbendir Documentories, used with permission.)

In today’s Review Journal, Mr. Richard DeKaser, chief economist for Global Insight/National City Corp, says that
Las Vegas “No longer occupies a spot on National City’s watch list” and that “the majority of Las Vegas’ price correction is behind us.”

In that arrticle, the Sullivan Group Real Estate Advisors chimed in that the median price of new homes in Las Vegas – about $260,000 – is right where it would have been at this time if we had had normal inflation rates. In other words, they think we are about where we should be, but for the notorious bubble.

In fact, some data from Global Insight & National City Corp indicates that Las Vegas new homes have slipped into “undervalued territory.” (See 6/4/08 Review Journal – Housing: Economist describes Las Vegas…”)

Mr. John Altman, a fellow CRS agent in San Diego (please visit http://www.recoaching.biz/), suggested that, in this blog, I should also track Pending Closings for Las Vegas as a leading indicator. So, I decided to start with what I’ve got and see what it shows “moving forward” as people these days like to say. So, at the moment, June 5, we have 2542 pending single family homes. I noted in a previous blog (my only other data) that we had 2234 pending single family transactions on April 18. We know closings increased each month in April and May. We now know Pendings for early June are up over mid-April. Rule of thumb – possibly look for closings to be up again in June!
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You hear it in the news, Las Vegas home prices and those across the nation continue to fall into the abyss. This perception is keeping the value of the dollar down, something that we all pay for at the pump and the grocery store, to name a few. Worse yet for the home buyer, is what it may cost them by using these news blasts trying to find the ‘bottom of the market’. Are these reports true, or is a good deal of the mainstream media misleading the pubic, either intentionally for attention and ratings, or simply passing along half truths by failing to check sources and be objective? I’ll let you decide.

There are median price reports from typically reputable sources such as Standard & Poor’s, and the National Assn. of REALTORS®. Their methodologies and results are different, but they both have listed falling home values nationwide. The problem is what you’re NOT hearing about those numbers. Both say their reports are flawed in current market conditions, and overstating price declines. They were interviewed here in the Wall Street Journal Marketwatch.
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