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Holiday time - check your values and renewals!

Each year, it is a great idea for you to review your homeowner's policies and your real estate appraised value to be sure that automatic increases aren't busting your family's budget without your being aware.

Each year, without specifically telling you, both your homeowner's insurance and the local appraisal district will increase the value they believe your home is worth. Sometimes, the justification is inflation and more recently, it's been value appreciation due to market conditions.

Appraisal districts of late have been especially confusing, with some values going up in spite of neighborhood performance, and some dropping to meet actual market conditions. Each year, you get a written "Notice of appraised value" which gives you specific guidelines on protesting that valuation and deadlines that must be met.

When you get that valuation, you should check it against what you believe your home is currently worth. If you are uncertain of what your home is worth, ask your Realtor for help. Some counties take online protests, others require that you mail in the form enclosed with your valuation notice.

In either case, having a current broker price opinion, provided by a Realtor, should be attached to your protest to give some evidence of correct value. If you recently bought your home or property, a copy of your settlement statement is the best proof of what your property is worth.

What is it worth to you?

The average property tax rate in Texas is just under 3% of assessed value. So, for every $10,000 in assessed value that your property rises or falls, it means $300 to you directly.

Insurance is even more hazardous to your financial health -

With both car and property insurance, they love to creep up premiums. All those Allstate and Nationwide ads that say they're cheaper? Only in the first year, and then things start to climb.

There are two ways that they can run your premiums up without you noticing - first, by increasing the "replacement cost" value, the premiums increase while their actual exposure to risk is decreasing because of depreciation. Also, by creeping up the premiums charged without adjusting the value, they can increase their income a second time.

It's all on you to keep an eagle eye on them - there are several sites on which you can cross-shop insurance rates, and don't be at all shy to switch carriers once a year - frequently by cross-shopping and calling your agent to tell him of your intent to switch, they'll suddenly find that some oversights were made and your premiums will drop back to what you started with.

More important than are New Year resolutions, taking an hour or two to check into these simple matters can save you a couple thousand dollars each year.

Audi, the automated brand - FAIL

Lately, I've been very focused on how auto dealers, independent businesses all, respond to internet inquiries and email communications.

Most of them do a terrible job.

Case in point, Houston has only a handful of Audi stores, Momentum being the biggest. A few months back, they had a red Audi A6 sitting right out front of their store. On the street. In the sunshine. I called.

They didn't know whether it was used or new. They didn't know what year model it was, or how much it was. They didn't know how it was equipped. They did know that it was red. On the phone. With the Audi 'consultant'.

I stopped in. Wasn't interested in the car after looking at it.

Fast forward nearly three months.

This morning, I responded to another of their automated emails from their leadtracker system.

I'll let my email to the sales manager at Momentum speak for itself:

Scott -

We meet a few months back at your store when I came in for a scheduled appointment.

I am responding to this automated email that I received today:

"Dear Douglas Hord,

We are reviewing recent requests for vehicles and noticed you have not responded. The Internet Sales process starts with a consumer requesting information on a website and this information is forwarded to our dealership. Our next step is to contact these individuals and do what we can to help them get into a new vehicle. If your needs have changed, please click here to request additional information and we'll be happy to provide you with the information you need.

Our Internet Department works with hundreds of consumers a month. To update our records, can you send us a quick e-mail to let us know if you have bought elsewhere of if you would like us to touch base with you at a later date."

I had sent you a fairly lengthy email some time back, but it didn't gain your notice or response.

This time I'll keep it short.

I have replied to the automated emails. The information I have responded with has been either lost in transmission through lead tracker or ignored by your sales staff entirely. After receiving a similar email to the one quoted above only three days ago, I called Connie Nims and left her a voice mail telling her that I had gone a different direction and thanking her for her help.

Today, I get this (quoted above).

I don't know whether your store is angling for the Chevy Cobalt buyer who just came into some extra cash, or whether you're seeking an educated, attuned, sophisticated client base.

Your choice of automation software and your implementation of it tells me that the first is more accurate.



( Please type in your request info that you need).

Douglas Hord
Solutions Consultant

You'd THINK that would be of use and/or interest, wouldn't you?

Here's what I received in way of response:

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

scott.montgomery@momentumaudi.net

Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550 Mailbox unavailable or access denied - (state 14).

----- Original message -----

Received: by 10.204.10.149 with SMTP id p21mr3518423bkp.3.1258045644326;
Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:07:24 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path:
Received: from ?192.168.1.101? (adsl-99-163-107-73.dsl.hstntx.sbcglobal.net [99.163.107.73])
by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 16sm921754bwz.7.2009.11.12.09.07.22
(version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5);
Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:07:23 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <4AFC40C1.6040904@douglashord.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:07:13 -0600
From: Douglas Hord
Reply-To: dhord@douglashord.com
Organization: Douglas Hord
User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.23 (Windows/20090812)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: scott.montgomery@momentumaudi.net
Subject: Requesting more info
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;
boundary="------------040404020307050006030704"

First time home buyer tax credit - and increasing your business

I was explaining the first time home buyer tax credit just yesterday - and the client was stunned. "Why don't people know about this?"

Well, there's knowing it exists and there's knowing how to access it.

For people buying a home to owner occupy between now and November 30, 2009, there is a tax credit of $8,000 available if they meet the qualifications.

A tax credit is a reduction in TAX which can be paid as a refund if no tax is owed. Most people are familiar with an income credit, which reduces only the income on which tax is owed.

Simply put, if your client is like most people, they get a refund back each year. This tax credit gives them an additional eight thousand dollars in refund. This money can be used to pay down payment and closing costs in the State of Texas (while funding holds out) or just gives your customer a huge refund.

So, you can generate more closings or more referrals by letting your customers know about this program. Even if they don't personally qualify, the information may help their friends, which increases referrals and retention.

Here are the bullet points you can use to let people know about the program:

* First time home buyer means that they cannot have owned any property during the three years prior to the purchase
* If they borrowed money to purchase, it has to be an FHA loan
* They can either take the credit when they file their 2009 tax return next year, OR they can amend their 2008 return and take the credit now - getting the money in about six weeks
* They cannot have delinquent student loans, tax obligations, money owed to the Federal government, or child support obligations, or the credit would be used to pay down those obligations
* If they earned more than $90,000 in gross income in the year they take the credit, they are ineligible

Here is where the real meat is, that will give you the ability to generate a ton of good will and more referrals -

* If they bought their first home (under these rules) between April 1, 2008 and today, they can amend their 2008 return and get the money before summer's end.

Think for a moment what it would do for you if someone you had done good business with contacted you and said "Hey, I think you qualify to get eight grand back from the IRS - you should look into that". Would you be excited? Would you think first of that person when a friend was looking for that service?

You sure would.

If you want to know how to use the money for new transactions at closing, I'll gladly go through that for you with a more detailed briefing.

If you'd like a flyer that you can send out to your clients, just hit me back and tell me how many you want.

Of course, everything has to have a hook in it - I do these tax return amendments for $125 each. I would love to support you in expanding your good will by delivering swift, accurate and warm service to your clients - I'll even pay you a referral fee of ten bucks for each completed referral!

I know that it's tough to think about marketing yourself most of the time, given that there is so much else to be done - but this is a slam dunk way to generate terrific good will only for going through your closing list and contacting people who look like they qualify.

If you want to visit about this and get more information, please call me!

Douglas

IF YOU THINK THAT'S BIG, TRY THIS

If you're in the real estate or related industry, you probably have a smart phone. Blackberry, Treo, something that accesses the internet, has a full keyboard, does it all. Many Realtors now have smart phones that are their Supra key.

Have you ever marveled at one of these little hand held devices and remembered what it was like fifteen years ago? How much like Star Trek are these little things?

They're going to get a whole lot more complex, and a whole lot faster than you may think. In another four years, what we'll be buying will seem far more like a Star Trek tricorder than what we're using now. You have seen the billboards for "3G wireless networks" - welcome to 4G.

Now, if you go to that linked article about 4G and can read it and understand it, you're probably a physicist or something. I looked at it a few times and boiled it down to this:

* None of the phones we're using now will work at all in about three years
* What we're just now starting to get used to - streaming video on our handheld, slow and clunky internet, navigation on our handhelds - is merely a baby step compared to the 4G devices that we'll see awfully soon
* The only thing that will hold a 4G device back is the screen size. There will be some 4G handheld devices that will have more computing power than the laptop I'm writing this on - and you can use it to stream movies, work at your desk, or in replacement of the stereo system and navigation system in your car through wireless Bluetooth-like technology and full sized monitors/keyboards.
* South Korea has already re-wired their wireless networks to 4G and is rolling out the products - this is not speculation, it is coming more certainly than the inaguration on January 20
* In another five years or so, your new car will have a video screen, and a power/cable plug for your 4G device, which will be the video/audio/satellite radio/navigation system/trip computer/telephone for your vehicle. If you rent a car, you'll have your normal and familiar functionality with you.
* No more laptop cases, no more lugging your eight pound device around. No more desktop computers. Monitors, keyboards and pointers (commonly called a mouse) with a power port will be the work stations of the very near future. This alone will massively reduce electrical consumption.
* You'll never have to miss your favorite TV program ever again!

Well, Lieutenant Uhura, get me Star Fleet on the comm!

What to do with this information? If you're challenged by your Blackberry NOW, take a class about them at HCC or something! The train is whistling to leave the station, and your competitors (who can handle this massive technology shift) will be aboard!

JUST ONE MORE THING YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE REAL ESTATE BUBBLE

I think I've made this clear before - this wasn't because of the current administration. It takes a Village, and in this case, we'll now be thinking of them all as Village Idiots.

We've talked about predatory lenders, greedy Wall Street brokers, and loose lending regulations. How about the tax code? For a truly perfect bubble, you need favorable tax treatment OR loose regulations - and we had them both.

If you've always loved Ayn Rand's philosophy as expressed in "Atlas Shrugged," you should consider this a full refutement of that philosophy by its grandest champion:

"I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms."

Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman

Big changes on the horizon

The Federal legislation that gives us SAFE (National Mortgage originator licensing) is going to go into effect on January 20, 2010. If you're one of those who won't be able to retain or be licensed after that date, now is the time to start planning your new career.

Virtually everyone who has a license now will have to re-test, re-qualify and be certified under the new standards, even though they are not as stringent as the Texas standards were already. Anyone who was grandfathered in at the beginning of Texas licensing will now have to pass the state exam for the first time.

These standards will apply to EVERYONE, whether employed by a Federally chartered bank, mortgage bank or mortgage broker. After January 20, 2010, anyone that's working with you originating a loan will be licensed to the uniform standard.