"Serve with Integrity"

Friday was the George Washington’s Birthday that many of us grew up celebrating, and last Monday was the new federal holiday honoring George and our other Presidents. That got me thinking about George, and the first thing that came to mind was the old cherry tree legend – the one about “I cannot tell a lie.” Of course there’s “Honest Abe” also.

What a legacy to be remembered as being honest, as someone who told the truth. I don’t think we’re talking about tactless truth where you tell people that their shirt is ugly or that they should get a haircut or that their joke wasn’t funny. I think we’re talking about an admirable character trait that serves a person in life as well as beyond that.

Look at how many years have passed since Washington or Lincoln served in the Presidency, yet honesty is still ascribed to both. It is not limited to them. It’s just that when we think of them we also think of their character.

The trait of being honest is part of a larger set of character traits called integrity. This is what you stand for. It’s also what you won’t stand or put up with – how you won’t go against your own core beliefs.

My senior year in high school, I was a member of the Key Club, the high school organization of Kiwanis International. That year, the theme of the annual oratorical contest (which I incidentally won for my district) was “Serve with Integrity.”

At that time, integrity wasn’t a concept that was being taught in school. I’m not sure it is today either. Needless to say, I had to do some research before I could prepare my address.

That was a great experience and one I still remember. I think “Serve with Integrity” is a great life motto.

It means regardless of what we’re doing – building homes, selling them, advertising them, designing them, decorating them, inspecting them, appraising them, lending money on them – that we are known as a person of integrity. That we are not more interested in the sale or the paycheck than we are the customer. That we truly believe in what we are doing and consider it to be an admirable calling. That we approach our work with a wholeness and completeness that allows us to give our all in the pursuit of it. That it requires and receives our honest effort and our honest dealings with our customers. No shortcuts. No hedging.

This is what I mean by “Serve with Integrity” and I think our customers will admire us for it and want to work with us.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Roy G. Biv and Your Sales Presentation

Often there is more to something than it first appears. After you learn more about it or investigate it a little, it becomes clearer what the overall situation is.

Let me illustrate with light – good old sunlight.

You might remember using a prism in your high school science or physics class. If you did you’ll remember that what appears as white light can actually be broken into various component parts through the use of a prism.

A prism is simply a solid triangular or pyramid-shaped piece of glass that interrupts the incoming light and bends it. Some of the light has a relatively short wavelength and others are longer. The colors range from red to violet, with orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo in-between. In fact, you might recall “Roy G. Biv” as the way to remember the colors.

So what does this have to do with sales? Everything.

When people contact you or walk into your sales center, at first everyone seems relatively the same with no distinguishing needs or issues – until the conversation starts. Then you can begin separating people according to their needs, level of interest, and ability to make a decision.

In effect, your initial discovery questions act as a type of prism to begin sorting your customers according to their abilities as you find out how you can help each one and learn who the more serious ones are.

Certain parts of your presentation may be essentially the same regardless of the customer – your location, your chief features, your builder story – yet most of your presentation and conversation with your customers will need to be tailored to their personality, what they are looking for in a new home, and how soon they are prepared to act.

This can only happen after you learn something about them.

Just remember that when people walk into your sales center or contact you by phone or email that some will be very interested in what you have to offer and some will have almost no additional interest. Some will need a home or be willing to purchase within days and some never will. It’s up to you to sort out which person is which – much the same as a prism separates light by its various wavelengths.

Better days are on the horizon for us in Southwest Florida

If we did not know that Sarasota and Charlotte counties were listed among the nation's riskiest places to make mortgage loans, if we had not heard that consumer confidence in Florida is at a 16-year low, if we were not aware that commercial real estate deals in the area are down 30 percent over the previous year, we might think Southwest Florida was prospering.

Or maybe, in many ways, it actually is. I would submit that even in challenging times, there are good things happening, groups of people working hard to prepare for continued growth and projects under way that will pay big dividends down the road.

Let's take a look. In Venice, developer Mike Miller is planning to begin his hotel-retail complex by March 1, finally working through three years of discussions, revisions and more than a little controversy. But finally, a compromise has been struck and Miller is ready to move forward.

The vacant Willette Automotive building in the 400 block of South Tamiami Trail on Venice island came down last week and a prime commercial space now stands ready for something new.

Moving south on the Trail, North Port is still adjusting to its phenomenal growth over the past few years, even though recent contraction in home sales and construction have slowed the trends. But this very new city is not standing still. Recently, the Gadberry Group, a consulting firm that provides information for large retailers considering new locations, listed North Port as No. 5 among the nation's boom towns ripe for development.

A new and enthusiastic economic development manager, Allan Lane, has just taken over at City Hall and promised a newly reconstituted Business and Economic Development Advisory Board (Note: I am a member of the board) that he is up to the task. He suggested that North Port needs to grow its own entrepreneurs who will help lead the way to a brighter future for the city. Fostering that growth will be a big part of his job.

And even though driving around North Port is pretty challenging right now, new road construction projects with an emphasis on beautification as well as traffic flow are well under way and promise better days ahead.

In Englewood, The Home Depot opened late last year and is spurring development on the important State Road 776 corridor in Charlotte County.

Even further south in Punta Gorda, there is impressive activity, so much so that Mayor Larry Friedman, in his state of the city address last week, called 2008, "The Year of Momentum." His hyperbole can be forgiven in a city that has made remarkable progress since it was nearly wiped off the map by Hurricane Charley 31/2 years ago. He was among the dignitaries who gathered at the site of the Charlotte Harbor Event and Conference Center for a "Topping Out" ceremony last Monday. That structure, as much as any other in Punta Gorda, represents the city's rebirth since the storm.

A much finer building than the one it is replacing, the center takes full advantage of its spectacular location on Charlotte Harbor. Architects Harvard Jolley and contractor Matthews/Taylor promise it will be finished before the end of the year. Tourism director Becky Bovell says that the center along with a new hotel under construction and two others in the planning stages for downtown Punta Gorda will bring visitors and their money to Charlotte County's only incorporated city.

Friedman is looking even further down the road -- quite literally -- with plans to annex the planned Loop project at Highway 41 and North Jones Loop Road. The mixed-use development will include 1.2 million square feet of retail space and feature two hotels and 500 residential units. Work is expected to start later this year.

Yes, there are challenges in the short-term economic picture, but there is a nice glow of sunshine on the horizon along Florida's Gulf Coast.

Home sellers hoping for housing rebound

Martha Rodriguez's four-bedroom, 1,500-square-foot house has plenty of space, but lately it's left her feeling a bit trapped.

For more than a year, Rodriguez and her husband have been seeking a buyer for the south Tampa home they bought in 1978 and where they raised three children. For more than a year through open houses and price drops they've waited.

Now Rodriguez, 56, hopes that last week's passage of Amendment 1, which is supposed to reduce property taxes, will lead a buyer to her doorstep. So are plenty of other Floridians, many of whom have been stuck in a real estate market that went from unprecedented to pedestrian nearly two years ago.

Amendment 1 and the Federal Reserve's lowering of interest rates has sellers and real estate agents wondering is the market ready to rebound?

Home prices have been declining in many parts of the country for two years, and Tampa and Miami have been among the metro areas to see the steepest drop.

In September, Tampa had the nation's steepest drop in home values. Miami took over the top spot a month later. Data for the end of the year wasn't any better prices in Miami dropped 15.1 percent in November from a year earlier, according to Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller home price index. Tampa saw a 12.6 percent decline from November 2006.

Voters in both areas strongly supported Amendment 1 a property tax cut measure approved by voters on Tuesday. Hillsborough County voters went 3 to 2 for approval while 71 percent of Miami-Dade County voted for the proposal. It offers average reductions of $240 on tax bills for a homeowner's primary residence and allows them to keep lower rates when they move.

That's precisely what the Rodriguezes want. They plan to buy another, smaller house and live closer to their daughters and grandchildren in west Tampa. When they move, they'll take with them a $1,500 annual property tax bill one that is already far lower than many of their neighbors. If Amendment 1 had failed, their tax bill would have been based on the price of their new home and could have doubled.

Portability is a big reason Elizabeth Abernathy also supported Amendment 1.

At 79, Abernathy doesn't want to move from the home that she and her husband built in 1954 on Davis Islands, a community near downtown Tampa. But now widowed and her halting footsteps aided by a cane, Abernathy knows the day will come when she has to downsize.

She would like her children to take over her house, but the property tax hike they would incur makes that difficult. With portability, though, Abernathy said she feels better about her options.

Realtors, who also heavily backed Amendment 1, expect it will jump-start the market. They say for months they've encountered skittish buyers reluctant to purchase homes or condos.

"I see a lot of buyers sitting on the fence," said Kimberly Kirschner, chairwoman of the Realtor Association of Greater Miami and the Beaches.

Jordan Booth, a 21-year-old superintendent for a commercial contractor, has spent the last year living in a rented condo, saving money and watching home prices drop.

He was recently approved for a 30-year, 5 percent fixed mortgage, and plans to buy his first home in Lutz, a mostly rural community north of Tampa.

He voted for Amendment 1, partly because he's sure it will help him in coming years.

Experts foresee improvements, but also believe it will be the result of interest rate cuts.

"I don't see any dramatic effect to the real estate market out of Amendment 1," said Dean H. Gatzlaff, chair of Florida State University's real estate department.

Lower interest rates, however, may help clear the inventory of homes that have been for sale for some time, he said.

Tampa Bay area real estate agents are hoping that recent sales data shows the market is rebounding.

Home sales numbers in December ticked up slightly, and agents are reporting more interest from buyers, said Deborah Farmer, president of the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors. "Prices will rise again," she predicted.

She is encouraged by the recent sales data and reports from the association's membership that suggest more are imminent.

Miami, however, still has a glut of homes and condos on the market that still need to change hands, Kirschner said.

More condos are under construction and about to open and even Kirschner, a successful real estate agent for 20 years, can't predict how many of those will sell.

"We know we're going to get buyers," she said.

Both Farmer and Kirschner said another provision of Amendment 1 a 10 percent annual cap on tax assessments on non-homestead property will spur more purchases.

Kirschner predicted some properties will likely be bought by Canadians and foreigners whose currency is stronger than the dollar.

Meanwhile, sellers who are skeptical, or unaware, of government efforts are taking matters into their own hands.

Kyle Nemet, a Tampa car dealer who's now making ends meet by selling big rig trucks to foreign markets, is offering a luxury car to anyone who buys his house.

In 1999, Nemet built a five-bedroom, four-bathroom home in a gated community northwest of Tampa. Last year, he was offered $635,000 for the home, but decided not to sell.

"I'm regretting that decision big time," he said. "I haven't had an offer on that house in seven months."

Now, if he gets back the roughly $500,000 he owes, he said he'll be happy. He'll even hand over the keys to a 2004 Lexus LS430 to the buyer.

Nemet didn't vote for Amendment 1 he hadn't heard anything about it until after Tuesday's election. But he scoffed at the idea that the savings or even the ability to move homestead exemptions would help much.

"This $200 nonsense is not going to cure anything," Nemet said. He's competing against many of his neighbors who are trying to sell, without success.

Rodriguez's block doesn't pose the same competition. Yet despite numerous selling points her home is within walking distance of several shops and restaurants, and access to some of Tampa's best public schools she and her husband continue to wait for a buyer.

"I wanted to move a long time ago," Rodriguez said.

Purchasing A New Construction Home: What You Should Know

by Victoria Stankard

If you’re in the market to purchase a new construction home, you’ll want to be an educated buyer. Many home buyers desire a newly-constructed home because they offer more energy efficiency and design options. You can customize many things such as flooring, appliances, counter tops, cabinetry, appliances and wiring (TV, audio, computers and phones).

Buying a new home instead of a resale home requires some preliminary research on your part. It’s good to know the pros and cons of purchasing a new home so that you know what to look for as well as what to look out for. Without doing your homework before you buy, you may find that your new home fails to measure up to the standards you expected.

Check Out Your Builder

You’ll want to find out as much as possible about the builder of your newly constructed home. How long has the company been in the business of “new construction?” Go online and check for any complaints against them. If you type in the builder’s name followed by “complaints,” you’ll be able to access what people have to say about their experience. You can also type the builder into the Better Business Bureau (BBB) for more dirt if there is any.

Keep in mind, even the best builders can not please everyone. But if you see page after page of disgruntled customers, take it as a red flag warning to dig deeper into the builder’s reputation. Speak with others who’ve used the builder in the past and more recently. This will be the best ways of finding out how a builder’s customer service, craftsmanship and professionalism measure up. Investigating your builder can be time consuming, but pays off ten-fold if it helps you avoid making a costly mistake that you’ll regret later.

Location Is Key

Once you have decided on the builder, the next step is researching the neighborhood you want to live in. A good place to start is the local town or city zoning board. If there are open vacant fields in your surrounding area, find out what they are zoned for. Don’t take the sales rep’s sales pitch as gospel when it comes to describing the plans for the area. Remember, they are there to “sell you” how fabulous the neighborhood is and will be. Do your own sleuthing and get the facts.

You’ll also want to find out about the schools in your area. Makes sure those zoned for your neighborhood are highly-rated whether you have school-age children or not. This is one of the main things buyers look for, if and when you should decide to sell your home down the road.

Pros and Cons

There are two sides of the coin to every decision so it’s best know what you can expect about both. Here’s a list of the pros and cons of purchasing a newly-constructed home:

Upside

• Customized options and upgrades
• Less maintenance
• Updated building and safety Codes
• Energy efficient and innovative usage of space
• Comes with state of the art amenities
• May have recreational facilities like playgrounds, community pools, clubhouses and gyms
• New building materials tend to be safer because they don’t include such things as lead and asbestos
• Comes with construction and appliance warranties

Downside

• Resale can be difficult in a sub-division before all the homes have been built
• Delays in construction are common place
• Can cost more than existing homes due to escalating land values
• Dealing with noise, dirt and construction until all the homes are built
• Additional costs such as mandatory HOA fees and other assessments
• Higher taxes due to impact fees may be charged, in order to expand new services to your area.
• Unwanted developments or businesses may continue to be built on neighboring land

Before you sign on the dotted line of a new construction home, make sure you’ve checked out the builder, researched the surrounding neighborhood and assessed the pros and cons of purchasing a new construction home.

Mortgage Meltdown Has More to do with Fraud than Anything Else

Recently, I was discussing the mortgage meltdown with a reporter who made the mistake of asking me who or what I believed was primarily responsible for the mortgage meltdown and housing crash of 2007. My reply consisted of a single word: “fraud.” My conservative estimates target fraud as being responsible for at least 80% of the problem, and most of this fraud was perpetrated by industry insiders (both in the Real Estate and mortgage loan industries) on the consumers.

Of course, there is plenty of blame to go around. If consumers were not so greedy, using their homes like ATM machines whenever they needed an equity fix, perhaps the problem would not be so widespread and so deep. If fiscal conservatives were in charge of running the government at federal, state, and local levels, maybe we would not have a culture built around deficit spending. If politicians hadn’t agreed to ship manufacturing jobs overseas and open our markets to free foreign competition, maybe Americans would have more money to make house payments. If we had universal healthcare coverage, people wouldn’t end up in bankruptcy whenever they needed surgery.

I could go on, but from what I have witnessed in the Real Estate and mortgage loan industry comprises a concerted effort on the part of industry professionals and insiders to fleece the consumer. Cash back at closing schemes caused a huge part of the problem. When homeowners purchased their homes, many of them would borrow in excess of the property’s true market value–sometimes hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars more than the home was worth. They were then stuffing the proceeds in their pockets as if they had earned it.

Some might say that in this case, consumers are clearly at fault. After all, they were the ones who benefited most from the scam. However, in a huge majority of cases, professionals were advising these homeowners, telling them that this was a perfectly acceptable practice, that “everyone was doing it,” and that you were almost stupid for not doing it. The professionals would even conspire to defraud the banks, lining up appraisers who were known to appraise houses at whatever target value the buyer, seller, and agent decided. In return, the appraiser won more business, and the loan officer and real estate agent “earned” higher commissions. Everybody wins!

Another tactic that mortgage lenders used to suck in clueless buyers consisted of selling consumers on adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) that had teaser rates. When housing prices were spiraling into the stratosphere, fewer and fewer people were able to afford to take out a conventional mortgage to purchase a home. They simply didn’t have the income and savings required to obtain loan approval at the current interest rates. Instead of denying these high-risk lenders loans, the industry simply lowered the initial interest rate, so more people could qualify. Loan officers downplayed the fact that the interest rates would probably rise significantly months or years down the road. They told the buyers that they could simply refinance if the rate was too high. Unfortunately, when credit tightened, homeowners could no longer refinance with a conventional mortgage. Foreclosure became imminent.

During the big party when housing prices were on the rise and interest rates were dropping, mortgage brokers and the loan officers who worked for them, turned away few if any applicants. If you didn’t make enough money, they would encourage you to fudge the numbers on your loan application. To boost your credit score, you could simply piggyback on someone else’s credit card (this little loophole has been fixed). In some cases, the loan officer would simply have the applicant sign a blank loan application, so the loan officer could fill in the required information later–information that would be sure to win the applicant loan approval.

And this is just the day-to-day fraud. Professional con artists are also responsible for boldfaced scams that have ripped off homeowners and lenders alike. Armed with the Internet, technology, and know-how, these fraudsters could produce forged paperwork to score millions of dollars in mortgage loans for homes they never even bought.

What we are seeing now is fraud fallout. The system has been bruised and battered for too long. The very professionals who rely on the industry to feed them and their families have caused the problem, and many of them are now nowhere to be found. They scammed the system and left hard-working Americans to pick up the tab.