Posted on May 18, 2008 @ 11:38 pm - Written by BawldGuy
As I wrote earlier this week, I’m in Phoenix for Unchained. Though I’m an ‘instructor’ here, their word, not mine, the opportunity to learn is almost overwhelming. I’m not a tech guy by any stretch of the imagination, but some of these folks? If I studied what they did for a year, I still wouldn’t no what they’ve forgotten. You can’t put a value on that, ‘cuz if you did, nobody could afford it.
It affects how I do business and the value I’m able to offer my clients. It’s a huge deal. Already there are folks showing me how to bring Brown and Brown’s service to higher and more effective levels — always a good thing. We’re always looking to improve what we deliver to our clients. Good enough, simply isn’t good enough, know what I mean, Verne?
Our main concern is always measured in terms of end results for our clients. Let’s just say I’m jazzed within an inch of my life after what I’ve seen and heard today. And there are still a couple days left. We’re gonna get even better.
Very cool.
Though I’m on the agenda for Tuesday morning, it pales in comparison to the learning I’ve been afforded here. I’d love to walk away after my turn in the barrel knowing I was at least able to match the Gold Standard set so far.
I don’t know who the smartest person in the room is, but it certainly hasn’t been me. Some of these tech people make me feel like Forrest Gump’s slow little brother. Geez.
Talk with you tomorrow.
Posted on March 28, 2008 @ 11:00 pm - Written by BawldGuy
Greg Swann the owner/operator of BloodhoundBlog, one of the most influential real estate blogs in the country. Full disclosure — I’m a contributor there, and have been almost since Bloodhound started recruiting outside bloggers.
Greg had read a comment I’d made on another contributor’s post, and wanted to talk about it. He decided to post the interview on his blog, but let me put it here too.
I’ll be teaching at a conference put on by both Greg and Brian Brady (another BHB contributor) in Phoenix. It’s called Unchained and has already proven popular based on ticket sales. If you’re a real estate professional, agent/broker, mortgage broker, etc., I strongly recommend you consider attending. Most of these things aren’t worth much except for the exceptional networking opportunities. Unchained will definitely be different. Teaching and learning will be jam packed every day.
Back to the interview.
You can listen to the interview here — it’s short, lasting less than 7 minutes.
There are 3 choices at the end of the post allowing you to listen. They all work quickly and well. The ‘download’ option went directly to my iTunes app.
Meanwhile, have a great weekend, as I plan to sleep in big time. 
Posted on March 27, 2008 @ 11:40 pm - Written by BawldGuy
Though we’ve been to Austin, Dallas/Fort Worth, Kansas City, Boise, Phoenix, Palo Alto, and the list goes on, we’ve pretty much ignored San Diego real estate investors for nearly five years. Our plan calls for reentry in April or May. And no, we’re not gonna be tellin’ folks to buy San Diego investment property. It hasn’t made sense for a few years now. In fact, we don’t think it will ever be wise to invest here again.
Why?
Here’s the short version.
Your half million dollar duplex has monthly rents these days of $1,800-2,500 or so. For easily less than half the value of your property,
you can own a duplex (and brand new, not ancient like yours) with monthly income of $2,000-2,400. Does yours offer 3 bedrooms and 2 baths? And an attached 2-Car garage? In a neighborhood you’d allow your 70-something mom live in by herself?
I’d put my mom into these properties to live alone. In Phoenix they started calling it BawldGuy’s Mom Rule. If I wouldn’t put Mom there, don’t tell me about the property. That policy cut out a whole lot of useless conversations.
If your small 1-4 unit residential income property has a net equity of $60-500,000 you’ll be able to move that equity, tax deferred no doubt, to areas in the country allowing for leverage San Diegans can only experience through time travel, or Grandpa’s stories. Your capital growth rate will soar. Oh, you’d rather have a whole bunch of cash flow? How ’bout doubling to quintupling your current cash flow?
San Diego income properties simply cannot compete with other regions. It’s not possible. And if your Plan calls for you to sell your San Diego stuff in the next 3-10 years, here’s something to think about.
If they’d be ah, ill advised to buy your property today, at it’s lowest value in quite some time, how silly is it gonna be for them to buy it in another decade? It’s ancient now, right? If it’s value goes up in the next 10 years do you believe they’ll pay even more? Really? It’s my professional opinion they won’t — even if they were all the colors of the rainbow.
The bottom line is this: We can get you Outa Dodge — significantly increase your capital growth rate and/or cash flow — plus your tax shelter — while dramatically improving your chances for a magnificently abundant retirement.
Let’s continue with an example of what’s possible.
Let’s use your duplex mentioned above, with loans totaling $250,000 — here’s what you can do.
Your net proceeds from a sale will be more than you might expect because of our new business model. Instead of having sales/closing costs of around $40,000 or so, they’ll be far less. Brown and Brown no longer takes a listing commission of 3%. Tell me that isn’t cool. More on the details later. (Or, here’s an idea — you can contact us and we’ll give you the scoop way before everyone else finds out.)
Even with the normal brokerage fees your net proceeds from a sale will be about $210,000 +/-. With that capital we can tax defer you into $1-1.5 Million of very well located property — brand new too. And that’s not all, not by a long shot. The problem is, most folks don’t know what to do, where to do it, or who can help them get it done. In what direction should they go?
You’ll increase your annual depreciation by over $40,000 — not an insignificant improvement.
The difference is we’ll take your equity from here to there for a whole bunch less — and with way better marketing. We suspect our new model will end up costing our San Diego sellers about 75-90% less on the listing side of the commission. There’s nothing we can do with the buyer’s agent’s cut.
I mentioned marketing. We think those who have been selling small income props have been getting short changed on the quality of marketing. This has resulted in most of these props not selling, or taking forever. We’re gonna change all that — or at least that’s what it says right here.
Back to saving money.
This will result in a savings of well over $10,000 per property at the half million price range.
We’re serious about this.
Are you serious about your retirement plans? Are you seriously counting on San Diego to yield the retirement income you’ll need? If you could safely double, triple, quintuple your retirement income — never mind, silly question.
What are you waiting for? Contact me — we’ll sit down and let you know what’s possible. Most San Diego property owners can make surprisingly significant improvements in their capital growth rate, cash flow, tax shelter, and retirement income.
We’ll be standing by — there’s a pretty convenient Contact BawldGuy button on the upper right side of this page. Says ‘Contact BawldGuy’ and everything.
It works too.
Posted on March 24, 2008 @ 9:45 pm - Written by BawldGuy
So many folks in brokerage end of real estate talk about teams. Investment real estate by necessity brings the concept of a team or teams nearly to an art form. Back in the late ’80’s I was forced into the whole team concept. Getting things done and done right was becoming problematic. This is irritating when representing buyers & sellers with their homes. When it comes to investment properties, problems can escalate beyond irritating faster than your radar gun can track in real time.
20+ years of team building and before you know it, yer kinda good at it.
I’ve always had access to real estate attorneys, as they can not only provide answers to thorny issues arising at exactly the wrong time, but also help you avoid myriad potential disasters 
altogether. See? Purposeful Planning. Asset protection is tossed around at the neighborhood BBQ (that’s BBQ grille for you purists) these days as if it was as easy as falling off a log. Did I say access to real estate attorneys? For Heaven’s sake, back in ‘77 when Brown and Brown opened for its first day of operation, one of the partners had a full head of blonde hair, and the other was not only a real estate broker, but — wait for it — a real estate attorney too.
Protecting assets isn’t, and should never be, an afterthought — au contraire.
David Stejkowski (pronounced however it makes you feel best) is a dirt lawyer. In fact, he’s The Dirt Lawyer — and 
beginning tomorrow will also be a contributor to these pages. He and I have been going back and forth for several months now, and I’m convinced he’s my best find in some years. I’ve been floating around using different real estate attorneys since my all time favorite died some time back.
We’ve also talked about the cost of the average real estate attorney, a subject near and dear to David’s heart. Brown and Brown clients will learn quickly how a The Dirt Lawyer can make things happen without tearing your wallet a new one.
David is the real deal — but I’ll let you decide for yourself.
All he does is investment real estate and related issues. Calling David a specialist is abusing the concept of understatement. I’ve closed millions of dollars of transactions. David? He’s closed billions of dollars in real estate transactions. Right — with a ‘B’.
We’ve already had several conversations, both by phone and email. He’s what I’ve been searching for the last several years. He’s also a principal in a brand new title company — but that’s an entirely different, albeit interesting post.
So look tomorrow for David’s first post — first as in ‘of many’.
Welcome to the team, David.
Posted on February 11, 2008 @ 9:59 pm - Written by BawldGuy
I’ll preface this post with the mea culpa that I’m of the Old School. I’ve adapted to some of the New School’s ways,
especially when it comes to marketing and technology. It seems when it comes to a choice between people and technology they invariably choose the gadget or the software over the live person. This irritates me no end. It’s not all about me, the broker/agent — it’s about clients, and those who are indispensable in the operation of our day to day business. To New Schoolers I ask you to ponder this thought. You’re in a service business. This means you serve them, not the other way around. Your convenience has little value — get it? You are not the center of the real estate universe.
Man did that feel good.
Ever called an agent’s office and asked, “May I please speak with John?”, and find yourself sent directly to John’s voice mail? Does it irritate you? Get the feeling yer calling an empty office? 
Or how ’bout the people who want you vetted for everything except your FICO score just to talk with ‘em? “May I tell them what this is regarding?” “No, my mistake. We don’t need to talk after all.” They do it for their convenience, not the caller’s. Besides, if you call me and have to go through a cavity search to talk with me, don’t you begin to feel as if I’m deciding if yer important enough for me to grant you some of my precious time? What about your time for Heaven’s sake?
Or how about email? How many times have you sent information by email, or a series of questions to someone during an escrow, only to have them call you with several questions which were answered in your initial message — Or answer only two of the five questions you asked. Does everyone have ADD?
Ever found yourself waiting after lunch for a response from an email you sent in the morning, only to learn they hadn’t even checked their email yet? Often these are the same people who fancy themselves as being part of a ‘hi-tech’ operation. Email isn’t even ‘tech’ these days.
In our business people sometimes get their panties all in a bunch over not much. In our experience it’s clients only about 10% of the time. (And for the record, they get a pass.) Usually it’s a service provider or vendor involved with a transaction. They’re angry about something, and want to vent all over someone, often an agent. Ask anybody who has any real time in real estate brokerage if they’ve received a voice mail or email acting as a kinda sorta preview for a movie titled, I’m Really Upset and It’s All Your Fault. I’ll make some basic points about these messages.
Address them as quickly as possible — waiting is never a good idea.
Sometimes the sender of the voice mail/email isn’t upset at all.
Returning all messages demonstrates your professionism.
Never be fearful of addressing that kind of message.
Responding Promptly
Brown and Brown clients, and the cast of characters involved with the myriad things we do as a brokerage, learn early on we return their phone calls and 
reply to their emails not only the same day they’re received, but more often than not, within minutes. It’s not our time that’s so dang valuable it’s theirs. Once they realize the value of their time to us is as the Hope Diamond, it dawns on them — we get it. We get positive comments on this all the time. People appreciate prompt professional responses — as they’ve learned it’s apparently not the New School rule these days.
They’re Not Always Upset
Please allow me some straight talk here. I’ll speak only for myself. As a young man I learned the hard way taking the coward’s approach never works. It can make a mildly bad situation into a disaster, many times making you look like a total fool. I speak from embarrassing personal experience. At least I had age as an excuse, as I was only 19 at the time. Having your dad, the broker/owner intervene only made it worse. From that point on I called folks who wanted to hear from me. ‘Nuff said.
Look, we’ve all been yelled at for real and imagined sins. It ain’t pleasant, and we surely don’t look forward to the experience. But if you can’t take the heat get another job, ‘cuz folks simply don’t want to do business or even be associated professionally with cowards. Nobody walks on water, which means nobody’s protecting their perfect record. Deal with people head on. In the above story I told on myself, my behavior was cowardly.
I receive requests weekly via email to call the sender. More often than not (3 of 4) a reason or subject isn’t supplied. So what? Call them immediately and find out. If they emailed you using your company site, I dunno, maybe they have something positive to ask or say. Ya think? I sometimes send an email to other agents asking them to call me when they have time. I don’t want to interrupt an agent I’ve not met, just because I need something, or want to talk about something important to me — so I email them to call me when they have the time.
I did this about a year ago to a local agent, Kris Berg. Asked her to give me a buzz when she had time. Within an hour or so my phone rang. “What can I do ya for?” or something to that affect. We’d never met in person or by phone.
Last week I was read the riot act via email because I hadn’t left a reason the recipient should grant my request for a call when he had the time. He was afraid, pure and simple, as he’d been verbally abused by some callers who hadn’t cared for his employer’s business methods. Here’s a hint. Sending an email asking why you should honor someone with a call by the incredibly important you, isn’t the way to make friends and influence people.
How many times have we received a voice mail or better yet, an email in which the person’s attempt at humor and/or sarcasm is lost on us? We’ve all had that experience multiple times. I had an experience several years ago which has always been my favorite example.
Making a long story very short, I received a message (can’t remember for sure if it was an email or voice mail) saying,
‘I have a bone to pick with you’ — from a person I didn’t know from Adam. I had no earthly idea what this person had in mind, not a clue. I called the number they’d left. Turns out they’d received a letter I’d sent earlier that week to income property owners in various targeted areas. The bone they wanted to pick? When I asked him he started laughing — ‘Why haven’t you written me before this? I shoulda been doing what you advise for years. When can we meet.’ I couldn’t have misread the meaning of his message any more if I’d tried. We ended up doing years of business with him. In fact, he and his wife are now personal friends. The moral? You never know when lightning is gonna strike.
Returning All Messages Sets You Apart
It’s the same as being prompt. Every message is important for the same reason every person is important. Also, as Grandma taught, it’s the importance the other guy puts on his message not my valuation that matters. Duh. Common sense says they wouldn’t have left the message in the first place if it wasn’t of at least some importance. Can we hear another Duh! from the congregation?
Don’t Be Afraid of An Angry Message
As mentioned above, sometimes they’re not mad at all.
Do you honestly think they’ll cool off if you ignore them? Hellllooo.
A quick response demonstrates clearly you’re not a fair weather broker.
They’re often mistaken in their anger — they’ve misunderstood something.
It happened but they’ve blown it up into something it isn’t and couldn’t be — this is a good thing.
They’re absolutely correct, providing you the opportunity to pony up to the bar, addressing it forthrightly and as a true pro — which is why they called you in the first place. Duh.
Faxes too have become a major headache. By the time a document does a few laps it may resemble pages copied from the Dead Sea scrolls. The cost of scanners are down these days to just above a Venti (Fill in 13 word description here — any help Lani?) Starbucks specialty drink, so scanning signed docs for emailing makes a lot of sense. It’s also saved hours of needless conversations between agents with escrow, lenders, and other agents. How many times would you have given yer first born just to have a readable document when time mattered? This is where scanning, and the use of pdf’s are simply a no-brainer.
All these shortcomings can and generally do cost the agent credibility, and sometimes their clients’ money. In the short run clients will accept the fact that others are slowing you down through poor performance. Eventually though the failures of those upon whom you rely will be associated with you.And if the offender is you, your clients will not long think of you as a real pro.
I offer the solutions we’ve installed in our office. They’re surely not the only way to go, but they work for us.
With rare exception the phone will be answered before the third ring by a live voice.
If the person called is unavailable, a time for the returned call is established.
If someone else can help the caller immediately they go out of their way to do just that.
Our email programs are set to send & receive every five minutes. Furthermore, they are set to appear in front of anything else we might be working on if there are in fact messages.
Unless on the phone or with clients, all emails are to be returned immediately if not sooner.
If good judgment dictates, emails are quite often answered by phone to avoid confusion.
All docs will be emailed and not faxed if the choice is available.
Lenders, escrows, transaction coordinators, title companies, and inspectors who work with our firm all agree to adopt these policies when dealing with us or our clients whenever it’s possible.
Our clients and those with whom we work, have often commented how nice it is to get their calls answered by a human voice 90% of the time — including cell calls. And love getting the vast majority
of their emails responded to in 2-15 minutes. Their transaction file folders contain contracts, disclosures, and other documents which, unlike previous experiences, are actually readable. They feel spoiled –which was the goal in the first place.
I’ll still take Old School most of the time when it comes to matters of common sense and communication. People trump technology every time. In the end it’s not about us. Clients and all those who help us do our job are the center of the universe.