The Drive Home

HARP stands for Home Affordable Refinance Program. If you’re not behind on your mortgage payments but have been unable to get traditional refinancing because the value of your home has declined, you may be eligible to refinance through the Program. HARP is designed to help you get a new, more affordable, more stable mortgage. HARP refinance loans require a loan application and underwriting process, and refinance fees will apply.

The existing program was enhanced in late 2011 by the Obama Administration and affects only those mortgages owned or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which means most of us who have a mortgage on our homes. Other eligibility requirements include but are not limited to:

•The mortgage must have been sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac on or before May 31, 2009;
•The mortgage can not have been refinanced through HARP before;
•The current Loan-to-Value (LTV) must be greater than 80% (you owe more than the house is worth);
•The borrower must be current on the mortgage and have a 12 month good payment history.

Not all mortage brokers or lenders participate in HARP. Contacting your current mortgage holder is the second step. The first step is going to either the Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac website and completing the eligibility check form. It’s pretty simple and a quick way to see if the loan belongs to them.

FYI, the program ends December 31, 2013. I think it’s a good deal: if you have an upside-down adjustable rate mortgage, you can at least refinance into a fixed rate at the currently super low rates available. Hell, I’m considering it for my OWN mortgage!

IN PURSUIT of building my Real Estate practice, I started a BNI group several years ago. BNI is Business Networking International, and it’s a business about building other businesses through referrals. Most cities have lots and lots of chapters, because the first rule is there is only one member per profession in the group. As a real estate broker in Colorado, where every third person has a license, getting into a group requires biding your time until the realtor in the group leaves. Or, if you’re impatient, you start your own chapter!

There are a few professions that have a plethora of people, and so those professionals usually end up starting a chapter. Mine was no different; I started a chapter with a financial advisor and a mortgage broker. We invited others to join with us, and we’d see them a couple times and then nothing. It took nearly a year to reach critical mass, the number of registered and paid members required to become a fully-chartered chapter.

The concept is great: businesspeople meeting weekly, getting to know and trust each other so they can pass quality and highly-prepped referrals to each other. Over time, as people join or quit or are asked to leave, a chapter that starts out as a promising venture can change into something else. Or the opposite holds true, too.

The upshot was, after starting the chapter and showing up weekly (or getting a substitute when I couldn’t be there) and giving referrals to nearly every person in the chapter, I was asked to leave after three years. It was made clear to me that I was not needed, and I had wasted about $1000 in trying to get business from that membership. I’m not bitter–I just swore I would never join another referral group again and would find other ways to build my business.

Fast forward to present, and my life partner decided to create a referral group of only business women to build her practice. While some ideas are similar, the basic one is a small group of women nurturing each other to be successful. And I’m a sucker for stuff like that; it takes me back to my early Movement days of Sisterhood is Powerful. Right On Womyns.

So I’m meeting monthly with some lawyers, a financial advisor, a massage therapist and a couple other professional women. We read our business plans to each other at the last meeting. Among many interesting things about that exercise, I was pleased to note that my plan sounded better aloud than it did as I was writing it. Sometimes that voice in your head is wrong. Especially when it sounds like your mother.

Sometimes I can’t believe I’m in another referral group, but I find myself looking forward to the monthly meeting. I’m excited about helping other women get their businesses going, and I’m excited about the potential for getting my own business kick-started. My partner says studies have shown that women give referrals more readily than men. So for now, it’s all Cherche La Femme!!

WHILE TALKING WITH A FRIEND over the most wonderful vegan chocolate cake, he started asking me questions about his experience with a real estate agent.  First question: Do you know so-and-so with XYZ real estate?  I suppose I could call this agent Humbug, but maybe I’ll go with Queen Beryl.

A gay man, he called the agent because she was lesbian and affiliated with a firm with a name that sounded like it would focus on the type of home he wanted to buy.  Reasonable presumption on his part, but I would recommend getting referrals from friends or co-workers too.

Turns out he and Queen Beryl did not get along.  She refused to show him homes in the style he asked for, and she persisted in showing him homes above his preferred price range because he could afford more.  As an aside, in the Denver real estate market, there are a lot of homes in his preferred range ($300-350K).  She insisted that he use her mortgage person, and she got angry with him when he wanted to use his own home inspector after determining that he didn’t trust the one she preferred.

Every story has multiple versions.  Over a martini, Queen Beryl might tell me the horror story of the client who thought he knew better than her and fought her on every issue.  I prefer my clients use a mortgage broker I know and have worked with; it can make a huge difference in whether or not we close.  And, I’ve had a few clients who refused to listen to me. It is a nightmare.  The difference is that I have fired them rather than putting them and me through additional agony.

If I genuinely think my client should be looking in a higher price range, I do the homework to show her why I think it’s in her best interest.  Client is always the decision-maker; I just try to make a strong case for my position in the discussion.  Sometimes the properties just aren’t there.

But what of that contract he signed?  Yes, it says they agree to work together for a specific time period.  And I do insist that people who want to buy sign such an agreement with me, normally the second or third time we tour.  (Here’s another aside–in Colorado, the very first time I meet a potential client, I must present a disclosure that describes the ways I can work with him or her.  Hopefully, potential client signs the document. Otherwise, I note it was presented and file it away.)

So, if I have a client who tells me he doesn’t want to work with me any more, I have two options.  I can say, “you’ve got a contract and you’re going to work with me, Buster.”  Why would I do that?  Is a commission so important that I would make myself and another person miserable in order to get it?  I choose door number two, and after exploring reasons for the termination (maybe it’s a communication problem, maybe it’s something I can fix, maybe they want to use their brother-in-law) I will agree to part ways immediately.

Unlike Queen Beryl, I try to not have ego investment with my clients.  My job is to provide a service to the best of my ability.  If that does not meet a client’s requirements for any reason, and I can not make it better, then the job description includes getting out of their way!

ONE OF MY MORTGAGE GUYS called me and said he has a client meeting him this evening.  He wants me to be there and meet the client.

It’s a great thing, really–someone feeding me a potential lead for business.  I am grateful he thought of me, since mortgage guys usually have a stable full of real estate agents to choose from when they give referrals.

And, at the same time, I’m having my misgivings.  Maybe it’s because I’ve never done much dating; I find it awkward to meet someone in this way.  It’s difficult when someone tells me to call their friend who needs a realtor, out of the blue, too.  Even when they’ve prepped that call, it’s uncomfortable. Obviously, I do it, and I hope I do it well with social grace and aplomb.

And yet, before the call, before the meeting, the mind is racing with all these gawky adolescent self-doubts and questions.  “Is my hair all right?” “what do I wear?” “is everything clean?” I feel awfully small as I go through this churn, but the reality is People decide whether or not they want to work with an agent within 30 seconds of meeting.

Before I was a realtor, I was a home buyer.  I was referred to an agent by an acquaintance.  When I met that guy, all I could think of was a doorman in the Land of Oz from one of the original drawings by John O’Neill.  He had a super high forehead and talked non-stop. He was glib and a little sexist and racist, and I hated him almost immediately.  His name was something similar to hamburger, so I called him “Humbug.”

Because I didn’t know anyone else, I did use his services. The problem with Humbug was that in all that wave of chatter coming from him, he buried what he did for me when I bought the house.  I spent the next seven years hating him and the house, and I never appreciated his competence (or that house!) until I became a realtor myself.  I don’t want to be “that guy.” I don’t want to be a Humbug!

So, yes, I’m hoping this person and I hit it off in 30 seconds or less.  I hoping we have a “second date,” and I get to show him or her some great properties and help with purchasing one of them.  And, I’m hoping I don’t have any spinach in my teeth!