I’m here at Inman Real Estate Connect and am very happy to report that one of my favorite bloggers, CR, from the blog CalculatedRisk will be part of a panel tomorrow afternoon along with another great blogger, Yves Smith from NakedCapitalism.  Many of my colleagues are signed up for the blogger sessions in the morning, however, I’ll be attending all the foreclosure sessions.  The Palace Hotel is beautiful and elegant. Can’t wait for tomorrow, but first I shall go join the “beer for bloggers” party down the street.

This week I will be in San Francisco attending Real Estate Connect which is put on by Inman Real Estate News. I attended two other Connect conventions and I have fond memories of both.

I remember sitting in an audience of at least a thousand Realtors listening to our keynote speaker who was none other than Larry Page.  I couldn’t believe it. I felt like I was seeing some sort of rising star in person and nobody sitting near me had any clue how important Larry’s company already was and would become.  I tried to express my excitement, “Do you guys REALIZE WHO HE IS????”  Larry talked about how he was actually looking for a Realtor and he flashed his email address up on the screen for just three seconds and then asked anyone in the audience to email him.  I’m not sure how many Realtors were actually paying attention at that moment. We’d have to ask Larry if anyone besides me emailed him. I don’t remember what my email said but I believe I complimented him on his keynote, using my Palm PDA, sitting right there in the audience.  He talked about all kinds of things but here’s what I remember: He said he wishes someone would invent a way to eat without stopping the car or getting off the freeway and in his future world, we would have IN-OUT Burger restaurants that would shoot hamburgers down a long, narrow tube directly in to our cars.  Right after the speech, I immediately went right up to the front to meet him. I’m sure he thought I was a groupie of some sort.

My second Connect memory was hearing and seeing John Seely Brown deliver his keynote.  Because I do a lot of public speaking, I am always impressed when a presenter uses a creative, unique presentation style. JSB used old-fashioned overheads, BUT he DREW pictures on the blank overheads while he was delivering his speech.  Very different, very memorable. I highly recommend his book, The Social Life of Information.

Going to Connect in the past was about collecting as much information as possible about real estate technology trends.  I knew very few people. I had emailed Brad Inman back and forth during this time and he would occasionally publish articles I had co-written about ethics in mortgage lending. I felt like I could introduce myself to Brad and find a friendly face, however, I didn’t really know anyone else other than the First American corporate employees who would be there. 

This time I feel like I’m going to meet up with lots of people who I’ve only met while interacting with them on raincityguide and other blogs. Some of these folks I’ve never met face to face and I’m really looking forward to meeting them.  Oh, yes, and I’m also attending for the education.  However, not so much technology education….instead, I’ve signed up for the Foreclosure sessions.

At this moment in time, I simply can’t wrap my head around the idea that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be allowed to fail.  Instead, it seems more likely that the federal government would jump in and prop up the GSEs with our tax dollars.  A moral hazard yet the lesser of two evils? 

Congress can pass all kinds of bills to try and help homeowners; it’s not going to be enough money. There are still way too many option ARMs out there set to adjust this summer and into 2009. The meltdown of the entire mortgage industry is just getting started.  It took us 8 years to run up the bubble, it’s going to take us at least 8 years to unwind it all.  I’ve been saying that since last year so now we only need to survive through 7 more years of mortgage turmoil.  Fannie and Freddie guidelines continue to tighten, as they should, (until default rates stabilize) which pushes more product onto superhero FHA.  

The next question is, who is willing to buy GNMA bonds filled with FHA mortgages?

A “Risk Management” Alert bulletin was distributed to real estate brokers in Washington State this week in anticipation of yet another new state law, SB 6847 that will go into effect on June 12th. Here is the bulletin

June 3, 2008

SUBJECT: RISK MANAGEMENT ALERT To Share at This Week’s Office Meetings

THIS WARNING APPLIES TO ALL BROKERS AND LICENSEES, BOTH COMMERCIAL AND RESIDENTIAL, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER BROKER HAS A FINANCIAL INTEREST IN A TITLE COMPANY.

Effective June 12th, Washington Law provides new legal authority for state regulators to take enforcement action against real estate agents and brokers who receive or accept inducements from title insurance companies unless those inducements are authorized by state agency administrative rules. To date, state agency administrative rules have not been adopted and therefore, for the time being, the only safe practice is to decline receipt of any offer of anything of value from any title company, agent or employee.

The law was adopted in response to investigations that disclosed title insurance industry-wide violations of limits on paying inducements. The concept of this law is not new but under this new law, title insurance companies will be prosecuted for paying the inducements AND AGENTS AND BROKERS WILL BE PROSECUTED FOR RECEIVING THE INDUCEMENTS. While residential agents have always been prohibited from receiving anything of value from a title company under RESPA, a federal law, RESPA has not often applied in the context of a commercial transaction. This new state law draws no distinctions between commercial and residential practices and creates a RESPA-like prohibition against ANY agent or broker accepting ANYTHING of value from a title insurance company, agent or employee.

In addition, Brokers/Owners of real estate companies who also have a financial interest in a title company, will be prohibited from paying inducements to their own agents for the referral of business to broker’s title insurance company.

The Washington REALTORS® will be meeting with representatives of the Real Estate Program of the Department of licensing later this week to seek additional clarifications on how the new law will be implemented.

In the meantime, agents and brokers should be aware that “inducements ” to real estate agents from Brokers who have financial interests in a title company may include items such as:

Reducing and/or paying of Desk fees for referring/directing title insurance business
Reducing and/or paying of Advertising for referring/directing title insurance business
Reducing and/or paying for reimbursements or expenses for referring/directing title insurance business
Waiving, reducing and/or directing payment of any other expenses or reimbursement for referring /directing title insurance business
In addition ALL REAL ESTATE LICENSEES should be aware there are many ways they can be receivers of potential “Things of Value” from title companies. Receipt of any of these items is appropriate if agent pays value for the item but would possibly constitute a violation of the new law if agent receives the item, from a title insurance company or agent, without payment.

Shared advertisements in which agent does not pay a pro portional share of the costs based on the amount of ad space used
Payment, in whole or in part, for clock hours tuition or other related expenses
Title cancellation fees, owing from agent, that remain unpaid
Open house refreshments
Hand Outs that include anything other than the property’s last deed of record, last deed of Trust of record, a plat map and tax information. All other handouts must be purchased by agent.
Farming packages identifying names and addresses of multiple real property owners for use by an agent in soliciting business
Copies of CC&Rs
Comparable sales information
Entertainment
Gifts
Tickets to events or shows
Sponsorship of association, company or agent events
Any of the above that the title insurance company provided for a fee that has not been paid

There is a lot of confusion, anger and fear surrounding the new Distressed Property Law. I’m not going to jump on the bandwagon and do a critical analysis of the law here. Instead, jump into the way-back machine and take a trip through these links to 2004, 2005, 2006  and 2007 when foreclosure rescue scams started to escalate in order to understand why we have this new law.

At the height of the bubble run up in 2005, there were hundreds of people attending foreclosure auctions, encouraged to make their millions in real estate, usually after attending a get-rich-quick seminar.  As you read this blog post, the get-rich-quick hucksters are still luring in the same type of person who thinks there’s a magic diet pill that will help you lose those last ten pounds, and who thinks there’s still a way to make six figures with no experience, or in the case of this company, $2,000 per hour.

Readers on this blog and elsewhere have been highly critical of our state lawmakers for being reactionary and passing laws only after they would have done any good.  In this case, our legislature has tried to be pro-active and place boundaries around “distressed property transactions.”  Yes, the law as passed has some flaws.  Yes, there are parts that could be re-drafted for clarity.  However, we’re stuck with it until the next legislative session so we might as well learn how to live with it. 

This law should have come as no surprise to anyone in the industry.  Governor Gregoire’s task force recommended passage of this legislation and Attorney General Rob McKenna put “foreclosure rescue scam legislation” on his agenda for 2008.  But real estate agents were caught off guard. They’ve been swept into the definition of being a “distressed home consultant” by way of not being excluded. 

The highest risk transaction under the new law is when a homebuyer purchases a distressed home from a distressed homeowner and is allowing the homeowner to rent the home back, and is also offering to share any equity upon a future sale.  As of June 12, 2008, taking part in a distressed home transaction such as this will become enormously risky. I recommend that get-rich-quick investors “invest” several thousand dollars to have an attorney on retainer and available to you 24/7. Critics of the new law say that this means homeowners who might have otherwise been helped by the “rescue” crowd will now end up going into foreclosure.  Critics have miraculously turned themselves into victims and state that there are only a few bad apples, only a few scammers and the rest of them are above-board, honest and honorable yet this website devotes an entire section on exposing a long list of “possible” get rich scammers, also known as the site’s competitors.

If it is true that the foreclosure rescue angels have floated from the heavens down to the earth and now can be seen wandering the streets of Seattle wearing a baseball cap and a jean jacket with the slogan “I buy homes in foreclosure call me” on the back like the guy who was in front of me at the Sprint store this week, then Realtors should be pro-actively seeking out the Larry-the-Cable-Guy angel rescuers and bringing them together with homeowners in financial distress.  However, I believe the opposite to be true.

Instead, I believe most the rescue guys and gals never met a Realtor they liked nor do they have any intention of coming anywhere near a Realtor, (because they want to keep the commission for themselves, as part of their riches) are in it for the cash, couldn’t give a rip about the homeowner, and are taught how to embody the caring compassionate stance of someone who does care in order to use the homeowner’s trust against them to “get rich quick.”

I believe that this law, no matter how flawed, has more good consequences than bad. 

Real estate agents and Realtors are on the front lines when the homeowner comes out of denial and starts looking at their options. 

For those real estate agents and Realtors who say, “Well, this law is so confusing that I’m not going to work with any distressed homeowners.” First, that’s going to rule out a whole lot of your market area in the next several years and second, would you answer the question differently if you were the one who sold them the home?

It is possible that fear will drive Realtors to not take these listings, although I don’t think that will happen because there are still way too many hungry Realtors out there who will take a listing at the drop of a hat. If the law does scare Realtors away, this means we’ll see more foreclosures in Washington State. Get-rich-quick buyers can still buy the home at the trustee sale or directly from the lender after foreclosure; neither of these types of transactions is affected by the new law. 

I have heard people say “this law will be repealed the next legislative session.”  I’m not so sure about that, nor am I sure that Realtors will automatically be “exempt” from being a “distressed home consultant.”

It’s time we acknowledge that distressed home transactions are becoming more and more specialized.  The topic of foreclosure is not taught in real estate pre-licensing classes.  It’s time to admit that a real estate agent with ZERO training on foreclosures and short sales is doing a home seller a grave disservice by taking that listing.  More harm could be done in this instance than good, and it appears as though our legislature understands this.  Unfortunately, the get-rich-quick investors probably know more about foreclosure laws than your average real estate agent. Average real estate agents, you have some work to do.

Real estate agents ARE distressed home consultants when they take a home that’s in pre-foreclosure or a home that has short sale terms.  Exempting real estate agents from this law will not happen, nor should it.

Real estate agents should embrace this new law. Some might decide that distressed property is going to be their new market niche.  Commercial real estate, property management, multifamily homes, resort and vacation homes, all are specialty areas.  It’s time that the real estate industry creates a new specialty area for distressed property transactions.  Perhaps all “get rich quick” investors will be required, at the very least, to have a real estate license (or some other sort of professional license,) and all real estate licensees who want to become purchasers of distressed homes will now be taking part in a high risk transaction with elevated duties. There are other ways for real estate agents to buy homes for investment purpose. Maybe this option should only be for those with the capital to cushion the risk, the willingness and ability to consider the homeowner’s interests, and the education to feel secure in their actions.

Becoming a fiduciary of a distressed homeowner is not a human rights violation. 

When starting a blog, should you join a group blog or start your own, solo blog? There are advantages and disadvantages on either side. Required reading from Joel, who sums it up nicely here.

In the Short Sale classes I teach for real estate continuing ed, I am constantly reminding the Realtors to always refer their homeowners who are in financial distress to an attorney for legal counsel. Attorneys can do things that real estate agents can’t, like give legal advice. Real estate attorneys know the state laws that govern what lenders must do and must not do when it comes to the foreclosure process. Each state has its own Deed of Trust laws and Foreclosure laws. Since each homeowner has facts that are unique to his or her own situation, referring homeowners to an attorney has many good consequences. Doing so is in the best interest of the homeowner and referring to an attorney has an added benefit of reducing liability for the real estate agent.

I’ve been on the lookout for an attorney who is interested in serving the short sale and preforeclosure homeowner market.

Realizing that many homeowners in financial distress often do not have access to thousands of dollars to pay for an attorney, I believe that a flat fee arrangement for homeowners to receive a set, minimum number of hours of an attorney’s time is a good idea.

Now someone’s done just that. Craig Blackmon and Marc Holmes are offering a document review service for short sale homeowners at a flat fee of $300.

What’s a person to do with all their social network websites when big changes are forthcoming? New company name, new websites, new phone numbers, email addresses, and so forth. All must be updated. Facebook, myspace, mybloglog, inman space, LinkedIn, BizNik, I think I finally updated all of them. All, with one exception, were very easy to do, just time consuming. It took me about 2 hours total to get in there and update the basic changes, however, once a person is IN the social network, it becomes VERY tempting to take a look at everything else that’s in there, way back when the account was first set up. This adds time to a tedious task. All in all, I’m estimating that it took at least 3 hours tops. The only problems I have and continue to have are with mybloglog. First, I had to associate my existing yahoo email account with my mybloglog account; okay, that SEEMED painless but I didn’t really want to publish my yahoo account. Also, the old company domains that I had set up on mybloglog are pretty much impossible for me to delete. It looks like once a company is IN mybloglog, it can never come out. I can delete the company name off MY account, but the company will still be out there in the world for other myblogloggers to associate with. That seems unfair, since I’m the one that set up the company inside mybloglog. Oh well. I’ll leave everything as is for now on mybloglog. With all the attention focused on the social networks, a friend reminded me that I forgot to change my outgoing voicemail on my cell phone.

It’s been a couple of days now and my html is a little better now, thanks to the w3schools and the wordpress user forums. I have figured out how to move things around within the template stylesheets and now I’m creating pages. 

I have been a big Tom Peters fan since his business management guru days of the 1980s and read his book, Re-imagine, twice before I started BPI Consulting 3 years ago.  I always loved how he would give away free stuff on his website for his audiences and the way his website was set up. Tonight, I visited tompeters.com to see what he’s been up to and what I see is a blog.  I love it. 

I also love Tom’s quote for today.  Thanks Tom, for reminding me to adapt to wordpress and forget frontpage.

I know I need to migrate away from microsoft frontpage, the web authoring tool I’ve used since the mid 1990s.  I heard that MS was going to stop supporting frontpage and that they were promoting a new product called Expressions Web.  I’ve been blogging for awhile now on Rain City Guide and Dustin Luther uses wordpress.  I have had the abilty to spend some time on the back end of wordpress and I like how easy it is to use.  But what to do: A traditional corporate website with a blog component like what zillow and redfin have? Or should I just make the entire domain a blog, like what Dustin does with 4realz.net? What to do. 

What I DIDN’T want to do was to put myself in a position of having to manage multiple web platforms for one company.  I need ecommerce, I need to show a list of courses plus course content, and also a calendar of upcoming CE classes.  All the corporate stuff about what it is I do and who I am can be compressed.  What’s more important to me was to use the website as a way to interact with my customers.  If they want to know more, there will be links.

As much as I profess to know about blogging, I didn’t know as much as I thought I did about the back end of blog design.  For example, how do I upload a new theme?  I found a theme I liked with a very cool color combination, red and green.  However, it took me awhile to become familiar with my web hosting company’s cpanel function because I was so use to msfrontpage.  I uploaded the template and then I couldn’t get it extracted from the zip file. On the third try, it extracted. Then I couldn’t figure out how to get the template author’s selected images, which were quite salacious, to go away. I did make some attempts, but the wysiwyg editor of msfrontpage had spoiled me into not using my html training. 

I have selected another template, the one you’re now viewing. Next up, I must learn how to change the sidebar headings and create some new pages…while also organizing my office (out with the old, in with the new), going grocery shopping, doing laundry and vacuuming, and otherwise playing in what’s left of the snow with my daughters.  Although this blog won’t be ready for prime time until I can learn more about wordpress design, I am blogging about these initial steps in order to help others who are also migrating from traditional wysiwyg web editors to wordpress.