This blog covers the work I do as a REALTOR®, author, business consultant, motivational speaker, trainer, expert witness, and business coach. - Ralph R. Roberts
March is Dummies Month — an annual tradition that results in big savings for people who buy For Dummies titles like my latest book (available in April of this year), Financing Real Estate Investments For Dummies.
Please join me in celebrating Dummies Month and save a few bucks on your purchase of my For Dummies titles. You can buy any of my For Dummies books directly from Wiley by clicking on the links below, or you can purchase them from your favorite bookseller, including Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, or any other bookstore.
Be sure to save your receipt, because when you do, you can then download and print the Dummies Month Rebate Form, complete it, and submit it to Wiley along with your receipt to receive a $5.00 rebate on your purchase.
Ralph R. Roberts, consumer advocate and spokesperson for Federal Loan Modification Law Center, LLP, was featured on CNN Saturday during a live special report on the foreclosure crisis. The hour-long report, hosted by anchor Fredricka Whitfield and facilitated by CNN’s Josh Levs, included a series of hard-hitting questions from struggling homeowners facing the prospect of losing their home in foreclosure. (Note: Roberts’ interview can be seen in its entirety by clicking here or scrolling to the bottom of this entry.)
Since losing his own home to foreclosure in the late 1970s, Roberts has made it his life’s mission to cure what he calls the “Cancer of the American Dream.” During the segment he rallied homeowners to modify their mortgage loans, “You can’t modify a loan if you’re not working, but as you find work, be ready to modify your loan. The more Main Street steps up and fights for themselves, the more affordable their homes are going to be, and the better it’s going to be for their families, the neighborhoods, the schools, the tax base, and for all of us as Americans,” said Roberts.
Roberts, who has led thousands of families through the foreclosure maze, also provided his perspective in response to President Obama’s recently announced foreclosure prevention plan.
“We’ve been bailing out Wall Street,” said Roberts. “We’ve been bailing out insurance companies. We’re bailing out states. We’re bailing out cities. We need a bailout for Main Street. What everyone needs to realize is by bailing out your neighbor, it’s going to protect your value [the value of your home].”
He went on to suggest that the Obama Administration would be wise to consider investing more of the bailout money modifying mortgage loans for all American homeowners. “Let’s just modify the whole country. That would be the best thing, instead of throwing all this money at Wall Street like we’ve been doing, let’s modify Main Street, because America really needs it,” he said.
About Ralph R. Roberts Ralph R. Roberts, GRI, CRS is a real estate-focused consumer advocate who knows a thing or two about overcoming challenges. An award-winning author and REALTOR®, Ralph lost one of his own homes to foreclosure in the late 1970s, and soon thereafter added a foreclosure division to his real estate business. Since then, Ralph and his team has led thousands of families through the foreclosure maze, informing them of their options, including loan modification, and steering them clear of the most common pitfalls while empowering them with the information required to get on with their lives. Ralph is an award-winning REALTOR® and author who has penned several successful books, including Foreclosure Self-Defense For Dummies (Wiley), and Protect Yourself from Real Estate and Mortgage Fraud: Preserving the American Dream of Homeownership (Kaplan). His latest book, Loan Modification For Dummies (Wiley), is slated for publication in summer of 2009. For more information about Ralph please visit www.keepmyhouse.com.
Ralph R. Roberts is the spokesperson for Federal Loan Modification Law Center, LLP, a law firm dedicated to preserving the American Dream of Homeownership by successfully renegotiating loan agreements between homeowners and lenders. For more information please call 1-877-39-HOUSE (1-877-394-6873) or visit www.fedmod.com.
In Washington, elected officials and political appointees are tripping over themselves to bail out corporate America and Wall Street. In the meantime, nobody seems to have any sense of urgency for dealing with the looming problem on Main Street, which is experiencing the worst foreclosure epidemic since the Great Depression.
My new website and blog — KeepMyHouse.com — is aimed at helping distressed homeowners navigate the complexities involved with loan modifications and connect with others involved in a similar situation.
There’s been so much talk about real estate agent teams recently. Are they good for the real estate industry? Are they bad for the broker? Regardless of the answer, real estate agent teams are popping up all over the map–from small towns to giant cities. Big or small, real estate agent teams (mini-powerhouses is what I like to call them) are changing the the way real estate practitioners work with buyers and sellers, vendors, members of the media, and more.
With those thoughts as the backdrop for today’s post, next week I’ll be in New York for RISMedia’s 19th Annual Leadership Conference, where I’ll be joined by dozens of other real estate industry professionals as we explore best practices in building and maintaining a high functioning real estate agent team. This year’s event, which takes place at The Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, promises to be another memorable RISMedia-coordinated event.
My session–a panel discussion I’ll be facilitating titled The ABCs of Forming a Winning Agent Team–will teach Leadership Conference attendees the basic steps toward forming their own agent team. Joining me, as Panelists, are a number of successful Realtors who already know the in’s and out’s of running a successful real estate agent team, including:
Today and tomorrow I’ll be in Colorado with my assistant and co-author, Lois Maljak, attending the 3rd Annual RISMedia CEO Exchange. This year’s Exchange–which is once again being hosted by RE/MAX founder Dave Liniger at his privately owned and managed Sanctuary Golf Course and Clubhouse, in Sedalia, CO–is an invitation-only event that draws the top 100 real estate brokers in the U.S.
If you run a real estate brokerage–like all of the people attending the CEO Exchange–you have to provide consistent and professional training, a strong and appropriately supportive company culture, along with a positive work environment for the agents, specialists and support staff who work for your organization. If you don’t, especially in today’s economy, your agents could flounder!
As a part of this year’s CEO Exchange agenda, I’ve been asked to serve on a panel discussion titled “Are You a Good Manager? Managing Your Agents and Agent Teams.” My fellow panelists and I are charged with sharing best practices and tip, tricks, strategies, and even warnings so other top brokers can learn from our successes and mistakes.
Our panel is being moderated by Bob Blount, CEO of RE/MAX Allegiance. Bob’s operation includes 1,150 real estate agents working in 35 offices in Virginia and Maryland.
Since attendance at this week’s event is by invitation-only, it’s unlikely anyone stumbling across this blog post would be able to sit in my session. That being the case, I strongly recommend to anyone starting or managing a real estate agent team, that you pick up a copy of my latest book, “Power Teams: The Complete Guide to Building and Managing a Winning Real Estate Agent Team,” which I co-authored with RISMedia’s President & CEO, John Featherston.
Southeast Michigan’s most popular and respected business newspaper and website recently took the time to interview me about the state of the house flipping market here in Michigan. The interview/story made it to the front page of the current edition of Crain’s Detroit Business.
I am pleased to announce that my latest book, Power Teams: The Complete Guide to Building and Managing a Winning Real Estate Agent Team, is now available. Co-authored with RISMedia President & CEO John Featherston, Power Teams is a definitive resource for Realtors and real estate agent teams alike. Like all of my other books, this one is packed with proven strategies and best practices, and includes insight from some of the nation’s leading real estate agent teams.
From my co-author and publisher, John Featherston:
Being a real estate agent just isn’t what it used to be. Today’s real estate consumers are more sophisticated and knowledgeable than ever before. Ralph and I both believe that in order to remain competitive, agents have to do much more–place more phone calls, ramp up their marketing efforts, offer additional services, and spend more time with their clients to better understand the needs of today’s real estate consumers. Many agents are feeling the strain and looking to the team concept as a solution for themselves and their customers. In Power Teams, we help agents–and brokers–overcome the obstacles of creating and succeeding with an agent teams.
In Power Teams, John and I set out to:
Define and explain the agent team concept
Review the various agent team models
Help agents decide whether the agent team concept is right for them
Show agents how to build a team from the ground up
To order a copy of Power Teams, please contact Pat Hatton, RISMedia Account Executive, at (800) 724-6000 ext. 124 or e-mail. pat@rismedia.com
Today’s edition of The New York Times carried a story by Joanne Kaufman entitled, “A Shift in Real Estate Books.” The story is about how publishers are scrambling to get books to market to help homeowners and real estate investors with the downturn in the housing market and increasing foreclosures.
The article begins by focusing on the fact that even well-to-do celebrities are having trouble. Recently, Ed McMahon–famous for serving as Johnny Carson’s co-host and for making a small number of people happy as spokesperson for American Family Publishing sweepstakes–has run into some financial trouble and is facing foreclosure on his $4.8 million in home loans. As Kaufman’s article points out, I attempted to contact McMahon to offer my help in reviewing his real estate files (to see if he had been mislead or worse by his financial advisors or the real estate industry professionals who worked on his behalf), but I didn’t get very far.
In any event, The New York Times article serves as a nice nod toward those of us work hard to write great books that truly help homeowners navigate their way through testy waters.
From The New York Times:
A few years ago, when the housing market was white-hot, companies that publish how-to books were tripping over themselves to pump out titles about buying property and making money in the real estate business.
Now that the bottom has fallen out of the housing market, the opposite is true: publishers are updating their backlist titles as well as rushing out newly acquired manuscripts to advise consumers who may have stumbled in the housing game.
As I mentioned I would be back on the first of February, I am now in Pasadena, California, speaking at ARELLO’s (Association of Real Estate License Law Officials’) MidYear Meeting. David Marsh, ARELLO’s Law and Policy Consultant, and I are here presenting “Protecting Mortgage Consumers: The Latest on Real Estate Fraud and Legislation.”
If you’re unfamiliar with ARELLO, the organization founded in 1930 to facilitate the exchange of information and cooperation among regulators and policy makers in the area of real property. Today, the organization has grown in stature and in recognition by growing its membership, attaining financial stability, and formulating and adopting uniform policies and standards in the fields of education, administration and enforcement. From everything I have seen thus far, it is clear to me that the association’s membership is sincerely committed to the effective administration and enforcement of the license laws and of the importance of regulation in a healthy marketplace.
David will lead off our presentation by providing conference attendees with an update on current and pending state and federal laws, while I’ll be sharing information about the latest trends in real estate and mortgage fraud. For more information about the conference or its attendees, visit the ARELLO website.
I am pleased to announce that my latest book, Power Teams: The Complete Guide to Building and Managing a Winning Real Estate Agent Team, is now available. Co-authored with RISMedia President & CEO John Featherston, Power Teams is a definitive resource for Realtors and real estate agent teams alike. Like all of my other books, this one is packed with proven strategies and best practices, and includes insight from some of the nation’s leading real estate agent teams.
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