But there was one key difference, Dustin’s favorite hoodie proudly contains his company logo while mine promotes Lululemon.  A guy walks by, turns around and looks back at us and then proceeds to walk straight up to Dustin and ask him about the company he works for.

The catalyst for this conversation was of course the grey hoodie with the company logo. What followed was a fascinating conversation about business.

When I started selling real estate back in the 1990′s the brand I worked for was Realty World. They really pushed all their agents to wear “career apparel”. From t-shirts, sweatshirts and name badges to the very special navy blue blazer. We were to always be a walking billboard for our brand. Most of you will remember the gold jacket that Century 21 made notorious using this same philosophy.

So here’s the moral of the blog (so to speak). Wear your company logo on your clothing and I guarantee people will ask you questions and you’ll uncover business opportunities that you would have missed otherwise.

Then this headline caught my attention: “This is the Most Epic Brand Meltdown on Facebook Ever”.

Yikes! Turns out a recent episode of the show didn’t follow the typical story line. The owners were impossible to work with and the TV drama turned into a social media drama with the help of sites like Reddit, Yelp and Facebook!

This is all very fascinating (and completely painful). As a brand manager it does raise a key question I’m often asked: What do you do if someone posts a negative comment on your Facebook page (or other social media sites)?

Here are some options to consider: 

• No nothing. Don’t acknowledge the comment but leave it up. 
• It depends. It depends on the nature of the comment and the validity. Remember that two of the virtues of social media are transparency and authenticity. So if your brand messed up, your might be best off to come clean, apologize and do what you can to make the situation right. Companies that do this usually get kudos up for this approach.
• Delete the comment. If it is off the wall and legitimately doesn’t have merit, this might make sense.
• Provide clarification. A clarification of policies or procedures might be appropriate. Often you’ll see brands acknowledge the problem/situation publicly but send more detailed response privately. Which should include an attempt for a direct conversation via telephone if possible.

What you never, never want to do is fight it out on your Facebook page!! 

Eric Schmidt became well-known for his role as Chairman at Google and was one of the key players in taking the company from a start-up to the sensation we know it as today. Jared Cohen is also a Google veteran in his role as Director of Ideas. Prior to his Google life he was a former adviser to secretaries of state Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. The two men combined their passions for technology and world affairs to collaborate on the writing of The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business.

The pair travelled to dozens of developing countries to research the impact of gaining access to the Internet will have on the people’s futures and to learn about their past. Much speculation was made about  how access to an online world might have changed the outcome of some pretty horrible events. To learn more about these stories you’ll have to read the book.

Here are a couple of topics that were discussed that I found of particular interest (bring these out at your next dinner party and have fun!):

• How has technology transformed social relations?
• What’s the balance between technology and social forces?

There were lots of interesting statements that got woven into the conversations. Here are a few that I made note of:

• The biggest risk you take is staying in the status quo.
• There’s no country in the world that is worse off because of the Internet’s arrival.
• It is easy to be optimistic about the positive impact the Internet can have, but it would be dishonest. Because there are lots of potential for downsides (fraud, loss of privacy, etc.)
• The next generation of workers will know more about technology then the people who employ them (especially if they work in non tech industries).

When the two men were asked how they managed to write the book with their vast professional commitments and travelling schedules, they answered with a grin “We used Google Docs”. That got a groan from the crowd.

Thanks Google for a fun night!

Here’s an article on short sales that was published in February this year. We were optimistic that procedural changes would shorten timelines and make short sales easier for all parties involved. What’s your experience been since these changes came into practice?

One of the biggest real estate stories last year was the explosive growth in short sales. Short sales accounted for somewhere between 20-25% of all home sales in 2012 – approximately 1 million homes sold for less than the amount due on their mortgages.

Short sales helped the market in a number of ways. They reduced the number of foreclosure actions. They helped rapidly clear out distressed inventory. They helped stabilize home prices.  And with another 3-4 million seriously delinquent loans and millions of homeowners underwater on their mortgages, we can expect to see short sales volume increase over the next year.

While the number of short sales set a new record, the term “short sale” was still a bit of an oxymoron. For the most part, short sales were anything but “short.” They required more paperwork, extensive – often contentious – negotiations between the seller, buyer and lender (or, in some cases, multiple lenders), and far more time than a traditional real estate transaction.

But the process showed signs of improvement in 2012.  Sales which previously might have taken 6-9 months to complete, now took as little as 60-90 days. Lenders improved their processes and added qualified staff, while real estate agents and brokers developed expertise in the short sale process.

More good news is on the horizon. Effective February 1^st, new guidelines for the government’s HAFA (Home Affordable Foreclosure Alternatives) program should make short sale efforts even easier.

The changes to the program are designed to help expedite the process by removing some of the hurdles that existed – removing some of the burdens on the participants in the transaction, and standardizing both the paperwork and the approach for all short sales on all loans held by the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac).

Among the more notable changes to the program:

• The time frame for making a decision to offer a short sale has been reduced from 45 to 30 days.

• The amount of reimbursement for second lien holders has been increased from $1 for every $3 owed, to $2 for every $3 owed, with a cap of $5,000. This is a potential increase of $3,000 to help solve one of the biggest problems in getting short sales approved.

• Resale prohibitions have been relaxed. Previously, a home bought via short sale couldn’t be sold for 90 days. Now the hold period is only 30 days, or 90 days if the sales price is greater than 120% of the short sale price.

• The GSEs have aligned their programs and formalized a number of items, including the encouragement of pre-approved sales, defined timelines, prohibition against foreclosures if there is a short sale approval or pending transaction, the release of liability for borrowers with a hardship, and relocation assistance.

• Three Treasury Department forms are being replaced with a new, simpler short sale notice (SSN) form that doesn’t require borrower or agent signatures.

• GSE pre-determined hardship standards (90+ days delinquent and a FICO score below 620) are being adopted across the board, and borrowers with this status can simply sign their hardship affidavit at closing.

All of these changes promise to help accelerate the number of short sales in 2013, so make sure you’re prepared to participate in this growing part of the market!

Note: The article originally appeared in RIS Media Real Estate Magazine, Feb 2013 edition page 35 and later appeared online at :  http://rismedia.com/2013-02-28/shortening-the-path-to-more-successful-short-sales/

Product Branding

In the real estate industry, our product is the house we are marketing for sale. How we brand our listings is critical to our overall success. The brochures, flyers, for sale sign, online marketing, open house etc. etc. are all a reflection of us and of our brand.

Service Branding

Our job is to serve buyers and sellers who are transacting in real estate. We are in a service industry. Unlike a product where you can create a brand that a client can see and touch, branding your service is a little more difficult. You need to create opportunities for consumers to engage and experience your service brand in order to really establish yourself.

Personality Branding

It’s long been said that people do business with people they know, like and trust. That couldn’t be more true anywhere than in the real estate business, where top agents leverage their personality to attract clients, retain them, and win referrals. Working your personality into your branding strategy is key to opening up and building a long-term business that you will enjoy and have fun at.

Combining Product, Service and Personality Branding

To understand how these three components of branding work together, think of Four Seasons Hotels. The product they are branding is a hotel room. They are world famous for their service. From managers to bellmen and housekeepers, every employee is deeply committed to providing an unparalleled level of service to the customer.  And their brand personality is one that is known for top quality. No matter where in the world you travel, if you are staying at a Four Seasons Hotel or you mention the Four Seasons brand, quality is a brand attribute that comes to mind.

I would be remiss if I didn’t cite Apple as an example of a fully integrated branding strategy. Apple’s list of products has grown over the years, but even with more products they have stayed true to their design style and identity. When you see an Apple product you immediately know it’s an Apple product. Apple service has become legendary.  Whether it’s a trip to the Genius Bar, an in-store training class, or Apple Care to cover life’s mishaps like dropping your iPad  (which I recently did and walked out of the store in 15 minutes with a new one), Apple makes it easy and fun.  Perhaps where Apple has excelled, in the most compelling way, is in the area of personality branding.  Apple is just cool. If you use an Apple product it says something about you. It just works; it’s easy but sophisicated. It – and by extension you – have got an identifiable personality!

Collectively the combination of product, service and personality branding are the foundation for a successful real estate brand. They are like a three-legged stool- without one or more your brand will be out of balance and ineffective.

This article was originally published in the April 2013 edition of RISMedia Real Estate Magazine (page 19) and online at RISMedia.com.

Since peaking at 69 percent in 2006, the U.S. homeownership rate has fallen to its current 65.4 percent. That’s a lot of former homeowners.

Now, investors see opportunity. Even as the housing market bottomed out and investors, burned by the housing downturn, left real estate, others saw new opportunities to convert these properties into rental units, targeting in many cases the same cohort of former homeowners who can’t–or won’t–get back into homeownership.

“We’re looking at a $1.5 trillion market and 12 million homes,” said Toni Moss, CEO of AmeriCatalyst LLC, Austin, Texas. “And there are five million homeowners who have been foreclosed on since 2006. There are a lot of people who prefer access over ownership.”

Laurie Hawkes, president of American Residential Properties, Scottsdale, Ariz., said the REO to rental opportunities began presenting in the Phoenix area as early as 2008.

“We saw this as an opportunity as the market began to over-correct itself,” Hawkes said here at the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Short Sale/REO Summit. “The bubbles aren’t coming back. Without the REO to rental market, the entire housing market would be so much worse now.”

Hawkes, whose company now operates REO to rental programs in nine states, said just as lenders have tightened their underwriting standards, consumers interested in REO to rental have better financial situations.

“For most of our customers, the percentage of their income spent for housing is 21 percent,” Hawkes said. “That’s a long way from the housing crisis, when many homeowners were spending more than half of their income on housing.”

For some people, the REO to rental market represents a tremendous opportunity to move distressed properties through the housing inventory. For others, enthusiasm for REO to rental strikes to closely to the last housing crisis.

Moss estimated that 70 percent of current investors in the REO to rental business are in it for the short term. “We’re seeing a tremendous amount of hype, and the last time we saw this kind of hype was during the subprime period,” she said. “[But] I think it’s a long-term trend; I’m not sure that [former homeowners] are going to readily get back into homeownership soon.”

Wendy Forsythe, executive vice president and head of global operations with Atlantic & Pacific Real Estate, Los Angeles, a brokerage network, said the REO to rental investment class has become important to her 1,100 agents.

“We spent a lot of time last year in training and educating, working with our investors and agents in taking advantage of this huge opportunity,” Forsythe said. “Investors are looking for agents who can meet their needs. We have a huge demand from investors and we need to know how to serve that demand.”

Forsythe said many brokers are looking for smaller properties or portfolios of properties. Her company developed a formula enabling brokers to identify properties through Multiple Listing Services to assist with individual investors. “It’s the small investor who is going to make the biggest difference in these markets,” she said.

MBA data show household formation, while improving, continues to lag. Over the past 20 years, household formation occurred at a rate of 1.2 million per year; since the end of 2006, however, as the housing downturn kicked in, the U.S. added 4.8 million renter households and lost 1.7 million owner households.

MBA Chief Economist Jay Brinkmann said since 2010, the U.S. has seen creation of more than one million new households per year, the majority of which has been rental units. And despite a low interest rate environment and data showing higher rental rates and growing dissatisfaction among renters, the “tipping point” back toward homeownership has not yet occurred.

“We have yet to see this turnaround in the market to homeownership,” Brinkmann said. “We have yet to see any real motivation among renters to move into a home purchase.”

Hawkes said many of these current renters could make the transition back to homeownership. “In about five years, we’re going to have a large group of renters who have a solid financial history who we could help purchase their next home,” she said.

Hawkes was critical of rules that make sale leasebacks to previous owners difficult, if not impossible. “We could have helped so many more people who had a chance to stay in their homes as renters,” she said.

Marie Chung, owner and director of Modern Estates, Los Angeles, said the REO to rental market is having an immediate impact on inventory and homeownership.

“Quite a few of the properties in Southern California are being sold as ‘occupied,’ and I can only assume that the investors are in this for the immediate financial return [from rentals],” Chung said.

Forsythe said the type of properties they look for depend on the investor. “What kind of rent are they looking for? What is their long-term strategy?” she said. “One of the factors involves how quickly they can get the property rented. Many investors think they can have the property rented within 30 days of closing, but they have to understand that there is some renovation involved to get it rent-ready, then marketing property, then actually getting the person into the property…there’s an education process involved.”

“To make this work, you need long-term price appreciation,” Hawkes said. “The question to watch is if the high-yielders stay in it for the long run.” She noted that in most markets, properties are still below-market priced. “There’s still a lot of room to grow,” she said.

Over the next 12-24 months, Hawkes said she expected a number of companies to seek investment to take on large-scale portfolio investment. “This sector could dwarf multifamily over time,” she said. “I would like to see more financing from banks.”

But Hawkes acknowledged that banks continue to show wariness about REO to rental-focused companies, and for good reason. She said companies must be able to show a “record of best practices and operational efficiencies” that has yet to prove out over the long term.

This article was written by Mike Sorohan and appeared on MBANewsLink on February 27, 2013.

Day 2 SXSW highlights:

• Watching Chris Anderson interview Elon Musk was fascinating and a bit uncomfortable when Chris praised him for his success at founding PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors and then slammed him for his not so successful personal life. Elon’s response “You can have great accomplishment, but it you are not having fun it really sucks.” He went on to admit that 2012 wasn’t a lot of fun for him and he hopes to change that in 2013. 
• 3D printing is all the rave these days. I attended a couple talks about 3D printing and fashion. I even touched a 3D printed shoe! The fashionista and shoeaholic in me is thrilled with the possibility of someday having a 3D printer in my house and printing my wardrobe!

I didn’t know it at the time, but when I was first introduced to Les Brown this was the internal struggle I was going through. I first saw Les Brown speak at a real estate conference of course. I don’t remember where or exactly when, but I do remember watching, listening and taking notes like a crazy person. His message, his humor, his humility and his stories were so powerful. At the end of his speech I ran to the back of the room where he had his merchandise table set up and bought everything he had.

About 2 years later, I packed up my life in Nova Scotia and headed to Toronto to take on the corporate world and jump into the next chapter of living my dreams. Driving out of my Dad’s driveway that morning was of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I knew life would never be the same.

Les’s book, Live Your Dreams has travelled with me from Nova Scotia, to Ontario across the border to New Jersey and across the country to now live with me in California! According to my handwriting on the inside cover, I first read it in December 1998. Fast forward 15 years later, Les is still as powerful on stage as he was that first time I saw him. His messages still makes me uncomfortable because they remind me that my biggest regrets will be the chances I didn’t take.

You must be willing to do the things today that other people won’t do in order to have the things tomorrow that other people won’t have.

This is a Les Brown quote that has been my personal mantra for 15 years. I say this to myself whenever I really don’t want to do something that I know I should do. Whether it’s that phone call I don’t really want to make, those emails that could wait until tomorrow but should be responded to today or the discipline to skip dessert and go for a run. To hear Les say these words from the stage again brought a flood of emotion as I thought of all the times I whispered them to myself.

I’ve come a long way from Coldbrook, Nova Scotia and have lived many dreams. Thanks Les Brown for reminding that the only thing holding me back from even bigger dreams is me.

You’ve got to be hungry!

I thought I was organized and prepared to get myself off to a great start. However, was a bit surprised by navigating the logistics. Let me explain….

Scarcity and abundance have been flipped. High-quality work is no longer scarce. Competence is no longer scarce, either. We have too many good choices—there’s an abundance of things to buy and people to hire.

What’s scarce is trust, connection, and surprise. 

This is a quote from Seth Godin’s new book The Icarus Deception.

Read it, think about it, talk about it, take action…