HVCC: Bad or Badly Implemented?

The Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) is getting a bad rap for causing what real estate professionals say is a rise in inaccurate appraisals, Alfred Pollard told a packed room of REALTORS® Friday in a risk management-regulatory issues joint forum at the 2009 NAR Conference & Expo in San Diego.

Pollard, the general counsel for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), said HVCC was released at a time when the economy was in a massive contraction—what he called a systemic event—and that this broader picture has to be taken into consideration when talking about valuation trends. "Concerns [over valuations] might not be 100-percent tied to this code," he said.

FHFA oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which earlier this year adopted HVCC and applied it nationwide in an agreement with the New York attorney general. HVCC expires in late 2010 but the two secondary-mortgage-market companies can retain all or parts of HVCC going forward.

It isn’t fair to criticize all appraisal management companies (AMCs) for handing out valuation assignments to inexperienced or out-of-market appraisers who are willing to work for reduced fees, said Mark Johnson, chief operating officer of LSI, a large AMC. Any AMC that lets appraisers work outside their area of geographic competency is violating appraisal standards under USPAP and they should be reported. "I do believe there have been some bad actors," Johnson said.

The average travel distance of the 20,000 appraisers in his company's database is eight to 12 miles, he said. Any appraiser who wants to travel more than 25 miles under his company's policy must explain why and get an OK. "We don't want guys driving 50 miles," he said.

Steve White of Keller Williams Realty in Santa Clarita, Calif., and chair of NAR's Risk Management Committee, said real estate professionals are losing deals because valuations are coming in far below the price agreed upon by the buyer and seller and that the process for getting valuations reconsidered doesn't work. Valuations are taking so long that there is no time to get them reconsidered before the deal collapses. And when real estate professionals try to share comparables or familiarize out-of area appraisers with unique market issues, appraisers say they can't talk to them.

Pollard and Johnson said there's nothing in HVCC that prohibits real estate professionals from sharing comparable or other information with appraisers. "You can talk; you just can't drive them to a value," said Pollard.

—Source: Robert Freedman, REALTOR® magazine

Great Personal Branding Tips

5 Questions You Must Ask to Make Sure Your Personal Brand Measures Up

Posted By susanne On November 2, 2009 @ 5:14 pm In Best Practices, Business Development, Real Estate, Technology, Today's Marketplace
RISMEDIA, November 3, 2009— http://rismedia.com/2009-11-02/5-questions-you-must-ask-to-make-sure-your-personal-brand-measures-up/

Creating and maintaining a personal brand is crucial to finding success in today’s real estate market. While an elaborate personal logo and a catchy tagline are solid foundations for your personal brand, it is important that every contact you have with a consumer defines and reinforces your personal brand. Here, Robb Murry, Chief Marketing Officer for The Personal Marketing Company discusses the five questions you must ask yourself to make sure your personal brand measures up to today’s standards.

Robb Murry
Chief Marketing Officer
The Personal Marketing Company
www.tpmco.com

Building an effective personal brand goes beyond an elaborate personal logo and catchy tagline; it lies within how consumers in your market perceive you. Whether you are managing it, or even aware of it, every contact with a consumer defines and reinforces your personal brand. From your personal website and e-mail marketing, to your Facebook page and the way you answer your phone, all of the marketing communications you distribute work together to define your personal brand.

Your brand personality is how customers perceive you, for better or worse. Managing that perception across every contact with consumers is critical in today’s market where consumers increasingly perceive all real estate agents to be the same. To set yourself apart, you must differentiate your personal brand from your competitor’s.

Over the years, many agents have gotten away with selling or providing great service alone without truly managing a personal brand. Changes in the market and how agents are marketing themselves have made it clear that achieving long-term success in real estate requires an effective personal brand.

How well do you manage your personal brand? Do your customers’ perceptions match the personality you want them to see? How well do you manage these perceptions? Here’s a great way to grade yourself on how well you’re managing your personal brand.

1. Do you treat clients like real people? Your commission check might come from a company, but people are choosing to work with you. Your marketing should speak directly to the person about things that are important to them. Hint: All good marketing makes an emotional connection with consumers, not a factual one. Make sure your marketing message communicates the answer to the old advertising idiom WIFM (What’s in it for me?)

2. What’s different? Are you really any different from the other agents in your market? Trying to differentiate on great service is a common mistake. The customer expects it rather than viewing it as an added benefit—every other agent in your market can promise great service. You must find the benefit to the consumer that only you provide. Your “one big thing” must be relevant to your customer as well as to you.

3. How does your brand make them feel? What’s the emotional takeaway that your clients receive when they do business with your brand? In marketing, it’s called your “higher order” benefit. Do they feel comfort knowing you are minding the details in their best interest? Or maybe they feel empowered because of your strong negotiating skills on their behalf? Make sure you are communicating how they feel when they do business with your brand.

4. Does every touchpoint build your brand? hgMake sure that your one-of-a-kind personal brand is reinforced in every exposure people have with you. Your e-mails, direct mail, your personal website, the message on your voicemail, even your latest tweet on Twitter. Your goal is that if your name was covered up on your marketing pieces, someone familiar with your brand would still know it was from you.

5. Do you deliver your marketing message in a memorable and appealing way? Defining your personal brand in today’s market is not optional, it’s necessary. Your brand should be constantly re-evaluated to make sure the message is consistent and the right message for your audience. Agents who do not maintain the brand experience in today’s competitive market will not survive.

Always remember that your clients are people with real lives, dealing with daily challenges. Your well-rounded brand message should be targeted and communicated across all marketing channels. The key to managing your personal brand is to have a marketing plan in place for your business.

Define your message and develop an effective plan for getting that message out to consumers in a clear and consistent way. Otherwise, you’re leaving it up to the customer to decide your personal brand…without input from you. It’s then that you find you’re just another real estate agent among thousands of choices.

NC Real Estate: Let's set the record straight

Kudos to the NCAR for assembling and publishing superlatives on NC Real Estate: http://www.ncrealtors.org/uploads/FortheRecord11-09.pdf

HOMEOWNERSHIP
> First-time homebuyers continue to fuel the housing
rebound. In the first seven months of 2009, first-time
homebuyers – mostly between the ages of 25 and 45 –
accounted for nearly 50 percent of home sales.
> N.C. existing home sales posted its fourth consecutive
month of improvement in September, the longest period
of monthly gains in more than five years.
> While nationwide housing production remained virtually
unchanged in September, the South registered a 7.5 percent
gain for the month, making it the only region in the
country to post an increase in construction starts.
> Over the past three years, nearly half of all states have
recorded home price gains in the majority of their metro
areas, particularly in the South, the Plains, and most of
the non-coastal West.

ECONOMY
> The nation's gross domestic product – the broadest
measure of the government's total goods and services
produced – expanded at an annual rate of 3.5 percent in
the quarter that ended in September. Up until the third
quarter, the GDP had been shrinking for nearly a year.
> N.C. continues to top a wide range of rankings. In
October alone, Asheville was named among the top 10
best affordable places to retire; Durham was predicted to
be one of the top cities to post a big rebound; and Raleigh
was named one of the top locations for newcomers.
> N.C. ranks as the sixth most popular state in the nation
when it comes to where people want to live, according to
a recent Harris Interactive poll.
> Federal stimulus money sent directly to N.C. state
agencies has saved or created at least 24,000 jobs,
according to the North Carolina Office of Economic
Recovery and Investment.

FORECLOSURE FACTS
> National foreclosure rates soared in the third quarter,
with one in every 136 homes going into foreclosure.
North Carolina, however, had the 14th-lowest foreclosure
rate in the nation, with one in every 417 homes going
into foreclosure.
> North Carolina's State Home Foreclosure Prevention
Project has helped more than 2,100 families prevent
foreclosure since its inception in January. Fight NC
Foreclosure, sponsored by NC REALTORS® and other
groups, is an extension of this Foreclosure Prevention
project. The campaign highlights a toll-free number,
1-866-234-4857, and a website: www.fightncforeclosure.
org.
> The North Carolina Housing Finance Agency, which
operates affordable housing programs in the state, was
recently awarded $895,350 in federal money that will be
used to help stem the tide of home foreclosures. This is
the third grant the agency has received, with funds
representing nearly $6 million. So far, the effort is
credited with helping more than 1,100 residents stay in
their homes.