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June 25-National Catfish Day

It’s been said that the best business deals are made on the golf course. There’s no doubt that a lot of business happens outside the office, whether it’s golf, lunch or dinner. That’s because people do business with people. A social setting gives you and your prospect the opportunity to get to know each other better, as people. Poor etiquette can turn your prospect off rather quickly so, on National Etiquette Week, we’ve compiled four etiquette tips to help you score more business.

Tee time
If you want to lose a potential customer before you even meet them, then show up late. You should respect the fact that they’ve given you precious time from their busy day to meet with you. Try to be there early if you can. If you show up late, you give the impression that you had something more important than meeting with them. If you are going to be late, let them know as soon as you can.

Flag down the beer cart
Ordering alcohol with a prospect can be a sticky situation. A formal dinner typically calls for a bottle of wine, but for lunch or on the golf course, it isn’t as easy. A good rule of thumb is to allow your guest to order their drink first. If they go for a water or soda, follow suit. If drinks are in order, remember that you are at a meeting so moderation is key.

Par for the course
The number one question most people have is, “Should I let them win?” The answer is no. Intentionally losing can be an insult to a customer, so play to your ability. A golf outing with a prospect is about building a connection. Make sure they have a good time and the business side of things will take care of itself.

Keep the club in your hand
This should go without saying, but be polite. If people are doing business with people, most don’t want to do business with a jerk. The better the personal connect you make with this prospect, the more loyal the customer will be in the long run.

To keep them looking bright and clean use a light mist of wax-based aerosol spray once or twice a week. Don’t put on too much – you don’t want to soak the surface and make it greasy. Wipe the mist with a clean, lint-free cloth, and never use oils to keep away fingerprints – lint will stick to the oil. Also, don’t use cleaners with bleach after you’ve put on the waxy layer, or it will dry out and lose some of the luster. And finally, don’t use anything abrasive, not even products that are advertised as mild and gentle, such as Soft Scrub or Scotch-Brite pads. You don’t want to scratch or ruin the surface.

Lest you think all of today’s sellers are under the gun and will just put up with whatever behavior buyers dish out, be aware that there are still many multiple offer situations in which buyers have to compete with each other to get a home – buyers who trigger these turnoffs tend to lose in those scenarios.  Also, avoiding these seller turnoffs can create a transactional environment of cooperation and avoid things turning adversarial.  That, in turn, can empower you to score a better price, get extra items you want thrown into the deal, and even negotiate more flexibility around your escrow and move-in timelines – all perks that can make your life easier and your budget go further.

For sellers, these turnoffs pose the potential of irritating you out of an otherwise good deal – maybe even the only deal you have!

Here’s a few of the most common buyer-perpetuated seller turnoffs, with tips for sellers on how to keep an emotional (and economic) even keel, even if your home’s buyer makes some of these waves:

1. Trash-talking. Trash-talkers are the home buyers who think they’re going to negotiate the list price down by slamming the house, telling the sellers how little it is really worth, how the house across the street sold for nothing, why the school on the corner should make them desperate to give the place away, etc. This strategy never works; in fact, when you attack a seller and their home, you only cause them to be defensive, and think up all the reasons that (a) their home is not what you say it is, and (b) they shouldn’t sell their home to you! 

Sometimes this happens with buyers who actually love a house and just walk around it fantasizing about all the ways they would customize it to their tastes while a seller is there.  Sellers: avoid being at home while your home is being shown.  Buyers: save your commentary for your agent; if you do encounter the seller in person keep your conversation respectful and avoid critiquing the house or the list price.

2. Being unqualified for mortgage financing. When a seller signs a buyer’s offer, most often the seller agrees to effectively pull the home off the market, forgoing other buyers who might be interested.  As such, the only thing worse than getting no offers on your home is getting an offer, getting into contract, then having the whole thing fall apart when the buyer’s loan falls through – especially if that could have been predicted or avoided up front.

Sellers: Work with your agent to vet your home’s buyers’ qualifications, including their loan approval, down payment and earnest money deposit – before you sign a contract.  It’s not overkill for your agent to call the buyers’ mortgage pro before you sign the contract and get a level of comfort for how robust their qualifications are.  Buyers:  Get pre-approved.  Seriously.  And make sure that you don’t buy a car, quit your job, deposit lottery winnings or do any other financial twitchery between the time you get loan approval and the time you close escrow on your home.

3. Making unjustified lowball offers. No one likes to feel like they are being taken advantage of.  And sellers generally know the ballpark amount that their home is worth, as well as what they need to sell it for to get their mortgage paid off.  Yes – the price you pay for a home should be driven by its fair market value, rather than the seller’s financial needs, and deals are more available in a market like the current one, in which supply so vastly outpaces demand. But just throwing uber-lowball offers out at sellers hoping one will hit the spot is not generally a successful strategy, especially if you really, really want a given property.

Sellers:  Don’t get overly emotional about receiving a lowball offer; counter at the price you and your agent decide makes sense based on the total circumstances, including your motivation level, recent comps and the interest/activity level your listing is receiving. Buyers:  Work through the similar, nearby homes that have recently sold (a/k/a comparables) before you make an offer to factor the home’s fair market value into your offer price – also factor in how much you want the place, too.  Don’t be amazed if you make an offer far below asking, and don’t get a response.

4. Renegotiating mid-stream. Sellers plan their finances, moves and  – to some extent – their lives around the purchase price a buyer agrees to pay for their home.  If you get into contract to buy a home, find out during inspections that costly repairs need to be made, then propose a lower sale price, repair credit or even actual repairs to the seller, that’s sensible and fair.  But if you were aware that the property needed a lot of work before you made an offer on it, then you come back asking for beaucoup bucks’ worth of credit or price reductions midstream, expect the seller to cry foul.  And holding the seller up two weeks into the transaction because you caught a case of buyer’s remorse? Not cool, and not likely to foster the spirit of cooperation you may need to get your deal closed.

Sellers: avoid mid-stream price renegotiations by having a full set of inspection reports and repair bids at hand when you list your home. Buyers: try to avoid renegotiating the entire deal unless you get some major surprises at your inspections or inflating small repairs to try to justify a major price cut.

5. Misleading or setting the seller up.  Remember when we talked about buyer turn-offs?  Being misled by listing photos or very fluffy property descriptions was high on the list.  The same goes for sellers.Offering way over asking with the plan to hammer the seller for a reduction when the house doesn’t appraise at the purchase price?  #LAME  Making an as-is offer planning the whole time to come back and ask for every penny ante repair called out by the inspectors?  Lame squared.

Sellers:  If you get multiple offers and are tempted to take a sky-high one or one that claims to be all cash, consider requesting proof that the buyer has sufficient funds to make up the difference between what you think the home will appraise for and the actual sale price, and statements showing the cash truly exists.  Buyers: Don’t be lame. I’m not saying you have to tell the seller exactly what your top dollar is, but making offers with terms designed to intentionally mislead is really, really bad form – and can result in losing the home entirely if and when your bluff gets called.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/5-things-home-buyers-do-that-turn-sellers-off-and-kill-deals-2011-3#ixzz1KAoA6oNw

With New England’s sometimes-grueling weather playing no role in the selection process, Portland was joined in the top 15 by three Massachusetts communities: Peabody (14th), Worcester (9th), and Cambridge (7th).

The website advised people looking for a better life to “start your search with these places.”

Portland’s Commercial Street was recently voted one of the country’s great streets by the American Planning Association. The red-brick buildings and cobblestone streets of the tony Old Port district dazzle shoppers and gourmands alike. The city economy is bolstered by the presence of medical services, banking, and educational institutions, the Globe reported in February.

But the city’s port has suffered the worst in the deep recession, and Portlanders are taking a hard look at how to preserve their city’s heritage and keep fading marine industries alive.

The magazine said it looked at measures such as income growth per household, cost of living, crime data, a leisure index, and unemployment statistics in making its rankings.

1.       Myth: Buyers with bad credit can’t qualify for home loans. Obviously, mortgage guidelines have tightened up, big time, since the housing bubble burst, and they seem likely to tighten even further over the long-term. But just this moment, they have relaxed a bit.  In the last couple of weeks, two of the nation’s largest lenders of FHA loans announced that they’ve dropped the minimum FICO score guideline from 620 (which allows for some credit imperfections) to 580, which is actually a fairly low score.

At a FICO score of 620, buyers can qualify for FHA loans at many lenders with only 3.5 percent down. With a score of 580, the lenders are looking for more like 5 to 10 percent down – they want to see you put more of your own skin in the game, and the higher down payment lowers the risk that you’ll default.  However, if your credit has taken a recessionary hit, like that of so many Americans, this might create a glimmer of hope that you’ll be able to take advantage of low prices and interest rates without needing years of credit repair.

2.     Myth: The Mortgage Interest Deduction isn’t long for this world.  Homeowners saved over $85 billion in 2008 by deducting their mortgage interest on their income tax returns. A few months ago, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform caused a massive wave of fear to ripple throughout the world of real estate consumers and professionals when they recommended Mortgage Interest Deduction (MID) reform, which would dramatically reduce the size of the deduction.

Fact is, the Commission made a sweeping set of deficit-busting recommendations to Congress, a few of which are likely to be adopted.  Fortunately for buyers and sellers, MID reform is not one of them.  Very powerful industry groups and economists have been working with Congress to plead the case that MID reform any time in the near future would only handicap the housing recovery.  Congress-folk aren’t interested in stopping the stabilization of the real estate market.  As such, the MID is nearly universally thought of as safe – even by those who disagree that it should be.

3.       Myth:  It’s just a matter of time before loan guidelines loosen up.  The US Treasury Department recently recommended the elimination of mortgage industry giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I won’t get into the eye-glazing details of it here, but the long and the short is that (a) this is highly likely to happen, and (b) it will make mortgage loans much harder and costlier to get, for both buyers and homeowners.   It’s possible that loans are as easy to get as they’re going to get.  So don’t expect that if you hold out, zero-down mortgages will come back into vogue anytime soon. Fortunately, Fannie and Freddie aren’t likely to disappear for another 5-7 years, so you have a little time to pull your down payment and credit together. If you want to get into the market, the time to get yourself ready is now!

4.       Myth: If you don’t have equity, you can’t refi. Much ado is being made about how stuck so many people are in their bad loans, because they don’t have the equity to refinance their way out of them.  If you’re severely upside down (meaning you own much, much more than your home is worth), stuck may be the situation. But there are actually a couple of ways homeowners can refi their underwater home loans.  If your loan is held by Fannie or Freddie (which you can find out, here), they will actually refinance it up to 125% of its current value, assuming you otherwise qualify for the loan.  That means, if your home is worth $100,000, you could refinance a loan up to $125,000, despite the fact that your home can’t secure the full amount of the loan.

If your loan is not owned by Fannie or Freddie, you might be a candidate for the FHA “Short Refi” program. While most mortgage workout plans are only available to people who are behind on their loans, the Short Refi program is only available to homeowners who are current on their mortgages and need to refinance up to 115 percent of their homes’ value.  So, if you owe $250,000 on your home, you can refinance via an FHA Short Refi even if your home’s value is as low as $217,000. If you think you’re a good candidate for a short refi, contact your mortgage broker, stat – there are some in Congress who think that this program is so underutilized (only 245 applications have been submitted since it rolled out in September – no typo!) that its funding should be diverted to other needy programs.

5.       Myth:  If you’ve lost your job and can’t make your mortgage payment, you might as well mail your keys in.  Until recently, this was essentially true – virtually every loan modification and refinancing opportunity required that your economic hardship be over before you could qualify. And documenting income has always been high on the requirements checklist. But there are some new funds available in the states with the hardest hit housing and job markets, which have been designated specifically for out-of-work homeowners.

The US Treasury Department’s Hardest Hit Fund allocated $7.6 billion to the states listed below – all of which are now using some portion of these funds to offer up to $3,000 per month for up to 36 months in mortgage payment assistance to help unemployed homeowners avoid foreclosure.  Contact the state agency listed below if you need this sort of help:

• Alabama: http://www.hardesthitalabama.com/
• Arizona: https://www.savemyhomeaz.gov/
• California: https://www.keepyourhomecalifornia.org/
• Florida: https://www.flhardesthithelp.org/
• Georgia: http://www.dca.state.ga.us/housing/homeownership/programs/hardesthitfund.asp
• Illinois:http://www.ihda.org/
• Indiana: http://www.877gethope.org/
• Kentucky: http://www.kyhousing.org/
• Michigan: http://www.michigan.gov/mshda/buyers/save_the_dream/helping+hardest+hit+homeowners+-+contact+your+mortgage+servicer+for+assistance
• Mississippi: http://www.mshomecorp.com/firstpage.htm
• Nevada: http://www.nahac.org/
• New Jersey: http://www.state.nj.us/dca/hmfa/home/foreclosure/homekeepers.html
• North Carolina: http://www.ncforeclosureprevention.gov/
• Ohio: http://www.savethedream.ohio.gov/
• Oregon: http://www.oregonhomeownerhelp.org/
• Rhode Island: http://www.hhfri.org/
• South Carolina: http://www.scmortgagehelp.com/
• Tennessee: http://www.thda.org/
• Washington D.C.: http://www.dchfa.org/

No matter your plans, consider optimizing your home’s energy efficiency. With time and strategy on your side, your projects can help you trim the baggage off your bills.  Here are some ideas to get you started:

1. Buy an energy use monitor.
While surprises are nice, it’s pretty terrible when you get a surprise on your energy bill. As much as you may try to save money by turning off the lights, the task is tough if you’re not setting concrete goals for yourself. So, figure out how much you’re spending, and set goals to reduce those costs over time. You’ll be in a better position to save if you can see the numbers in action. 

2. Replace your power strips.
Even when you’re not using your computers, televisions, and other appliances, they are still using energy – what a waste! Don’t let your zombie appliances cost you more money than you need to spend. A smart power strip can be purchased for as little as $30, but keeps your vampire appliances from sucking you dry all year long.

3. Rethink your water bottle. 
Many people buying bottled water for its convenience and clean taste. Instead, opt for a water bottle with a self-filtering mechanism so you can filter the water that comes from your tap and enjoy it for pennies a glass.

4. Be smarter about your utilities.
If your utility bills are climbing the best way to cut those costs is to find out what’s causing them. Use an online electric, gas and water monitor to keep track of how you’re spending. Start out with Google PowerMeter, which is available for free.

5. Replace your light bulbs.
Take a moment to count the number of light bulbs in your home. You’ve probably never thought about your ceiling and floor lamps from that perspective, have you? Now, imagine how much energy you might be wasting. Next time your bulb reaches the end of its lifespan, upgrade it with an energy-efficient compact fluorescent model. In addition, utility companies occasionally offer rebates for energy efficiency projects. Contact your provider directly, and check to see if any programs are available in your area.

IN PICTURES: 6 Ways To Save Money This Summer

6. Install low-flow shower heads.
From sprinkler systems to showers, it’s easy to run up a water bill. A low-flow shower head is an affordable way to cut down your home’s water use. In a nutshell, these work by reducing the pressure on flowing water. Less pressure means less flowing water that ultimately costs you money. If you don’t want to spend $40 on a new shower head, you can start by making an effort to stop using water at full blast.

7. Use a fan.
Even though springtime means sunshine, the weather doesn’t necessitate an air conditioner. Save the luxury for the summer when you really need it and stick to a fan this spring. If you’re revamping your home’s climate system, consider investing in a programmable thermostat. This will help you monitor your home’s energy use when those air conditioning expenses start to grow.

The Bottom Line
Plan your goals before delving into a home improvement project. Do you want to save money? Do you want a more environmentally efficient home? How about both? Once you answer these big questions, you’ll be ready to work through the small details. Even if a project is easy and inexpensive, the investment will take you further when you have the big picture in mind.

For Sale: 4BR/2+1BA Single Family House in Cumberland, ME, $215,000

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