Jumping Off the Condo Bandwagon

I have to admit the recent sales numbers for condominiums from the National Association of Realtors had me scratching my head.

According to the report (published in June), existing condominium and co-op sales increased 6.1 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 520,000 units in May from 490,000 in April but nevertheless were 8.9 percent below the 571,000-unit level in May 2008.

What surprised me was the amount of volume left in the condo market, especially when it's so difficult to get financing for one of these. Indeed, in some places like South Florida, it's probably easier to climb through the eye of a needle than to get a lender to offer a mortgage for a condominium.

So what's a potential condominium investor to do?

About the only condo sales moving quickly to fruition these days are all-cash deals. Maybe that's because NAR also reports that the median existing condo price had deflated to $173,800 in May, a 21.9 percent drop from a year earlier. That means much more condo product appears to be cheap enough to self-finance from a middle-class investor perspective, i.e., a buyer with stabilized employment, savings and who didn't lose money speculating in the real estate markets between 2002 and 2007.

Despite busted condos, homeowners associations going bankrupt and other bad news, condos are still fairly well liked by buyers. It's the lenders who have turned on the product. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac don't really want the paper, and according to some insiders, there is an unofficial blacklist of certain condo projects -- meaning units from those buildings will never, ever see financing by a major bank.

Your local lenders, even if they like you, can't make a condo loan because they no longer keep mortgages on their books but instead sell them to the big, failed and now taxpayer-owned GSEs (government-sponsored enterprises) -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- which have gotten very restrictive.

Fannie Mae, for example, won't guarantee mortgages in a condo development where fewer than 70 percent of the units have been sold (it used to 51 percent); where 15 percent of more of the occupants are behind on their homeowners association dues; or where an individual investor owns 10 percent or more of the units. Freddie Mac is expected to implement similar restrictions.

In April, the GSEs unveiled new loan-level fees: a conforming mortgage secured by a condo with less than 25 percent equity would have closing fees of up to 0.75 percent of the loan.

"In Florida and Las Vegas, many newer condo developments are only 20 percent occupied, more than 15 percent of projects are not paid up on their homeowners association dues, and 30-40 percent of units are in foreclosure," says Jack McCabe, principal in McCabe Research & Consulting LLC in Deerfield Beach, Fla.

In addition, so many new condo projects went upscale, meaning individual units cost well over $500,000. That means a jumbo loan, and that market is all but dead. To pull off a jumbo loan for a condo, an investor would need to come up with 30-40 percent down, a 700 FICO score and a strong, verifiable history.

The problem, of course, is that so many condo loans are upside-down -- the mortgages carry numbers much larger than the current value of the property. In bank lingo, the collateral value is not there to back up the asset, nor will it be for many years to come. The problem is so serious in some developments that a blackball environment has emerged, with lenders compiling a list of buildings that won't get loans. Fortunately, for everyone else in the country, most of the properties on this supposed blacklist are in South Florida.

In many regions of the country, condo prices in 2009 are still a slippery slope. I would tell you that the buy-in price for many condo projects is almost irrelevant. The key factor is "risk." A buyer has to investigate how much risk is involved with that purchase. Who was the developer? Is the developer still around or is the project in bankruptcy? How many units were sold? How is the homeowners association faring? Is a bank "fire-saling" units? Are services being cut back?

How would you get this information? One way is to, if possible, sit in on a meeting or two with the condo association.

If your concerns are satisfied and you feel the risk can be minimized, how do you finance a mortgage? Let's say -- only God knows why -- you want to buy a $750,000 condo in Miami Beach. Some banks will do this for you: If you put money into a certificate of deposit (CD) account sponsored by the bank equal to a fairly large portion of the amount you want in a mortgage, it will finance the purchase. Why? The bank now has recourse, of course, if the loan fails.

A more common approach is to front-loan the whole process -- that is to go to your lender and get preapproved under an FHA-type program. The banks are generally willing to make this type of loan because the Federal Housing Administration will guarantee the first 20 percent of the deal although the buyer may only be paying 3.5 percent down payment plus 2.5 percent closing costs.

"If you don't have cash and you are looking to buy a condo, the chances of closing are less than 50 percent," says Peter Zalewski, a principal with Condo Vultures LLC in Bal Harbour, Fla. "If you do need financing and are willing to roll the dice, then you are going to go through a lot of time and effort just to get to the point where you might have a chance for financing."

HUSTLE HARD
WE BUY HOUSES

Three Ways to Compound Your Marketing

Can you recall lessons you've learned in money management about the power of compound interest? I do. I can still remember my high school teacher showing charts of what happened to money when interest compounded from period-to-period over time. Here are two definitions for the word "compound":

1. to intensify: make more intense, stronger, or more marked

2. to put or add together; "combine resources"

Compound interest is a powerful savings strategy because your savings intensify over time. This happens because you earn interest on the money you originally saved and then you earn interest on the interest previously earned. With each passing compounding period, your savings earn more and more interest.

I have a firm belief that the same effect can happen with your marketing. There are three fundamental ways you can harness the power of "compounding" in your marketing:

1. As you sell homes and earn commissions, you increase the amount of money invested into marketing. This compounding increases each year as do your sales.

To engineer this in your business, you must set a specific percentage of your commissions to save and allocate to marketing. In addition, you must have the discipline to increase this set percentage each year. From my observation, this compounding doesn't actually occur for most agents. This is because most agents have a tendency to spend every penny they make. They don't develop the discipline to save or re-invest a fixed percentage of their commissions.

2. Consistently testing new lead generation advertisements and lead conversion systems in your business.

In number one, the goal is to increase the amount of money you invest into marketing. The trick is to use the additional marketing dollars to test new marketing campaigns. Marketing is really about testing. You must be testing new advertisements all the time. One new winning advertisement could, theoretically, help you sell hundreds of homes.

3. Creating marketing pieces that have the ability to be spread virally.

A viral marketing piece is one that is spread by word of mouth, to friends, family, co-workers, etc. Over time, this kind of marketing takes on a life of its own as it moves through groups of people without your expending any additional funds. Examples of viral marketing might be a book you wrote, a video, a free report, or an audio recording. The major component of this idea is to make the content of your viral marketing piece so good that anybody who receives it wants to pass it on to everybody they know.

I was able to capitalize on this viral strategy by offering a book I wrote as an eBook and giving each person who requested it the right to share it with others. Slowly but surely, we began to be contacted by people interested in our services who hadn't requested the book but who had it passed on to them by someone. When we met with these prospects, they would explain that a friend of theirs gave them my book. This is compound marketing at its very best.

Think for a second about how powerful this sort of compound marketing could be for you over time. It intensifies day by day, week by week, month by month, bringing you more leads, more sales and bigger profits.

Unfortunately, most real estate agents don't think about compound marketing. They are very haphazard with their marketing. It's the "dreaded" task that they put off and rarely get to because they're too busy.

Here are a few steps you might take to compound your marketing:

a. Think long-term about your marketing instead of short-term.

b. Make marketing THE priority for your business.

c. Save a portion of each commission check you receive and reinvest it into future marketing.

d. Increase the amount of commission you re-invest in marketing as your income grows.

e. Always be testing new lead generation ads.

f. Constantly test new approaches to lead conversion.

g. Create viral marketing pieces and encourage prospects and clients to give them away.

Make these efforts to compound your marketing, and you will be glad you did.

HUSTLE HARD
WE BUY HOUSES

5 Rules of Effective Postcard Marketing

They may lack the dynamism of online social networks or the larger-than-life quality of roadside billboards, but postcards are a proven marketing tool for real estate pros. A big part of their appeal is that they can be produced and distributed fairly easily, at a relatively low cost, and you don't have to be a marketing genius to develop them.

Often, real estate pros believe that postcards take a long time to work, but that is simply untrue. Effective postcards work immediately and, over time, create an increased, steady flow of business.

In spite of their simplicity, though, postcard marketing isn't foolproof. So if you're contemplating a mailing campaign and you want to ensure it generates a positive outcome, follow these five guidelines:

1. Measure the results.

You should measure immediate results, as well as results over time of your postcard campaign. Within days of receiving an effective postcard, some people will respond. You may get e-mails, registrations on your Web site, requests for information, or an offered service, depending on what action you request. You may simply get a personal acknowledgement. Best of all, you may get requests to discuss selling or buying.

Each week and each month effective postcards can generate additional initial appointments. Each quarter and each year, they create additional listings and sales.

So every morning, take five minutes to record results, initial appointments, listings, and sales -- noting the sources of each. Notice what postcard and what specific part of the postcard generated the results. Then, repeat postcard elements that generate the best responses; eliminate the elements that don't.

Also, measure return on your investment. Effective postcard campaigns return a minimum of four times the cost. More often, the return is eight to 12 times the cost. That's powerful advertising.

2. Design your postcard for results.

Effective postcards are designed with five elements:

1. The practitioner's picture on both sides;

2. Pictures of homes for sale and/or sold;

3. Branding created with consistency of color, layout, design, and fonts;

4. A message specific to the targeted market;

5. Calls to action.

You can find postcard samples at www.MarketingDesignSamples.com.

3. Maintain consistency in frequency and branding.

Effective postcard frequency is nine to 12 times annually to your highest-value market, and four to 12 times annually to other targeted markets. The goal of any marketing campaign is to create top-of-mind awareness. That means when the targeted market thinks of real estate, your name should come to mind. And when your name comes to mind, the targeted market associates it with a successful real estate experience.

4. Target high-value markets.

A market is simply a group of people who have something in common. High-value markets are the ones that will bring the largest return on effort and investment. You want to send your postcards to the groups of people most likely to generate the results.

Here is a hierarchy of high-value markets:

1. Your sphere of influence, including past clients;

2. The neighborhood where you live and/or work;

3. Other geographic or demographic markets in which you have a high level of name or face recognition.

Just-listed and just-sold campaigns violate this rule. The returns on these campaigns bring much higher returns when they are sent repeatedly to the same markets, even though the just-listed or sold property is not in the immediate area.

5. Remember "WIIFT."

As you put together any postcard marketing campaign, consider the mindset of your audience. The most important question is: What's in it for them (WIIFT)? What is going through the minds of people in your target market? Are they curious about what is happening to property values? Are they wondering whether to sell or buy? Are they concerned about how local layoffs and unemployment are affecting their neighborhood? Do they wonder if the foreclosures that dominate the news impact their property value? Do they completely trust that you'll do the best job serving their needs and bring them the best value for their home?

At first, many real estate pros don't believe they can create a relevant or effective message, especially when it comes to selling themselves. But most practitioners can develop terrific messages if they apply themselves. They should get some help from their sphere of influence to do this. After a few conversations with colleagues, clients, and friends, the right message and verbiage will become apparent.

Hustle Hard

We Buy Houses

Housing Affordability Near 18-Year High

Bolstered by affordable interest rates and low prices, nationwide housing affordability during the second quarter of 2009 continued to hover near its highest level since the series began 18 years ago, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI) released today.

The HOI showed that 72.3 percent of all new and existing homes sold in the second quarter of 2009 were affordable to families earning the national median income of $64,000, down only slightly from the record-high 72.5 percent during the previous quarter and up from 55.0 percent during the second quarter of 2008.

"The increase in affordability -- along with the $8,000 federal tax credit for home buyers -- is stimulating demand, particularly among young, first-time buyers," said NAHB Chairman Joe Robson, a home builder from Tulsa, Okla. "But to keep the recent upturn in home sales going into next year, Congress will need to extend the tax credit for another year and make it available to all buyers in an effort to encourage activity in the trade-up market."

Robson noted that the tax credit, which expires on Nov. 30, is currently limited to just buyers purchasing their first home.

Indianapolis, once again, was the most affordable major housing market in the country during the second quarter. Almost 95 percent of all homes sold were affordable to households earning the area's median family income of $68,100. Indianapolis has now topped the affordability list 16 consecutive quarters.

Also near the top of the list of the most affordable major metro housing markets were Youngstown-Warren-Boardman, Ohio-Pa.; Detroit-Livonia-Dearborn, Mich.; Dayton, Ohio; and Grand Rapids-Wyoming, Mich.

Several smaller housing markets posted even higher affordability scores than Indianapolis, with Kokomo, Ind. outscoring all others. There, almost 98 percent of homes sold during the second quarter of 2009 were affordable to median-income earners. Other small housing markets ahead of Indianapolis on the affordability scale included Lansing-East Lansing, Mich.; Mansfield, Ohio; Elkhart-Goshen, Ind.; Lima, Ohio; and Bay City, Mich.

New York-White Plains-Wayne, N.Y.-N.J., where just over 21 percent of all homes sold during the period were affordable to those earning the median income of $64,800, was once again the nation's least affordable major housing market in the second quarter. This was the New York metro area's fifth consecutive appearance at the bottom of the list. Other major metro areas near the bottom of the affordability chart included San Francisco; Honolulu; Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, Calif.; and Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine, Calif.

Among smaller metro areas, San Luis Obispo-Paso Robles, Calif. was the least affordable market, followed by Ocean City, N.J.; Santa Cruz-Watsonville, Calif.; Flagstaff, Ariz.; and Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-Goleta, Calif., respectively.

Those interested can visit www.nahb.org/hoi for tables, historic data and details.

The NAHB/Wells Fargo HOI is a measure of the percentage of homes sold in a given area that are affordable to families earning that area's median income during a specific quarter. Prices of new and existing homes sold are collected from actual court records by First American Real Estate Solutions, a marketing company. Mortgage financing conditions incorporate interest rates on fixed- and adjustable-rate loans reported by the Federal Housing Finance Board.

The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index is strictly the product of NAHB Economics and is not seen or influenced by any outside party prior to being released to the public.

Hustle Hard

We Buy Houses

12 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Website

1. Blog for Business: Blogging for business is free and is an excellent way to attract thousands of potential customers to your website, increase your search engine rankings, and boost company credibility. Regularly posting a blog also builds loyal readership and attracts more people to your website. Much has been written in the past year or two about the value of blogging for Realtors.

2. Comment on Blogs: Posting comments on blogs, forums, and discussion boards related to your target market and industry is a great way to increase site traffic. Use these platforms to post comments, get consumer feedback, and search for industry updates. Posting relevant and helpful comments increases your credibility and lures more readers to your website. After every comment, include a link to your blog or website to increase targeted traffic.

3. Socialize Online: Social media sites effectively integrate your business into the online community and help with your website promotion, providing your company with result-driven online exposure. They're great places to post inbound links to your website and are a way to express industry expertise. Social media sites allow you to post recent news, company events, company information, discussion questions, and other useful tools used for building solid online relationships.

4. Bookmark Your Business: Bookmarking your online articles, blogs, and website in specific categories on a social bookmarking site, such as Digg, allows you to reach out to your target market. These sites permit you to share web content with others and allow them to vote on it. If this content becomes popular among viewers, it will be voted to the front page of the bookmarking site and be viewed by thousands of potential clients.

5. Utilize RSS Feed: RSS feed allows you to reach subscribers interested in what your company has to offer. RSS feed is similar to emails since they're both sent to subscribers, providing them with updated information. RSS feed makes it easy for subscribers to be alerted immediately and allows them to click on the link to your website. Using email together with RSS feed will increase your client base and increase site traffic.

6. Post Articles: Online article directories allow you to place niche-oriented articles into specific categories, targeted at your specific market. For example, if your real estate company writes an article for ezinearticles.com and submits it under the real estate category, you'll attract and reach viewers who are specifically searching for your articles.

7. Record Podcasts: The vocal and interactive aspects of audio podcasts are usually more enticing and entertaining than simply reading articles and information from a computer screen. Podcasts are free and can be used to help people through a step-by-step process, share knowledge quickly and effectively, or entertain. According to Pew Internet and American Life Project, about 19% of Internet users say they've downloaded a podcast.

8. Host Teleclasses: Signing up for teleclasses benefits customers because they're free and provide useful and informative tips. Customers will associate the information they receive from your teleclasses with your company's success and dedication to the industry. Customers will be more likely to trust your business operations and products / services, making the buying decision a simple one. The benefits from teleclasses are increased sales, more referrals, a rise in customer loyalty, and increased site traffic.

9. Post Video: Placing videos and audio on YouTube is a great way to get your company online exposure and drive traffic to your website. Video provides a personal connection to customers and allows you to show them how certain services are done, how you work, how the company works, how your product works, and so much more. Developing a video for YouTube also benefits your company tremendously because it's an excellent tool for website marketing.

10. Publish Free Reports and Ezines: Sharing free tips and information about your industry through free reports and ezines can benefit consumers' lives, helping them become better educated, solve a problem, or change their future actions. Providing well-researched and helpful information to consumers builds customers' trust in your company, making them more likely to purchase your products / services.

11. Send Optimized Press Releases: Bring your brand name to life with a well-crafted, optimized press release. If your business has remained at a steady rate for years now, the right press release can gain your company credibility in the industry, recognition, and overall exposure. These results lead to company growth and incredible success.

12. Place / Swap Ads with Other Ezines in Your Niche: Seek out other ezines in your niche whose publishers might be interested in swapping ads. In addition to, or instead of, swapping ads, you could also purchase ad space in an ezine in your niche that has a large circulation. If you pay to place an ad, for best results run it for a minimum of three consecutive issues.

Since many of these website promotion and marketing platforms can be time consuming and search engine optimization oriented, you may want to consider a professional web copywriter, or SEO copywriter. The right web copywriter can provide result-driven SEO services, effective website marketing services, and increase online exposure.

Hustle Hard

We Buy Houses

Six Powerful Prospecting Tips Hustle Hard!!!

Selling is a contact sport, and prospecting for new business is the name of the game! You'll never meet a salesperson who failed because they had too many prospects to talk to. Quite the contrary.

Unfortunately, for the majority of salespeople, finding new customers is, without a doubt, the most difficult and stressful aspect of the profession. So here are six, practical tips to help you become more effective at generating new business and following up with your precious prospects.

1. Prospecting for new business is similar to working out. You know it's good for you and that it will produce positive results -- if only you do it routinely. Professional salespeople prospect daily. It's important to block off specific time on your calendar for prospecting activities such as phone calling and emailing. Treat your prospecting time with the same respect as you would any other important appointment; otherwise, there is a tendency that it will slip through the cracks. This is not the time to check your emails, play solitaire on the computer, make a personal phone call or chat with your associates. Stay focused, and take your prospecting seriously. Set the tone by closing your office door, and have your incoming calls held unless, perhaps, it is a call from a client or a prospect.

2. Be prepared, get organized and take good notes. It's critical to have a computerized contact system to record your remarks and suspense future contacts or appointments.

3. Use a script -- don't shoot from the hip. There's only one thing worse than listening to a salesperson read a script over the phone, and that is listening to a salesperson without any script at all.

Obviously, it's important to not only have a script but to practice it until it sounds smooth and natural -- "unscripted." Set aside time to role-play with an associate over the phone. By taking turns presenting and critiquing, you'll gain confidence, polish your script and therefore be more effective. And when prospecting, avoid the temptation to sell over the phone. Your objective is to gather information and make the appointment.

4. Strike while the iron is hot! When working with a new prospect, it's important to make contact quickly. Prospects are perishable, like dairy products. The longer you wait to contact them, the less "fresh" they will be.

In addition, no matter how interested a prospect may appear, don't wait for them to call you. You are almost certainly only one of many competing interests for your prospect's time and money.

5. Keep the high ground and avoid the temptation to badmouth your competition. This is so critical. While it is fair to make head-to-head comparisons, you should always avoid personal attacks. Attacking your competition makes you look unprofessional and petty.

Emphasize the benefits of your product or service by guiding your prospect through a comparison of quality and price. Play to your strengths and not the weakness of your competition. Let your prospect draw his or her conclusions from your comparison.

6. Rejection is a natural aspect of the sales process, so don't take it personally. Learn from rejection; use it as a feedback mechanism and look for ways to improve your presentation. Salespeople who take rejection personally lack perseverance and seldom make the sale.

Sales is a numbers game -- pure and simple. As a professional baseball player, if you can average four hits out of ten times at bat you are heading for the Hall of Fame. Research indicates that in sales you can expect your prospect to say "no" five times before he or she buys. With this in mind, realize that, with every sales rejection you receive, you are one step closer to making the sale!

Prospecting for new business should be viewed more as a mindset rather than merely as an activity. It's something you need to be constantly aware of because you never know where your next prospect will be coming from. It really doesn't matter how competent you are or how well you know your product line; if you don't have a qualified prospect in front of you, you don't have a sale.

Hustle Hard
We Buy Houses

Vitamins for Salespeople

No, I'm not trying to get you happily involved with some new supplement here. The vitamins I am referring to above are for getting and keeping a healthy dose of enthusiasm for your sales career rather than getting you physically healthy. Take a daily dose of the following vitamins, and you'll start closing more sales and achieving more success:

Vitamin D -- DISCIPLINE

Discipline is having the ability to do what you don't want to do when your motivation to do it is temporarily gone. Discipline helps you to control your mind and protect your body from the daily pain of rejection that a selling career can bring. After all, if you're prospecting and giving presentations, you're being rejected.

Discipline will help you make one more call after a rejection because your daily goal is always to end on a positive note.

Discipline will get you out of bed in the morning to face each new selling day with a positive outlook.

And it will help you serve your clients better by returning calls and handling challenges as quickly and effectively as possible rather than procrastinating.

Think about how disciplined you are in your career. Be honest and note any flaws you may have in this regard. Then discipline yourself to start working on improvements in those areas -- starting today.

Vitamin E -- ENTHUSIASM

People will make buying decisions based more on your enthusiasm for your product or service than on your product knowledge. Don't believe it? Pay attention the next time you feel motivated to make a purchase for yourself. It'll be fairly likely that the salesperson uses the product themselves, or would if they could afford it. They are excited about the features and the benefits that its owners experience. And they communicate that enthusiasm from start to finish. So, you can't help but want one, too.

Vitamin B -- BELIEVABILITY

This vitamin works in close connection with Vitamin E above. If you don't truly believe that your product or service is exceptional and you cannot relate the details of its benefits honestly, people will know. They'll recognize insincerity in your voice, body language or even in your eyes...and they just won't buy.

Vitamin C -- COMPREHENSION

Not only must you comprehend the value of your product or service, you must also understand the emotional states of your potential clients.

If you are in retail, there's bound to be a reason your customer is considering the purchase of that shiny car, expensive pair of jeans, lovely new home, beautiful dress or finely tailored suit. You want to find out and build on those emotions until you have their credit card or check in your cash drawer.

In business sales, purchasing agents or committees want to make wise decisions because they then become the heroes for the company. There's a certain emotional satisfaction and perhaps some recognition or reward in finding a good solution to a company challenge.

Vitamin A -- APPLICATION

When you learn new strategies and techniques for your selling profession -- and you should be doing that all the time -- it's essential that you apply them as soon as possible to a real-life sales situation in order to start benefiting from them. If you don't, your old reflexes will quickly have you reverting back to those ineffective, previous sales methods that just weren't cutting it before. Application is what helps you develop these new habits and enables you to achieve new, higher levels of production.

Now, don't forget to take your vitamins!

I Buy Houses!

Foreclosures Bring Out Cleanup Crews

393 Ed Douglas Road was a hot potato now, not a home -- just another ghost property in the resale pipeline with curtainless windows, a yard populated by fire ants and weeds, and the telltale flier taped to the front door: "U.S. Government Property."

Nick Hazel shoved a key in the lock. "Don't look now, but we got company." Above his head, and along the eaves, dangled nests in plump, grapelike clusters. "Hornets," he muttered, then with a forced grin, "I looooove hornets."

The door opened with a yawn. There was a bare foyer and beyond it a living room, cool and hollow, with the restful atmosphere of a funeral chapel and something of the same smell. A yellow jacket floated in, nonchalantly, and drifted off into a bedroom.

Hazel leaned his mop against a wall, then walked the joint.

A broken dishwasher. Check. A countertop range stripped of its coils. Check. Fixtureless showers. Seatless toilets. Check, check. Wires dangling from holes gouged in the ceilings -- the work of whoever relieved the place of its fans.

"At least these guys left the wiring," he said, with a shrug.

Hazel, 40, is a "property preservationist," which these days makes him a very busy man. With thousands of people defaulting each week on mortgages across central Florida, he's one of a growing regiment of people the banks summon to "trash out" -- sanitize and seal up -- their foreclosure stockpile.

Among other labors, he mows waist-high lawns. He shoos away squatters. He boards up shattered windows. He replaces door locks. And, most often, he trucks away refuse so diverse, profuse and amorphous, that sometimes Hazel must squint to distinguish its components. In short, it's Hazel's job to arrest the decay of a decaying housing market, a profession he likens to another the public views with angst. "It's like I'm a dentist," he says. "Nobody likes to see me. But when a house's teeth go bad, who else is going to clean out the rot?"

His is also a profession with brilliant prospects. In an average week, Hazel inspects roughly 90 structures, secures 20 others, and trashes out between 10 and 20 "REOs" (bank shorthand for "real estate owned"). That's up twofold from a year ago, when he got his start. He's had to employ his wife, son and five other men just to keep up. "I don't sleep much," he says.

And so, even as the housing and mortgage crisis ravages lenders, homeowners, real-estate agents and construction crews, Hazel finds opportunity in desperate counties awash in abandoned, moldy structures -- a paradox not lost on him.

Walls coated in graffiti

Ever open a utensil drawer in a kitchen and have rats leap out? Hazel has. Ever crawl around a pitch-black attic, feel a buzzing tremor, and flash a light on a hornet's nest big as a 55-gallon drum? Hazel has. Ever enter the backyard of a mansion, stroll over to an Olympic-sized pool and notice somebody floating, face down? Hazel hasn't yet, though he expects to. "You hear horror stories from people who do this kind of work," he says. "I've never walked in on any floaters. But this job is pretty much a grab bag; you never know what you'll be walking into in the morning."

Indeed, not much Hazel stumbles upon shocks him anymore. Like the "debris" that some Florida evictees leave behind: adult toys, Christmas toys, silverware, Tupperware, false teeth, hairpieces, condoms, baby strollers, dead cats, live Dobermans, aquariums with rattlers in them.

Or, what others take with them: a dining room ceiling, the ceramic floor tiles of a den, a bedroom's wall-to-wall carpet; granite countertops, faucet taps, bath tubs, food-waste disposers, crown moldings.

Then there are the revelations at the gated-community castles -- large, exorbitantly landscaped, with pricey WELCOME mats and 2-car garages (to accommodate two vehicles and a golf cart) -- whose interior walls Hazel finds coated in graffiti. "You see sprayed lines, words that don't make any sense," Hazel says. "It's not like there are any messages to the banks, or anything. I figure they get mad and this is their way of writing, 'Screw It."'

Certain properties defy his reasoning powers. One afternoon, an employee of Hazel's who'd been sent to inspect a foreclosed on house in Marion County called, and in a bewildered tone said, "Something doesn't look right here."

The yard was weed-free, freshly cut. The home was fully furnished, the mail box empty. A new pair of shoes rested neatly on the back porch. And yet, the doorbell didn't work; the power had been cut. So had the water.

"What do you want me to do?"

Hazel couldn't make heads or tails of it. "Change the locks."

For weeks, whenever Hazel or his workers turned up, they found the lawn in pristine condition. (They'd mow the grass anyway.) The blinds always remained closed, the place dusted. No boot marks, no foreign odors, not so much as a bread crumb on the counter.

The neighbors, when asked, offered only shrugs.

Who could it be? An immaculate vagrant? The owners returned? Hazel has his own theory. "There are so many houses going into foreclosure that I think the neighbors are taking it upon themselves to tend to these ghosts. Why don't they admit it? That I couldn't tell you. The world is full of strange people."

Rising foreclosure rates

Since 2005, new foreclosures have tripled across the nation, to a record 2.25 million in 2008. This year, more are expected; banks filed to reclaim 1.5 million homes from January through June -- up 15 percent from a year ago, according to RealtyTrac, a foreclosure listing service.

In Florida, where flipping houses was once a sport, the collapse has been particularly severe. This year, 1 in every 33 homes in the Sunshine State has received at least one foreclosure filing. (Nationally, the ratio is 1 in 84.) Only Nevada and Arizona were worse off.

When Hazel first got into the trash-out business in May 2008, the first wave of foreclosures had already wiped out the flippers, and a second was washing away homeowners with "exploding" loans -- mortgages with adjustable-rates that spiked after two years.

It didn't hurt that he could make good money -- between $250 and $2,000 a cleanout gross -- without having to charm people. And if the economy worsened, which in his mind was inevitable, his business would only grow.

Sunday to Sunday, Hazel rises before the sun, dons his rattiest jeans, T-shirt and fishing cap, laces his thick-soled Timberlands. ("The boots don't always stop upturned nails, but they help.")

After breakfast he straps into his GMC Sierra, an off-roader the color of silver birch, flip on the headlights and GPS, and rumbles to the first house on the case sheet. Hazel works nine counties across Florida's midsection. On a typical day, he logs some 200 miles. Navigating through rush-hour traffic one muggy afternoon in Kissimmee, he remarks: "This job ain't for those who hate their cars. "You better like fast food, too."

And some places, he adds, "can be really bad. All it takes is two seconds for your GPS to disappear. Plus, if you have to drill out a door lock or kick down the door, it's best not to do it in the dark."

Again, that's primarily because of the neighbors. His 19-year-old son Josh, explains, "People all come out and sit on their porches and just watch you. One time a kid sat in the same window for two days, just staring at us. It's kind of like a 'Finding Nemo' thing, like you're in a fish bowl."

By the time the Hazels arrived at 393 Ed Douglas, the house that once anchored a family of four had become a dusty snapshot of life interrupted.

"I guess if anything still surprises me it's that people leave behind mementos, pictures, personal stuff," he says. "I wouldn't leave anything like this. But people do it."

He steps back outside for a smoke, and admires a live oak on the front lawn. Its leaves are brittle, falling. The tree needs a pruning.

"You know, if you think about this stuff all the time, it'll drive you crazy. That's why I don't like doing it. Slows you down."

I buy Houses!

Are Your Presentations Costing You Listings and Sales?

You know you have a great product/ a great service. After all, you've been in the business for a while, and you work with a great company. Surely, if you just give a great presentation, if you just convey all the many and wonderful things your product or service provides, your prospect will "see the light" and want to buy what you're offering.

But, even after your brilliant presentation, your prospect still does not "see the light" and does not buy your product. Now, why is that?

Your presentations could be the reason you are losing those sales. How? Simply by doing them at the wrong time or doing presentations that are all about your product. (How could doing a presentation about your product lose you sales? Read on.)

But let's look first at the timing of your presentation.

Imagine for a moment that you go to see a doctor and, as you walk through the door, the doctor hands you a prescription. He doesn't ask you any questions or even give you the chance to sit down in his chair. Before you ever walked through the door, he had decided what was best for you. In this situation, what do you think of the prescription? What do you think of the doctor?

Now imagine how it feels to your prospect when you present your product or service -- your solution -- and you haven't taken the time to ask questions or understand the specific problem. You just go full- steam ahead with your presentation, saying how great your product is and that it will solve their problem, when you don't even know what the problem is. So what do you think they are going to think about your "prescription?" What are they going to think of your ability to help them? What is going to happen to your sale?

This is sales malpractice! Presenting -- or prescribing -- before you fully understand your prospect's specific problem will often lose you the sale.

Just like bad timing can lose your prospect, so can making presentations that are about your product.

So let's go back to the doctor's office. You walk in and the doctor now asks you questions about your problem. The doctor then tells you he can give you a prescription that will solve your specific problem and then -- heaven forbid -- he starts to tell you all the details about the medication he is prescribing. He tells you in detail exactly what it contains and what each chemical component does. He then tells you all the many other things the medication will cure at the same time, even though you don't have any of these other problems. The doctor is intent on telling you all about the medication as he thinks it is so great. Do you care about what he is saying? How do you feel now? Overwhelmed, confused, bored, and annoyed? What do you think of the doctor? What are you thinking about the medication?

You've probably put a lot of time into preparing a one-size-fits-all type of presentation. Sure, you tweak it a little bit for each prospect; you put the prospect's name on the first slide and maybe change your reference customers so they are more relevant, but you don't make any major changes for each prospect because you want them to understand completely everything your product or service can do. You have put a lot of work into this presentation, and it really shows off your product or service in all its detail. Sound familiar? It should. Many, many salespeople follow this line.

You give this presentation, and you think it's great, but you look over at your prospects and their eyes are glazed over -- and ultimately they don't buy.

Giving a one-size-fits-all presentation that dumps everything about your service on your prospects will often result in their being overwhelmed, confused, bored and annoyed. And overwhelmed, confused, bored, and annoyed prospects don't rush to buy from you.

They will be overwhelmed because you've told them so much stuff. They'll be confused because they will be trying to work out what is relevant to them and to solving their problem. They'll be bored because you'll be telling them things they don't care about and because product/feature dumps are boring. They'll be annoyed because, even if you have taken the time beforehand to ask them questions and understand their problem, you have not shown that you understand or care about it by tailoring your presentation accordingly.

In short, the presentation should not be about your product: it should be about your prospect -- his or her needs, problem and his solution. If you're doing that, you'll talk only about the parts of your product that are specifically relevant to him and leave out the rest. Your prospect does not care about the rest.

So, where do we go from here?

Make it a golden rule -- never to be broken -- that you will never tell a prospect you have a solution for her before you understand her problem and that, when you do present a solution, you will present it in the context of her problem and present only the parts of your product that are relevant to solving it.

By following this golden rule, your presentations will win you more listings and more sales. Go for it and see the difference!

Hustle Hard!

www.myenlightenedlifestyle.com