5 Things I learned about Short Selling my House

Its no secret that Arizona and housing equals suck ass in 2010. Sure sales are up and kudos to the realtors still in the game and making that happen, but its little secret that the majority of this is Short and Bank Owned sales. The AZ Republic just had an article about people deciding to just walk away from their homes. This article is very interesting and gives you a good look into the psyche of those affected, but it misses out on one huge option: Short Selling.

5 things I learned from my Short Sale:

1. Get an Experienced Short Sale Realtor
2. Pay the Realtor nothing upfront
3. Play for keeps
4. Keep your home in decent shape
5. Talk to Friends and Family

1. Get an Experienced Short Sale Realtor

First of all make sure you get someone who knows what they are doing. You should expect them to do just about everything for you and that includes negotiating with the bank.

2. Pay the Realtor nothing upfront

Second you should not pay them anything. This is important as there are companies out their trying to charge the seller an upfront fee. This is a sign of someone who is incompetent. When the sale goes through they will get their commission, 6%, split if there are two agents involved. Its sales ladies and gentlemen, once the sale is complete you get paid.

3. Play for keeps

GMAC, my mortgage bank, wanted me to bring cash to the table to close the deal. This makes zero sense to me and it was a good think I had followed Rule #1 and my realtor was talking to them for me as I would have had some spicy language indeed. The reason this is dumb to agree to is that you are not making any money on this transaction so why should you pay anything for it? Turns out you will be loosing your home and be unable to purchase another one for 2 years. My stance was simple, either take the fair market value that the buyer is offering or you can have the keys to my home and foreclose on me. GMAC is smart and took the buyers offer with no extra cash from me.

4. Keep your home in decent shape

Besides getting a buyer to want to buy the home you are also going to have to get the buyers bank to approve the appraisal of the house. I let my pool go total green and we had to do an acid wash to get it approved. That was an unecessary headache.

5. Talk to Friends and Family

Short selling your home is an emotional nuclear explosion. Personally I felt and continue to feel a large sense of failure. The american dream is all about owning the home and here I was selling mine for a loss. You have to have a support group of friends and family to talk with about this or it will eat you alive. I am very fortunate and have great friends and family. Also you will find that many of your friends have short sold their home or homes as well and just haven’t been so public about it…

In the end Short Selling your house is not a great resolution but it is better than foreclosure. There are also no guarantees that your bank will approve the sale since they are the ones who have to write the loss off their books. However with the new homeowners tax refund extension and more pressure from Washington it is something worth considering.

Hate me or love me please leave me a comment. =)

Edited: March 18th, 2010

Attention: Save your AZ State Parks or Kiss them BYE BYE Forever!

Sorry to interrupt your day with this but its really important and you should understand why. Currently Arizona is facing a huge budget shortfall because of the slow economy. One idea that the legislator has is to close down the state parks to save about $20 million dollars against the $4 Billion deficit that the state currently faces. Thats less that 1/10 of 1% yet the parks generate around $250 Million in local business revenue each year, and guess what? That revenue is taxed and helps out the State… Huh?

The problem with this is not just that we are shutting down everyday peoples access to affordable outdoor recreation but that we are eliminating a significant portion of revenue for local business and in turn State revenue:

AZ Family Channel 3 report:

“State parks take nothing from the general fund and actually give back to the state budget a big fat $22.7 million in state and local taxes. The state legislature has swept millions from state parks to help balance the budget, leaving them too short to operate the 30 parks in the system.

Three have already closed.

Does this make sense since state parks bring in more than $225 million dollars to the state’s economy through the 2.5 million visitors each year.”

AZ Republic Report on AZ State Park Closures

“Bahl noted that last year parks contributed $25 million to the General Fund, even though parks themselves receive no General Fund dollars. A Northern Arizona University study found that the parks generated $266 million annually in economic activity for rural communities.

“We’re important to the economy,” Bahl said. “We’re important to the people right now. Folks can’t afford to do much these days, and parks are one affordable luxury that we want to keep open.”"

The AZ State Parks foundation points out that if this is allowed to happen we may be looking at a huge land grab of pristine public land handed back over to private owners. Maybe they will put a chairlift on the Superstitions and install a KFC on the Flatiron…

AZ State Parks Foundation

“The cuts will force major reductions in Parks staff and closure of more than half of the State’s 30 parks this fiscal year.  The resulting loss of Park revenue is projected to leave the Parks System with no money to start the next fiscal year, July 1, 2010.  The next step will be to shut down the entire system and dispose of Parks properties, returning most of them to their original owners.”

According to the AZ State Parks Foundation there are a number of ways you can take action:

#1 – Call Governor Brewer and Email this sample letter (Word Doc):

Phone:  602-542-4331 or 800-253-0883

Email via Governor’s Contact page at:

www.governor.state.az.us/Contact.asp

Mail:  The Honorable Jan Brewer, Governor of Arizona,

1700 West Washington, Phoenix, Arizona 85007

#2 – Attend the AZ State Park Board Meeting on Jan 15th at the Phoenix Zoo and let them know how you feel about this.

#3 – Email this sample letter (Word doc) to your legistators (find yours here: AZ senate – AZ house – Find your District)

#4 – Let the AZ State Parks Board know where you stand.

Take 30 minutes out of your day today and address this issue. Please.

Edited: January 13th, 2010

Talking with Peter from Manduka about Estes Park and Yoga #yjep

Pretty happy with this interview with Peter from Manduka. Got a 15% discount for it, yahoo! I tell ya this video journalism might just pay off one day…

Edited: September 26th, 2009

Speaking with Stephanie Bernstein of to-goware.com at Yoga Journal Conf Estes Park #yjep

Great talk with Stephanie of to-goware.com about how she got started, what she is up to, and how yoga fits in:

Edited: September 25th, 2009

Ignite Phoenix Kickoff Meeting – who are these people? #ignitephx

25 volunteers showed up for the kickoff meeting to get Ignite Phoenix 5 in order.

Edited: August 19th, 2009

Smc phoenix – small business and social media #smcphx

SMC Phoenix
Small Biz using social media
8/13

Panel action tonight
Dana Arnold is Chair – Works for local Agency
Jim Davis – Bobbies Flowers – Blog, Twitter, FB, soon Linked in – one store bobbies_flowers
Heather Cordova – Bookmans – FB Twitter, Myspace(Not so much) – bookmans
Kristen – Wildflower – 9 Locations in AZ – Twitter, FB, Yelp – wildflowerbread
Joe Johnston – Joe’s Farm, Liberty Market – realjoe , libertymarket, joesfarmgrill

Why SM?
Joe – 1)passion and 2)serve from heart – does it to show community where it comes from – ex. food classes, menu recommendations, feedback – interacts with anyone who goes there and uses twitter

Kristen – built biz on word of mouth, show passion, also searches for what is being said about them online

Heather – being aware and engaging conversation about their brand, also for reaching out to community

Jim – reaching out to community, is new to it about 3 months now, likes the idea of it and is business focused but working on social, trying for the younger crowd, sees it as another networking avenue

Is SM effective/measurable?
Jim – has noticed new customers due to FB, is not advertising just using a FB page

Heather – deciper the various types of success – 1) numbers 2)community – sees the branding aspect as very effective

Kristen -have been on since April – have tried some focused promotions, got 40 people on a single day promotion for cheesecake discount, also using the feedback capability as method of winning back customers. they get alerts whenever someone posts about wildflower, the company owner gets involved with these feedback.

Joe – direct measure by getting more money from hosting EVFN and other events that bring people into their store, about $10k in additional revenue from 9 months promotion. also sees large buzz about liberty market name online. sees the momentum created as really big aspect.

Jim – comment feedback is very effective also creating buzz online, no dollar at this time to measure

How much time on SM?
Joe – 2 to 2.5 hours a day, has partners that help operate businesses. he is focused on the concept. does not buy advertising

Kristen – 5 hours a week – majority of time is handling reactive situations, sees it as a need for customer support, wants to see how things can be more proactive. she runs Twitter, FB, and runs the marketing department.

Jm – How much time is reactive vs proactive?

Jim – 2 hours per day, feels that once he learns and gets strategy and will not have to spend that much time in the future. wants to reduce time spent on there. his wife does twitter

heather – 8 to 9 hours of monitoring, doesnt feel its enough, active participation is 2 hours at least a day, but needs to be on there more – she is the web monkey

how do you solicit followers?
jim – friends of friends – searches through the profiles of friends on FB, on twitter is building is slower sees it easier to add friends on FB over twitter

joe – is aggressive about it, checks @ replies and follows immediately, searches for no @’s and get them, tracks followers and goes after theirs, searches critics, and keeps expanding it, checks followers followers, is bumping into the twitter ceiling, once you have 2000 followers you have to have more than 1800 following back

kristen – does drawings and contests for getting more followers, uses referral and word of mouth for building FB

heather – responds to @’s, RT good messages about the store, FB is strange for her as new users show up randomly

what is the response time for comments?
kristen – has not had a realtime response yet, is looking for it. she saw one instance and the user felt he was being stalked as she responded in twitter.

joe – responds pretty fast

what are your doing to get people in the store?
Heater – ticket giveaways if you come to the store, events, have not had more than 5 people show up, no stampedes
Jim – offered some coupons, good response with free flowers, sends out a newsletter with trivia question that required blog response or be a fan and that drove up follower numbers

when you post updates how much is personal?
Jim – tries not to be negative but lets some personality come out but tries to be positive

heather – more personal than she used to, comes with a comfort level on twitter. has to make it real so that people will pay attention. they struggle with getting the individual personality out that each store has.

kristen – tries to show personality but has to police herself a lot. @ replies are more than just ‘thank you’

how many times do you DM over public?
kristen – not seeing her @ replies

joe – sees bathroom replies. their baristas are also encouraged to tweet

can you give us a specific idea that was successful with SM?
joe – passion for the food, has classes that have limited seating, sends out invites 1 week early, booked within 45 minutes

heather – helped advertise a tweetup for espresso guy in front of tucson store

jim – helped out rock and roll fingers and by a few tweets resulted in getting news cameras to location

what is tough for your business using SM? or is there an issue with B2B?
jim – searching on 1800flowers for bad experiences and picks up business to help them out

how would you agitate followers to be more conversational?
heather – make it about the users and grow from that

jim – talks about his dog and that gets comments

joe – asking customer for feedback, also helps for product development, BLT or Tuna

do you use pics or video?
jim – wants to know about it

heather – people love when pics are posted about employee dogs, video about events and local performances

kristen – uses twipic when talking about menu items, gets managers at each store to send them pictures

joe – uses phone camera and ubertwitter, posts immediatley about new menu items, also has library of stock photos and uses those for various @’s, videos of restrooms

advise for getting started with SM?
heather – not having enough time to respond to everything, streamling, yelp makes it difficult with multiple locations

kristen – find some followers and searches to check in on, do not be analytical

joe – DIY because the personal aspect is important, no one knows your business like you do. does not like giving discounts.

is there an ROI? how are businesses doing?
jim – goal was to build SEO, not sure about ROI on SM

heather – not really focused on ROI

kristen – doesn’t have a number

do you track where customers are coming from?
kristen – gets feedback from managers each night but very small at this point

jim- pulls out business cards from networking meeting and says he can now follow up with them on twitter to keep dialogue going

Edited: August 13th, 2009

Skype founders are playing hardbball with Ebay

GigaOM has a great article about how Skype, the hugely successful and popular Internet voice and video service, may be shut down. This is because when Ebay bought Skype a few years ago they did not purchase the underlying technology that allows Skype to work, and now the owners of that technology are talking about revoking Ebay’s license/franchise.

Just this April the Skype Founders were making big moves to buy Skype back from Ebay. It sounds to me like the Skype Founders are playing hardball to get the whole thing back. This probably has to do with the fact that their current project, Joost, is a bust, and they are realizing that Skype is a money tree.

All of this info came to light because Ebay is trying to spin Skype off into its own IPO. The reason for this move is that Ebay has been unable to sync Skype with its core services and already wrote the business down close to $1 Billion, ouch.

I love Skype and use it for business everyday. I cold call businesses and make sales. Yes the call quality is not the best but its passable and thats all the matters. I pay $90 a year for a phone number and unlimited calls to phones in the US and Canada. it syncs with my address book and salesforce and it ports to my iPhone and any computer in the world.

Stay tuned to this one.

Edited: August 2nd, 2009

Yoga Schools get the Regulatory Pinch, maybe its time for a better business plan?

A friend sent me this NY Times story about how Yoga Schools that teach students to teach yoga are getting pressured into paying the same fees that Massage and Hairdressing Schools have paid for a while. While I am not a fan of paying taxes and fees for most things but I do think that this is A) inevitable and B) a good thing. Yoga Journal has a post on it as well.

Regarding the inevitability of Yoga Teacher Training Schools paying regulatory fees it actually came as a shock to me that this wasn’t already the case. I was even more shocked to know that a Yoga teacher doesn’t even have to have a license to teach Yoga. This is an industry with 12 to 20 Million practitioners and Billions of dollars in revenue. The government is going to want a piece of that pie, especially in a downturn.

This is good for the consumer/student to know that the school they are practicing at has gone through the registration process and that its a legit operation. Even with this certification there is still no guarantee that the graduate will be able to teach anywhere. It is also uncertain if this qualifies them for financial aid.

Some of the schools in the article point out that the Teacher Training programs are a substantial revenue generator for their business:

Lisa Rapp, who owns My Yoga Spirit in Norfolk, Va., said she was closing her seven-year-old business this summer. “This caused us to shut down the studio altogether,” Ms. Rapp said. “It’s too bad, because this community really needs yoga.” (NY TImes)

At $2000 to $4000 for a 200 hour certification program I will agree but I also think that this highlights a common issue that I have experienced with most Yoga studios: their business model is bad.

Every Yoga studio that I have attended follows the same business model: buy sessions and use them in a few months. Refill and repeat. Some offer unlimited programs that you buy on a 1, 3, 6, or 12 month plan. The problem with this is that you have no contract and therefore no recurring revenue and no ability to create a budget.

I suggest that they adopt the model that Gyms and Martial Arts Studios have: a 12 month, or longer, contract that charges monthly. Sure its not as free and open as a session model but if it allows you to keep the lights on and maybe even grow a little it cannot be seen as a bad thing.

A concern with this model is the overhead created of handling the contracts, payments, and support issues that always come up. The good news is that there are a number of companies that offer a full service solution for this. I work with Member Solutions and am impressed with their focus on service and allowing Studio owners to stay focused on Yoga and getting new students.

What do you think?

Edited: July 15th, 2009

Thank you Uhaul, I had forgotten how horrible a customer experience can be.

I find out that Saturn has stopped making Roof Racks for my 2003 Saturn Vue which means I cannot get a Roof Rack for my Bikes for road trips, bummer deal. Then I remember how hitch racks have gotten really awesome and that I can get a hitch installed. Well who do you go to for a hitch installation? Google results show that Uhaul is the masters of the hitch install and that being that I call Uhaul. This is where the fun begins, and by fun I mean something akin to stabbing my eyes with a pencil.

There is a Uhaul, to my chagrin, very close to my house, so I figure it will be most convenient to call them. After numerous rings I get to talk with Robin. It doesn’t sound like Robin is having the best of days, or years, or perhaps longer. I tell her that I would like a hitch installed on my car and we go through the make model year routine to determine what I need installed. She wants to know where I want this done, which is an odd question since I called a specific location. We get through that and she gives me the price of $179.95 for parts, labor, and warranty. She lets me know that it may be more depending on how the wiring configuration is done but I let her know that I will not need that since I am putting a bike rack on and that will be it for the foreseeable future. I get a confirmation number and she emails me the receipt. I am also told that someone will contact me to setup the appointment. This is June 10th.

On June 12th, Friday, I still have not received a call so I decide to give the Uhaul location a call back to see whats up with the appointment. I offer my confirmation number but the gentleman just wants my name. He says that the appointment is set up for Wednesday June 17th. I am surprised by this since no one ever called to set that up. I ask if we can get it done on Monday June 15th instead. The gentleman says yes that will be fine and to bring it in at 8am and that it should only take 30 minutes. I enter this into my calendar and go about my weekend.

June 15th rolls around and I go to the Uhaul for my scheduled appointment for the hitch installation. I am greeted by a gentleman walking away from me to talk with another Uhaul employee, or rather Manager/Owner James Flake. After an awkward minute of me standing at the counter 5 feet away from these two gentlemen talking about their work I finally am greeted by the younger one. I let him know that I am here for my scheduled hitch install which causes him to look over my shoulder to James and laugh. He then lets me know that James will be doing the install. I ask if I should bring the car around back and he thinks this is a good plan.

As I pull around I see another customer waiting on James and can see that things are going to be moving slowly today. I wait in my car for 10 minutes until James comes up and asks if I know that this appointment is set for Wednesday. I tell him that yes I am aware that originally it was set for that that but that I had called on Friday to reschedule. He lets me know that its going to take a while as he has deliveries to take care of but that I will be his priority. I am okay with this since I have brought my book along and have no appointments till the afternoon.

10am rolls around and James Flake comes in to let me know its all done. We saddle up to the register and he tells me the total is ~$220 which I inform him is incorrect. I tell him that the total parts, labor, and warranty was quoted to me as $179.95. He snickers at me and wants to know who told me that. I explain that it was Robin to which he responds that Robin does not work there. I let him know that it is irrelevant as I was quoted $179.95 and that is what I will be paying. Another Uhaul employee comes over to see what the fuss is about and they start discussing that I was quoted the online price for the hitch which is cheaper than their price. I stand and say nothing to this.

James is still not willing to offer the price I was quoted so he lets me know that he can take the hitch off. I let him know he is welcome to do so. He then tells me that I will have to wait since he has other customers. This cracks me up because there is nothing better for your other customers than to have one who you are trying to Bait and Switch standing in your store raising hell.

Another Uhaul employee comes over and his name tag says owner as well. By this time I have found the email and let them see it. They agree to honor the price and I am on my way.

Clearly Uhaul has some communication issues between its stores and the central call center that my initial call was routed to. The first issue this caused was that I never got a call back for when the installation would occur. Second when I called to setup the installation time I talked with the store where I was apparently talking to someone too busy to actually write down the appointment that we set up. Third was the price issue.

The customer service issue that I experienced is a different story. From the initial call, to my call back, and to the actual appointment I haven’t felt like such a nusiance since the last time I was at the DMV. Clearly James is overworked and the miscommunication with Uhaul corporate seems to be a common occurrence as I overheard a few others having issues with their transactions while I was in there. This is too bad and I feel sorry for the man. I tried to be as nice as I could but when you start changing the price on me I lose my patience. I can only imagine how many people that tactic works on resulting in an extra $30 for James each time. Things must be pretty tight at Uhaul when $30 makes such a big difference.

In the end there are not many options for getting a simple hitch installed and the ones besides Uhaul are probably more expensive and even less responsive to their customers. I am reminded of something Bob Parsons used to say when I worked at Godaddy: “The customer might not always be right, but the customer always pays.” I would have been happy to have him pull that hitch off and gone down the street to somewhere else.

On the Uhaul site this store has 64 reviews for 4 out of 5 stars. However I am unable to find a way to write a review for them. Also in reading the reviews there are ones that get 5 stars when the written review says that the experience was horrible. This is a FAIL on the part of the site designers and further increases my distrust and refusal to use Uhaul in the future.

I am gonna go for a bike ride.

Edited: June 15th, 2009

Social Best Practices – Get involved

Good conversation at Ignite Phoenix on Social Media Best Practices. Authenticity and transparency are topics that keep coming up. I like the Marc Cuban or Bob Parsons method of open mouth insert foot and collect cash. Sure you are going to piss people off, guess what? You are going to piss people off not matter what you do or do not do. Don’t walk around in a stupor worried about making everyone happy. Make enough people happy to stay viable but if you don’t keep it honest about who you are it won’t last. Either you will get tired of it or everyone will see that you are forcing yourself to act that way.

Best Practices links:
BoingBoing
Marc Cuban
Bob Parsons
Scobleizer
Calacanis
Guy Kawasaki
Dan Rayburn

Edited: September 13th, 2008