Lendisphere

Take back your life!

Tim Ferris, of  The Four Hour Work Week fame, has this sage wisdom to offer on ways to reclaim your life, and how to make time your own again:

“Not-to-do” lists are often more effective than to-do lists for upgrading performance.

The reason is simple: what you don’t do determines what you can do.

Here are nine stressful and common habits that entrepreneurs and office workers should strive to eliminate. The bullets are followed by more detailed descriptions. Focus on one or two at a time, just as you would with high-priority to-do items. I’ve worded them in no-to-do action form:

1. Do not answer calls from unrecognized phone numbers
Feel free to surprise others, but don’t be surprised. It just results in unwanted interruption and poor negotiating position. Let it go to voicemail, and consider using a service like GrandCentral (you can listen to people leaving voicemail) or Simulscribe (receive voicemails as e-mail).

2. Do not e-mail first thing in the morning or last thing at night
The former scrambles your priorities and plans for the day, and the latter just gives you insomnia. E-mail can wait until 10am, after you’ve completed at least one of your critical to-do items…

3. Do not agree to meetings or calls with no clear agenda or end time
If the desired outcome is defined clearly with a stated objective and agenda listing topics/questions to cover, no meeting or call should last more than 30 minutes. Request them in advance so you “can best prepare and make good use of the time together.”

4. Do not let people ramble
Forget “how’s it going?” when someone calls you. Stick with “what’s up?” or “I’m in the middle of getting something out, but what’s going on?” A big part of GTD is GTP — Getting To the Point.

READY FOR MORE?   CLICK HERE. 

Yes, you may have filed on time, but is it hard to see your desk underneath the aftermath of Tax Season ‘09?  

Are you losing things beneath the piles of charitable deduction receipts, real estate tax notices, account statements and 1099’s leftover after April 15? 

If you are suffering from the dreaded post-tax season desk mess, it’s time to kiss all that goodbye.   Here is the definitive list on what you need to retain.  If it ain’t on this list:  shred, baby, shred!  

 The Home Valuation Code of Conduct affects every conventional loan application made after May 1, 2009. It requires brokers and most correspondent lenders to hand over control of the appraisal to the investor themselves, or to order their appraisals through an Appraisal Management Company.

The intent behind this legislation is to keep parties related to the transaction from hitting the electric shock button when an appraiser can’t find value, and rewarding him with a food pellet when he behaves.  It’s all about shielding the appraiser from undue pressure.

But here’s the thing we know: the appraisal is the absolute cornerstone of any loan package. Everything else is built around that primary piece of collateral.   We count on a  great appraiser to drill down to a fair and accurate value, even in tricky neighborhoods and with unique properties.  We need accuracy, on time, every time.

Well, here’s the latest joke I’ve been hearing from my appraisers, who I consider the best in the business:

Q: Guess how much the appraisers are being paid by these Appraisal Management Companies?

A: On a $350 conventional appraisal, appraisers will be paid in the neighborhood of $165.

Will Work For Peanuts!

And that’s not funny.                

Appraisers’ income will be slashed by more than half.  As a result, we are going to see the best appraisers leaving this profession en masse.

Accurate appraisals can take tens of hours of work, and really great appraisers will not do all that work for peanuts. So who will?

The newbies. The ones who phone in a glorified AVM. The ones who are not particularly interested in the detailed work to document the true market value of your listing  with unique features, or in a location with few comparables, or in a historic district.

HVCC is going to put the most precious and subjective piece of loan documentation in the hands of people who will work for less than half the industry standard.  I think that is nuts.

What do YOU think about HVCC?

…..if your seller is upside down

Other than people with vertabrae problems…who wouldn’t stand on their head to get a sale ? I mean c’mon….that’s it ?  Well in today’s market even getting upside down may not be enough if your seller is…….well, upside down.

I’ve been saving this great video on “How To Handle The Disappointment of an Upside Down Seller” (and still get the listing), and I thought I would share it with everyone.  This came out on Election Day, 2008, but this quick ten-minute seminar by David Knox is more relevant now than ever:  it covers how to break the news to your seller that they may not make any money on the sale of their home, or worse still, they may have to come to the  table with a checkbook.  Ouch. 
 

Dave’s tie may be terrible, but the information is worth watching.  Just click the link below.

The Upside Down Seller - click here

But before you do, please be sure to read all the new stuff  (jokes, factoids, pets etc) on the sidebar…….cause you probably won’t come back from Youtube.  

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