Have you ever had a telemarketer call you on the phone and listened to their spiel for a minute or longer? Don't you start not hearing what they are saying after a little while? That is why a letter will often get thru to the prospect better than a call. The prospect doesn't have as much sales resistance when you send them a letter, than when you call them.

Sales resistance is the person listening to a spiel on the other end of the phone, but they're not hearing anything at all. This is the biggest reason that a simple sales letter will get a prospect to find out who you are, what you do, and how you can get their home sold. It's like a presentation in a letter. And it pre-sells the prospect on why they should call you to list their home. However, here is the biggest challenge in doing this.

You've got to get the prospect to read your letter. Every single part of your letter is geared towards getting the prospect to read it. What is the goal of the headline? To get them to read the first sentence. Then, the goal of the first sentence is to get them to read the second sentence. It goes on from there. If you can interest the prospect with your headline, and then rest of the letter is interesting and compelling, the prospect will read it.

Many ads in magazines and such will put a picture in the ad. The picture is the thing that attracts attention. Under the picture you put a byline that will compel the prospect to read the rest of the ad. You can use this concept in your letter, but you have to make sure the byline is compelling enough to get the prospect to read the rest of the letter. In one of my expired letters I put a picture of a family in front of a sold sign. Just to the left of that picture I put their actual testimonial. When the prospect receives that letter, the picture is going to attract their attention and they'll see the testimonial right next to it.

If you are looking for a source of motivated sellers, expireds are a good place to look. I've got a great system for listing expireds... Go to www.CuttingEdgeRealtorMagazine.com/Expired_System.html for the Agent's Motivated Seller Gold Mine System.

I've included letters for Expireds, FSBOs, and also Pre-foreclosures in it.

Thank You for reading this.

Sincerely,

Ben Curry

P.O. Box 1294 , Lake City, FL 32056, USA

Eight Habits of Real Estate Super Stars

By: Margo Weinstein

The real estate business is changing dramatically---so are you changing the way you do business? If you aren’t, you will loose many opportunities to make money in 2008.

I have been a successful VP of a real estate company for over twenty-five years, and for the past ten years, I have been a career consultant and trainer to top professionals worldwide. So that I keep abreast of all the latest market conditions and tools for success, I regularly interview leading CEOs and superstars in the real estate industry including Barbara Corcoran, Corcoran Company, Sam Zell, Equity Group Investments and the Tribune, economist, Dr. Linneman, Linneman Associates, and Steven Good, CEO, Sheldon Good & Company. What I have learned is that ALL successful people make money in changing markets by redesigning their business plan to take advantage of the new opportunities.

Listed below are eight easy ways to help you can redesign your business so you can make more money in 2008 with the new opportunities available in both the residential and commercial markets:

Find Your Niche Market. You must begin by figuring out how you are unique and how you can brand your uniqueness to become the expert in your market.
A. Start my writing down key information on paper including:

List your past customers, and the properties and services you have offered.
If you have customers now, describe their “Habits, Desires, Geography, Lifestyle Preferences.”
Do you know why your customers do business with you?
What types of properties they buy?
What services do you offer that are Unique?
What services you could add to better serve your customers?
B. Next, write down some areas for new opportunities and business growth:

Look for trends in your area where you can work with new customers ( i.e. seniors, baby boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, etc.) Find out how they views housing options and make real estate decisions and think of how you can help them reach their goals?
Niche Markets offer specialized opportunities (i.e. housing for young professionals, retirement housing, student housing, etc.).
Real Estate Auctions, Tax Sales and Foreclosures are opportunities to find great deals.
Green Buildings continue to be a great way to make money.
Baby boomers who are wealthier will continue to buy second and third homes.
Rental Markets will Boom (get investors to buy properties to rent).
Global real estate markets such as China, Japan, and Brazil offer great opportunities.
Design a “NEW” business plan. Failure for professionals to make money in real estate is often due to the lack of planning. Once you have figured out your niche, write a new basic business plan with your 12-month goals. It does not matter how basic the original business plan appears. Writing a plan will help guide you on a road to reaching your goals. There is little value attached to dreams if they only stay in your head. Your plan should be unique to you. What is financial and business success to one professional is often not the same for others. If you are relatively new in the business, ask an expert such as your broker, salespeople or another professional to help you design a budget.

Start by following guidelines below to design and keep your plan updated:

    A.  Project Your Income:

How do you want to see the next year?
How much money do you want to make?
What are your expenses?
How much money do you need to make to cover your expenses?
If you’re an agent, how many homes or real estate transactions do you need to make in this year?
Try to calculate all your expenditures such as costs to acquire new technology programs. I recommend Top Producer Software, Quick books. Quicken or other software to track expenses for business & tax purpose?
List the cost of all the education programs you are required to take or plan to attend in the next year.
Estimate a budget to cover marketing efforts.

       B.  Review and Adjust Your Budget.

Make sure your numbers make sense.
Have you over- or underestimated some costs?
Did you remember to adjust for annual cost increases?
Is your budget realistic

C. Monitor Your Plan Regularly. A budget is a work in progress. Once you’ve created it, you need to check your actual expenses against budgeted expenses regularly to see where you’re spending too little or too much and keep you on track.

1. Organize and Prioritize. Then next step for you to reach your goals, you must select a time in your schedule each week to review your plan and to focus your thoughts. By developing a list and prioritizing your goals, you are focusing your attention and taking responsibility for your choices. This action plan or time-line can be further divided during the year to include what activities are necessary each day, each week, and each month to move you in the direction of your goals. I believe in the saying work “smarter not harder”. But remember that working hard alone won’t bring success. You must develop strategies to work smarter at the same time. “We succeed only as we identify in life, or in war, or in anything else, a single overriding objective, and make all other considerations bend to that one objective. Dwight D. Eisenhower, speech, April 2, 195734th president of US 1953-1961 (1890 - 1969)




2. Network to meet people and build new partnerships.

You must make time in your schedule to go to new events every month to meet professionals as well as former, current and future clients.
Start by making a list of all the builders, bankers, other Realtors, friends and co-workers who will support and believe in you, and then contact them to build business relationships that are a win-win for all parties.

Attend functions by NAR, Chamber of Commerce, Rotary Clubs, Professional Associations or Organizations like the Chicago Association of REALTORS®. Join groups like NAR’s International Forum or FIABCI (The International Federal of Real Estate Professionals).

Contact developers in your area and offer to work with them.
Create relationships with Banks and Credit Unions to help them sell their foreclosures and tax sales.
Do Joint Ventures with others.
Be a Resource. Ask yourself, what can you do for others for free? Use every opportunity to share information to your clients, associates, and others. If you have a web site, use it to provide useful free information.. Dr. Peter Linneman, top economist and Wharton Professor, says,” Unless you’re an amazing technician, people are the key to success. It looks like it’s a building about bricks and mortar and money, and it’s really a business about understanding and working with people that happen to use bricks and mortar and money. Real Estate is a people business, and if you are not good with people, if you can’t figure out the good people to work with from the bad, those you can trust and not trust, those that you know how to help and try to figure out how to help, you will not be successful.”

1. Use the Latest Technology Tools to build your business. I am a great believer in the power of new technologies to make money in real estate. My latest interview will be on Cyber Society Radio in February on new technology tools to take your business to a new level.” A few tools that I highly recommend:

Create an outstanding and unusual Web site by adding moving signs, videos and audio programs to your web site. I recommend Realtor-in-the-box, eimpressions.com to help you. Or you can simply create one by using your own video camera or type recorder to create a few minutes to post on your web site. Look at my web site for some ideas: www.drmargotweinstein.com.
Send broadcast e-mails to clients, other Realtors, and colleagues.
Use BLOGS and pod casts. Active Rain has a great site for blogs.
Adapt new business programs to help you manage your data. I recommend Microsoft Outlook, Power Point, Top Producer, Argus, and Costar Data.
Use Skype. Skype is a phone system to call people FREE worldwide who are members. You an also hold conference calls on Skype.

1. Develop other new ways to grow your business. Some suggestions:

Give speeches at your associations, conferences seminars, and businesses.
Offer to be on local radio shows as the expert in your niche.
Offer to teach a course at your association.
Do More Door-to-Door Calling.
Write articles or a newsletter of useful times on your market conditions.
Take some new education courses related to your niche market.
Join or create an investor group or other club.
Meet new local bankers, lawyers, and other professionals who can work with you to service your clients and offer to develop partnerships.
Endorse books and send them to clients and others as gifts. As a writer and author of many books, I know that people often throw out articles, but endorsed books usually end up on their coffee table or they give it to their friends and associates.

1. Work Hard To Do a Professional Job. Your reputation will precede you so that people will want to do business with you. In hundreds of interviews with luminaries such as Barbara Corcoran, Corcoran Company, Dale Reiss, Ernst & Young, and Sharon Young, Sharon K. Young & Associates---ALL of them understand the importance being professional in their business dealings. In my leadership theory which won an award by the American Real Estate Society, I explain what it means to be a professional:

Do a complete job to the best of your ability.
Complete all your work on time.
Seek expert advice when you are not sure of something.
Build a good reputation by being ethical and following the laws and the standards of practice of the business.
Work well as part of a team; learn the skills if you do not have them already.
Have a good attitude.
Dress the part.
Continue to learn.

1. Enjoy The Journey. Last, and most importantly, I have learned that NO ONE has a job in which they love all the tasks they do each day. But, successful people always find passion in their work each day---that is what drives them and helps them maintain their energy and enthusiasm with customers, colleagues and others so that people always want to work with them. So remember to enjoy each day of your work, it is good for your personally and professionally. As in the famous words, “Get happiness out of your work or you may never know what happiness is.” Elbert Hubbard US author (1856 - 1915)
   
   30% Referrals - Experience the new elite directory for real estate referrals. Find exemplary real estate professionals who will give your client referrals the best of care.

About the Author
Margo Weinstein: Dr. Margot Weinstein, CIPS, is CEO of MW Leadership Consultants LLC and Vice President of Kingston Group Inc., a commercial real estate company based in Chicago. Dr. Margot is a top speaker, consultant, trainer, and an award winning real estate developer and author. www.drmargotweinstein.com To book Margot Weinstein, please call 1-877-211-6472 or visit www.BrokerAgentSpeakers.com.

Though a majority of Internet users in the United States make
online purchases regularly, a strong minority do not. Why? Their
biggest fears are of identity theft and theft of their credit card
information. Those of us who sell online need to respond in two
ways.

1. Provide a Secure Sales Environment

Hackers are clever. They're constantly finding ways to hack into a
webserver and steal valuable credit card data, passwords, etc. You
have to stay ahead of them. The cost to a merchant of having
credit card information stolen from your server can be high. Laws
now require notifying customers of the theft and offering them
free credit checks. In addition, the resulting publicity could
badly damage sales.

Your best line of defense against hackers is an experienced,
responsive web hosting service or IT department that takes
security seriously.

If your web hosting service displays a Hacker Safe or McAfee
Secure logo (www.mcafeesecure.com), this is a good indication that
they are security conscious. We marketers tend to see this shield
as a marketing device that boosts confidence and thus sales. It
does. But this is not merely a marketing gimmick. McAfee Secure
(formerly ScanAlert) and companies like them subject their
clients' servers to rigorous daily testing for vulnerabilities
that a hacker might try to exploit.

Your hosting service needs to be receiving regular reports of
possible vulnerabilities and constantly be tightening security. As
they do, your site will be better protected against the most
common types of attacks.

In addition, PCI (Payment Card Industry) Standards compliance is
required of all merchants who take credit cards. Following these
standards helps keep valuable data secure.

1. Publicize That Your Server Is Secure

Since we know that people are wary of buying online -- especially
from unknown merchants -- then it is vital to assure people in a
variety of ways that their sale will be safe. In my book How to
Develop a Landing Page (2008 edition,
www.wilsonweb.com/ebooks/landing.htm) I discuss eight ways to
increase trust. These include explicitly letting shoppers know
that your server is secure. The best place to do this is when
people are ready to buy -- on the landing page, the shopping cart,
and order information page.

• Display a Hacker Safe / McAfee Secure logo. Permission to do so
  is not inexpensive nor is compliance easy. But this logo provides
  assurance to buyers of a safe environment -- especially important
  on sites of unknown merchants.




• Display a logo from your SSL Digital Certificate vendor stating
  that your site is protected. It is one more indication to the
  buyer of your concern with safety.




• Include a link to a pop-up window that answers the question: "Is
  it safe to purchase online?"




• Test to see if changing the wording of your order or cart button
  to "Order now on our secure server" increases sales.

Online shoppers customers are very concerned with security. If we
want their business, we must make it our concern as well.

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Washington Report: New Housing Bill

by Kenneth R. Harney

The massive, 600-page housing bill heading to the White House is loaded with billions of dollars of new programs, financial assistance for troubled home owners, home buyer tax credits and even a new regulatory structure to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

But the legislation is also missing things that could prove significant for certain home buyers -- primarily those who want FHA mortgage money.

Tops on the list: The final bill effectively kills the popular "downpayment assistance" programs run by companies such as Nehemiah Corporation and Ameridream, Inc.

The Bush administration had sought to ban seller-funded "gift" plans for more than two years, and finally got its wish last Wednesday when the House accepted Senate bill language making them illegal when used with FHA loan insurance.

Downpayment assistance works like this: When a buyer doesn't have enough cash for a downpayment, the home seller makes a "charitable contribution" to a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization. The nonprofit pockets a fee of $400 to $600 -- sometimes even more -- and "gifts" the needed downpayment money to the buyer.

Proponents of the plans say they've helped over a million low and moderate income families buy homes with FHA mortgages over the past decade.

But FHA officials complain that loans with downpayments funded by sellers go into default at two to three times the rate of ordinary FHA loans, in part because borrowers "have no skin in the game," in the words of FHA Commissioner Brian D. Montgomery.

Losses are higher as well, say officials, because sellers frequently add the cost of the "gift" onto the selling price of the house. Proponents challenge FHA's statistics and say appraisers must validate selling prices as part of the FHA underwriting process.

Another key item missing from the final legislation: FHA had lobbied Congress vigorously to authorize it to charge "risk-based" premiums on loans, just as private insurers do. Applicants with low credit scores and low downpayments represent higher risks of delinquency and foreclosure, and should be charged more than applicants with high scores and larger downpayments, argued Montgomery.

The House agreed, but the Senate clamped a one-year moratorium on FHA risk-based pricing in its version, which the House ultimately accepted.

Published: July 28, 2008

Free Credit Score, Credit Monitoring Services

by Broderick Perkins

There's perhaps nothing more important than your credit report and your credit score when it comes to buying a home.

Lenders scrutinize both before approving -- or rejecting -- your mortgage application.

Before you apply for a mortgage, before you search for a home, you should know what's on your credit report and you should know the score.

That's because you may need to correct errors or make some adjustments to your credit habits to improve your credit, raise your score and increase your chance of landing the mortgage you need.

With a credit monitoring service it's easier to keep tabs on any corrections or changes you may need to make.

Now, both your credit report and your credit score are free -- with a few caveats -- thanks to a recently settled class action suit involving TransUnion. TransUnion, along with Equifax and Experian, is one of the big three credit reporting agencies.

Your credit report is your fiscal fitness report on your credit habits. It names your credit accounts, identifies them by type and tracks balances, credit limits, available credit, open-or-closed status and payments, all to reveal how well or how poorly you pay each account.

The report also documents your applications for credit as well as notices of liens, judgments and other "derogatory" remarks, remarks from the consumer, credit freezes, identity theft actions, dispute notices and other information.

And it contains your legal name, current and recent addresses and place of employment, Social Security number, date of birth, driver's license number, telephone numbers and other identifying information.

All the information on your credit report is also factored heavily into your credit score, a statistical analysis or numerical value placed on your credit behavior. Your credit score is commonly used to nay or yea your requests for credit. The higher the better.

Under the settlement, anyone who has ever had a credit report on file with TransUnion between Jan. 1, 1987, and May 28, 2008, is eligible to receive certain credit score and credit monitoring benefits. That's pretty much anyone with a credit card account or loan during the period -- some 160 million Americans.

The settlement says eligible consumers can select either a free TransUnion six-month credit monitoring service the company normally sells for $59.75 or a nine-month enhanced credit monitoring service that costs $115.50. Both services come with a credit score.

Under previously existing federal law, "The Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003" you can already get a free credit report three times a year -- one from each of the three major credit reporting agencies (among others): Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

You can also get your credit report by calling (877) 322-8228, or by writing Annual Credit Report Request Service, PO Box 105283, Atlanta, GA 30348-5283. Call first to determine what information you'll need to send.

If you obtain the free report from one company, say in January, another report from another company in May, and another from the remaining company in September, you've effectively set up your own free monitoring system to keep tabs on what's doing on your credit report.

However, consumer regulatory provisions don't give you a credit score, which will cost you $10 or more.

The new court settlement does include both a credit monitoring service and the TransUnion credit score in the deal, but TransUnion's credit score isn't the more widely used Fair Isaacs Co. (or FICO).

You'll still have to pay for the FICO score and you should.

Published: July 9, 2008

Broderick Perkins parlayed a career in old-school journalism into a contemporary digital news service that really hits home.
The award-winning consumer journalist, originally from Wilmington, DE, is founder, publisher and executive editor of the bootstrap DeadlineNews Group, a Silicon Valley-based editorial content and consulting service.

He has also produced real estate, consumer and small business content for the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, RealtyTimes.com, Nolo.com, Better Homes and Gardens, the National Association of Realtors, Homestore/Move and Intuit/Quicken among more than three dozen publications.