Thursday, January 31, 2013

7 secrets to success!! Austin Walsh


The 7 Secrets to Success!

 

1.  Take 100% ownership of your daily method of operation! Schedule your success every night before you go to bed for the next day!

2. Learn the  20/20 rule. Make at least 20 new quality connections per day. Make at least 20 presentations per day.

3. Automate your success. Utilize technology to follow up every week for at least one year with every prospect you meet.

4.  Invest in your best customers. Call one of your best customers everyday and thank them for the business.

5. Inspect what you Expect. Create quarterly/monthly/weekly& daily sales goals with a clear and defined plan to achieve them.

6. Step into your Greatness! Your passion for excellence will guide you to become the absolute best in class!

7. All distractions are equal. Stay Laser Focused and Organized. Success is a way of life. What you live you will know!

 

Start living as a top-producer today!

 

If you would like to learn more about becoming a top producer today, Nightingale Conant and Powerteam International will be hosting a very exclusive event on March 15-17, 2013 called iSuccessFest being held at the Hyatt Regency in Schaumburg, IL.  All attendees will receive the Top 2% training program plus 10 general admission tickets to the event.

 

http://isuccessfest.com/austin

 

Event Keynote Speakers include the following:

Adam Markel - Marketing

Bob Proctor - Leadership

Robert Allen - Infopreneur

Bill Walsh - Ownership

Vic Conant - Publishing

Berny Dorhmann - Tradeshows

 

With a line up like that It's pretty hard to try and pass up an opportunity like this one!

 

If you would like to save over $2,000.00 today and attend this amazing conference use code 5555 on the order page. Your ticket will also include an upgrade for 2 members of your group to VIP seating during the 2 1/2 day event!

 

Hope to see you there

 

Austin Walsh

 

 

P.S. If you have any questions please feel free to call our VIP staff at 866-238-5920 today!

 

http://isuccessfest.com/austin
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3 ways RE goes Rogue- how to weigh the risks Tara of Trulia


Tara-Nicholle Nelson
By Tara-Nicholle Nelson | Broker in San Francisco, CA



3 Ways Real Estate Goes Rogue - and How to Weigh the Risks and Rewards of Rogue Behavior


Posted under: Home Buying, Home Selling | January 30, 2013 4:44 PM | 1,189 views | No comments


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Sometimes in life, going rogue is what you do when you have an independent spirit or when coloring inside the lines isn’t getting good results. Other times, to go rogue is to veer into the danger zone, beyond the boundaries of what is safe or will get you to your desired objective.

Some things are so high stakes, the potential for massive rewards motivates people to go rogue, but the potential for massive risk cautions the wise person not to. Things that fall into this high stakes category, in my humble opinion, include cosmetic surgery, base jumping and, yes, real estate.

Let’s take a deep dive into some of the ways real estate can and does go rogue, and help you understand just when the risk is worth taking - and when safety is the better bet.

1. The “rogue” buyer’s agent. The rogue agent is the one who is constantly going entirely off the charts from what you’ve laid out as your criteria for a home. The one who shows you a house in Parkview when you said you wanted to live in Oakview; the one who shows you a 2 bedroom when you insist you need 3; the agent who shows you condos when you’ve asked to see single family homes - and vice versa.

Sometimes, a rogue agent can frustrate a buyer, especially when there is urgency to finding a new home, when your time for house hunting is tight, or when the homes they are showing appear to have nothing that would cause the agent to reasonably expect that you might be inclined to make a compromise. Working with a rogue agent can also be frustrating when you feel like you’re simply not being heard.

But in my experience, more often than not, there’s method to a so-called “rogue” agent’s madness. Some agents go rogue when there’s a real disconnect between a client’s asks and their budgets, in which case they aren’t going rogue at all but, rather, reality-checking you on what you can get for your money in your market (whether or not you are inclined to shoot the messenger). Other agents go rogue when they’ve really listened deeply to the picture you’re painting of the lifestyle you want to live ‘after’ you buy, and they have reason to believe the homes they are showing you can create that better than what you’ve asked for. Still others go rogue when they come across a unique opportunity they think you might love - frankly, part of the advantage of working with an agent in the first place is to have someone watching aggressively for opportunities that come on the market that you might miss for one reason or another.

Risk vs. Reward: The risk of working with a truly rogue real estate agent is really the opportunity cost - all the homes you might be missing out on if your agent just won’t listen to what you have to say. But there is incredible potential upside to working with a “rogue” agent if they fall into the following categories:
• who is willing to break the truth to you, no matter how hard;
• who is willing to think creatively and draw on their own experience to bring you creative solutions to your housing needs; and
• who always has you in mind as they see unique opportunities in the market and will surface them to you when they come up.
Before you get upset with an agent you think has gone rogue, make sure they’re not actually just trying to do one of these things.

2. Disclosure debacles. Some sellers, given the traumatic nature of the market over the past few years, get worried that a laundry list of little fixes, nicks and all the “minor” repairs that have been done over the years they’ve owned the home will scare off a good buyer or will otherwise ruin the deal. Occasionally, one of these sellers goes “rogue” by deciding not to mention a few “little issues” they have had with the home.

Reality check: a disclosure you might see as minor could be the trigger that makes a buyer’s inspector dig deeper into a particular item - it could even cause the buyer to order an inspection they wouldn’t have otherwise. And, yes - this does increase the chances that a buyer will find something wrong with the place during escrow, and maybe even increase the chances that they will ask for a price reduction or repair credit to close the deal. But most buyers just want full information so they can make a decision about whether and how to move forward - so, chances are also good that the buyer will find nothing wrong at all, or will find something wrong with the place and move forward on the original terms - or maybe will offer to split the difference on the repair costs; the potential outcomes are many.

But you know what? Giving a buyer true, full disclosure also vastly decreases the chances that they will come back and sue you years down the road, when something goes wrong that they might have been able to find if you had disclosed your little plumbing peccdilloes up front. What’s way more expensive than splitting the difference with your buyer on a sewer line replacement? Paying court fees, arbitrators and attorneys to sort it all out five years down the road.

Risk vs. Reward. When your grandmother taught you that honesty was the best policy, she was unwittingly giving you the best real estate advice there is. There’s simply no contest here - the risks of non-disclosure so far outweigh any possible reward from skimping on the house history that smart sellers err on the side of overdisclosure every single time.

3. HOA hijinks. The potential for drama within a homeowner’s association (HOA) is a specter that looms large in the nightmares and worst-case scenarios of every condo-considering house hunter and many owners of townhomes, condos and even standalone dwellings located in HOA-managed subdivisions. And because an HOA is simply an organization made up by actual homeowners, the hijinks and rogue behavior can flow in both directions!

HOA’s themselves can go rogue, so to speak, by:
• failing to appropriately budget for upcoming repairs and expenses
• levying unexpected assessments
• increasing dues beyond what an owner might think is reasonable
• failing to enforce regulations - or being overly restrictive in enforcing regulations - about any subject from paint colors, to flooring materials, to pets allowed and noise controls.

And home owners can - and do - go rogue on their HOAs, as well, including when they:
• default on their HOA dues
• default on their mortgage payments or
• intentionally or egregiously violate the same sorts of regulations described above, terrorizing their neighbors and fellow HOA members.

Risk vs. Reward: The risks of defaulting on your obligations to your HOA are steep - namely, your HOA can - and many will - send your past due dues to a collection agency, impairing your credit, and after prolonged non-payment, they can even foreclose and repossess your home. Similarly, violating your HOA’s formal rules, even if you think they are unfair, is foolhardy - it can result in a range of issues from a daily fine for having an impermissible pet to a court order requiring you to pull out the hardwood floors that were barred by the HOA guidelines and which made a thunderous sound in your downstairs neighbors’ place with every single step.

How can you minimize the risk of a rogue HOA? By vetting the Association completely before you buy, which includes a complete reading and review of the lengthy HOA budget documents, account statements, insurance certificates, board meeting minutes, newsletters, regulations and other documents every HOA home’s seller is required to disclose to a buyer, by law. Talking to the unit or home’s neighbors, and understanding how many units are delinquent on their dues or in a state of foreclosure doesn’t hurt either.

Your better bet, if you disagree with the fairness or wisdom of your HOA’s rules, is to apply for an exception or contest the rule, publicly, via your HOA Management company or an appeal directly to the board. Truth be told, your best bet in avoiding HOA Hijinks overall is to read the newsletters and board meeting minutes, attend board meetings, stay in touch with your neighbors and even run for a board membership.

ALL: Have you ever witnessed real estate gone rouge?

ALL: You should follow Trulia and Tara on Facebook!
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Core 7 referral program when buying a home

The Core-7 Referral Process when buying a home

The ideal referral process when buying a home-Realtor to Lender(pre-approval) to Financial Advisor(cash-flow analysis) back to the Realtor(home search-accepted offer) to Lender for loan submission to attorney/escrow agent for P&S to Insurance Agent for homeowners insurance and Umbrella Policy. Closing-to Financial Advisor to put the plan together with the Accountant and Estate Planning Atty.
The Client owns a home and has a Full Financial Team. Www.whats-your-rate.com

Nav view search whats-your-rate.com

“For anyone who has not bought a home yet, but has been thinking of jumping into that ‘American dream,’ you need to read this book before you begin the process! Thinking about buying a second home? Make sure your ducks are in a...

12 hours ago
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Instagram? Yammer?

Instagram? Yammer? Small and bootstrapped led tech M&A



View photo gallery (3 photos)
CB Insights graph of most active tech M&A companies
CB Insights
Facebook, Google and Cisco did the most tech acquisitions of private companies last year.
Senior Technology Reporter- Silicon Valley Business Journal
Email | Twitter | Google+
Big deals like Facebook's buyout of Instagram and Microsoft's purchase of Yammer grabbed the tech M&A headlines in 2012, but they weren't representative of most of last year's sales.
About three-quarters of the private sales of tech companies last year involved startups that never raised investment money, according to a new report by CB Insights.
Billion-dollar deals made up only 2.5 percent of all private tech M&A and more than half involved less than $50 million.
"That really surprised us," CB Insights CEO Anand Sanwal told me, offering a couple of possible reasons that he said need more study.
One is that many deals last year involved B2B or enterprise companies that were able to grow from their profits and didn't need to raise money before they were acquired.
Another is that some started out as service companies (another name for consultants) that started to make a product that drew the attention of an acquirer.
"We are going to dig deeper and try to figure this out but those are two possible explanations," Sanwal said.
Check out the accompanying slideshow for more from the report. Here are some highlights:
— Google and Facebook tied for the most acquisitions, with 12 each. Cisco Systems was No. 3 with 11.
— California alone accounted for more acquisitions than the next five states combined.
— The top three industries were Web and mobile commerce, 173 deals; advertising, sales and marketing, 131; and online news and information, 88.
— The median amount of money raised by companies that were sold was $16.6 million and the median amount paid to buy them was $73.5 million.
Cromwell Schubarth is the Senior Technology Reporter at the Business Journal. His phone number is 408.299.1823.

Related links:

Menlo Park, Mountain View, Mergers and Acquisitions, Venture capital

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51% of student loans deferred or in forebearance

More students delay repaying loans


Half of student loans are now in deferment or forbearance


January 30, 2013|AnnaMaria Andriotis



When their student loans come due, many borrowers have no choice but to postpone the inevitable. As of March, 51% of student loans were in deferment or forbearance — periods when, owing to financial hardship, borrowers are not required to make payments — up from 44.3% a year prior, according to a study released today by credit bureau TransUnion. (These figures include deferments for students who are still in school.) And the amount they’ve postponed paying jumped 70% to $388 billion from March 2007 to March 2012.
Financial advisers have long hailed these two programs as safety nets for borrowers who become unable to repay their loans because of unemployment, underemployment or other circumstances. Rather than missing payments and defaulting, which would also ruin their credit score, borrowers are able to buy some time until they regain their financial footing.
While the temporary relief has helped many borrowers, the new data suggests that these student-loan protections could be hurting others — in particular those who leave their loans in deferment or forbearance for long stretches. In those cases, “it’s not a good fix because you’re just digging yourself into a deeper hole,” says Mark Kantrowitz, publisher of FinAid.org, which tracks student-loan debt.


The impact on lenders has so far been minimal. The federal government handles most of the loans in deferment or forbearance, and experts say the delays in payment could actually help it raise more revenue as many of these borrowers will owe more in interest. And if federal student loan borrowers end up defaulting, the government has other ways of getting that money, including garnishing wages and Social Security benefits. Read “How student loans could hit your Social Security.”
Borrowers encounter several problems when they come out of long periods of deferment or forbearance. With the exception of subsidized federal loans, interest on student loans continues to accrue during these periods, so that when borrowers do eventually start repaying their loans, they’ll be facing a bigger balance than when they entered into these programs. Also, delaying repayment for a longer period increases the chances that they’ll carry this debt later on into life. That’s partly why the number of people ages 40 to 49 still repaying their student loans totaled 5.7 million during the first quarter of 2012, according to the latest data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. That’s up from 3.3 million seven years prior.
Furthermore, experts say that federal loans, which provide borrowers with more flexibility, could also derail borrowers’ efforts to make a dent in their debt. That’s because the loans permit nonpayment for a total of up to eight years. In contrast, private loans for the most part offer forbearance for only a year (sometimes longer if the borrower agrees to at least pay interest during that period).
In fact, the latest data shows that deferment is much more widespread with federal loans. Roughly 55 million, or 53% of outstanding federal student loans, were in deferment or forbearance in March 2012, according to TransUnion. In contrast, around 1.8 million or 19% of private loans were at that time.
Rather than delaying payments for a long period, borrowers with federal loans may want to consider some alternative repayment options that could lower their monthly bill. Most recently, the federal government launched a “Pay as You Earn” repayment plan that limits payments to 10% of a borrower’s discretionary income and forgives the remaining balance after 20 years of regular repayment, or after 10 years for those in public service.

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Your doc is following you on Twitter

The doctor is now following you on Twitter


Scientists say social media can track diseases better than the CDC


January 30, 2013|Jen Wieczner



Savvy analysts and investors have been using Twitter to predict election results and identify new hot stocks. (See The wishdom of crowds)
Now a group of researchers at Johns Hopkins University is using the social media site to track the movement and severity of the flu — and their work may be used to address other public-health issues. (See U.S. researchers tracking flu through Twitter)
As people tweet personal details about their health (and illnesses), the scientists screen the social network to gather data on influenza cases in the U.S. While health experts have in the past had trouble monitoring the virus, since people with the flu often stay home in bed, social media sites like Twitter may provide a unique real-time window into national epidemics even as they play out behind closed doors.
“When an influx of mentions of the flu start appearing on Twitter, it can be used to see where the strain started and how quickly it is spreading just by following the conversations about it,” says Sheldon Levine, community manager for Sysomos, a social media monitoring and analytics company.


Inspired by the power of the tweets to reveal trends faster than traditional surveys and polling, the researchers began monitoring Twitter for health issues about two years ago. They saw potential, for example, in the social media site’s ability to pick up an earthquake in Washington, D.C., moments before people felt it in Manhattan — faster than seismic monitoring equipment could even have detected it, says Michael Paul, a doctoral student in computer science collaborating on the studies. Twitter, the researchers say, might yield flu intel faster than the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
(A 2010 analysis of the “Twitter mood” by researchers at Indiana University predicted whether the Dow Jones Industrial Average would rise with nearly 90% accuracy — up to a week ahead of time. (See Analyzing almost 10 million tweets, research finds public mood can predict Dow days in advance)
“Because people are sharing so much on Twitter in their everyday lives, we thought we could leverage that to look at people’s health,” Paul says.
He and his colleagues have since been able to map out the danger zones for allergies in real time, with Twitter users inadvertently identifying certain cities and states that are allergen hotbeds. The researchers are also looking at other health issues to pick up on trends, including obesity, hospital errors and self-medication, as well as drug misuse and abuse.

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New US jobless claims jump 38,000

Jan. 31, 2013, 8:30 a.m. EST

New U.S. jobless claims jump 38,000 to 368,000


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By Jeffry Bartash
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The number of people who filed new applications for U.S. unemployment benefits climbed 38,000 to a seasonally adjusted 368,000 in the week ended Jan. 26, putting them at a one-month high, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected claims to climb to 355,000. Initial claims have returned to a level that prevailed through the later stages of 2012 after touching a five-year low earlier this month. Claims are often extremely jumpy in January after the end of the holidays and the start of a new year. Companies let go of temporary hires and some people wait until after the holidays to file claims. Initial claims from two weeks ago were unrevised at 330,000. The average of new claims over the past month, meanwhile, edged up by 250 to 352,000. The four-week average reduces seasonal volatility in the weekly data and is seen as a more accurate barometer of labor-market trends. Also, Labor said continuing claims increased by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 3.2 million in the week ended Jan. 19. Continuing claims reflect the number of people already receiving benefits. About 5.9 million people received some kind of state or federal benefit in the week ended Jan. 12, up 255,501 from the prior week. Total claims are reported with a two-week lag.
Read the full story:
Initial jobless claims jump 38,000 to 368,000
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