There’s been so much talk about real estate agent teams recently. Are they good for the real estate industry? Are they bad for the broker? Regardless of the answer, real estate agent teams are popping up all over the map–from small towns to giant cities. Big or small, real estate agent teams (mini-powerhouses is what I like to call them) are changing the the way real estate practitioners work with buyers and sellers, vendors, members of the media, and more.

With those thoughts as the backdrop for today’s post, next week I’ll be in New York for RISMedia’s 19th Annual Leadership Conference, where I’ll be joined by dozens of other real estate industry professionals as we explore best practices in building and maintaining a high functioning real estate agent team. This year’s event, which takes place at The Roosevelt Hotel in New York City, promises to be another memorable RISMedia-coordinated event.

My session–a panel discussion I’ll be facilitating titled The ABCs of Forming a Winning Agent Team–will teach Leadership Conference attendees the basic steps toward forming their own agent team. Joining me, as Panelists, are a number of successful Realtors who already know the in’s and out’s of running a successful real estate agent team, including:

• John Bendall, Team Leader, The Bendall Group
• Bryan Felder, Realtor, The Virginia Realty Group
• Faye Rispoli, Broker Associate, RE/MAX Premier
• Howard Witz, Associate Broker, Fillmore Real Estate

If you’re interested in learning more about the Conference, which takes place from September 3rd and 4th, visit the Leadership Conference homepage.

Today and tomorrow I’ll be in Colorado with my assistant and co-author, Lois Maljak, attending the 3rd Annual RISMedia CEO Exchange. This year’s Exchange–which is once again being hosted by RE/MAX founder Dave Liniger at his privately owned and managed Sanctuary Golf Course and Clubhouse, in Sedalia, CO–is an invitation-only event that draws the top 100 real estate brokers in the U.S.

If you run a real estate brokerage–like all of the people attending the CEO Exchange–you have to provide consistent and professional training, a strong and appropriately supportive company culture, along with a positive work environment for the agents, specialists and support staff who work for your organization. If you don’t, especially in today’s economy, your agents could flounder!

As a part of this year’s CEO Exchange agenda, I’ve been asked to serve on a panel discussion titled “Are You a Good Manager? Managing Your Agents and Agent Teams.” My fellow panelists and I are charged with sharing best practices and tip, tricks, strategies, and even warnings so other top brokers can learn from our successes and mistakes.

Joining on today’s panel:

• Brian Allan, Broker/Owner, Windermere Cronin & Caplan Realty Group
• Chad Ochsner, Broker/Owner, RE/MAX Alliance
• Steve Rodgers, President & CEO, Prudential California Realty

Our panel is being moderated by Bob Blount, CEO of RE/MAX Allegiance. Bob’s operation includes 1,150 real estate agents working in 35 offices in Virginia and Maryland.

Since attendance at this week’s event is by invitation-only, it’s unlikely anyone stumbling across this blog post would be able to sit in my session. That being the case, I strongly recommend to anyone starting or managing a real estate agent team, that you pick up a copy of my latest book, “Power Teams: The Complete Guide to Building and Managing a Winning Real Estate Agent Team,” which I co-authored with RISMedia’s President & CEO, John Featherston.

Southeast Michigan’s most popular and respected business newspaper and website recently took the time to interview me about the state of the house flipping market here in Michigan. The interview/story made it to the front page of the current edition of Crain’s Detroit Business.

Here’s a shot of the front page:

For more, read “Some area house flippers find upside to housing downturn” by Tom Andrew of Crain’s Detroit Business.

I am pleased to announce that my latest book, Power Teams: The Complete Guide to Building and Managing a Winning Real Estate Agent Team, is now available. Co-authored with RISMedia President & CEO John Featherston, Power Teams is a definitive resource for Realtors and real estate agent teams alike. Like all of my other books, this one is packed with proven strategies and best practices, and includes insight from some of the nation’s leading real estate agent teams.

From my co-author and publisher, John Featherston:

Being a real estate agent just isn’t what it used to be. Today’s real estate consumers are more sophisticated and knowledgeable than ever before. Ralph and I both believe that in order to remain competitive, agents have to do much more–place more phone calls, ramp up their marketing efforts, offer additional services, and spend more time with their clients to better understand the needs of today’s real estate consumers. Many agents are feeling the strain and looking to the team concept as a solution for themselves and their customers. In Power Teams, we help agents–and brokers–overcome the obstacles of creating and succeeding with an agent teams.

In Power Teams, John and I set out to:

• Define and explain the agent team concept
• Review the various agent team models
• Help agents decide whether the agent team concept is right for them
• Show agents how to build a team from the ground up

To order a copy of Power Teams, please contact Pat Hatton, RISMedia Account Executive, at (800) 724-6000 ext. 124 or e-mail. pat@rismedia.com

Today’s edition of The New York Times carried a story by Joanne Kaufman entitled, “A Shift in Real Estate Books.” The story is about how publishers are scrambling to get books to market to help homeowners and real estate investors with the downturn in the housing market and increasing foreclosures.

The article begins by focusing on the fact that even well-to-do celebrities are having trouble. Recently, Ed McMahon–famous for serving as Johnny Carson’s co-host and for making a small number of people happy as spokesperson for American Family Publishing sweepstakes–has run into some financial trouble and is facing foreclosure on his $4.8 million in home loans. As Kaufman’s article points out, I attempted to contact McMahon to offer my help in reviewing his real estate files (to see if he had been mislead or worse by his financial advisors or the real estate industry professionals who worked on his behalf), but I didn’t get very far.

In any event, The New York Times article serves as a nice nod toward those of us work hard to write great books that truly help homeowners navigate their way through testy waters.

From The New York Times:

A few years ago, when the housing market was white-hot, companies that publish how-to books were tripping over themselves to pump out titles about buying property and making money in the real estate business.

Now that the bottom has fallen out of the housing market, the opposite is true: publishers are updating their backlist titles as well as rushing out newly acquired manuscripts to advise consumers who may have stumbled in the housing game.

For more on this story, read “A Shift in Real Estate Books” or click on the banner image above.

Chicago Tribune real estate columnist Mary Umberger recently asked me to offer advice to homeowners who are behind on their mortgage payments. From this morning’s Chicago Tribune:

Making the most of workout
Mary Umberger

April 13, 2008

Options exist for homeowners behind on their mortgage payments—if they act quickly. Lisle attorney Steven Bashaw and Michigan real estate broker Ralph Roberts offer these:

• A forbearance agreement may help borrowers with short-term financial problems, Roberts said. It’s a payment plan with a set pay-back period, and the bank will want proof you can live up to it. “If you owe $3,000 in back payments, for example, the bank may allow you to pay an extra $250 per month for 12 months,” he said.
• Reinstatement entails paying all past-due payments, costs and fees to bring the account current. This may be a good short-term solution, Roberts said, but homeowners have to make hard decisions about whether they can keep paying the loan in the long haul.
• Mortgage modification means working out a new loan, with many possible variations. The bank may agree to roll the amount owed in missed payments, penalties and interest into the total loan amount, for example, Roberts said. Or a modification might lower the interest rate or change the loan’s term.
• Sell the house in a timely manner, pay off the loan and fees, and end the problem, Roberts and Bashaw said.
• A short sale occurs when a lender agrees to take a loss by selling the house for less than the amount owed. “I don’t encounter those as much as you’d think,” Bashaw said. “They’re not the panacea that speculators and investors and real estate agents want you to think they are.”
• Bankruptcy. “It can give you more time to restructure your debt,” Roberts said. “Bankruptcy takes you off the market, the collection proceedings can’t keep going. The clock just stops running.” But it’s extreme, and a lender might get court approval to proceed with the foreclosure anyway, Roberts said. Plus, it poisons your credit-worthiness.
• Redemption. In Illinois, a foreclosed borrower has a certain amount of time after the house is sold at auction to redeem it by reimbursing the purchaser for the sale price and other costs.
• Rescue plans can come from all manner of folks. They are too varied to describe here—except to say that homeowners must be wary of scams.

Bottom line: Don’t sign a quit-claim deed to someone who says this will “fix your problem,” Roberts says. It may be a ruse to steal the house. Check with a lawyer before you sign.

Below is an article published earlier today by Inman News. The author–noted real estate columnist Ilyce Glink–interviewed me for the article, which I thought I would share here…

Look before you leap into foreclosures — Avoid problems with ‘Dummies’ author’s 12-item checklist

BY Ilyce Glink, Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Inman News

As if Detroit, and the entire state of Michigan, hasn’t suffered enough.

Last year, Detroit led the United States in foreclosures, with close to 5 percent of its households entering some stage of foreclosure, according to California-based RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure listings.

That number was nearly five times the national average, and almost double the number of foreclosures the city experienced in 2006.

But every cloud has a silver lining. Just ask Ralph Roberts, a top real estate agent in Detroit who says he has personally bought and sold more than 2,000 foreclosures during his career.

“This could be a great time to buy a home — if you have the resources,” he said.

Roberts, who is the author of “Foreclosure Investing For Dummies” and “Flipping Houses For Dummies,” said in a recent interview that he believes more than 6 million families are in distress nationwide.

“Maybe 1 or 2 million are behind in their mortgages and more have received their foreclosure notice,” he said. “But 2 million families will lose their home this year.”

Roberts says that now is the time to pick up properties at fire-sale prices.

“Properties could double in value over the next 10 years. But you have to be willing to go in, buy them, and hang on for the longer term,” he advises.

With foreclosure investing, he says, you get what you pay for. His book on foreclosure investing isn’t of the “get rich quick with no work and zero down in cash” variety.

Instead, he values doing as much homework ahead of time. To learn how to read complicated real estate and tax records, he suggests doing an exhaustive search on your own personal residence. Once you become familiar with how the information you know to be true is laid out in tax records, documents and deeds, you can begin to research homes in distress.

In addition to doing your due diligence on a particular home, Roberts suggests you create a file that contains:

• a copy of the foreclosure notice or notice of default;
• title commitment and a 24-month history in the chain of title or the last two recorded documents;
• a copy of the deed with the current homeowners’ names;
• the last recorded first mortgage, so you know how much the current homeowners owe (some of this may be available online);
• copies or documentation of all liens against the property, including property tax liens;
• a map showing the location of the property;
• your exterior home inspection (with photos and videos), plus neighborhood photos;
• city worksheet on the property showing all repairs, inspections reports and other information;
• local multiple listing service (MLS) data showing how much comparable homes are selling for in the area;
• copy of the tax bills and notes on whether they are paid up or not;
• notes from meetings with or calls to neighbors, if you met with them while doing your research;
• and, a copy of the SEV (standard equalized value) of the property, on which property taxes are based.

“Most people, when looking for a foreclosure, think ‘No’; they don’t think ‘Know,’ ” Roberts says. “To successfully buy a foreclosure, you have to build a Rolodex, get on the Web, talk to brokers, and go do your research.”

Roberts said that the Internet has been a boon for foreclosure investors.

“Go to the county’s Web site and see what kind of information they have listed. Sign up for the local legal newspaper. It costs about $1 per week,” he explains, adding that he subscribes to a number of foreclosure Web sites, some of them paid sites. “You get what you pay for.”

What I like best about Roberts and his books is that he appears to care a lot about consumers. He cautions foreclosure investors to think about homeowners and their redemption rights. He warns against being dishonest (foreclosure-rescue fraud schemes have grown exponentially, according to the latest figures from the Federal Trade Commission and the FBI).

And, he has put a lot of time and money into fighting mortgage fraud (see www.flippingfrenzy.com). Last year he published “Protect Yourself from Real Estate and Mortgage Fraud,” written with attorney Rachel Dollar.

If you live in or around the Phoenix, Arizona, area and are interested in learning more about safely investing in foreclosures or about how to defend against foreclosure, consider stopping by the Phoenix Convention Center this Saturday where Lois Maljak and I will be presenting the following workshops:

TOPIC: Foreclosure Self-Defense: The Short Sale and Other Proven Strategies for Surviving a Homeownership Crisis
When: Saturday, February 23, 2008
What Time: 11:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.
Where: Phoenix Convention Center

When most people fall behind on their mortgage payments or receive a notice of default or foreclosure, they panic and waste precious time trying to hide the problem. They mistakenly believe they have only two options – pay up or face eviction. Lois Maljak and I, co-authors of Foreclosure Self-Defense For Dummies, know better. In this informative workshop, we reveal over a dozen strategies for keeping your home or selling it and cashing out the equity, including:

• Negotiate a short sale by convincing the lender to accept less than the balance due on your mortgage.
• Ask a third-party to negotiate the short sale on your behalf – if the bank refuses to work with you.
• File for bankruptcy…or at least let the bank know you are considering that option so you gain leverage in the negotiating process.
• Negotiate a mortgage modification, essentially rewriting the mortgage with a more affordable interest rate and terms.
• Sell your home, so you don’t lose your home and your equity.

In this workshop, you discover the truth about foreclosures that the banks don’t want you to know–they need to resolve the problem as much as you do, and sometimes more than you do. Everything is negotiable, including how much you owe them!

TOPIC: Safely Investing in Foreclosures
When: Saturday, February 23, 2008
What Time: 2:00 p.m. - 2:45 p.m.
Where: Phoenix Convention Center

Safe foreclosure investing is like safe flying–the only completely safe way to invest in real estate is to not do it. However, you can employ several strategies to make investing in foreclosures safe. In this intense 45-minute workshop, I reveal field-tested strategies for maximizing your profit potential and minimizing your risks, including the following:

• Adjusting your profit estimates for different markets
• Bidding on first mortgages or at least buying the first if you buy the second
• Underestimating profits while overestimating expenses
• Thoroughly researching a property to avoid surprises
• Starting with a single property and working your way up
• Setting a bid limit before you even think of bidding

In this workshop, I guide you safely around the most common and costly pitfalls, so you avoid the mistakes that often eliminate the less careful investors.

For more information, visit the 2008 Arizona Real Estate and Mortgage Expo website.

I was recently given the opportunity to talk with Alex Markels from U.S. News & World Report about some of the topics covered in Foreclosure Investing For Dummies. Alex asked some great questions, which I’m pleased to share here (for anyone who may not have a subscription to U.S. News & World Report).

By Alex Markels — U.S. News & World Report
February 13, 2008

Ralph Roberts is a Realtor who has written many books about the real estate market and flipping homes, such as Foreclosure Investing For Dummies. U.S. News talked with Roberts about some of the first things a potential investor should know before getting into the foreclosure market. Excerpts:

Investors are understandably skittish about getting into the real estate market. Why do you think now is the time?

If you can afford to buy a piece of real estate, there’s never been a better time in my 30 years of business than now. We have good prices, and unbelievably great interest rates. For a ma and pa investor, if you’re willing to buy a rental property, you can leverage it, and 10 years from now it will be worth double what you paid for it. All the people who have been displaced because they can’t afford to pay $2,500 a month, they surely can pay $1,500. If everybody had bought a 30-percent-cheaper house, we wouldn’t have had as many foreclosures as we have now. There are a lot of tenants out there who are displaced and were at one time living the American dream of owning a home, but they still need a nice home. People who are displaced become renters.

What about the concern that the market may only get worse before it gets better?

There’s always a boost in real estate after an election. I know all those people who are saying there’s going to be change. Well for sure there’s going to be change—George is not running. By January of 2009, you’re going to see the market turning the other direction and showing appreciation again. So between now and 2009 is a great window of opportunity to buy. The best plan is to buy it, fix it, hold it, and sell it 12 months and one day or further in the future, and you will get another benefit of getting a tax rate of long-term capital gains versus ordinary income. The long-term capital rate is only 15 percent.

How does foreclosure investing differ based on your locality?

Whatever city or county you’re going to invest, you’ve got to check what inspections they have. What do they require before you can put the house back on the market to rent it, or back on the market to sell it? You are responsible to follow those rules whether you know about them or you don’t. You must at least contact the city hall or the township hall before you make an investment.

What are some misconceptions about foreclosure investing?

Just because it’s a foreclosure does not mean it’s a good deal. Some people pay too much for a property if it’s a foreclosure because they think it’s automatically a home run. You should go to your broker and run the comps in the neighborhood. The most important thing is what’s selling right now. What’s your competition? That gives you a range. The next thing you want to do is check how many houses have sold in the past 90 days. You need to have your house priced the best for the condition that it’s in because you don’t want it to be the fourth house if only three are bought in your time frame.

Why is having a time frame so important?

Time is money. The average holding cost on a house is $100 per day. You’ve got to have a B plan. If it doesn’t sell in X amount of days, you’ve got to rent it until the market improves.

Most of the people doing foreclosure investing are not doing it as their primary source of income. How do you do it and balance the rest of your life?

First you make sure your spouse is completely on board. You want to have support from your family. You’re doing this to improve your lifestyle; you’re not doing this to take quality time away. Then you draw a circle on a map, and mark where you work at, where your wife works at, where your school is at, and put those items inside that circle. That’s your target area. If you drive 20 minutes to work one direction, and then you drive back home, and then 20 minutes the other direction to your investment property, you’re 40 minutes away from it versus if it was in your target area. Some people go too far out of their marketplace and that’s how they get into trouble.

How do you avoid taking advantage of people in this business?

Treat the people with dignity and do what’s best for them. Let’s say they tell you they have a rich uncle who could help them, but they’re just too embarrassed to tell him. Help them tell the rich uncle. By doing the right thing, it’s going to come back to you 10 times.

I am pleased to announce that I have been offered an opportunity to speak at the Association of Real Estate License Law Officials (ARELLO) Midyear Meeting, which is being held April 24-26, 2008, in Pasadena, California. If you’re unfamiliar with ARELLO and the important role this organization plays in the real estate industry, here’s some background:

ARELLO was founded in 1930 to facilitate the exchange of information and cooperation among regulators and policy makers in the area of real property. Today, the organization has grown in stature and in recognition by growing its membership, attaining financial stability, and formulating and adopting uniform policies and standards in the fields of education, administration and enforcement. The association’s membership is deeply committed to the effective administration and enforcement of the license laws and of the importance of regulation in a healthy marketplace.

As you can imagine, fraud is a topic of high interest to ARELLO members, and I have been asked to address the group on current trends in real estate and mortgage fraud, what to look for when attempting to determine if fraud is present in a transaction, and emerging trends in real estate and mortgage fraud forensics.

If you would like to learn more about ARELLO or the 2008 Midyear Meeting, visit the ARELLO website or the Midyear Meeting page today.