Luxury Insights

Realtors Conference and Expo 2009 San Diego

We're in sunny San Diego for the annual Realtor's Convention and Expo.  
Stop by and see us in booth #627!

Annual Gathering: Special Short Sale Summit

Members have been asking us,“Can you help? We’re losing luxury listings to short sale agents who don’t understand how to market luxury homes.” 

So… although Leaders in Luxury will be back in 2010, this year (in response to member requests) we’ll host a special meeting through our new ILHM Center for Asset Preservation division: 

Short Sale Summit 2009
October 7 - 8
Houston, Texas
Hilton Post Oak Hotel

Even if you are experienced with short sales or have already earned a short sale or distressed property designation, you'll want to attend this event.  This is the industry’s first Short Sale training covering government’s new Making Home Affordable Program, which totally changes the rules for short sales (and the whole foreclosure/foreclosure avoidance process).

With jumbo loans defaulting at twice the rate of conforming loans and almost half of residential sales falling into the distressed category, understanding how to make short sales successful at all price points is more important than ever.

Just to give you an idea how different the new standard MHA process is:

• There is now only ONE point between default and foreclosure when a short sale will even be considered.
• The loss mitigator approves the short sale attempt in advance.
• The loss mitigator sets the list price. 
• Whoa!  Those are big change and that's just the start!  There's good news about the commission...

This two day meeting will:

• Provide the Institute’s usual great networking.
• Give you the information you must have about the government’s New Making Home Affordable program which covers 9 out of 10 loans, totally reinvents short sales, and is mandatory.
• Arm you with the checklists, forms, web links and other required tools for successful short sales, regardless of price (there will be special info on luxury short sales).
• Provide you with first hand advice from servicers’ loss mitigators.
• Give you essential information on luxury short sales, to help ensure that you don’t lose luxury listings to “short sale" agents!
• Reward you with a Short Sale Achievement Certificate
• Texas agents receive 15 hours of continuing education credit

On both days, you'll hear from speakers and panels of officials, loss mitigators, and other agents.  You'll have the opportunity to network and will leave having earned a Short Sale Achievement Certificate from the ILHM Center for Asset Preservation, indicating you have received Making Home Affordable training.

This event is open to both Members and non-Members, so bring your whole team.

More info on the CAP Short Sale Summit 2009

Register now and save!  "Early Bird" discounts end the 17th.

• Registration for Institute Members
• Public Registration
  

Great new benefits for Members from UNIQUE HOMES Magazine

Our friends at UNIQUE HOMES MAGAZINE have always been a great resource for and supportive of our members.  

We're happy to announce that they are extending some great new benefits to Institute Members.  You can find all the details here in the Members Only section of our website (login required, members only).

Institute Launches Center for Asset Preservation (CAP)

Everything you need to know about the Making Home Affordable Program and the mandatory process, rules and paperwork for Short Sales...

The ILHM Center for Asset Preservation (CAP) announces new training specific to the Making Home Affordable Program (MHA).  The central focus of our CAP training is doing Short Sales using the new mandatory process, guidelines, and required paperwork.  The training also provides an overview of other MHA foreclosure avoidance options, as well as key information on the Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Act -- all of the key things agents must know for successful short sales under the new rules. 

We created CAP and began developing this Short Sale training for our ILHM members, but when we discovered that no one was offering training covering Making Home Affordable, we decided to open the training to all agents. 

This information is ‘must have’ information for agents hoping to help homeowners avoid foreclosure and, it is essential for completing successful short sales for borrowers who must sell. 

Be sure to watch the “MHA Myths” video above if you’re hearing that Making Home Affordable isn’t important!

At ILHM, we believe strongly that all of America’s REALTORS® must get involved, get trained and get to work to help homeowners in their battle to avoid foreclosure and minimize the negative credit and tax consequences they are facing.  As an industry, Realtors are key to helping get American households back on their feet and the economy back to good health.  

CAP training will soon be available online.

A live event, the Short Sale Success Summit 2009 is scheduled for October 7 and 8 in Houston (TX).

For agents who have taken short sale training in the past or even earned a distressed property designation, the CAP course is ongoing Making Home Affordable resource your must have.

Making Home Affordable covers almost nine out of ten home loans and changes almost everything about how Short Sales are done.  CAP’s new up-to-date training reflects the new processes, rules, guidelines and standardized paperwork which are now required. In fact, we challenge agents to take the quick quiz about Short Sales on our CAP website.  We think most agents will be surprised by the correct answers.

Agents completing CAP training online or at live events will earn a CAP Short Sale Achievement Certificate.  Texas agents will earn 15 hours of continuing education credit for the live CAP training event in Houston which will be held at the Hilton Post Oak Hotel near the Galleria Shopping complex.

In addition to the Making Home Affordable training, The Short Sale Success Summit 2009 will include panels and presentations featuring government officials, loss mitigators, and real estate agents specializing in Short Sales. 

A special module on the impact of MHA and the Debt Forgiveness act on luxury properties will be included. There will also be special networking opportunities.  Call or email us with your questions. 

We’ll hope to see YOU in Houston at The Short Sale Success Summit 2009.

CAP Website

CAP Blog

New Partnership with Napa Consultants, International

We're pleased to announce a partnership with Napa Consultants, International, a leading luxury real estate strategic marketing firm specializing in personal and company branding, website design and internet/social media marketing.

Many of you already know managing partners Ron & Alexandra Seigel from the recent Stand Out or Bow Out! conference call we did with them (recording here) and their Language of Luxury blog. 

This partnership will bring more opportunities to collaborate on calls, webinars, and videos, as well as new benefits for Institute members.  Members can find more details on the new Napa Consultants, International page in the "Members Only" section of our website.

Ron & Alexandra love to talk branding and marketing strategy and host Language of Luxury discussion groups on many of the popular social networks:

Twitter: luxurymarketing
Proxio, BrokerAgentSocial, Plaxo, Linked In, ActiveRain, RealTown, Facebook

Drop by and say "Hello!"

Facebook woes - and changes to our Facebook presence

After some real hassles with Facebook, we are converting our ILHM Facebook GROUP to a PAGE.

If you are a member of our Facebook Group, here's what this means for you: 

1. We'll have a Page instead of a Group.  Like the group you can still post messages to the Wall and message boards and connect with other members.
2. You'll want to visit our ILHM Facebook Page and click the link to become a "Fan."  Once you do, you'll see the Institute logo on the Info tab of your Facebook profile and you'll be listed on the ILHM Page.  You will be able to make public posts to the "Wall" on the ILHM Page as well as view and communicate with other ILHM "Fans" (both members and non-members).
3. On Friday June 26th we will delete the ILHM Group on Facebook.  We will no longer have a private, "members-only" area on Facebook.  The ILHM Page is open to everyone--members and non-members of The Institute.  (Of course, we will still have our members-only group on Linkedin).

Why are we doing this?

Facebook made it impossible for us to effectively manage our private group.  For weeks now, Facebook has been blocking our accounts when we try to send individual messages to individual group members, and has never responded to our or inquires or requests for assistance.  

With recent changes in the Facebook platform and policies, Facebook seems to be pushing  businesses to use Pages instead of Groups. 

As you may know, it is very difficult to get through to an actual human at Facebook support.  Our messages sent to Facebook yield either no response whatsoever or generic auto-responses pointing to their help files.

As you can see, their help files are not much help when it comes to understanding why we are being blocked or how to avoid the issue:

It is interesting to note that we were not sending messages with great frequency, nor were we receiving warnings about the rate at which we were sending messages prior to them enacting the blocks on our accounts.  

Not being able to communicate with our own members for days is obviously unacceptable.  Facebook may want to remove any notion of human contact from it's member experiences, but we do not.

In the past, Facebook would apparently help businesses "convert" their Groups to Pages.  We thought they were going to do this for us.  In fact my follow-up inquiry yesterday was again met with this auto-response email with these instructions:

 

We did this and never received a reply or any action from Facebook.  So, I did another Google search and found this blog post, which pointed to this Facebook help page, which contained this message:

Obviously this directly contradicts the email that Facebook sent me yesterday.  Ah, Facebook!

Hopefully our move to a public Page will eliminate the problems we were having with the private group.  It will certainly continue to give you a way to show your interest/affiliation with The Institute and an easy way to connect and interact with others like you. 

And of course, there is always our members-only group on Linkedin.

CLHMS training now available online!

 and save $100
(now through July 4th, 2009)

Our Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist™ (CLHMS) training is NOW available online!

• This is the same course we offer live around the U.S. and Canada.
• The same great content presented online in a self-paced multimedia format.
• Enrollment is open -- REALTORS® and other real estate professionals around the world can register anytime.
• Work at your own pace, on your own schedule.

Just like our live training, upon completion of the course, you become a Member of The Institute and are eligible to earn the CLHMS designation, and enjoy all the benefits of membership. 

The First and the Best

Long recognized as the best luxury training available, more than 8,000 luxury agents have completed the CLHMS training.  The CLHMS designation is the official designation of the following luxury programs:

• The RE/MAX Collection
• Luxury Homes by Keller Williams
• Royal LePage Carriage Trade
• and more...

Tap into this growing international network of luxury agents and grow your business.

Save $100

Standard pricing for the CLHMS online training is $495.
Register now through July 4th for only $395 -- save $100!

CLHMS online training launch just days away!

We are happy to announce that our Certified Luxury Home Marketing Specialist™ (CLHMS) online training is set to launch on Monday, June 1st.  That's only about two weeks away!

Early Bird Special

Get on our notification list and save $$$ on registration.

On June 1st we'll be sending the hundreds of patient folks on our Online Training Notification List list an email with a "early bird special" discount code.  The discount code will be good for discounted registration through July 4th, 2009. 

This special "early bird" offer is limited to those who have signed-up on our Online Training Notification List by May 31st.  If you would like to take advantage of this limited-time offer, sign up here.  There is no obligation to buy--it is just a list of folks who would like to receive a discount if they do.

Standard pricing for the full training program will be $495. 
"Early birds" will receive a substantial discount!

Website improvements

We're working on our website.  Very soon the site will have a new look and feel--with much improved navigation. 

Over the next few days, you'll see a new page design appear.  As our web designers implement this, you may find that things look a bit odd or perhaps don't work.   Don't worry, in just a day or two things will be back to better-than-normal!

Soon, we'll be making a BIG update to the Member Directory that we think you'll really like.

Much like a nice kitchen renovation, we'll be living with a bit of dust and noise for the next couple days, but I think the results will be worth it!

Partnership with Proxio gives Institute members access to international MLS and referral network

In the previous post we hinted at a way to leverage an international network in your business.  Well...

We're pleased to announce a partnership with Proxio that gives Institute members FREE access to the ProxioPro global referral network and international MLS.

All Institute members receive a free standard level account and discounts on upgrades. 

Plus, we’ve set up a special Institute group within the ProxioPro platform, so you now have the best of two worlds:

• The ability to promote yourself, network, and share listings (and referrals) with other Institute members online
• The ability to post listings and participate in an international MLS and networking system

This great new tool enables you to…

• Get international visibility for yourself and your listings
• Connect with other Institute Members for networking and referrals
• Search for members and their listings

You can add-on additional features*…

• Add other member’s listings to your website*
• You can even create a personalized “mini-site” that features all of your listings, plus the listings of other agents in your network!*

Not only that, but because it is part of Proxio’s global network, the ILHM group on ProxioPro also offers Institute members the opportunity to connect with thousands of other agents around the world, to create professional relationships, build personal referral networks, and share listings! 

Members can find all the details on the Proxio benefits package in the Members Only section of our website (login required).