MLM and the Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging

The parallels of new age of positive thinking, inspirational and success quoting in social networking, wealth and prosperity coaching and the desires of the many to navigate a challenging economy have birthed a new wave of home based business opportunity proliferation.

MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) or Human Based Marketing is the new ‘hip’ in society today. Referral based marketing models are showing up in most every consumer segment and product category. From singular one time purchases to a multitude of juice clubs, one stop shopping portals offering discount pricing on every consumer need in life, to greeting cards, legal and Financial services. Most which rely on initial enrollment packages, auto shipments and continuing entries on your monthly credit card statements.

Many forms of network marketing methods from home Pampered Chef and Tupperware parties to theater hall meetings geared at hyping regular everyday nutritional products as miracle cures, hypnotizing presentations peppered by testimonials, inspirational stories of wealth in a can and provocative value proposition statements designed to impact people to act without further investigation. Meet-up groups, 5 minute dating formats applied to networking a product or service and educational trainings by FREE internet webinars encouraging additional opt-ins. Everything from the exciting to the droning mundane is available and marketed to those looking to supplement their monthly bottom lines.

Referral platforms are showing up in more corporate settings masked as profit sharing programs such as the Keller Williams Real Estate company’s business model which has received accolades from educational institutions such as Stanford University. Other Real Estate Firms like Exit Realty, Intero and Sellstate have jump on this recruitment platform since the success of Keller Williams. With the plunge of home sales nationally, Agents along with their mortgage counterparts have been the targets of MLM recruiters as many of these independent contractors scramble to make ends meet.

When so many people are suffering while the middle of the month equals the end of the money, the hype of prosperity though network marketing and home based businesses capture the interest of multitudes of the otherwise simple minded blue collar. The promise of wealth packaged in the illusion of boating on the islands of Hawaii sipping Mai Tai’s may ease most by the suggestion that anyone can succeed like the leaders who make the claims that they themselves bypassed their own financial woes by jumped aboard, experiencing untold fortunes like a dancer in the night.

Facts tell, stories SELL and every other enrollment approach is underwritten to move the multitudes into these programs without censorship or due diligence. While some of these companies may appear to boast a higher quality product, many of them are the same or less quality than those we can purchase at our local discount food mart. Even the latest weight loss craze has found its answer in the PX90, Shakeology movement. This company offers to give its distributors (Coaches) existing customers answering their infomercials in the hopes its multi-level minded Coaches can sell them additional nutritional products containing what appears to be the everyday ingredients found in most other commercial meal replacement and protein brands found in every health store and most major gyms across the country at nearly half the cost.

While I may seem mad about this, maybe even negative, my message here is really the opposite. All the above exists in our society and I can as well stand on my soapbox and claim it is all good. I too have joined a dozen of them over the last 30 years and have found some of the best products on the marketplace, though few of them penciled out to fit my long term financial expectations.

The message here is that most opportunities are jumped on with little intelligence applied and before a match is found with the passions of the heart. It must be a project that combines your passions with where you place the legacy you wish to aspire to, while it synchs with the reality of the actual opportunity. For those who really want to succeed in an endeavor that can be proven to compensate based on the efforts of the people that make that sale as opposed to a pay down that benefits those at the top, I invite you to contact me. I have spent years examining marketing protocols of both the traditional and the trendy, while also supporting a compassionate approach to the human potential movement. I will share with you what may vibe deep with your heartfelt desire to help others.

Copyright © 2010
Bryan Ridgley


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How Do Probate Real Estate Sales Dodge The Court Confirmation Process?

Who determines how, if and when a Probate property is offered through the Independent Administration of Estates Act (I.A.E.A) is often a question that runs through an inquiring Real Estate Agents mind. Is it under the power of the court? The Attorney, the Executor? Who has the power? Is it by Will or chance? Is there a rhythm, a reason why a court conformation or not? Is it a matter of cost or expense that determines this fated disposition?

There are two aspects of this mystery I feel are important to cover in such a small space and at the risk of interest lost in examining this short and sweet cut into an otherwise mundane dynamic. The first is to provide a refresh explanation of the intent of California Probate. We may all know someone who has told us the story of a family member’s passing and the following evils of numerous relatives roosting like vultures hovering over the will and inheritance. I have personally watched this happen to many Clients, friends and associates who have been afflicted by one or more siblings, third cousins or even hopeful palimony partners claiming untold shares upon the bequeathed estate.

The purpose of the Probate system is of course to prevent these situations from getting out of hand and that fairness and equity of distribution is observed by an independent and non-partial authority (a Judge). This Probate system has a due process which even provides for a court appointed ‘Referee’ to adequately appraise the value of certain components of the estate such as the Real Estate involved. It further requires waiting periods, the postings of ‘Public Notice’ of sale of real property along with an ‘Overbidding’ or ‘Auction’ held at the ‘Court Confirmation’ of sale before the Judge in the Probate Court.

The Independent Administration of Estates Act (I.A.E.A) allows the sale of real property to bypass this ‘Court Confirmation’ process by allowing the Executor to liquidate real property in a manner which appears similar to a traditional sale at less expense in most cases to the Estate. In most of the Probates cases I have handled or that have been brought to my attention, have granted the executor ‘Full Power’ of sale, though most Attorneys automatically file the sale of the real property through the normal court confirmation process. I reserve comment here as to Attorney integrity because most of the Attorneys I have personally engaged with have been awesome and have recognized which cases are most situated for this act or procedure with regard to the realities of Beneficiary circumstance. The matter of the rights of Heirs of the Estate should always be of the first and foremost concern to both the Executor and the Attorney.

Take the case where the Heirs of the Estate are a Brother and Sister, neither have children or dependants, have a solid friendly relationship, a mutually concessive desire to half the proceeds and close out the Estate would benefit by this Estate Act, leveraging time and expense and each other’s overall welfare. The provisions of the Act do contain that adequate notices are delivered to any and all individuals who come forward to claim a piece of the pie and even dispute a sale in progress within the Act.

I believe the reason we do not see this method being more common is both a matter of education and Attorney Risk Management. I at one time had Probate sales included along on my list to specialties in my practice. I teach real estate Agents that when they are brought into a referred situation where an executor is open to being educated in the options the Probate systems provides for, the Executor might have that needed influence to project this alternative at their Attorneys table in the beginning of the process or even refer a Client an Attorney who is open minded to consider whether the case itself may be a proper match for the known beneficiaries or Heirs of the Estate.

In my next article, I will share a court room drama that will shock most real estate Agents and prevent a common, uncommon commissiondectomy. Until then, I am always available for private coaching or consultation in most applications of risk management and loss mitigation.

Copyright © 2010 Bryan Ridgley

Bryan is both a Real Estate and Health and Wellness Coach and Educator. He is currently available for both personal and group coaching and training in Stress Management, Real Estate Loss Mitigation. He currently lives in Los Angeles and Consults in the real estate, health and wellness and legal industries.

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Strategic Short Sales May be HAFA Intolerant

This just in! Real Estate Agents should now be acquainted with the term Strategic Short Sale.

Agents who have experienced easy accessibility with these common characters will confirm their differing motivational expressions over those who face losing it all. These ‘stressed’, but not ‘distressed’ property owners represent over 10% of the market inventory in most metropolitan areas. The personal experience I have gained in consulting in strategic situations is that these owners for the most part do not care to save the property unless they can settle the matter with an unreasonable amount of principal reduction on the mortgage.

Understanding the psychological pattern that occurs with the steps that lead most people behind can help us counsel these prospects. Most people will place financial stress on their menus with the overuse of credit or draining their savings before considering a mortgage default. As these resources dwindle, the home becomes a matter outside of just the heart. The Strategic Defaulter will not commonly fit this pattern and for the most part, may not even qualify for lenience in most Short Sale underwriting scenarios.

When residential borrowers present themselves in a compare to like fashion as Investors would in the commercial playing field, Agents may serve them better by referring these Strategic shakers to a mitigation attorney or specialist in modification. Chances are, the psychologies may be a better match as these defaulters would rather settle these issues long before the mortgage gets too far behind as the protection of their credit is usually more at issue than the defaults inspired by achieving victim status.

Mitigation Attorneys have legal tools and resources that are completely off limits to other practitioners in any other category including real estate licensees. The survey results from cases I have followed up are astonishing as some distressed borrowers found relief in resets and principal reduction that would shatter ones thinking, especially if you were a Distressed Seller that signed a sizable promissory note to close a Short Sale in the traditional model.

While I have also expressed in Seminars and other articles that some of the Mitigation firms out there may not favor the interests of most, I find exceptions that I even wish were regularly possible for the majority. What my goal is in the educational setting for Realtors is that they determine the motivations of the players in the projects they take on, identify when it is that they may be more motivated than the prospect and leverage their time by referring them immediately and finding the golden gooses out there that can be helped by straight shooting.

Ultimately, the manner by which the current real estate recession works itself out against the constraints of other financial corrections needed for overall recovery. Each of us concerned are admonished to be both knowledgeable and professional in our estimation of where individual situations have their merit and our ever present openness and focus to how we may assist other without discrimination or self serving motivation.

Copyright © 2010 Bryan Ridgley




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Short Sales under the HAFA Program

With an Upside Down real estate market, the Short Sale has become a fully focused reality of life today in “Real Estate”. This reality stretches into the very fabric of real estate warfare as Agents, Brokerages and the “Mine the Miners” industries sow to captivate the coming explosion of market share.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) has made no challenges to the notion that in the coming 2 years, up to 70% of the action will be engulfed in pre-foreclosure and distressed property sales. In a recent Zillow report, it was disclosed the over 21% of the nations mortgages are connected to properties that are “Upside Down”.

The numbers of situations sited in these Short Sale projections do not include the numbers of homeowners who are within the 5% equity bracket. These are the marginal cases where the closing costs of sale represent the tip out of balance, and into that ‘Upside Down’ world of economical hardship.

While the promise of the HAMP and HAFA plans make good sense in a recovering economy, the challenges of implementation are so far reaching that its April 5th, 2010 effective date has itself, compromised the meaning or definition of the word ‘effective’. The originating steps to Lender compliance to the rules of HAFA gave exemption for certain groups to devise their own set of guidelines provided that were congruent with the overall mission of HAFA. Now June, the industry still awaits the formal release of guidelines to be announced by both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the two largest insurers of mortgages in the USA.

You can ask a thousand Realtors of their experiences with Short Sales and the common syllabuses ’will include ‘long waits, unclear procedures, elusive guidelines and a continuous staging of the depressive wake of negative mindset, over their own plights of keeping up with the jones's.

Trying to get a short sale approved is a challenge with no certainty of a successful outcome. With differences in servicer requirements, varying attentions to a pre-listing investigation and decision-making time frames, the path to righteousness in the Short Sales process remains elusive to most engaging in the process. Each servicer, each transaction, varies on a case-to-case basis.

The challenges for the industry today is to becoming more familiar with the HAFA program, be ready for action when implementation takes hold later this year and getting back into some of the basics the majority of Agents have trained themselves to bypass. Most of us understand the meaning of “reading between the lines”, though in the world of short sales, those meanings equated “Too much hassle” for the investment of time it takes, then only to hurry up and wait.

There is another way and more coming as we turn to the next chapter, so keep the eyes open.

Copyright © 2010 Bryan Ridgley


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