There is a part of me that knows when to shut up and another part that screams out to speak up. The balancing act is exhausting at times. If I am going to write a rant or a venting post, which many times can be healing to my soul as well as connective to others who are in the same boat, I will draft it up and then wait for a day to see if I still feel that same way and also see if I need to soften the tone or not. If the feeling stays with me and my heart continues to drive me to publish the post I will.
But if I want to post about something even more important- like something that I am very passionate about and yet I know it is highly debatable I will often weigh how much I will polarize my audience. Off the cuff I am not however I am very straightforward and speak my mind. Polarizing audiences creates deep loyalty from those who agree and most often respect from those who don't. That is a topic for another post.
I have been doing some extensive research and studying of economics, history of countries around the world, US history and current events. There is so much I want to say!
For the first time since I started writing online I allowed the fear of repercussion to out rule my desire to speak up. That is a scary place to be. No one should ever feel afraid to speak their mind. Freedom of Speech is such an innate right that is fundamental to any civilized and humane country or nation.
Worse still, when you shut up or restrain because of exterior forces you are no longer owning your own voice. You have given over that authority to an outside entity other than your self. This then moves you to a place where you are no longer being guided by your values and principles. I don't ever want to revisit the hell that place creates again. After 20 years of walking on egg shells in a past abusive relationship I know what it means to not be allowed to speak your mind, your thoughts and your opinion. I am not about to repeat that space.
So no matter who is reading, watching and taking notes- as long as I have a voice and I don't like what I see I will call it out. I will raise my voice. I will not be shut up by tyranny or the threat thereof. Read the primer to this post- Choose to Make Your New Year's Resolution- Embrace Personal Liberty.
2011 Schedule of SEO Events and More- By Coach Katerina LLC
We are excited to roll out our new calendar of events for SEO Trainings, Expired Listing training, Short Sale training and our new programs.
Below the schedule here is a form where you can check off the trainings that you would like to get in on the loop about. This way you can get email notifications and reminders of the events you are interested in.
January 12th, 2011 is SEO To The Top Q and A class for current members of SEO To The Top.
First come first serve so reserve your seat as soon as you get your invite to the session.
January 31, 2011 Website Makeover One on One Reviews- Reserve your spot by January 5th- there are only enough spots as there are hours in a working day for this one day only one on one website review consultations.
February 2, 2011 EXCITING! FINALLY! Short Sale Ebook is Launched on line complete with paragraph sections where you can subscribe with an RSS feed to get your updates to the chapters in real time. We have been working for 2 years on this project and it is in the final stages of being ready! You are going to love this short sale help site along with an over 200 page book for you to download and print.
February 9, 2011- SEO EXTREME Second Session Launches complete with a brand new custom membership website that is coming along looking really spot on! We are getting a lot of positive feedback from reviewers of our new SEO EXTREME Bootcamp site. There are over 15 hours of very intense and complete content in the videos we did live this year. Our first SEO EXTREME was a huge success and the results are pouring in now. SO don't miss SEO EXTREME for those who know basic SEO and want to take your sites to the next level.
March 16, 2011- We are relaunching SEO To The Top - this is the basic SEO course for beginners to intermediate SEO know how agents, mortgage lenders and small business owners. This course is going into the third year of being one of the most popular SEO courses available. We are revamping SEO To The Top with a companion membership called the Silver Membership. The videos will all be one click to watch! All of you who have paid for this course in the past will have access to the new revamped site and access all the recordings in the site. The DVDs should be ready about spring for those who signed on while that special was going on. First we want to get you the recordings with one click! You won't want to miss our March Madness sale on SEO To The Top course complete with 9 modules of training.
May 11, 2011- Expired Listing Secrets which we only teach once a year is back for its' second season! We only take on 20 clients in this course so you have to get signed on as soon as you see the reservations up because it filled up so fast this year and now we have a waiting list for this online expired marketing course. NAR Magazine featured our Expired Listing marketing success in the magazine this year. Make sure to get on our invite list so you don't miss your reservation.
October 5, 2011 We are launching our group coaching, diamond membership program. stay tuned for more details as that date arrives.
November 25, 2011- We will be hosting a Black Friday Special- stay tuned....
December 28, 2011- We have 12 spots open for one on one business plan reviews for 2012 results! BTW- If you still need a review of your 2011 plans- I have a few spaces left this year, like about 3 agents- I can fit in.
So mark your calendars with all these dates and come back often as we keep adding more events on the calendar. I hope to be teaching 2 or 3 Realbird tutorials like I did this past 2 years for you to learn more how to use Realbird which is a great product.
We are also launching 9 additional products that will be available for ordering in the first or second week of January. We have two kinds of clients. Those that are the DIYers. Agents and small business owners who want to learn how to do their own SEO, online marketing, etc and then they go and do it all themselves. Then we have those clients who just want us to do it all for them. I had not been able to offer this kind of service before but now we have a trained team in place to do all the tasks to take care of your SEO and other real estate services.
Here is an overview of a few of those services:
Google Places Implementation and Management - including call tracking and citations.
Mobile Marketing
Online Media Rooms
SEO for your blog and website
Social Media management
Real Estate Virtual support services
Website Makeovers
Article Writing and distribution
Reputation Management
More Private Coaching and Group Coaching.
Of course none of this would be possible without all your wonderful testimonials you have given us. We thank you so much.
2010 was the first year that Coach Katerina LLC was in full operation as a business ( more than the hobby) and we are so grateful for the great success- I was SO excited and surprised when I did the year end numbers. Thank you all for your trust! This is a dream come true for me for my passion is in helping each of you to become the best that you are designed to be.
Newbie attorneys straight out of law school here in Florida were hired by the dozens and even hundreds by foreclosure mills. Their first job right out of law school was to foreclose on homes working for some of the biggest law firms who are also now under investigation. Well, they did get a steady paycheck for a while. Until they were fired from their jobs by the hundreds when the head counsel of these firms were under investigation by the Florida Attorney General and the Florida BAR.
David Stern's office even lost their biggest client- Fannie Mae. Their empire built upon alleged unethical behavior and off of the misery of others came crashing down. Yes, when you build your house upon the sand, it can not withstand the rains when they come falling down.
There were 156 attorneys that worked at David Stern's office who had less than four years out of law school. Most of them were laid off or left the company when the investigation started.
Some of these attorneys are under investigation also. Some may even have their careers ended by the Florida BAR. The Florida BAR has opened 42 probes of possible foreclosure fraud. The Florida BAR is also investigating 17 foreclosure defense attorneys.
There is nothing more upsetting in foreclosures than to have your sellers call you from the courthouse to tell you that their attorney never showed up for court or that they never filed their defense claims. It is so disheartening as we care about our clients yet as agents are helpless to help them in these situations.
Stil today more than 260 attorneys work for the top four largest foreclosure law firms in Florida. Many of them worked at Stern's office.
48% of them have been out of school for less than 3 years. Many of the attorneys who worked at Stern's office and the other law groups under investigation now work for other foreclosure law firms that are Fannie Mae designated firms. Maybe the younger attorneys did not know they were doing things wrong or maybe they were just obeying their firms' directives.
Now a Georgia Law Firm who already has claims by homeowners against them is setting up shop in Orlando Florida and Fannie Mae is one of their biggest clients. This law firm also hired former Stern attorneys to work for them.
This firm also has hired a former Fannie Mae general counsel and foreclosure expert- Susan Reid. She worked with the attorneys at Stern's office while working for Fannie Mae.
If you want to have a good attorney who is ethical to work for you in your foreclosure case you can contact Richard Zaretsky.
Disclaimer: We are not attorneys and we are not giving you legal advice.
Stop Foreclosure- Learn Your Options. Maybe a short sale is your best option. Florida short sales may be able to help you.
If you are considering the option of short selling your Wellington Fl home in Palm Beach County, Broward County, St Lucie County, Martin County or Miami/Dade County- call us today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential intake evaluation in order to estimate the possible outcomes of your short sale.
As the new year is near upon us here are some thoughts on what is the most important resolution we can each make.
More important than the goals you are making, more important than the places you want to visit and more important than your daily and weekly to do list - is a resolve to own your own life.
Take possession of your own life. Take responsibility for your own life, your own actions and your own results.
Get off the blame game train if you are on one.
2011 is the year to cancel your pity party.
Put your big girl panties on or your big boy panties on-
Embrace the power of liberty.
What is liberty? It is SELF OWNERSHIP. What a powerful concept.
It is however not the easy way in life or the easy way out of life. Self ownership is about taking control of your life and then accepting the consequences of your choices as you head on your journey to more liberty.
Self ownership gives you rights to your own self, your own property, your own opinions, your own thoughts, your own feelings.
In so doing it also prohibits others from owning your rights or infringing on those rights whether they do so by themselves or they enlist others to carry out their impositions in their stead. This includes those you love and those who are strangers. This includes your neighbors as well as government officials.
But many times I see people give up their self ownership in return for dependence. In fact, we have seen lately majority populations of entire countries become so used to their dependence on governments that they don't even know how to make it on their own any longer. Stripped of dignity- they have forgotten how to fish. Dependence on others and dependence on entitlements. Much of this is the conditioning one gets in school and in society and from parents. But even so, this bondage can be broken. You can break free and regain your dignity.
According to the 1913 Noah Webster's dictionary ( which by the way is a dictionary that every parent should own- for this version is not the political correct dictionary)- liberty is defined:
" The state of a free person; exemption from subjection to the will of another claiming ownership of the person or services; freedom; opposed to slavery, serfdom, bondage, or subjection."
and Civil Liberty is defined:
"exemption from arbitrary interference with person, opinion, or property, on the part of the government under which one lives, and freedom to take part in modifying the government and its laws."
To break it down to where even a four year old can understand the meaning of liberty there is a great video out that you can check out - I posted it below. It is an 8 minute video but the education you will gain from this video is more than you most likely learned in your high school class on sociology or political science.
You can share this video with your children because I am sure they are not learning this in school either in public or private. Share this video with your friends and neighbors. If each of us, just one person at a time, accept the amazing power of liberty and embrace self ownership- we will see miracles take place and healing take place unlike what you can imagine right now.
Choose to make your New Year's Resolution- Embrace Liberty.
Are short sale lenders interfering with your listing agreement?
When you list a short sale you and your seller have a legally binding listing agreement known as a contract. This is a bi-lateral contract between you and the seller. There are no other parties signing this contract except you and the seller.
So when the lender calls your sellers to tell them that there is too much paperwork involved in a short sale and why don't they just cancel their listing and do a deed in lieu- do you consider that a tort interference of a contract? Tort interference is when one party "convinces another party to breach the contract". You must be able to prove you have a contract- the listing agreement in this case.
The seller is not the bank's client. They are a customer of the bank. The seller is a client of the agent in a short sale transaction most of the time. The bank's client is the investor who owns the note of which the bank is servicing. So the bank's client- the investor- is who the bank has a fiduciary duty to- not the homeowner.
I would love to hear some attorneys chime in on this one.
When the first lender did this to one of our sellers we wrote it up for ignorance but now this seems to be a new trend by the lenders. Actually in the last 3 weeks different lenders have called 4 different sellers to cancel their short sales and do deed in lieu.
Disclaimer: We are not attorneys and we are not giving you legal advice.
Stop Foreclosure- Learn Your Options. Maybe a short sale is your best option. Florida short sales may be able to help you.
If you are considering the option of short selling your Wellington Fl home in Palm Beach County, Broward County, St Lucie County, Martin County or Miami/Dade County- call us today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential intake evaluation in order to estimate the possible outcomes of your short sale.
What would you do if you had a short sale listing and the seller fought you every step of the way and then at the end of the day, after the acceptance letter is in his/her hand and their lender is NOT going to seek a deficiency, the buyer is ready to move in and the seller then wants an extension?
Are you as the listing agent owed your commission?
Well, it depends on what your listing agreement states. You would need to speak to your attorney about this.
And how do you avoid these types of situations?
There are homeowners who are told by their attorneys to list their home for sale as a short sale in order 'to buy' more time in their homes. While this may benefit a homeowner it is not benefiting the listing agent and prospective buyers. It may also violate MLS rules in the particular market the listing is in. You can not offer a house for sale that is NOT for sale. Attorneys can postpone foreclosures in many other ways other than using agents like this and being untruthful to the market.
While most agents do care about homeowners who want to remain in their homes they should not be used as pawns in this game of stalling foreclosures. What is worse is putting a buyer in the middle of this stalling. Even if you are a sellers' agent- you still owe any buyer common courtesy and decency. Having a buyer with a moving van all ready for closing with a seller who has not packed a thing is not at all what agents are about.
How do you as a short sale agents minimize these situations?
By doing short sale intake evaluations with every seller.
Make sure you are on the same page- explain what is expected from them.
Have disclosures and disclaimers drawn up allowing you to cancel a listing if the seller does not do their part in cooperating with their lender.
Agents need to make it clear to the sellers that they will eventually close on their short sale listing if they can an offer and if their lender accepts the terms of the short sale and if the seller accepts the terms their lender gives them.
Stop Foreclosure- Learn Your Options. Maybe a short sale is your best option. Florida short sales may be able to help you.
If you are considering the option of short selling your Wellington Fl home in Palm Beach County, Broward County, St Lucie County, Martin County or Miami/Dade County- call us today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential intake evaluation in order to estimate the possible outcomes of your short sale.
We love Chronicles of Narnia movies. In fact, they are among our favorite series of movies.
C.S.Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader was such perfect timing in ushering in Christmas season this year.
We went to Muvico with our 8 yr old son to watch Narnia.
As you know C.S. Lewis was brilliant with weaving the gospel into his stories. The message is so clear
yet you are so entertained with action and the fight of good against evil. He was one of the greatest defenders of the Christian faith of the twentieth century.
In the new Narnia movie there is this green smokey fog like substance that crawls and can get into the minds tempting
those who are seeking good. It made such an impression on our son that now if I slip with a bad word he will
tell me that the green fog is getting to me! If I get angry- he tells me the same thing. The green fog is temptation- the deepest temptations in our beings-
tempting us in our most vulnerable moments. We must fight it and turn our backs on it.
Here are a few of my favorite C. S. Lewis' quotes:
" A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who resist temptation know how strong it is... You find out the strength of the wind by trying to walk against it, not by lying down"
"Christ says, 'give me ALL. I don't so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work. I want YOU."
"The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own', or 'real' life. The truth is of course taht what one calls interruptions are precisely one's real life- the life God is sending day by day."
Here is the Movie Trailer for Chronicles of Narnia- The Journey of the Dawn Treader:
Boca Raton Ocean Access Short Sale -Home For Sale- Soundproofed Home WIth Major Privacy Including a Hideaway Dock Space right at the end of the Hillsborough canal that leads to waterways to the Intracoastal and ocean access. This homes is located in Boca Raton Florida in the Palm Beach Farms subdivision with A rated schools.
Yep, this home is right next to I95 but you can not hear a sound when you are inside this spacious courtyard style home with a huge deep back yard with mature trees for shade. You can build stairs to where you can build the dock. The dock area is at a lower elevation than the house and the trees.
You enter into the gate of the courtyard to get to the main part of the house where you are greeted with a tropical landscape and pool area. Here you can gather your friends and family around you having a great time.
The space between the I95 wall and the exterior walls of the house is large enough with about 30 feet width to park your motor-home or an oversized boat or two boats. If you have a 40' Cigarette boat it will fit in right nicely here. If you need to access the highway fast, this it the place for you. It is right at the end of the street. There are no houses at the end of the street after this one and no one in front of them as that is the waterway. This is total privacy!
Two stories with over 3,900 square feet under air containing 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. This home also makes a great seasonal resort rental. The current owners have had International guests in this home by the week in the winter seasons.
The courtyard pool is 9 feet deep which is very unusual for Florida pool homes. The balcony upstairs in the master bedroom overlooks the pool area and the lush tropical landscaping in the courtyard.
The roof is a newer roof being installed after Wilma. The home is gated by a front gate and then the house has 5 french doors. This home is all updated and ready to move into.
This short sale is priced at $799,777- Call Nestor Gasset and Katerina Gasset at 561-753-0135 for your private viewing.
Stop Foreclosure- Learn Your Options. Maybe a short sale is your best option. Florida short sales may be able to help you.
If you are considering the option of short selling your Florida home in Palm Beach County, Broward County, St Lucie County, Martin County or Miami/Dade County- call us today at 561-753-0135 for a confidential intake evaluation in order to estimate the possible outcomes of your short sale.