While you were out selling houses, the wild ride that is real estate news kept on going. This month, we examine some of the dumbest content thievery yet, why some agents are getting sued, and why home buyers prefer a short commute to granite countertops
We scour the media for real estate news so you don’t have to.
Our first bit of real estate news is a little terrifying, especially if you’ve been texting prospective clients. Legal types representing various real estate industry biggies are seeing the inside of a courtroom more often than the president’s legal team.
Add another class action suit to the list: Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate, Keller Williams and others are being sued for texting and/or robocalls.
To tell you the truth, we didn’t get the whole “text marketing” trend to begin with. Like that kind of intrusion is supposed to endear a brand to the consumer? Sure.
The Coldwell Banker Residential lawsuit alleges “the text messages were sent without written permission from the recipients (required by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) since 2012)” and that the Defendants incurred “injuries, including invasion of their privacy, aggravation, annoyance, intrusion on seclusion, trespass, and conversion,” according to Lani Rosales at TheAmericanGenius.com.
Rosales did some research and learned that it’s a lead generation company that originated the offending text message and not an agent or “a specific Coldwell Banker” broker.
The penalty for violating this particular law is $1,500 per text message so we here at EAP urge you to brush up on it. Read the Step-By-Step SMS Compliance Checklist at CallFire.com.
The American Genius has posted a copy of the lawsuit online and you can find that here.
Coldwell Banker and NRT Real Estate will be spending more time in court over marketing tactics but this time its robocalling instead of texting.
This class action, brought by a gentleman in Tustin, California, is for “unwanted autodialed calls from three different Coldwell Banker and NRT real estate professionals to his cell phone, which is registered on the Do Not Call list,” according to a piece at Magazine.Realtor.com.
Apparently, he had his home listed for a time, the listing expired and started receiving unwanted calls to his cell phone number, which was apparently never used in public-facing MLS information.
He is also going after them for training agents to make “unsolicited cold calls to obtain new listings.”
I saw the weirdest thing over at Active Rain. First, two agent bloggers posted identical content that they got free from a real estate content mill.
That’s not all that unusual; some Active Rain participants frequently post others’ content under their own names.
This time, however, it appears that neither agent really read closely before posting, and that’s where today’s real estate news gets a little more juicy.
The posts’ topic centers on the “myth” that buyers need a 780 FICO score to qualify for a mortgage. Both posts included a copied but doctored chart from Ellie Mae’s April origination report.
“To debunk this myth, let’s take a look at Ellie Mae’s latest Origination Insight Report, which focuses on recently closed (approved) loans,” read the posts.
There are a couple of problems there – did you catch them? These agents are using apples to debunk oranges.
The operative phrase in the title of the post is “qualify for a mortgage,” and Ellie Mae’s numbers aren’t for loan qualifications, nor are they for approved loans, but for closed loans. As you know, not all buyers who qualify go on to purchase a home and not all make it to closing.
And then the “closed (approved)” thingy. Are they saying that approved loans just jet right to closing? Are they saying that “closed” means the same as “approved” when it comes to mortgages?
If you don’t write your own content, please read it carefully before using it. Especially if you’ll be using it to market your business. These two agents appear sadly ill-equipped to help homebuyers.
Big headline over at DallasNews.com: “Who needs millennials? Gen Z is the next big housing market.”
We’ve been telling you this for more than a year now. Funny how, when it comes to real estate, media are always so far behind what is already happening in the industry.
Bank of America’s 2019 Spring Homebuyer Insights Report most likely caught their attention. In it, they found that more than half of the members of this cohort are saving for a home and nearly 60 percent of them say they’ll buy a home before they turn 30.
Read all about it right here on Easy Agent Pro.
If your listing offers a snappy commute, hit it hard in your listing description and marketing pieces.
Eighty-five percent of respondents in a recent survey of realtor.com® users “say they would sacrifice other home features, such as lot size, square footage, and home style, in order to shorten their commute to work.”
The goal for these homebuyers is to shave 45 minutes off their commute time. As a work-at-home person, the thought of wasting 45 minutes in a car is appalling, so I don’t blame them.
So, the next time you’re tempted to tout a home’s square footage (which is already noted in the property description, remember?) if it’s close to town, mention that instead.
Move over FHA 401(k) program – Freddie Mac is giving you a run for your money. Last month, the government-sponsored enterprise announced the CHOICERenovation loan.
Like the FHA program, this one allows “borrowers to purchase homes and finance the cost of renovations with a single-close mortgage,” according to Freddie Mac’s originating and underwriting website.
Unlike the 401(l) loan, Freddie Mac’s allows the borrower to use the loan’s funds to “improve the homes ability to withstand environmental hazards,” according to Kathleen Howley at HousingWire.com.
Learn more about the loan at FreddieMac.com.
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