CentralFlorida-Living Blog

I've been blogging on AR for about 3 years at this point. It's been a journey for me and my posts reflect it. I started out with posts about the mortgage mess as the real estate market started to crumble under our feet. The overall attitude that I had during that period was rather unhappy, since I could see that the problems which had developed were not being addressed in a sensible fashion.

Eventually I got tired of writing those sorts of posts, so I came up with the idea of simply telling a joke every day. That wasn't good enough for me, however, and the idea soon morphed into posts which told a joke and then attempted to relate it to a meaningful message with some take-away wisdom. I tried hard to throw additional value into each post for my fellow agents by dealing with prospecting, sales, personal development, success, the law of attraction, and much more.

I was rewarded by having hundreds of readers and I really appreciated this. It makes you feel really good to see the traffic count move upwards. It was funny that some of the posts that I was least proud of received the most reads. It turned into a good lesson for me.

After writing a joke a day for a year and not missing a day, I slacked off and began a series of posts which I titled "My World." These weren't all involved with jokes and I gave myself permission to be a little more "edgy" with them.

Finally, I conceived the idea that I could accumulate all of the posts, edit and spell check them and then put them together into a book. This is now done and it's published on Amazon in Kindle format. It turned out to be a real job just pulling the darned things together. If printed, the book would be over 570 pages in length at slightly more than a quarter of a million words.

Fortunately, it's an easy read, since each essay is stand-alone and it can be opened anywhere and easily picked up or laid down. In order to get some readers and hopefully some reviews, it is now offered as a free download for today and tomorrow (5/9/12-5/10/12).  What I hadn't realized at the onset of the task was that it would feel so great to actually get it accomplished!  Now, if I could just get you to please do me the favor of downloading it and giving it a try. Any reviews would be greatly appreciated!

By the way, you don't have to physically own a Kindle. You can set up the Kindle software on any computer and even on your smart phone. I use my Android to read books all of the time and it works really well. Just go to Amazon.com to get the software.

Please do me the favor of downloading it and giving it a try. Any reviews would be greatly appreciated!

Namaste!

　If you enjoy humor, rants, the law of attraction, spiritual and personal development, esoteric information, astral travel, helping people, real estate, and just life in general, check out "The Real Estate Blues." It's a lengthy series of short essays centered around real estate sales and humor with a message incorporated in each essay. There's plenty of entertainment value in this piece written by a Ph.D. in Psychology who's made an excellent living in real estate sales for over 20 years. You're guaranteed never to take a real estate salesperson for granted ever again!

Here's the direct link: The Real Estate Blues

I'm going to talk about on-line lead generation systems in this post.  Regardless of whether you like them or hate them, they do place you in contact with people.

The lower level of inventory we have in our area has created an interesting situation.  How is it possible for prices to remain as weak as they are and yet properties sell so quickly?

This poses an interesting problem when working with buyers.  We've been getting a lot of leads from various on-line systems lately and the buyers are having a tough time grasping the fact that the house they initially inquired about through the lead system is already sold.  I'm sure that some of them think that I'm just placing listings that have sold out there in order to capture leads.

I've tried various ways to explain and apparently my efforts have worked because I often get a response and sometimes that ends up as a sale.  So, in general, I'm somewhat in favor of on-line systems.  I've also gotten a number of complaints from people who have found their house apparently advertised for sale on the system when they've purchased it years ago and have no intention of placing it on the market.  I can usually deflect their ire by explaining that my ad just appears at random and they need to contact the agent who had the house listed when they bought it and ask them to take the listing out of the system.

Generally, systems that are fed directly by the MLS don't pose such a problem.  However, sometimes you get a response from someone who has an adjenda other than finding a house.  I offer the following email transcript for your entertainment.  It has been strategically edited to remove all traces of identity.

I received this lead from RE/MAX.Com:

This email is to inform you that the contact below has been assigned to you. They submitted the "Sign Up" form requesting more information.
Contact Details:
Full Name : ------------ ----------------
Phone :
Email : -------------------@-------------------
City :
Company : Regarding : Sign Up
Notes: SignUp : IDXPhotoRef: 1 ImageThumbNailID: 1 Listing Type: Single Family State: FL City: ------ SpecialFilter:

 Time : ----------------

So far, so good. I responded as follows:

 On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 2:05 PM, Eric Martell wrote:
 Hi -----------,
 I received your RE/MAX sign-up info below. How can I help?
 Regards,
 Eric

This usually is as much of a response that I'll give when the inquiry has been so generic.  I don't know about you, but I don't have time to create a dissertation for absolutely every email lead.  If the lead responds back with specific information, then I'll go to the extra work to look up potential properties and whatever...  Anyway, this time the person's response was a little unusual and, I felt, very entertaining:

I'm really interested in the house at
#### xxxxxx St., City Name, FL Zipcode $Price
and i'm working on getting the money to buy it and move into it when i get all the money and i have plenty of ideas to fill the land of about 734 football fields worth of land i'm planning on sports fields, private gym, swimming pool, private theater, all my future company buildings and much more! i'm planning on getting married in July on the 9th 2012! so i'm just getting the money together and trying to get into real estate myself and i have a few companies i'm trying to get to be able to work with and if your hiring when i get down there even though i have no real estate working experience i would probably consider it! and if possible if your company is hiring and like me i would like to work from home because ill have a new wife and son after July 7th! and i dont want to have to leave her alone because she is moving from another country to the USA to be with me!

How could I resist hiring someone like that?  Wow! I have no idea what qualifications they have other than an overactive imagination about how to apply for a job and possibly a very positive attitude about their potential. I do admire their enthusiasm and wish them the best of luck in getting "all the money."  I hope they'll still consider working with me when they receive it.

I especially like the idea of working in real estate from home.  My buyers would really enjoy showing themselves through properties while I relaxed at home.  Now, if I could just figure out how to do that myself...

Namaste!

I've got my nose out of joint again. I've been trying to set up showings for a buyer who is in town for the weekend. So far, I've run into: 7 agents who won't return calls about showing instructions and 4 MLS records which refer you to the showing instruction button which unhelpfully displays absolutely no information when clicked. Then there was one agent who stated that the property is active, but can't be shown since the tenant is out-of-town for a week. He complained that people keep bothering him about showing instructions. I've got news for him, our MLS has a TOM (temporarily off the Market) status for just this situation. It's showing Active, for Pete's sake, if it's not active, put it TOM. Then there was one agent who had their own brokerage who cunningly thinks that more money can be made by placing a large buyer fee to the listing brokerage in the listing. My buyer decided against even looking at that one. Hmmm. Really helping your seller out there, aren't you?

Finally, there was one short-sale listing which required me to contact the owner. The owner said and I quote, "No, I don't think I'll show it tomorrow (Saturday), but call me back tomorrow, maybe I'll change my mind." If you are the listing agent and you get the idea that a so-called seller only wants it listed to try and delay foreclosure, why would you waste your time and money?

I just have to ask the Realtor community (that's you) in general, "What is wrong with these people?"

We're here to provide service to our clients and this means selling houses. Any barrier that is imposed that negatively impacts the sell-ability of your seller's listing is doing them a dis-service. The equation is relatively simple: If your listing doesn't sell, you don't get paid! At any rate, this used to be the case. Perhaps these people know someway to earn money by not selling houses. I certainly don't.

So, anyway, I ended up going on to other, more easily shown listings. Too bad for the sellers who missed out on showings, but I've got to help my buyer and he certainly isn't going to decide to purchase without looking. If you think that's going to happen, you probably should be thinking about another line of work.

The whole thing is so easy, just make sure your seller understands the multilock system and how necessary it is to make the property view-able. If the seller thinks that showings should be by appointment only, because of some prized possessions or whatever, perhaps they're not really motivated to sell. Life's too short to waste your time trying to make a sale when the sale is essentially blocked by the seller. It kind of helps, if you take the attitude that, while you'd like the listing, you don't have to have it. When you emotionally have to have something, the natural law is that you automatically pay too much or expend too much effort in getting it. Learn to maximize your use of your time. After all, time is the only thing that we have a limited amount of and cannot replace.

Namaste!

Well, my blood pressure's boiling because of what I've read about the proposed solution to the government-held shadow inventory. Let me explain:

If you're like me, you're probably aware of an apparently foreclosed home that is sitting vacant in a nearby neighborhood. It may well be that this home is one of the approximately one quarter million properties that are being held as "shadow inventory" by Fannie, Freddie, or FHA. These government organizations have been gradually disposing of these properties through the existing REO system working with the real estate community. You've probably sold one or more such properties to investors or homeowners. I've sold several.

Would you like to list that home? Do you have a buyer who wants it? Would you like to purchase it yourself for an investment or to live in? Well, forget it. It's not going to happen. Sometime during the next few months thousands of properties are going to be "sold" for pennies on the dollar to a few privately held companies which have an inside-track. You won't have a chance to list or purchase one of these homes. At least that's the possibility being worked on by a new government program with the working title of "Enterprise/FHA REO Asset Disposition."

We all know that the banks have recently increased the pace of foreclosures. According to Inman News, FHA and friends are about to be inundated by nearly another three-quarters of a million foreclosure properties. The three agencies will then be holding somewhere around a million homes.

We all have some experience with the level of efficiency that is common in dealing with government-owned properties. It is doubtful that the three agencies will be able to deal with such a huge volume of inventory using their existing systems. It seems that the Feds think that they might have a problem. A report by the Federal Reserve titled, "A government-facilitated REO-to-rental program," is now being circulated.

The possibility is that the existing Management and Marketing Contractor companies that found in a list on HUD's website are going to be the recipients of the government cheese. I've read that these twenty or so firms seem to be in part owned by former high-ranking government officials. They are privately held, so you or I can't even buy stock in them should we wish to get our share of the action.

These Contractor firms are likely to receive the government-held shadow inventory for pennies on the dollar. Then they will throw carpet and paint in many of the houses and place them on the rental market.

Now, I ask you what will that do? If someone gave you a house that was worth, say, $200,000 for $20,000 and told you that all you had to do was to keep it rented and not sell it for a certain period of time, would you be tempted to rent it as expeditiously as possible? Let's say the market rent for such a house was $1,500, but in order to get the thing occupied (and several thousand others occupied at the same time), you decided to sign a lease at $1,000. At $1,000 per month, you get your investment back in about 2 years and that's just fine with you.

What would that do the the local market's rental rate? It would lower the going rental rate, of course. If the rental rate in your market decreased, what would that do to the value of investment properties? It would lower their value on an income-basis. What would that do the the overall market? You might disagree, but I'd speculate that it would force values into another steep step downward.

Let's think about this for a moment. If there are about a million houses which are going to be disposed of in this fashion, that number corresponds roughly with the number of agents in NAR. Has anyone from the government asked you recently if you could handle an additional listing? No?

I think that, if given the chance, the real estate community could easily liquidate these properties within a matter of weeks and they'd sell them for far more money than FHA and friends will probably end up with under the current plan. This would be a big savings for the taxpayers (you and me, included). Wouldn't that make economic sense, even if it required the Feds to change their REO department's structure a little and maybe have a few employees miss a coffee-break or two? (Helpful hint: They can probably arrange to robo-sign the listings and sales contracts pretty easily.)

This is something that the big boys at NAR should get out of their chairs to lobby for. Liquidation of these properties to insiders shouldn't be allowed to happen in my world. How about in yours?

This post is not copyrighted and I hereby expressly give you permission to copy it, pass it around, re-blog it, use it as your own, and generally do whatever you want with it, as long as you spread the information around to try and get people to care about this issue.

Namaste!

Welcome to the new digital reality. Hint: It is whatever you made it.

As real estate agents, we're used to creating custom searches for our buyers. When a buyer contacts us, we carry on a dialog intended to help us find out how best to assist them. We find out what they want in a house and how much they feel comfortable spending, their time frame, and whether or not they've been prequalified for any necessary financing. Then we sit down at the computer and create a search which we save under their name. We usually set the search up to email them whenever any new properties that meet their requirements come on the market. They appreciate this and it helps them understand what is available that might suit their needs.

What we don't do is to send them houses in areas and price ranges which they don't want and can't afford. "Sure," you say. "That would be a waste of time and only confuse them." It's only common sense to give them what they want, isn't it.

Unfortunately, this concept, when utilized by many of the common search engines on the Internet, can lead to unfortunate and divisive results. I'll explain.

We all tend to read information which either confirms or agrees with the knowledge and opinions we already have. This is nowhere more true than when applied to political opinions. Progressives like to read information written by other progressives. Likewise with conservatives. People may sometimes read an article which espouses diverging views, but they usually stay with material which makes them feel comfortable.

When applied to the real estate community, many people may be excused for only reading articles which are oriented towards how the housing crisis is getting better and how real estate is a good investment. Please note that I'm not arguing with the orientation of the articles, I'm only using this as an example.

When you do a search on Google, the software uses 57 different metrics to identify you. It retains a record of your prior searches and it custom tailors the results of any particular search based on what it already knows about your interests. This information is also used to place advertisements. After you've built up a little bit of history browsing the Internet, you might be surprised to consistently see ads based on things you've looked up or clicked on in the past. The same thing goes with search results. This is a nice touch and conveniently allows us to interact with only information which we find interesting.

Now, here's the problem. When we run searches, the information is tailored to our interests and we never even see conflicting information. In a non-digital environment, we may screen out conflicting materials, but at least we are given that conscious choice. We aren't even informed that there might be more material available, when a search engine pre-screens its results for us.

My fear is that this will inevitably lead to even greater divides in society than we already have. If people are only given information which confirms their opinions, then they will have an extremely difficult time believing that anyone could have a different set of facts and opinions. This makes the people on the other side of the spectrum appear to be totally irrational. After all, your information is complete (as far as you know) and, yet, they have somehow drawn an opposing conclusion. It's only natural to think that they are "nuts."

This sort of thing could actually be dangerous. I saw the results of a search on Egypt that was requested by two different people. One person got information on the soccer riot deaths and political unrest and the other person only received information about how great Egypt was to visit on vacation with not one result pointing towards possible violence and danger.

I submit to you that we, as a society, are being unwittingly divided by unintended consequences of software which is supposed to be helpful.

The next time you run into someone from the "other" side of the political spectrum, perhaps it would be helpful to keep this possible bias in mind and be a little more polite. They're not totally wrong and you're not totally correct. The truth always lies somewhere in between both ends.

Namaste!

The recent settlement of the robosigning case brought against a number of major U.S. banks by attorneys general of the states will most likely result in increased levels of foreclosure seizures. The involved banks have greatly slowed their foreclosure process during the negotiations, allowing some homeowners in default to remain in their properties without paying for months or even years. Now that the case has been settled with what amounts to a slap on the wrist for the banks for engaging in practices which resulted in allegations of fraudulent paperwork, the banks are likely to move quickly to help their bottom lines.

The $25 billion settlement will be parceled out in chunks. About $17 billion will go to help about a million owners who are facing foreclosure. The settlement includes $5 billion to pay for foreclosure prevention programs and $3 billion to lower homeowners' interest rates with a small residual of $1.5 billion left over to compensate homeowners who suffered from poorly handled foreclosures.

It seems that about 750,000 people are supposed to receive direct payments of around $2,000 to partially compensate them for servicing errors. Regardless of how the money will be handed out, it must filter it's way through the existing or new bureaucratic structures to actually reach the homeowners' hands. This has proved to be a slow and not too effective process in the past with other government assistance programs. It remains to be seen how quickly it will happen and how much this settlement will actually help.

The end effect, however, will most likely be an increase in the rates of home seizures and an increase in the REO inventory levels. If this is not dealt with carefully by the banks, it will result in a further decline of the market as these properties are placed for sale and increase inventory levels.

A reasonable speculation is that investors are likely to purchase many of the REO properties and convert them to rentals. The central Florida market has seen quite a large amount of this sort of sales action in the past few months. As a result, our inventory levels here are lower than they have been for some time and there has been enough competition to actually bring prices up a few percentage points during the past year. This situation may very well change as a result of the settlement and resultant actions by the banks.

There is an old Chinese curse which goes something like, "May you live in interesting times." The real estate market is poised to get a lot more interesting shortly if the above speculations are correct.

Namaste!

Did you ever stop to think that Realtors might have a duty to their fellow man beyond simply selling houses and ensuring that the transactions proceed smoothly? Well, there's nothing in the Code of Ethics which states that we do and we certainly don't learn about it in any classes, but I'd argue that we have an affirmative duty to set good examples for our fellow humans.

Here's why: We jointly make our living by strategically positioning ourselves at the intersection between supply and demand. We are able to retain this position because we repeatedly demonstrate that we are able to add value to the transactions we facilitate. This added value has to do with our expertise and reliability and we're usually well compensated for these traits.

What if we weren't reliable? What if we didn't demonstrate any expertise and almost always did a shoddy, haphazard job as a group? People wouldn't hire us and our profession would disappear. You see, we have a financial interest in providing expertise and reliability. This self-interest actually goes much farther than the real estate transaction. It extends into our personal and public lives. The more people respect us, individually and jointly, the more likely they are to use our services. The better our character, the more people respect us.

It's simply good business and life practice. It somehow reminds me of something I read in an old book somewhere. I think it went something like, "...treat others the way you'd like to be treated..." This principle extends farther than simply dealing with others, it also implies that if you demonstrate good character, you will be able to view yourself in a positive light and this will lead to greater personal happiness.

The reason I'm expounding on this idea is that I was recently reminded of a series of psychological studies which had to do with people's response to "authority." In these experiments, volunteers were told to give an electric shock to a person in another room. They couldn't actually see the other person and, in fact, the other person was never actually shocked. When the volunteer would push the button, though, the person in the other room would exclaim out loud and the volunteer could hear them. The study showed that, if the authority figure told the volunteer to set the electricity at a dangerous or even obviously fatal level, the majority of the volunteers would unquestioningly "shock" the subject, even when he screamed loudly. An obvious parallel can be found in the documented behavior of prison camp guards in past wars.

Most of us would agree with the war crimes tribunals that have tried such individuals.  Following orders is no excuse.  Sadistic brutality is just that, regardless of orders or not. As humans, we always have a choice.  We can stand up against orders and situations we know are wrong, or we can allow ourselves to be intimidated and just go along.  Sometimes it's a difficult choice that can lead to personal inconvenience.  This is where people who are moral relativists almost always knuckle under.

The power of this choice has been demonstrated experimentally. When volunteers see just one person refusing to mistreat a subject, about 90% of them will also refuse, even though the act is sanctioned by authority figures. As a group, most of us really do understand the difference between right and wrong!

Now, pair this finding with the fact that studies at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have demonstrated that when just 10 percent of of a population holds a strong belief, that belief will always be adopted by the majority of the society. This 10% point is the tipping point where a society can move from bad to good or, unfortunately, from good to bad.

An early study showed that local crime rates soared about 10 years after television came to small, isolated towns in northern Canada. This is rather chilling when you think about how many acts of violence are portrayed during the average TV program. Information published by the University of Michigan indicates that the average child will see 200,000 violent acts and 16,000 murders on TV and it's been repeatedly shown in a large number of studies that children model their behavior to a certain extent on what they see on TV.

Likewise, people model their behavior to a certain extent on what they see other people doing. Most of us have probably seen the recent commercials on TV which portray an individual seeing another doing a good deed. That person does a good deed for another person and eventually the chain circles around to the original individual. That's how it actually works in reality. It doesn't happen instantaneously and there are a lot of breaks in the chain, but given enough time, society will actually change for the better.

The population of Realtors is large enough that we can jointly have a very positive effect on society, if we think about our behavior and act in such a way that we provide positive role models for others. If we'd each take that attitude, we might find that our career of selling houses could change the world for the better.

I want to ask you to do me a favor: Don't reject the concept out-of-hand. Take a few hours or days to think it over. We can make a difference!

Namaste!

Got a high interest rate mortgage and want to refinance? Too bad! Fannie and Freddie stand to profit if you can't.

Based on some dynamite investigative reporting by Propublica and NPR, it now is public knowledge that many people who are locked in with higher than market interest rate mortgages are being told they can't refinance by publicly owned companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The really ironic part of this commonplace event is that both agencies have effectively bet against the homeowners by purchasing investment instruments which pay off when homeowners remain locked into high interest rate mortgages.

While not illegal, the investments are easy to categorize as counter to the mission of both publicly owned companies. Freddie Mac and cousin Fannie Mae were bailed out in 2008 and are now owned by the taxpayers (that's you and me). The companies insure most home loans with the intent of making it more likely that banks will lend money to house purchasers. Freddie's charter calls for the company to make home loans more accessible and yet, recent investment actions seem to give the lie to this public-service oriented goal.

Mortgages are commonly accumulated in so-called "tranches." These tranches can contain a large number of mortgages which are then used as the basis for securities which are sold as investments. The securities are divided into two separate types. Type one is backed by the principal of the underlying mortgages and is fairly safe, but pays a low return to investors. Type two is backed by the interest payments on the mortgages and is risky. To compensate for this risk, this security pays far higher rates than type one.

The problem is that the high risk securities benefit most when the home owners who are paying the high interest rates on their mortgages continue to pay the high rates. In short, there's more profit in keeping the home owners on a high rate loan then there would be if they were allowed to refinance.

Now here's the point: Who controls at least part of the rules which permit or prohibit home owners from refinancing? If you said, "Fannie and Freddie," you get a gold star and go to the head of the class.

If you're prone to high blood pressure, take some medication prior to reading the next part.

Guess what investment instruments seem to be in vogue at Fannie and Freddie? In the last two years, Freddie purchased a few billion worth of so-called inverse floater securities based on high interest rate mortgages. If people pay off their loans early, this stops their interest payments which are the basis of inverse floater securities and Fannie and Freddie loose. Their interest is best served if John Q. Public can't refinance.

Based on that potential for loss, any rational individual or business would try to minimize the number of people refinancing and it seems as if both companies are working to make it harder for borrowers to get loans. This has been accomplished in several ways ranging from tightening lending criteria to raising settlement charges.

One is tempted to ask, "Why is this happening?" The individual in charge of Freddie's investment portfolio made $2.5 million in 2010. His bonus is tied to "supporting and providing liquidity and stability in the mortgage market," if you believe the annual SEC filing for Freddie. It doesn't really seem as if locking people in to high rates furthers this goal. My natural instinct is to follow the money and when I don't quite understand something, I just naturally assume that there is some kind of financial benefit for the companies and individuals involved. In this case, it doesn't seem in the public's best interest.

For more on this topic, visit

http://www.propublica.org

In my last post, I tried to make the point that we are responsible for the events and people that come into our life. In some mysterious way, we summon them at precisely the correct time for us to learn some critical lesson. Many of us refuse to take responsibility for this and are stuck in an arrested state of development which commonly takes the form of victim-hood. Nevertheless, whatever we focus on is drawn into our life.

When you're getting results you don't want and you're convinced that your attention is on results you desire, you might be tempted to think that the law of attraction is a myth. The problem is that you have conflicting beliefs. You are harbouring beliefs which get in the way of your stated desire. If, for example, you want more money, but you believe that you don't deserve it (and most of us believe that, since we've more or less unconsciously been indoctrinated from childhood to believe that we're not worthy), then that belief of not-deserving will get in the way of our conscious belief and interfere with our desired results.

What we have to do is to learn to release our interfering beliefs and develop a pure intent. Then the summoning process works well.

Let's digress for a moment. Modern quantum physics implies that everything is interconnected. We live in a universe full of energy waves. The quantum principle of entanglement states that particles which were once in touch will remain so, no matter how far apart in distance they become. Take two electrons which are in close proximity and separate them by millions of miles. Each seems to mystically "know" the state of the other. This has been experimentally demonstrated. Humans sometimes seem to show examples of this. In order to cut this short, since I don't want to go on too long, I'm simply going to assert that we are all in touch with each other. Humans are interconnected energetically in some way which modern science does not understand as yet.

When we don't have a scientific explanation for things, we call them mystical or psychic and tend to disparage the people who believe in them. Nevertheless, I'm of the opinion that if you are in sales, you've most likely had experiences which lead you to know that sometimes there is some esoteric force which conspires to make things work. I could go on and give a quasi-scientific explanation or I could give an explanation which is based on religion. I'll leave those discussions for another time. Instead I'm simply going to assert that if you accept responsibility for your life, then you MUST accept responsibility for the people who appear in your life.

If you're summoning people who are difficult and who cause you problems, then your own subconscious beliefs are getting in the way. If you are working in real estate, you know that people are the sole cause of all of the problems that you encounter. A couple of years ago, I ran into an agent who stated that she just wanted to work with nice people. A few months later, she told me that she had made a mistake, not only did she want nice people, but after dealing with a series of difficult clients, she also now wanted to specify that they must be sane.

What if you could work on yourself and clear and clean the energetic connection you have with anyone? When you have a relationship with someone, there is an energetic connection between the two of you. If you are holding a particular opinion of the other person, they will, to a certain extent, be limited and forced to appear to you as consistent with your view of them. If you could clear that view and free them from your expectations, they will be able to behave differently. If your expectations are positive after your cleaning exercises, you'll find that they will tend to live up to them.

If I've made myself clear, you may be saying, "Well, that would be wonderful, but how do I accomplish this so-called clearing?" It's actually very easy. You can use four statements which you say to yourself while thinking about how the person makes you feel. You can even use these four statements before you meet the person, say, for example, when you're going into a listing appointment.

Here's what you say and you can say this in any order: "I love you." "I'm sorry." "Please forgive me." "Thank you." These phrases have an amazing power to change your thinking and thus to change your relationship with another person. You should use them to work on your relationship with anyone who ever caused you a problem; with any guilt feelings you have for problems you've caused others; even with feelings you have about such material things as money and health and so on. The secret to remember is that you're not just speaking to yourself, even if you're simply thinking the phrases. You're actually speaking to the energetic universe, to, if you'll allow me to suggest it, Divine Source.

We've used these words successfully to change relationships and I know they work. Imagine if every human on the planet thought or spoke these words to everyone else! Do you think that the overall energy of the world would change for the better? Even if you simply think them about another person, they will somehow sense the different attitude in you.

Now, from me to each of you: I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you!

Have a great day!

Namaste!

If you'd like to see and feel this in action, here's a short video to watch: http://youtu.be/mqiCa3wpHC8

I was dead.  My brainwaves were flat-lined and my heart was stopped for nearly seven hours.  During this time, a skilled surgeon restructured the delicate leaves of two of the valves in my heart.  Please excuse the dramatic way I started this post, but I've got something important to say to you and I wanted to get your attention.

For several years, my heart had been trying to tell me that it didn't approve of some aspects of how I was living my life, but I'd ignored its attempts.  It wasn't beating regularly.  I had atrial fibrillation due to erratic electrical signals in my left atrium.  This is a common problem.  About 25% of 80 year olds suffer from it.  At my then-age of 60, it was quickly becoming life-threatening. 

A-fib causes your heart to pump less blood than it should and your heart gradually expands to try and compensate.  This expansion stretches out the valves and I'd reached the point where mine weren't closing completely and my heart action was severely compromised.  All I knew was that I got tired quickly and I had a fluttering feeling in my chest much of the time.  My heart was only pumping about 25% of what it should actually pump.

In case you're wondering, there's nothing that can happen to a heart which can't be fixed with modern medicine.  I'm now better than I have been in years and my heart is pumping as well or better than it did twenty years ago.

In retrospect, I realize that I was being given a huge opportunity to learn some lessons which I'd ignored.  I'm so hard-headed that it took something major to get my attention.  I believe that the lesson is something that we all should learn, although the vast majority of people fail to learn it or ignore it.

All of us start life with a victim mentality.  Being in real estate, we see people every day who have financial problems related to housing issues and many of them refuse to take responsibility for their problems.  They find some other entity to blame.  Perhaps it's their boss; perhaps they just got laid-off; perhaps it's their ex-spouse; perhaps it's their health; or perhaps it's just that the world fails to recognize their value and they just can't find a job which pays enough.  There's an infinite number of possibilities.

The thing is, being a victim means that you're full of self-pity and consequently you can't see your way clear to taking responsibility for the situation.  Taking personal responsibility is absolutely the only way that the situation will begin to clear up. 

If you've studied the law of attraction, you probably already realize that we summon situations into our life.  Generally, these situations are ones which carry a lesson for us.  We have an option of learning the lesson or ignoring it.  When we ignore it, it comes up again and again until we finally get the point.  Then we're ready for the next lesson. 

That's what life is all about: Learning; and there is an infinite number of lessons to learn.  If you feel like a victim (we all do at one point or another), realize that you have a choice.  You can choose to either remain a victim and search for external sources to blame or you can choose to begin the healing process by taking responsibility for your predicament. 

I've met many people who have heart problems and who simply place the whole mess into their doctor's hands and refuse to take any responsibility for their situation.  By so doing, they are pretty much ensuring that the problem will re-occur or become worse.  You've got to take personal responsibility and make changes in your life in order to heal.

The same can be said with relationship problems and financial problems.  They won't get better as long as you're blaming other people.  Only when you accept responsibility and search for the lesson embedded in the situation will you begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This post is running a little long, so I'm going to complete it tomorrow.  In that section, I will state a fact which will probably stretch your mental paradigm.  I will also show you how to quickly rectify almost any situation by placing yourself into a mode where you can begin to heal.  This technique can even be used to ease your relationships in real estate.  You might even find that it can make it easier to find clients and establish a good relationship. 

Hope to speak to you tomorrow.
Namaste!

BTW if you're faced with A-Fib and want some encouragement, contact me.