North Country Mortgages

We have an amazing new loan program here at Lake City Mortgage that is sure to help a lot of people. To my knowledge we are the only mortgage company in the area offering anything like it. 100% conventional financing has completely gone away which is why I am so thrilled to be able to offer The Lake City Home Express!

Here Are a Few of The Highlights:

1. 100% financing of appraised Value.
2. Unlimited Seller Concessions.
3. Gift Funds Acceptable From Family and FRIENDS.
4. Can finance Closing Costs Up To Appraised Value If Sales Price is Below Appraised Value.
5. No Minimum Credit Score.
6. Exceptions on Loan Program Restrictions For Credit Scores 620 and higher.
7. No Declining Market Restrictions.
8. Phenominal Interest Rates Compared to Conventional.
9. Entire Process Takes 4 Weeks or Less.
10. No Monthly PMI!

This program is limited to Sub-Urban and Rural areas. Lake City Mortgage and I are located in Plattsburgh, NY 12901. While we cannot close the Lake City Home Express directly in the city of Plattsburgh we can provide this financing for any property located in the sub-urban and rural areas that surround Plattsburgh, NY including Cumberland Head.

This program is viable in many regions of the North Country including:

1. Keeseville, NY.
2. Peru, NY.
3. Cadyville, NY.
4. The Town of Plattsburgh.
5. Malone, NY.
6. Moira, NY.
7. Brushton, NY.
8. Dannemora, NY.
9. Lion Mountain, NY.
10. Saranac, NY.

And any other region in NY, RI, and MA that has a population of 20,000 or less. I am very excited to be able to offer this program. To get pre-qualified for this program just give me a call at 1-866-562-6930 ext.105
or send me an email at cohlsen@lakecitymtg.com.

We also have a full suite of conventional financing options for ineligible areas and FHA in-house. We basically run the Full Gambit here at Lake City Mortgage so give us a shot today! I promise you that it is worth the call!

Sincerely,
Christopher Ohlsen
Mortgage Advisor
1-866-562-6930 ext.105
1-518-907-4665 (cell)
1-518-324-3358 (fax)
www.lakecitymtg.net

I have seen a lot of posts recently about DATA BASE management. The most obvious benefit to keeping and maintaining a rich data base is repeat and referral business. Sometimes people struggle for business and they miss the fact that a huge source of business is sitting right there in front of them.

I get back to everyone whom I deal with in a timely manner. I always get pre-qualifications out within 6 hours and I keep my clients informed every step of the way.

Still, there are those people whom I speak with for quite a while who go out in the market and do not find what they are looking for right away. After several months it can become too easy to lose touch with your prospects. It is important to go back through your pipeline every few days to make sure that you don't miss anyone.

This morning I went through my pipeline and there are about 5 people whom I had been in touch with and have not heard from in 2 months or more. I called every one of them this morning and so far I have recieved one call back.

The call back that I recieved was from a gentlemen whom said that he has just found a place. He had lost my contact information so he was going to start shopping for a mortgage again. I told him what I can do for him and reminded him of some of the conversations that we had previously had.

I got his Realtors® information and sent over a pre-qualification letter for negotiating purposes. The offer is almost definitely going to be accepted as this is a motivated seller and the offer is not a lowball offer.

This is almost certainly going to be a loan for me for the month of June and all it took was a few minutes of my time to scan through my data base and make a couple of phone calls. Work those Data Bases and you will be successful in a "down market"!

I'm talking about the spike in oil recently... Who'd of guessed? A diabolical plan to increase the cost of oil while a Bush is in the whitehouse...?

Oil is a hedge against inflation. Oil is traded in dollars so when the dollar drops oil becomes a more attractive investment for those trading in foreign currency.

The FED cutting its key rate increases the likelyhood that the value of the dollar will drop. When the value of the dollar drops investors world wide rally around oil and the cost per barrel soars.

The FED Funds rate cuts did not help the consumer, they did not help the housing market and they certainly are not helping the financial markets but oil is doing just fine.

Priced at $139,000

Bedrooms:  4 Bathrooms:  2 Square Foot:  1,837 Community:  City of Plattsburgh County:  Clinton Property Type:  Income Year Built:  1900 MLS Number:  128904 Property Description This duplex has been remodeled. Ground floor apartment has new carpet, ceiling fan, mini blinds, repainted. Has tin ceiling in den. Upstairs apartment was completely redone. New maple cabinets, vinyl flooring, hardwood cherry floors, new full bath, new windows throughtout, light fixtures, rewired and carpeted. Shed area off back has plenty of storage for tenants. Washer/Dryer hookups in both apartments. For more information or additional pictures please visit www.10champlainst.2cmyhome.com. Features List Gravel Drive Patio Porch Cable TV Ceiling Fans Double Pane Vinyl Clad

Note to Reader: This is a Co-Marketing Project betweeen myself and the listing agent. The listing agent on this property is Kathy Bennett of RE/Max North Country. Kathy can be reached directly at 518-569-5959. Thank you for your interest in this property.

My blog is mixed with blog posts and real estate listings. If you were to just read each post in chronological order my blog would not read well. I saw someone else mention that they would not because there are many other professionals whom they may choose to work with instead of them. I really am not concerned about that aspect... Yes there are many great professionals here on the Activerain network.

Most of us who are here and actually take the time to participate are pretty ethical people. I am not concerned with fellow AR members trying to steal business from me. I may from time to time send someone directly to an article that I think is noteworthy and relevent to their needs but I will not direct anyone directly to my blog.

The reason for me is that I don't need to. Other than specific articles as I mentioned ARhelps me seperates and parse my posts and they pop up in groups on the search engines based on the tag clouds that you use.

Priced at $135,000

Bedrooms:  7 Bathrooms:  4 Square Foot:  3,621 Lot Size:  0 Property Type:  Single Family Detached Year Built:  1910 MLS Number:  128702 Property Description This beautiful home has so much potential!! With seven bedrooms and 4 bathrooms you will never run out of room in this home, and the price is unbelieveable but true!! Full unfinished attic area. Bedroom #5 is 10x15, Bedroom #6 is 9x11 and Bedroom 7 is 10x12. This home has been completely redone with new windows, insulation, sheet rocked, painted, wallpapered, new bathrooms, heating system, french doors, ceramic tile floors, oak cabinets in kitchen, enclosed porches, 200 amp service, hot water tank and carpet. Original hardwood floors and tin ceilings. For more information or additional pictures please visit www.66clintonst.2cmyhome.com. Features List Celing Fans Bay or Bow Storm Windows Vinyl Clad Wood

Note to Reader: This is a Co-Marketing Project betweeen myself and the listing agent. The listing agent on this property is Kathy Bennett of RE/Max North Country. Kathy can be reached directly at 518-569-5959. Thank you for your interest in this property.

Priced at $298,000

Bedrooms:  4 Bathrooms:  2 Square Foot:  2,694 Lot Size:  0 Community:  Fildowns County:  Clinton Property Type:  Single Family Detached Year Built:  1998 MLS Number:  128472 Property Description This is a true dream home!! Cathedral ceilings through, built in appliances, and wood galore. Everything in this home just seems to fit together perfectly. This home has been well maintained. Hardwood & ceramic floors, crown molding, ceiling fans, cathedral ceilings. Master bathroom has jacuzzi tub & shower. Full wall fireplace in living room. Oak cabinets in kitchen, recess lighting, stainless steel appliances. Stockade fence in backyard. French drain in front and back yard of house. This home is a great deal! For more information or additional pictures go to  www.85maceylane.2cmyhome.com. Features List Jacuzzi Cathedral Ceilings Ceiling Fans Double Pane Walk in Closets Wood

Note to Reader: This is a Co-Marketing Project betweeen myself and the listing agent. The listing agent on this property is Kathy Bennett of RE/Max North Country. Kathy can be reached directly at 518-569-5959. Thank you for your interest in this property.

I really think that this is an important question to ask yourself. How can you compete if you do not know where the goal posts are?

My colleague Travis Carter and I have experimented with this a little bit. In posts like this that reference interest rates you need to take note of the time stamp on the post.

I had a client call me up and tell me that Community Bank is offering her a 5.875% on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage. Her qualifications are lacking in that her scores are below 700 and she is looking for a cash out refinance. She explained something to me about it being Community Bank's "secondary product".

I called Community Bank to find out what they are offering. I called up and simply asked "what is your rate on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage?" because that is a very common question in this business. The lady on the other end of the phone who was very nice by the way told me that she can give ME a 5.875% on a 30 year fixed. She did not even ask my name before quoting me a rate let alone pull my credit or even ask me any questions about my income.

I thanked her kindly and moved on.

Travis has a client whom he is working with who he experienced something similar with. His client came in to the office and said that Wells Fargo was offering her a 5.875% rate and again this borrower was not truly qualified for that rate. Travis told her to take it; partially because if she really could get that rate he would prefer her to take it than to take his loan at a higher rate and partially because he knew that it was not out there. After she left he then called Wells Fargo and explained to them that he is in the business and he knows what is out there and that he is looking to finance some property. He gave his client's scenario to the LO anonymously and he was given a quote of 6.375%. Shortly after that his client called him up and explained to him that the rep at Wells Fargo cannot do what she promised after having pulled and reviewed credit.

Since then I have been calling my competition anonymously just to see what approach they are taking and I have to tell you, I am amazed that some of my competitors are still in business. I can't believe how some of these people get away with operating out there.

After having spoken to much of my competition I am quite confident with regard to our position within our local market. I truly feel that there is no-one left to compete with. As long as we keep doing what we are doing our market share will continue to increase.

Anyone else have these kind of experiences? Please share; It is vital to know what t6he competition is doing and I was pleasantly surprised to see how lackluster the performance is of most of my competitors in my local market area.

Thanks for reading; I welcome your comments.

I am guessing that a carefully planned and well written article will pull better than a blog that someone writes on the fly. I write most of my blogs on the fly... and I have met with success. I have definitely extracted business from the web via my current style of blogging. I will definitely continue this style of blogging but I may change it up on my personally owned blogs.

AR is AR and I am here more for the business to business relationship that I have developed and to learn from other seasoned professionals. It is a bonus that many individual people find my articles here and contact me for business.

I am putting up a blog that will be located on my www.northcountryloans.com website when I take the site live. I love to just think up a post as I am writing it, but I think for my business blog I am going to actually write them as though I am writing an essay that will be graded.

I will keep my language simple enough that you will not need to be a trained mortgage professional to read and understand but I think that if I actually take the time to write my articles that they will kick back a bigger return... Especially on my own personally owned blogs.

Have any of you experiemented with both? Have you tried writing "freehand" blogs on one blog format and carefully orchestrated articles on another? I am curious about this... I will be putting this into motion myself soon and I will write my results here on AR. In the meantime I would love to hear of any experiences that any of you may have had with regard to a change in writing style and a direct increase or decrease in your business.

All of you SEO gurus out there, correct me if I am wrong.

Disclaimer: I am not an SEO expert.

As a matter of fact I posted my first piece of web literature back in September of 2007. I feel that I have learned quickly. Currently I am generating roughly half of my business from the web.

I am setting up a new network of leas generation websites that will be going live at the end of this month (got moved from 16th to 22nd to do additional tweaks). I just registered a couple of new domains... My primary domain (Master Site) will be www.northcountryloans.com.

I am going to be engaging in several practices in order to drives MASSIVE traffic to my network. I recently stumbled upon something called "doorway pages". Upon further inspection it has come to my attention that Google regards these Doorway pages as spam.

I read on Google Web Master's site that Doorway Pages are considered spam because tehy do not present any value to the user. So... What I am wondering is if Doorway Pages that are hand crafted and contain guenuine content that is relevent to the search  such as a couple of articles will be viewed as spam?

Any takers?