The Morning Shot

Will Ferrell is arguably one of the funniest television and movie personalities of our time. But before trying to cure Christopher Walkin's fever for more cowbell, Ferrell was a scared college graduate living at his mother's house unsure for the direction of his life. Speaking to the audience of USC's 2017 graduating class, the comedian shares some of his lessons from life that helped discourage him from pursuing his interest in sports casting, to pursuing his passion for comedy.

          There is one concept in particular that Ferrell talks about that I found most interesting – that is, his ability to drown out the distractions and noise of pessimism by constantly throwing darts at the dart board until something stuck.

          In 1991 Will Ferrell began the relentless pursuit of his dream, and took a variety of classes and performing opportunities at the famous Groundlings Theatre in Los Angeles; he also tried stand-up comedy, but admits, this particular area of comedy was not his strong suit. But he didn't care, because he was just trying to throw as many darts at the dart board as possible hoping eventually one of them would stick.      

          This mentality of relentless perseverance is not easy to maintain. Which is why to his credit, we appreciate his going further into some of those darker times where he would question himself – situations like coming home to a meal of spaghetti and mustard, having only $20 in his bank account. He tells us how he was afraid, but in his own inspiring words, quote "my fear of failure never approached in magnitude to my fear of what if? What if I never tried at all?" Thankfully it is just that mentality of always asking what if that kept Ferrell working, throwing more darts at the dart board, and in 1995 being offered the opportunity to audition for SNL with executive producer Lorne Michaels and eventually being hired to the cast for the 95-96 season.

          Ferrell never stopped throwing darts at the dart board, and it proved to be one of the best tools for helping him remain focused on his goal and disregard the negativity of outside influences. Ferrell shares another story where after a number of seasons with SNL, respected critic for the Washington Post Tom Shales approach him on his last season of the show to congratulate him on his work, and to apologize for some of the things he had written about him during his earlier years with the show. But it's funny, because in Will's words, "I hadn't read his reviews, in fact I didn't read any reviews because, once again, I was too busy throwing darts at the dart board. All the while facing my fears."

          Friends, the road of relentless perseverance in pursuit of our goals will be lined with negativity – but as we note from Ferrell, the most effective way for drowning out the noise is by continuing to throw darts at the dart board. 

The views of this blog, podcast, and on this site in general are solely those of the authors, Matt Weaver (NMLS-175651) and Zack Lewis, and do not express the views or opinions of Finance of America Mortgage.

 The National Association of Realtors released their latest quarterly report on March 15th. The report opens up exclaiming, "The strongest quarterly sales pace in exactly a decade put significant downward pressure on inventory levels and caused price growth to further accelerate during the first three months of 2017." In other words, demand continues to outpace supply, and home prices are continuing to rise because of it.  The result? "Metro home prices have now accelerated for three consecutive quarters."

          Have a pen and paper handy? Don't worry, the following statistics pulled from this report will be easily accessible on our blog:

1. The national median existing single-family home price in the 1st quarter of 2017 was $232,100. This is up 6.9% from the first quarter of 2016.
2. The median price during the 4th quarter of 2016 increased 5.9% from the 4th quarter of 2015.
3. SFH prices last quarter increased in 85% of measured markets – 152 out of 178 metro statistical areas showed sales price gains in the 1st quarter of 2017 compared with the 1st quarter of 2016.

NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun reported that quote, "Prospective buyers poured into the market to start the year, and while their increased presence led to a boost in sales, new listings failed to keep up and hovered around record lows all quarter." Furthermore he said, "Those able to successfully buy most likely had to outbid others – especially for those in the starter-home market – which in turn quickened price growth to the fastest quarterly pace in almost two years."

     Total existing-home sales, which includes SFH and condos, climbed 1.4% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.62 million in the first quarter – this is the highest it has been since the first quarter of 2007!

     At the end of the first quarter of 2017, there were 1.83 million existing homes available for sale, which was 6.6% below the 1.96 million homes for sale at the end of the first quarter in 2016. The average supply during the first quarter was 3.7 months – down from 4.2 months in the first quarter of last year.

     The market is hot, and we only just entered the heaviest home-selling months of the year – May, June, July and August – which account for 40% of an average year's total home-selling volume!

The views of this blog, podcast, and on this site in general are solely those of the authors, Matt Weaver (NMLS-175651) and Zack Lewis, and do not express the views or opinions of Finance of America Mortgage.

When we hear someone refer to the Navy SEALs, or describe something as the "Navy SEALs of x" this is typically in reference to or describing something as the best, or the most elite; and for very good reason. The US Navy SEALs are America's foremost fighting force and considered the most elite special operations team in the world – almost mystical in their reputation, there is no other military unit that garners such respect for the brand in the way of mental fortitude and physical excellence.

          In 2014, Admiral William H. McRaven gave the commencement address for the University of Texas graduating class. For his speech, Admiral McRaven shared his 10 life lessons learned from SEAL basic training, or BUDs. BUDs stands for Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training, it is a 6 month training course, as he describes, designed to "seek and find the weak of mind and body and eliminate them from ever becoming a Navy SEAL." Every one of the ten life lessons the Admiral took from his training has a great deal of merit for helping change the lives of ourselves and others for the better, but there are two specifically we wish to share here.

          One of those lessons was learned from what sounds like an incredibly unpleasant experience to say the least, spending 15 hours engulfed neck deep in cold, wet mud. 15 Hours. 15 Hours being cold, sore, shaking, and immersed in a thick muck while drill instructors encouraged them to quit. At one point he tells us of how an instructor proposed an offer, "should 5 students choose to quit the entire class could get out of the oppressive cold." A certainly appealing offer, the Admiral recalls looking around at the faces of his team, some of which considering the offer, when one of his classmates began to sing. One after the other the rest of the team joined in harmony, and somehow the mud seemed to become "a little warmer, and the wind a little tamer, and the dawn not so far away." In the words of the Admiral, "if you want to change the world, start singing when you're up to your neck in mud."

          This ties into his 10th lesson. In the center of the compound hangs a brass bell for all the students to see. The rule of the brass bell is simple – if you want to quit, just ring the bell. There will be no questions, no harassment and no paperwork to fill out – if you want to quit, just ring the bell. "Ring the bell and you no longer have to wake up at 5am. Ring the bell and you no longer have to do the freezing cold swims. Ring the bell and you no longer have to endure the hardships of training – just ring the bell." But if we want to change the world, if we want to accomplish the goals for which we wake every morning in pursuit of attaining – we must never, ever, ring the bell.

The views of this blog, podcast, and on this site in general are solely those of the authors, Matt Weaver (NMLS-175651) and Zack Lewis, and do not express the views or opinions of Finance of America Mortgage.

Monday's are awesome. I love it. I love what I do. Every Monday rings in the new week where I get the privilege of getting back to work with people I love, and to serve clients whose relationships I value. The case of the "Monday's" does not apply to me.

I read an article the other day on Business Insider where they interviewed some of the most successful entrepreneurs on what their morning routines looked like. Many of them were physically oriented – ice baths, healthy breakfasts, early gym session, etc. The one that struck me the most however, emphasized the mental side so critical to developing the stamina needed for the success marathon. The daily habit shared by Andrew Yang, CEO of Venture for America, was simple – every morning he would awake to his loving dog, spend some time with his children, go to the gym, and open up a memo file on his phone on the way to the office to record three things he is thankful for.

       First thing he does upon awakening is spend time with the people he loves. Most of us push this off for later and justify that we get up early, work hard and late to provide for the ones we love. You know what? Forget that. I love my wife. I love my children. They are why I do what I do and come before anything else. When I wake up and spend time with my children, it invigorates me. When I kiss my wife goodbye before leaving to work, I feel good; I'm proud of what the universe has provided for me. Every deal means so much more because it is one more opportunity to treat my family to the wonders of life – as a family. Work takes on an entirely different meaning.

       Physical health is important too, but it needs no further explanation as to how valuable it is. I just like to remind myself that it came second after the time Mr. Yang spends with his family.

       I came across a quote that said – "It is not happy people who are thankful, it is thankful people who are happy."

       Taking just a moment to remind ourselves how blessed we are to do what we're doing and to go where we going, is what makes the journey worth trudging.

The views of this blog, podcast, and on this site in general are solely those of the authors, Matt Weaver (NMLS-175651) and Zack Lewis, and do not express the views or opinions of Finance of America Mortgage.

How often do we hear friends and colleagues brag about their ability to multitask their day? Meetings, emails, laundry, dinner, everything at once – amazing. But more often than not we find that multitasking merely offers us the opportunity to be mediocre at many things simultaneously, rather than great at one task at a time.

I came across a recent article on CNBC that did an excellent job of providing a metaphor for the concept of multitasking and how it negatively affects all the work we do. Think about time like money. You can't buy a $20 shirt and $20 pair of pants with the same $20 bill. Each of them costs $20, and there's no way to magically condense that. We seem to accept that basic truth for money, but somehow think that we can skirt around it as it relates to time. But that's just silly. If two projects each require about two hours of focused concentration, we can't use the same two hours to do them both." At least not well.

So every day we have a limited amount of time to dedicate to various activities, both work and personal. Can we really maximize the effectiveness of our time at the gym when we're taking client calls during our work out? Can we really be the most effective when prospecting if we've allocated the same time slot to responding to emails?

One recommendation this article makes is that in the same way you would get a handle on your personal finances, so to should we our time. So first things first, we need to put pen to paper and track how we budget our time every day. The author shares that an online app called Toggl is a great tool for helping you get started in assessing your time budget, apparently very helpful and works well on both an app and the computer, so might be worth checking out. From his standpoint, just like tracking your finances or your diet, one of the greatest benefits to going down this path is actually having to now face the music on how we really spend our time. Having to face the fact that only 10 minutes into your prospecting calls you're already logged on to facebook and Instagram or looking up a new recipe for dinner, you really start to see just how much multitasking really costs us on a day-to-day basis.

My sales director has emphasized implementing a system for blocking our time and working strictly within the parameters set since his first day. The impact of doing so was apparent immediately, and the rest of the office has expressed similar results. Give it a try, let us know if it brings you as much value as it has for me.  

This is YOUR Shot, and we value your feedback on how we can improve it to add just a bit more depth to your sales presentation. A recurring theme that has come up is the frequency of episodes. We are reminded as to how potent and valuable the content is, but with it coming out on a daily basis it goes against the "bite size" concept we set out to provide. That being said, again, we hear you and value your opinion, so we will be condensing Your Shot to three highly concentrated days of mental caffeine on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We thank you again for your viewership, and look forward to continue serving Your Morning Shot to get your days started with a bang.

The views of this blog, podcast, and on this site in general are solely those of the authors, Matt Weaver (NMLS-175651) and Zack Lewis, and do not express the views or opinions of Finance of America Mortgage.

The reality of business is that more important than anything else, is that people do business with people they like. I'm personally a big fan of Shark Tank, so when I came across a related quote from Barbara Corcoran I knew it was worth sharing – "People want to do business with someone they like. If people like you, they're going to want to do business with you. And if they don't you're going to have an almost insurmountable obstacle to overcome."

       I like Barbara to, and given she's done very well for herself, I think we should run with this by diving into the most acclaimed book on getting people to like you – Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People. As an up front disclaimer, we will most certainly revisit this book again in the future, there is simply to much valuable information to be discussed in one segment.

       Carnegie says "Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language." What a simple suggestion, remember people's names, but how many of us have been successful in doing so? How many of us are great with faces, but each one of them are named "buddy"?

       Now think back and recall a situation where someone remembered your name. I vividly recall a time where there was a gentleman, whose name ironically don't remember, but, a gentleman who I had only met once before that remembered my name when I saw him again. When I say once before I don't mean yesterday, I mean months ago. It felt great. I felt like I must've had such an impact on this person, I was somebody, I mean he knew my name after all this time…

       I know nothing else about this man, but I could only see him in a favorable light from that day forward, If we take some time to remember the people's names you meet and the same experience I had can be had by every one of our clients. Knowing their name is a sign of the value you have for that person, that you appreciate and liked that person enough to remember their name. When meeting people and developing our business that can be HUGE! If we plant the seed with the charm up front and know the next time you see them you'll be able to exponentially grow your relationship by merely knowing their name!

       Here's a trick I used that helped me get over my buddy problem – whenever I meet someone new, when they first tell me their name I pause all other thoughts, look them straight in the eye and smile, and recite their name 5x over in my head. Psychologically, it helps to strengthen the association between the name and their face…works well for me, hopefully for you to if it's something you need to work on.

The views of this blog, podcast, and on this site in general are solely those of the authors, Matt Weaver (NMLS-175651) and Zack Lewis, and do not express the views or opinions of Finance of America Mortgage.

I saw two articles today on Jeff Bezos and the success of Amazon that made me think, "I need a shot of Jeff in my life."

First, on ZeroHedge was a blog entitled "How Amazon Killed the Department Store in Five Charts." It was incredible, the decline in retail has been a huge topic of discussion all over the news and the author basically seeks to lay the responsibility firmly at the feet of Amazon…if you haven't seen the article, definitely worth checking it out. But it's the last chart that drove the point home – the one that shows Amazon's market capitalization, or the market value of a company's outstanding shares, being more than 8x the value of the entire US department store index!

While we already know that Jeff is an exceptionally talented and accomplished individual, what I really needed to know is how someone capable of transforming the entire retail market think. How does he view his business in the scope of the industry? How does he make decisions? How does he determine what strategies to use for executing those decisions? Well, that was the second article I came upon, and you can find it on Amazon's website as well – it's his 2016 letter to Shareholders. In this letter, Jeff shares how he prevents the company from falling into what he refers to as "Day 2", which represents business stasis, irrelevance, a painful decline and ultimately death. Extreme? Maybe, but it sure does seem to work for him.

        Every part of this letter should be, and will be, a shot. But for now we break it down one piece at a time in order to digest it efficiently. One piece he went on to talk about he refers to as "true customer obsession." In his words, "there are many ways to center a business. You can be competitor focused, you can be product focused, you can be technology focused, you can be business model focused, and there are more. But in my (Jeff's) view, obsessive customer focus is by far the most protective of Day 1 vitality."  

        Very straightforward, but he goes on to provide a little more clarity as to the why – "customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great. Even when they don't yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf."

        He's right, and we shouldn't bury our heads about it, our customers are always looking for something better. So we must be relentless in always thinking about the best interests of our clients and what they will want tomorrow. By living in that mentality, we can only hope that, like Amazon, they need not look any further than where they are to find what it is they want.

The views of this blog, podcast, and on this site in general are solely those of the authors, Matt Weaver (NMLS-175651) and Zack Lewis, and do not express the views or opinions of Finance of America Mortgage.

The National Association of Realtors published a very interesting article earlier this month entitled "First-Time Buyers Aren't Afraid of Renovation." With a title like that I had to explore further because everything I've read up until this moment appears to contradict that statement.

According to the principal economist at Houzz & Home, "younger and cash-constrained first-time buyers are responding to the low inventory of affordable homes by purchasing properties that require more than just cosmetic upgrades." She went on to say, "not surprisingly, we are seeing their spending on home renovations increasing significantly in 2016 and expect this trend to continue through 2017."

They actually provided us a few additional pieces of data to keep in mind, as in what the average remodeler spent in renovating their homes by room:

1. Kitchens: $19,100
2. Master bathrooms: $11,700
3. Living/Family rooms: $5,400
4. Master bedroom: $3,400
5. Laundry room: $2,800
6. Dining room: $2,600
7. Guest bedrooms: $1,900

Now THIS IS SOME VALUABLE INFORMATION LADIES AND GENTELMAN. How many times have we come to hear that FTHBs only have enough for the down payment? How often have we heard about the low inventory levels restricting what's available to those same buyers? Well helping these clients find a turnkey property to suit their financial needs can be extremely difficult when you're under the impression that it's the only option available!

But here we are, and statistics are now showing that these FTHB are more comfortable with the idea of spending a sizeable sum of extra money to make their new house a home. Well you know what's great about this newfound discovery? There's a loan product most of your local banks should offer called the 203(k) loan to satisfy this demand exactly! They're not incredibly complex products, but make sure the lender you're working with has thorough understanding for all the nuances associated before referring your FTHB clients.

Renovation loans are fantastic for helping open new doors to homebuyers that wouldn't otherwise be available for them. With this trend expected to continue, the more educated you can get on how they work, the more doors you can open for others that were told they were closed.

The views of this blog, podcast, and on this site in general are solely those of the authors, Matt Weaver (NMLS-175651) and Zack Lewis, and do not express the views or opinions of Finance of America Mortgage.

        Memento homo – translated from the days of the Roman Empire means thou art mortal. Some of you may be familiar with this old phrase if you've seen the 1970's classic "Patton".

         Back in the days of the Roman Empire, Triumphs were a ceremony of the times to publicly honor the military commander of a notably successful foreign war. When we say notable, we mean notable, in fact there were very specific criteria that had to be met for a war to be considered triumphant. One of those criteria includes having to win a war against a foreign nation, because well, civil wars don't count since you don't bring home gold or slaves.

          Now since this is Ancient Rome, when they celebrate it tends to reach a level far surpassing our modern day Super Bowl vicotry parade. Patriot's fans be damned, Ancient Roman ceremony's would typically include a spectacular parade opened up by the chiefs of conquered peoples, wagons of gold and other fine items taken from conquered lands and, musicians, dancers, and any other elaborate or ostentatious items you could possibly dream of.

          The celebrated victor and triumphator would than ride into the city on a grand chariot pulled by two white horses. A slave, kept closely behind, would hold a laurel crown over the triumphators head, though careful not to touch it, would continuously repeat the phrase memento homo in his ear…remember, thou art mortal.   

          As we continue on our journey for the relentless pursuit of excellence it will only be natural that many a accomplishments be attracted to our lives. But no matter how grand the accomplishment, we must always remember, thou art mortal – and so we stay humble, and remain hungry.

The views of this blog, podcast, and on this site in general are solely those of the authors, Matt Weaver (NMLS-175651) and Zack Lewis, and do not express the views or opinions of Finance of America Mortgage.