Doug Jones's (dougj) Blog

I walked into my office this morning and my red message light on the telephone was blinking. I listened to the message and it was a wholesale loan representative from a bank in southern California encouraging me to send business to her company.She calls me pretty much every day which shows persev...

When I taught sales we used a 5 step procedure to always know where we were in the selling process: Attention, Interest, Conviction, Desire, and Close. Over the years the words changed but the ideas remained the same. The word 'desire' changed to 'motivation' but the flow of the formula worked th...

One thing I always liked about real estate is that we were taught to be "color blind".  We do not red line, block bust, or steer.  From all my studies we are to simply treat everyone with respect, professionalism, and to follow the Golden Rule.In loans I wonder not about the mortgage lenders or t...

There is a lot of concern in California about the new mortgage interest write off limits. For loans in place prior to the tax law change those mortgages still fall under the old limits. I posted a video yesterday regarding the reduction from $1,000,000 to $750,000 and immediately got questions ab...

I am going to be doing a series of short videos explaining the new tax law as it relates to mortgages and real estate. This first video explains the effect of the mortgage interest deduction when it dropped from $1,000,000 to $750,000. By the way a mortgage in place is grandfathered under the old...

Yesterday I was using a paper clip to clip some papers and I noticed that it was red with a plastic coating. Looking at that paper clip I remembered the most amazing story ever about a fellow who began a series of trades beginning with a red paper clip and ending with him owning a house. To see a...

Have you ever not known what to charge or if you should adjust your pricing? Once my CPA told me he could double his fees and still make the same money - assuming he would lose half his client base. In my life every time I have cut fees or reduced price it seems I set myself up for a bad transact...

That headline Earthquakes don't Count is not an original quote from me. I heard this years ago on a sales training CD. The speaker told a story about a nationwide sales contest and the office in the lead suffered an earthquake near year end and they fell from being in the lead to out of contentio...

As a mortgage lender I use math all the time for debt ratios, down payment percentage, daily interest, tax computations, insurance cost, PMI, APR, rent vs own, Future Value, Bi-weekly payments, tax deductions, and amortization schedules. I am using math when I analyze taxes, pay stubs, and financ...

San Jose is showing no relief from residential home pricing. This, from the National Association of Realtors is interesting.About 23 percent of all loan purchase originations for single-family homes in the third quarter involved co-borrowers, considered to be multiple unmarried borrowers listed o...