Lola’s here!  I took a couple of days off this past week and went to Tulsa.  I was so excited I was about to jump out of my skin.  Lola, my grand-daughter was born on Wednesday, August 22nd!  Isn’t that great news?  She was 6 lbs. 6 oz. and just perfectly beautiful!  She and her Mother, Piper are doing just fine as is Daddy, Alan.  I can think of no joy any greater in life than having grand-children!  I hope all of you are spoiling your as much as I plan to spoil mine   Welcome to the world, Lola!

In my last post I was writing about how important it was to get pre-qualified before setting out to look at homes.  I decided you might like to know what information you need to gather in order to go and talk to a lender.  Most mortgage lenders will ask you for at least the following 10 things at the time of loan application:  1) Copy of Social Security Card and Driver’s License; 2) Name, Address & Phone Numbers of each employer - past 2 years; 3) Paycheck Stubs - Past 30 days; 4) W2’s - past 2 years; 5) Last 2 months Bank Statements for all Checking & Savings Accounts, IRA’s, CD’s, & Investment Accounts (all pages); 6) Certificate of Eligibility or DD14 (V.A. only). Name, Address, Phone number of Nearest Relative.; 7) Check for Credit Report, Appraisal and Flood Certificate Fee; If Self Employed, Last 2 Years Signed Tax Returns; 9) Bankruptcy Petition and Discharge, if applicable; 10) Divorce Decree.  If you will gather this information before you call or go into see the lender it will make the process go a lot faster and smoother.  Or even better yet, ask your lender for their list of what you need to provide.  Good luck and I’ll see you when you are ready to search for property!

I can’t stress enough to buyers how important it is to get pre-qualified before getting too far into the process of looking at homes to purchase.  Unless you are going to be paying cash, it is important to visit a lender of your choice and go over your financial situation and options to determine just what price of home you should be looking for.  This makes it a lot easier on you the buyer, the lender and the Realtor if you will take this step first.  Then, when you begin to look for a home you know exactly the price range to be looking in. When you get ready to write the contract you will know what kind of funding you will be seeking which is a prerequisite to filling out the real estate contract.  So, do everyone a favor - you especially - and get pre-qualified as the first step to home buying.  If you need some suggestions of lenders to contact visit my website at www.KarenWeldin.com and go to the mortgage information page and see the list of links as a place to start. (Remember, these are suggestions,  am not endorsing any of them.)

In my last post I was talking about telephone calls and the respectful thing to do is to return them!  Well, it has now been five days since I telephoned a dock repair person and I have not heard from them yet.  In talking to other people I also find that we seem to have become accustomed to this pattern, accept this behavior and then feel so grateful when we finally hear from someone!  I don’t think it should be this way.  I finally decided to call someone else today.  I got a hold of someone else, they promised they would be at my house before dark to take a look at my dock.  Well, it is 10 p.m. and I have turned the porch light off.  No call, no show.  Maybe tomorrow I will call a third person and see what happens.  Let me hear from you all out there.  Are you having better luck than I am with service people right now?  I hope so.  Let me hear about your experiences.

I just read an article online entitled “11 Business Practices That Undermine Your Marketing Program and Trash Your Reputation” by Trey Ryder http://treyryder.com/undermine.asp   Practice # 5 reads: ”Return phone calls when you get around to it.”  The solution - return phone calls promptly!  There have been many vendors and service people I have called only to find myself waiting days for a return call.  Or I have taken on the challenge of continuous calling over a course of time to see just how many phone calls it would take to get a particular person to return my call.  Part of quality service includes knowing that your phone calls will be returned in a timely manner.  It would be good to know which vendors and service people make it a sound business practice of theirs to return phone calls promptly.  My goal is to return calls within 24 hours max.  I try to make it even less time than this.  My experience with Mallie’s heat and air has been good in this regard.  Any time I have called them they have answered right then or returned my call in a very short time.  This kind of service goes a long way in my books.  I want the reputation of being the person who responds to people’s e-mails and phone calls promptly.  It is part of my customer service pledge.