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Empowering Lives: How Strategic Realty’s Catherine Emert Saved a Home with Soda Cans

By Kerry ONeal

Discover the heartwarming story of Catherine Emert, a real estate professional from Strategic Realty, whose compassionate and innovative approach transformed a distressed homeowner’s life. In this powerful interview with Tony Martinez, owner of the Certified Distressed Property Expert (CDPE) designation, Catherine shares how she went above and beyond to save a home using a unique solution involving soda cans. Witness the essence of Strategic Realty’s mission to improve the real estate industry through innovation and exceptional customer service. Let this remarkable story inspire us all to make a positive impact on the lives of those we serve.

TONY: Hey everyone, it’s Tony Martinez with the CDPE and I have a very special guest with me here today her name is Catherine Emert, she’s out of the Oregon area and Catherine and I met about a week and a half two weeks ago at the amazing Star Power conference and she shared a story with me a testimonial that just completely blew me away, but not to try to keep you in suspense but I would like to give her an opportunity to introduce herself and just tell us a little background on where she’s from what market she focuses on and what was her primary motivation for becoming a Certified Distressed Property Expert, So, Catherine welcome.

CATHERINE:  Thank you Tony. It was so great meeting you last …  two weeks ago now. I’m born and raised in Oregon. I grew up here in Central Oregon. I serve almost half the state of Oregon right now,  primarily the east side of the mountains. I’ve been in real estate since I was about 12 years old so it’s in my blood it’s what I do. Unfortunately my family was one that was impacted by the crash in 2008 and our family lost our home, and my mom was a real estate broker at the time, and so when I heard about CDPE actually last year at the Star Power conference, I knew I needed to take the course. So when you offered the course at a discount to Star Power members, I went ahead and signed up immediately and I’ve already actually been marketing to Notice of Defaults in our area.  I send a card to them saying “hey you’re not alone we’ve all been through this”, and I had one great gentleman call me and he’d been ignoring all the emails and phone calls and letters from other Realtors, and he said your letter just struck me and I knew I had to call you. So it was a very tragic story. He had lost his fiance in a head-on collision in one of our smaller towns a few months prior, and could not open the mail anymore, and he got behind on his payments. Most of the people that I was hearing from were 60, 70, 80, even hundreds of thousands of dollars behind, and he was $4000, and I said “we’re gonna save your house, how much money do you have in your bank account right now.” 

He said, ‘I only have thirteen hundred dollars,’ and I said, ‘Well, that’s okay… that’s almost halfway there. We’re halfway there, you’re gonna be okay.’ So, I was in the middle of a bunch of things, getting ready to show properties. ‘What’s your email address? I’m gonna send you some information, and I want you to focus on calling every single person that I give you.’  So, a lot of our smaller communities have a bunch of non-profit churches. He, come to find out, was a wounded veteran, so I got him in contact with our local churches. He worked part-time at a laundromat. I said, ‘You know, go and talk to everybody you know, see what they can do to help you.’ In Oregon, you get 10 cents a can for soda cans and beer cans. We told him, ‘Go cash them in, get as many cans as you can.’ And he did, and I think I sent him a total of 50 phone numbers of places and organizations that can help him. He called me a week later and said, ‘You saved me, you saved my house.’ So, I like to tell the story that I saved a man’s home with soda cans because not very many states give you a deposit back on your soda cans, and we just happened to get 10 cents a can back. So, he did it. He, in one week, came up with his $4,000 and ended up getting another $390 a month, every month, to help him with his utility bills in order to keep ahead, and he didn’t even know those programs were out there for him. So, I like to say, ‘We’re not here to just sell people’s houses, we’re here to save them.’ We have the potential and the knowledge that some people don’t have, and we can do that, we can provide that for them.

TONY: Wow, I’m blown away by this. I’m having the same Goosebumps as I did the evening that you told me this because I remember you saying, ‘Oh yeah, I helped the guy save his house through soda cans.’ And I go, ‘What?’ But, say that again, slowly.’

Yeah, when you told me that, it’s absolutely amazing. And this is exactly what the CDPE stands for. We really, really want to help people stay in their homes. We want to do everything humanly possible to help them stay in their homes. And every now and then, a story like this emerges, and it just gives me hope.

Yes, you know, because it’s just more of you, more agents, more to do what you’re doing right now. Engaging the public that in many cases are so overwhelmed with what’s going on, they don’t know what their rights are, they don’t know what their options are. Many of them will flee the property, which is the last thing that they should do. So, I just… You give me encouragement and you give me hope that the message of the CDPE is resonating. In the right hands. We can do a lot of good for a lot of people. And there’s going to be a lot of folks that are going to watch this and want to get a hold of you personally. I think that you are an excellent referral source in the entire Oregon area. I don’t mind plugging you because of everything that you’re doing so far. So, how can they personally reach you? Whether they’re a consumer needing some help, or it’s a real estate professional in a different area looking to send you a referral?

CATHERINE: So, the easiest way is actually just going to our website. Our website is movetobend.com. Those inquiries come straight to me. You can read all about us and what we do for our community on that website, with links to CDPE websites and all of that. So, we really like to stay involved. So, feel free to reach out to me anytime.

TONY: Fantastic! Listen, thank you, thank you, thank you for everything that you’re doing. And keep those testimonials coming, yes, because this is going to inspire others and, as a result, we’re going to help a lot of people. So, God bless you for what you’re doing, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

CATHERINE: Yes, I look forward to it too. Thank you, Tony.

TONY: My pleasure.

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: foreclosure, real estate, short sale, Strategic Realty videos

Feel so groovy this Valentine’s Day

By Kerry ONeal

Happy Valentine’s Day 2012!

We are a real estate company built on the relationships and trust of our clients. Whether you’re buying a home, buying commercial real estate, or selling property of all kinds, we thoroughly enjoy working with each and every one of you and we are proud to represent your interests in real estate as if they were our own. We take buying and selling real estate very seriously and realize many of your property endeavors are the most important financial decisions you will ever make. At the same time, we like to keep humor alive in all of our dealings so you, the client, know us on a personal level. We also want to take the opportunity to let you know we recently expanded the markets we work. Due to popular demand and our clients needing our service throughout Oregon, we now have an additional resource for Oregon real estate searches. This new real estate search site is built with cutting edge property search software and extremely easy to use. Want to search for land for sale in Portland? Looking to buy a commercial building in Roseburg? Need a condo in the Pearl District? Want to acquire rental property in Beaverton? This site can help. And of course, you can use our new and improved site for all of your Central Oregon property needs.

We really hope all of you appreciate the work that went into this Valentine Day’s video. Just finding that outfit in Josh’s size wasn’t easy. And then the make-up, choreography, rehearsals…it’s just what we’re willing to do to make sure we get results. Thanks for being a client.

Special note from Josh:  I just want to thank Kerry for being so patient while I tried on outfit after outfit.  It is difficult being the star of these videos (especially when I have no say in the part I play:)

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: oregon commercial real estate, Oregon Real Estate, real estate for sale in Oregon, Strategic Realty videos

Josh Survives Dog Attack

By Kerry ONeal

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: dog attack, K-9 attack, Strategic Realty videos

Central Oregon K-9 Trials June 25th

By Kerry ONeal

Central Oregon K-9 Trials
Sponsored by Strategic Realty

June 25th 12:00p-3:00p
Mountain View High School

Strategic Realty is proud to be a sponsor of the 2011 Central Oregon K-9 Trials. Bring the whole family and watch these expertly trained teams of canine and handler go through their paces at Mountain View High School. Be sure to get their early so you don’t miss Realtor Josh Hansen donning the suit and trying to outrun an angry dog. To watch the full video on last years K-9 Trials, please click here.

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: dog trials, K-9, Strategic Realty videos

Happy St. Patty’s Day!

By Kerry ONeal

Have a great St. Patty’s Day- From Kerry O’Neal and Josh Hansen.
See other fun videos we’ve created for your enjoyment (many times at our expense:)

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: funny video, Strategic Realty videos

Fells Wargo

By Catherine

I sell homes in Bend Oregon.  Homes for sale in Bend have finally started moving at a very healthy pace.  But today, though not as frequently, we still deal with short sales and they are still extremely trying events.  For those of you frustrated with short sales (still), this should help you feel not so alone in the frustration and hopefully give you a smile at the same time.

This post was going to be about the US Treasury allocation of funds and then Wells Fargo asking for documents (documents they already received) and corrections to documents for a short sale.  But instead, I’m going to focus on the short sales first, before I move on to the US Treasury (which, if the Treasury would do, might help the housing market).

I sent in a myriad of documents for a current short sale.  Wells Fargo confirmed receipt and then assigned me a “pointman” (more like a dullman).  He then asked me for several documents he already had.  Easy enough to believe and not much further explanation needed.  Here comes the fun part.  He sent me an email asking for some corrections to the already collected documents.  I’m going to call these “Brutals”.

Brutal #1:   “Pointless in Seattle” states in an email: “The HUD1 states a sales price of $X and the sales agreement shows $X+$6k and these numbers need to match (for those of you that don’t know, a HUD1 is a statement issued by an escrow company showing the exact breakdown of costs/credits at the closing of a real estate transaction).  These need to match.  So I open the file I sent him and check both the price on the HUD1 and the sale agreement and guess what?  Yep, they match.  That’s what I get for sending mixed messages,  I mean, the HUD1 says:

“Contract Sales Price:  $X,000”  and the Sale agreement says “…for the purchase price (US Currency) of…..$X,000”.  Actually, now that I just typed it, the (US Currency) thing is a bit confusing…  I wish google had a construction paper email body with giant color Crayons and a pretty color palette so I could draw pics for this person.  Actually, Crayons wouldn’t help because he wouldn’t read that either.  Where’s the rubber stamp when you need it?

Brutal # 2  “Dullness in Delaware” writes: “The buyer’s preapproval letter must show that he is getting a loan for at least 60% of the purchase price.”  Second sentence, second! of the preapproval letter:  “The loan is a conventional  conforming…with 10% down”!  Well, he can read but doesn’t and can’t add or subtract to save his life.  Thank goodness the banks received all of that cash from the government so they can hire people who can actually count to a hundred.  I was waiting for him to bust out the line from Gladiator “Are you not entertained???”  End of Rant.  Later.

footnote:  I have worked with many banks and many negotiators.  Their desks are piled high with as many as 100 files at a time.  And not all of them are the same.  If you are a negotiator or other employee at a big bank,  I am not knocking you.  Your company, yes.  And for untrained employees and negotiators of banks in general, at least be kind and don’t lie.  It only makes you look worse.

For more articles and blog by Strategic Realty, please visit our Bend Oregon real estate blog here:)

Filed Under: Blog Posts Tagged With: bank, bank approval, foreclosure sale, short sale, short sale real estate, Strategic Realty videos

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