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Guest HomeBenefitProvider

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Guest HomeBenefitProvider

Over the last couple of months I have been working on putting together a package of home benefits to offer to small to midsized companies in NJ as a voluntary benefit for there employees.

This package allows these companies to offer a valuable benefit to their staff that provides convenient access to bundled savings on home financing and other home related services, at no cost to their company. My package helps reward and retain their people by providing a benefit that streamlines buying, selling and financing one of their most valuable assets…real estate. As well as discounts on home inspections, insurance and other home related services.

Before I go knocking on the doors of HR benefit managers, I thought I would get some feedback from people in the industry. Anyone have any thoughts or concerns for me?

Thanks for any feedback.

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Guest HomeBenefitProvider

Thank you so much for the constructive feedback. I will start looking for a proof reader right away.

I am offering the program free to the company. I also do all of the administrative work for the program. So if there is a cost, it's something I am not aware of and exactly why I have written the post.

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Call me cynical, but I have to ask what's the catch. You are packaging various service of others and offering the whole thing at a discount? I figure you are getting some kind of discount from service providers and adding you layer of profit and then offering it to me. The last time this all in one was offered around here the whole mortgage industry entered meltdown.

The appraisers inflated, the inspectors overlooked, the underwriters forgot to sharpen their pencils and the pig with lipstick was sold to some faceless investor.

JanetM CPA, MBA

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... a package of home benefits ... as a voluntary benefit for there employees.

This package ... provides convenient access to bundled savings ... As well as discounts

Just as your industry has it's jargon, so does ours. Based on your description, don't try to call this a "voluntary benefit". An example of a voluntary benefit is life insurance, for which the premiums are collected via payroll deduction. You don't appear to have anything where the employer would be accepting signup forms and collecting premiums or fees via payroll.

What you're offering, based on your description, is a discount program. Not unlike the discount programs I used to buy my current vehicle and my current personal computer.

And Janet fairly succinctly phrased my initial question. You're also likely to hear... Given the ongoing credit crisis, what makes you able to provide financing to my employees when CNN says the credit market is freezing up? And how are you going to sell homes better than the next realtor when there are so many foreclosures pending or already on the market? (Don't actually answer those for me, just know that those are current topical questions.)

Oh, and the minimum cost to me, as the HR/Benefits contact, is time. I either have to facilitate your coming in to present to my employees, or I have to put up your posters/brochures in my break room, or I have to send out an email or edit my internal webpage to advertise your website and/or program.

PS - Janet, love the pig in lipstick phrase. I'll have to use that one because it's so true and so appropriate.

Kurt Vonnegut: 'To be is to do'-Socrates 'To do is to be'-Jean-Paul Sartre 'Do be do be do'-Frank Sinatra

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I think you can see you have an uphill climb to sell this plan. But if you come in with details and answers to issues like those in masteff's post, you might have a chance. I'd recommend that you look for a replacement for the phrase "at no cost to the company." I have yet to see a plan or offer that comes at no cost, even if you do not count my time to hear about it.

And be prepared to answer a question about how the plan protects the company if a disgruntled participant names the company as a co-defendant in a law suit, because the "company sponsored" plan goofed up.

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Just to be clear

I still recommend that you proof read every letter, e-mail, brochure, etc. you send to clients.

It's an image thing and a confidence builder (or breaker) for those who evaluate your proposals. Someone might wonder, for example, if you ignore typos, how attentive are you to other details?

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Guest HomeBenefitProvider

Thank you all for your time and thoughts. I knew when I started this project that it wouldn't be easy. That being said, people are still buying homes, people still need mortgages, appraisals, home inspections, decorators, etc... The only difference is now more than ever people need education and good advice in these areas.

The feedback is very helpful. The only way to improve my program is through such feedback so any other advice is welcome.

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Why would anyone think you are different than a land shark, in SNL early 1980's parlance? Do you bring a free lunch to the meeting? Seriously, why would you think that you should be recommended above others to sell stuff?

My alma mater endorses credit cards. The rate is 17%. Nice picture on it. I know why the college endorses it - it gets a kickback.

What distinguishes you - one stop selling? Willingess to go to somebody's house? What is unique about that?

http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75djaws2.phtml

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Guest EXB 1
... a package of home benefits ... as a voluntary benefit for there employees.

This package ... provides convenient access to bundled savings ... As well as discounts

Just as your industry has it's jargon, so does ours. Based on your description, don't try to call this a "voluntary benefit". An example of a voluntary benefit is life insurance, for which the premiums are collected via payroll deduction. You don't appear to have anything where the employer would be accepting signup forms and collecting premiums or fees via payroll.

What you're offering, based on your description, is a discount program. Not unlike the discount programs I used to buy my current vehicle and my current personal computer.

And Janet fairly succinctly phrased my initial question. You're also likely to hear... Given the ongoing credit crisis, what makes you able to provide financing to my employees when CNN says the credit market is freezing up? And how are you going to sell homes better than the next realtor when there are so many foreclosures pending or already on the market? (Don't actually answer those for me, just know that those are current topical questions.)

Oh, and the minimum cost to me, as the HR/Benefits contact, is time. I either have to facilitate your coming in to present to my employees, or I have to put up your posters/brochures in my break room, or I have to send out an email or edit my internal webpage to advertise your website and/or program.

PS - Janet, love the pig in lipstick phrase. I'll have to use that one because it's so true and so appropriate.

This entire thread is very entertaining. However, one item really stuck out. Masteff, do you believe everything you hear on CNN? Most of the information is politically biased. Do you really believe the credit market is "freezing up"?? Anyone with decent credit can easily obtain financing for a house. The economy is not nearly has bad as the media would like you to believe. Just go on bankrate.com and call any of the lenders on the site and you will see how easy it is to get credit. Sorry for the rant, but information being spewed in the media lately is absurd.

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However, one item really stuck out. Masteff, do you believe everything you hear on CNN?

It was by no means an expression of my personal insights on the economy at large.

What I said was "here are some reactions you're going to get from people if you walk in w/ this sales pitch". Even if the media is overblowing the situation, either all rosy or all fire/brimstone, it is what's being discussed by people around the watercooler. Therefore I see what I wrote as a valid, current, topical question the person is likely to encounter.

But your frustration w/ the current state of media coverage on the economy isn't misplaced, in my opinion. I felt annoyance as Yahoo and others have jumped on the "how to recession-proof your {fill in the blank}" band wagon over the last few months.

Kurt Vonnegut: 'To be is to do'-Socrates 'To do is to be'-Jean-Paul Sartre 'Do be do be do'-Frank Sinatra

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Reality is (having bought a home within the last four months) if you bring lots of equity to the table, have good credit, and a good job, you will have no problems getting a mortgage (as it should be). If you on the other hand, make $15k a year and are trying to apply for a $600k mortgage with no money down (not an exaggeration, but literally from an article in the WSJ), you're probably out of luck.

Going forward, we're looking at 10-20% down payments and income verification. Probably where we should have been anyway in the last few years. Funniest thing is thinking about the guys who got into the split mortgage business (i.e., where instead of having the borrower pay PMI, they get two mortgages, one for 80%, and then one for 15-20% so they don't have to pay PMI). Little thing overlooked in that business plan for the guys issuing the second mortgage was the fact that they were second at the trough - they can't even think of initiating foreclosure proceedings since all that does is put into fact that their funny loan is worth $0.

Good luck w/ your business plan, but think it will be a tough sell - how exactly are you going to make any money for $0?

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  • 1 month later...

Hello

Is this an employee paid benefit like LTD in which some employers offer LTD to employees but it is based on their salary and other information and the employee pays with aftertax dollars?

I think AFLAC is set up this way as well,,,,employee paid, not employer paid.

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