Tip: Follow through on promises you make to clients or it will reflect badly on you.
Darryl Bodle knows what it’s like to want a home but to be unable to save for the downpayment.
After he and his wife sought help from the not-for-profit Nehemiah Corp. of California to buy their first home, Bodle realized his friends could also benefit from Nehemiah, the nation’s largest privately funded downpayment assistance program (nehemiah corp.org). The program allows sellers to give 3 percent of their home’s sale price to be used as a downpayment for the buyer.
Once Bodle began publicizing the program, he says he had clients lined up to buy houses with no money down. Bodle racked up $6.9 million in sales in 2001 as a salesperson with John L. Scott Real Estate in Lake Oswego, Ore. “I sold to some friends; then it seemed as if friend after friend was calling about the program.”
After a television show ran a story about Nehemiah, the local Catholic archdiocese asked Bodle to speak about the program at several churches. Soon he was conducting seminars at community centers throughout the area. Now, about 50 percent of his business is from people interested in Nehemiah loans.
“The referrals have just snowballed,” he says.