September 17th, 2010
Hello and Welcome to Xima’s Webinar Training Archive for September 17th, 2010. Here are some of the questions our subscribers asked in today’s training. Please watch the video to see the answer to all these questions and more:
- Q: How can i find the mailing or contact information for the property owner
- Q: Can you calculate ARV with XIMAUSA
- Q: can you show us a judgment
- Q: How do you add your name, email, phone # and picture to your property analysis? Thanks.
- Q: Since the lis pendens stays with the property record forever is there a way that we ban tell if things are clear or still
- Q: can we tell what the judgment is? date of judgment
- Q: on the foreclosure information example that you showed us it gave a date of 9/22? how is this done 5 days early? Also is that a fanny mae property as shown on the right?
- Q: When looking closer into pre-foreclosures, I see some that were filed over a year ago. What is the standard time frame for a property to move to full foreclosure. Also, if the property owner works things out with the bank (no pre-forclosure), how long will it take for us to see that on XIMA.
- Q: can you search expired listings?
- Q: how do we export to excel
- Q: does xima still do labels or do we do labels
- Q: does it show city liens
- Q: its shows liens under judges name what is that
- Q: how do you search by days on market
- Q: have to send property reports in emails
| Q: How can i find the mailing or contact information for the property owner |
| Filed Under: ReiFax Trainings Archive Tagged with Colors, Comp Analysis, Comparables, Expired Listings, Fanny Mae, forclosure, Foreclosure, Foreclosures, Google, Hello, Home Values, Judgment, Labels, Lis Pendens, Market Values, Parameters, Property Owner, Standard Time, Subscribers, Time Frame, Webinar |
September 10th, 2010
Hello and Welcome to Xima’s Webinar Training Archive for September 10th, 2010. Here are some of the questions our subscribers asked in today’s training. Please watch the video to see the answer to all these questions and more:
- Q: Can you show us a basic comp analysis?
- Q: How does Xima compute “Active” and “Market” values — why are they not similar, not correlated?
- Q: what do different “house” icons mean (colors, F vs F-Sold, etc.)
- Q: how can we save and print the report you’re currently reviewing for the MB property?
- Q: I’ve been sent report links before. How can I get the link for the report.?
- Q: how frequently is Xima database updated?
- Q: I would like to market to home owners with home values of $750,000 who are not under water, how do I do a search
- Q: when running comparables on a property what are the defaults used for the comparable search and can they be changed to automatically use parameters set by the user?
| Filed Under: ReiFax Trainings Archive Tagged with Colors, Comp Analysis, Comparables, Google, Hello, Home Values, Market Values, Parameters, September 3rd, Subscribers, Webinar |
Aug
24Danger – Negative Cash Flow Real Estate
Posted By: Ramon Rivas on August 24, 2010 at 12:52 pmThe high Foreclosure rates changed all that. Now more people are seeking good homes to rent, so the supply of available rentals becomes slim. Demand for rental homes has also been stimulated by a reduction in the number of available apartments.
But it’s not all good news for landlords.
Some eager investors bought investment homes near the top of the real estate price cycle. They paid high prices for the homes they are now offering for rent. Many are learning that the cost of mortgage payments, taxes, insurance and other normal costs are leaving them with negative cash flow. That means it is costing them more each month to own the property than they can collect in rent.
The investor’s negative cash flow can amount to as much as $500 or more. Each month the owner must take those hundreds of dollars out of his/her pocket to make up the short fall between rents collected and money paid out in loan payments and so forth. That’s called an alligator property, because it can eat you alive.
Negative cash flow can be avoided by making a larger down payment on the property. You then have a smaller mortgage loan with smaller monthly payments. If you have planned correctly your rental income should then cover all your costs and expenses of owning. The down side is that you have a large amount of cash locked into one property.
The wise investor always buys at a price that will allow him to prosper no matter what happens to real estate values.
Jul
24Real Estate Email Marketing Maximizes Your Exposure
Posted By: Ramon Rivas on July 24, 2010 at 5:29 pmThere’s little doubt that the U.S. real estate market is undergoing a profound transformation. After several years of freewheeling lending practices and unsurpassed increases in home valuations, the real estate market is undergoing a major correction. Home values are dropping in many areas around the country, and some homeowners are facing an impending uptick in their adjustable rate mortgage payments, placing them in an untenable position.
In short, it’s a volatile market. Lenders are tightening the criteria for mortgages, and subprime lending is gone. Most homeowners who are holding subprime mortgages are facing foreclosures, while others are trying to sell their homes before they find themselves in a negative equity situation. As a result, real estate professionals, investors, and home sellers are scrambling to gain an edge in a competitive marketplace.
Long gone are the days when traditional methods of real estate marketing are sufficient to move properties. A sign on the lawn, a Multiple Listing Service listing, and an open house still have their place, but they comprise only one facet of an effective real estate marketing campaign.
Just as in most other areas of business, the Internet is playing a crucial role in real estate. Online listings of homes for rent, homes for sale, and foreclosures draw an increasing number of buyers and investors. Photographs and video are increasingly being used to whet the appetites of potential buyers. Still, online listings and multimedia presentations are relatively passive forms of marketing in this competitive era. Those who are on the cutting edge are utilizing the Internet to their best advantage, and taking strategies from the playbooks of those in other fields.
Email Marketing as a “Push” Strategy
If drawing potential real estate buyers to an online listing is a “pull” strategy, then real estate email marketing is a “push” strategy – one that makes sense in today’s marketplace. After all, retailers and e-tailers use email marketing to their best advantage. Email inboxes are stuffed with large and small business emails alike. It makes sense that real estate email marketing can also be effective, in that it delivers information about agents, developers, sellers, and their respective properties directly into the hands of interested potential buyers.
Email Marketing is Easier than it Seems
At first blush, real estate email marketing may seem out of reach for many people. After all, their expertise is in real estate and they may not be very tech savvy. On the contrary, there are online real estate services that make email marketing a cakewalk for virtually anyone.
When looking for an online email marketing service, choose one that can help you create emails, manage your contact lists, and obtain tracking reports. Essentially, you should be able to send your first email marketing piece in less than an hour. The best services have “wizards” that allow you to, for example, put together email newsletters using a Web interface and on a single screen. Templates and click-and-drag functionality allow you to easily arrange text, upload photos, and instantly see what your recipients will see when they receive your email.
Once you’ve sent your emails or newsletters, the service should enable you to track the results, telling you how many emails you sent, how many bounced back, how many people opened the email, how many clicked on the links, and how many forwarded it on to others.
There’s little doubt that real estate email marketing is a cutting edge tool that helps push your message into the inboxes of potential buyers. And in today’s competitive environment, it’s an advantage you can’t afford to be without.
Jun
05Building a Home Is Just One of the Hurdles during the Home Building Decline
Posted By: Ramon Rivas on June 5, 2010 at 5:34 amLet’s say you have the money and the resources to build a home. Within a few months, it is completed. Is it happily ever after? The answer is no because there will be a few other challenges ahead even where is no decline in home building.
When you have built your home, one thing you have to deal with is the property taxes and this could range from $1,000 to $10,000 depending on where you live. Take note that this does not yet include mortgage expenses if you have not paid yet for the house in full. The only consolation is that you pay for this on a fixed term.
While most home values go up after how many years, in some cases like during the financial crisis, its value could go down. Some analyst said that the average home value has only kept up with inflation over the last few decades so you don’t really gain that much.
If you are employed and you are told that you have to relocate, it will be hard to move right away since it takes time to sell a house.
Should there be any problems with the house, you don’t call your landlord since there is none. You will have to find a specialist to figure out what is wrong in order to fix it.
But these things should not deter you from considering building your own home even during a time when home building is on the decline. Why? Because building a home is a one time investment unlike rent where you pay a fixed amount per month and this could up the following year.
What is even better is that you live in a dwelling according to your specifications. If you don’t like it or you want to add something, you can make changes and no one will oppose your decision.
If you signed a warranty with your contractor, any problems will be taken cared of by them without any additional charges.
Since your house is new, it is more energy efficient compared to older homes thanks to new technology and you are compliant with new environmental regulations.
A decline in home building has not stopped other people from having their own house constructed. In fact, most people you ask will probably tell you that they prefer to live in their own home rather than paying rent. With that, you have a land title under your own name and no one can take that away from you unless you decide to sell and move somewhere else.
This will enable you to establish good credit with the bank when you need to apply for a loan. That may not happen right now because of the financial crisis but when it is over, you will soon realize that this was very handy.
You will also get tax cuts which will never happen if you are renting. You will be happy about this when it is time once again to pay your income tax for both federal and state since these are usually fully deductible.
There is no better time to own a home or face its challenges than during a decline in home building because both labor and materials are cheap. If you have the money to pay for it, you shouldn’t have a problem paying for taxes and mortgage.
