August 13th, 2010

Hello and Welcome to Xima’s Webinar Training Archive for August 13th, 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:

• Hello Ramon, if a residential property has more than one mortgage, are additional mortgages, i.e., 2nd mortgage information, available on Xima? If so, where would I find this information?
• Q: Could you go over how to find pre-foreclosures from certain lender
• Q: Rennie: How do we get owner contact information from the Commercial Xima application. Are we able to get information on commercial buildings in a specific area other than using zip codes? How can we map a certain commercial buildings and get just those buildings to list on Xima?
• Q: Any way of getting phone contact information for owners using xima?
• Q: I’m a Realtor. I have MLS. I do short-sales and need to send comps/BPO to the bank. Yesterday, preparing a short-sale package, I pulled from MLS comps sold in the last 6 months in the particular subdivision. A lot of the lower priced ones didn’t show up in the Xima search. Why weren’t many of the solds showing up in the Xima info?

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July 23rd, 2010

Hello and Welcome to Xima’s Webinar Training Archive for July 23rd 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 I search for a specific type of commercial property such as Hotels?
• Q: When will you start charging for Commercial aspect of Xima? How much more is Xima Commercial?
• Q: Need help creating template in your Commercial of Pre-Foreclosure, non-listed persons first lis lendens.
• Q: Can we just input a City in Commercial search and get all commercial pre-foreclosure?
• Q: Should I look in Mortgages for Pre-Foreclosure Commercial Properties? Please go over how to use the area paragon identification tabs. I need to segregate an area for commercial and work that area for pre-foreclosure commercial properties. I will need to create a template that shows name, address of owner of those commercial properties
• Q: Is there a way to search a property’s prior mls listing (going back a year or two) in instances where the property is not currently active, and so does not show up in the listing’s search?
• Q: What is the difference between doing a search in the Foreclosure section with the filter “for sale” activated, versus performing the same search in the Listings section?
• Q: Is there a way to search on houses with code violations or other key deficiencies?
• Q: Can you just do a few general examples of residential real estate searches, for example, REOs in a specific map area and then the rented comps in the same area. And just to confirm, Xima can’t tell if the property is already listed by a Realtor, right?
• Q: Please explain how to export results data to an excel spreadsheet.
• Q: how do I download the searched results in the commercial area?
• Q: You may have answered this already but why do properties only come up under certain sections/tabs and not throughout?
• Q: Does Xima compute sales from out the MLS, such as Owner to buyer transactions that do not sell thru the MLS?

foreclosure auctions are a legal activity prevalent in American and European countries. These days a lot of real estate investors are showing interest in foreclosure auctions because of the increased number of properties up for auction. This will in turn result in buying properties at reasonable prices. Many people buy houses in foreclosure auctions for either self occupation or merely to make profit out of it.

The first stage of foreclosure is something like this. The owner of the mortgaged property begins to miss payments. He receives notifications from the lender regarding the missed payments. If the owner continues to default, the lender begins preparations for filing the foreclosure, during which the owner may try to sell the property. If for some reason the sale of the property fails, the pre-foreclosure or default phase terminates.

The foreclosure auction occurs after the default phase has ended. The lender decides to regain its losses by selling the property to the highest bidder in the auction. The amount received from the sale is received by the lender who initiated the auction in the first place. Any additional amount is spent on any other expenses or liens on the property. The rest of the amount after resolving all encumbrances against the property is given to the home owner. foreclosure is the best place to buy houses at great bargains.

foreclosures can be classified as judicial and Non-Judicial, the main difference being the time taken by the lender to foreclose the defaulted loan. Judicial foreclosure is longer than the Non-Judicial process. In a Judicial foreclosure, legal instruments called mortgages are issued and the whole process takes place through court. In the latter process, deeds of trust are issued, and the title remains with the lender as long as his payments have been settled. The lender also has the power of sale by which the trustee can sell the property quickly and thus recover the collateral of the lender in timely manner.

homes can be bought at the pre-foreclosure phase also and is something which happens quite so often. Once the foreclosure has been filed the property is in public records. Interested buyers can be a helping hand for the distressed home owners. In most cases, the owner is dealing with a negative event in his life that has caused him to fall behind in his mortgage payments. Adding foreclosure to the credit history of the home owner will make buying another home or establishing any sort of credit a tough task for a long period of time.

Buying directly from the owner for an amount higher than the mortgage balance will end up in the owner receiving more than that he would receive through an auction because of the fee and expenses involved in the process of reaching the stage of auction. If the amount received from the highest accepted bidder cannot pay off the lender, then the owner is liable for the deficiency which may result in garnished wages, seized assets and potentially even federal income taxes. Negotiation with the owner is a critical factor in the pre-foreclosure phase. Even though it might not be an attractive deal for the buyer, the relationship he builds up with the owner may result in many other investment opportunities. A proper analysis of the property is also required before making a pre-foreclosure deal. The amount you agree upon must benefit you as well as the owner in the best possible manner. Before closing the deal the title must be thoroughly verified for clarity and only then the money should be released. Agreements wi ll be signed and you will end up having the satisfaction that you made a deal below the market rate and the owner will have a relief of paying off the mortgage.

home building decline continues because of 2 things. One, it is hard to borrow money right now since we are experiencing a financial crisis. Two, what a lot of people are earning right now is not enough for them to buy a new home.

You might be thinking about if then bank is able to give you a loan? Though this can happen, it is still not a good idea because mortgages have been quite high in the past few years. In fact this is one of the reasons why this country in such a financial mess.

A lot of people borrow money and in the end could not pay the interest. Because of that, there have been massive foreclosures and the government has stepped in to try and solve the problem with a $700 billion bailout plan.

The bailout plan is designed to overpay banks for bad mortgages but will this work? Some analysts say no because the rollercoaster ride seen on Wall Street has nothing to do with the housing prices. In fact some politicians who were not in favor of the bailout plan argue that the government should never have stepped in the first place because this is a free market economy.

Because this was done, you are forcing the American tax payer, the honest and good ones to give their hard earned money to people and companies who made this problem happen in the first place.

What makes matter worse is that banks who happily loaned money to homeowners sold this to companies like Fannie Mae or to buyers of mortgage backed bonds. As a result, the value of most homes is now falling so you will have a hard time making a profit if you decide to sell your home.

The sad reality out of all of this is that this is not expected to stabilize any time soon. The value of most homes will continue to drop for 5 years or even more which bring us back to the conclusion that it is better to rent than to build a home.

To cite one example yearly rents in for homes especially around the coastal areas are 3% less than their actual acquire price. The mortgage rates are much higher so it is really not worth to buy or even build a house.

But this may not be the same in other states since some property values and lots have already fallen into line with what people are actually earning so you should check whether or you can afford to build a house given your location.

We mentioned earlier that the second reason for the decline in home building is that people are not earning enough to buy a home. This is true for new families especially those who have children because it’s hard to do both when you already have children.

So what should people do? The right thing to do as home building decline continues is simply to ride it out and then see what happens in the next 3 to 5 years. Yes that means still renting that place you have been living in for a few more years but look at the bright side, you are not one of hundreds of Americans who are forced to foreclose their homes and no longer have a place to stay.

With the slowdown of the economy, and the many people failing to protect their mortgages, it is becoming hard for the realtors to keep staying alive and kicking in the game. But that is expected in brokering real estate business, isn’t it?

Now, if you are not ready for that, it is a problem that will continue to pull you down. So before you get any lower than where you are now, start acting and doing the right things to keep that business still thriving. Move and get all bases covered so you don’t get lost the real estate market.

Online marketing can help a lot if you do it right. As with any marketing strategy, getting online to market your business must be done diligently for the success of your business.

Be updated with new standards in the business.

Learning newer, fresher ways for your business is the objective of online marketing. If you have been blocking the technology to boost your business, you are missing out a good deal out of it. In case you don’t know, it is the internet where a lot of people meet to socialize and to do business.

Design a website and make it a useful one.

In fact, it is the best place for you to meet potential clients. If you can make a website, you are even making it more sophisticated. Design it with an intuitive layout and make it a useful website.

Once you have your website, you can start gathering leads online. Although there are bogus leads in the internet, be careful when you address them as there are real ones who fall in the category of people interested in real estate business.

The fundamental part of making an online marketing a success is doing your website clean. It should possess elements that will not deter the central business away into insignificant ones. The contents you put in your website must be leading to the real estate business and not anywhere else.

The information or articles you write must be easily available so that the visitors will get engaged and not find themselves struggling at what they are really looking for. Once they like what they are reading, it will be easier for them to click at your main website, which contains your brokering real estate business.

Routinely check your website.

Just as you would with the real estate current competition and trend, routinely check your website and work on any shortcomings you find there. If it doesn’t have, add a resource section where you can attract potential clients. Letting in search engines focus on your website is one way. Use keywords that the engines like. Remember to update your contents as regularly as you can, in this case, you can consider blogging as a key way. Clients may see how active or lackadaisical you are based on how frequent your website is moving, so keep this in mind.

Blend with the changing medium.

The internet is constantly taking on a new ground high up. Be sure to keep updated. In Addition to the business websites and blogs, there are social networking sites to take advantage of, where you can promote your brokering real estate business. You may find it ridiculous, particularly if you though social network sites are for younger people, but it is in fact one of the best ways to promote and keep business thriving by attracting many people online and get potential clients out of them.