Real Estate Zealot

Save Time Searching for Properties

Searching for the perfect home can be very time consuming. With New Dawn Realty, you have the freedom to spend your time with family and friends instead of pouring over the internet searching for homes. We do the work for you! It's what we do best!

Sign up for email alerts at NewDawnRealEstate.com and let us help you find that perfect home or property. Call Dawna Hetzler, today at 303-883-3070.

Interviewer: Welcome to Metro Brokers TV, today in our studio we have Dawna Hetzler with New Dawn Realty, thank you Dawna for joining us here today.

Interviewee: Thank you it's great to be here Kari.

Interviewer: So tell us a little bit about your journey into real estate.

Interviewee: Sure, my journey began in 1988, I was just leaving high school, starting college and I got my real estate license and was very successful. I transferred to Colorado in 1993 and then around 2005, I joined Metro Brokers which is a phenomenal company and I started New Dawn Realty in 2010.

Interviewer: Great, what areas do you focus on?

Interviewee: Parker, Castle Rock, Franktown, rural areas. When I moved here my first purchase was a home on 5 acres in Parker and I just fell in love with country living. so there are some people who can't live on the outskirts and obviously have to work from the Tech Center and Downtown Denver and so they, some people don't want to be in the country, so of course I focus on the whole front range area, but I love to focus on rural properties.

Interviewer: What technology do you offer your clients?

Interviewee: Kari, that is a great question because, as you know, technology is ever-changing and so what I'm seeing is that a lot of buyers and sellers are spending their time on the internet and there's a sense of discouragement there. What I mean is that basically you are spending time there that you are never going to get back, technology was supposed to give us more time and in essence its robbed us of our time. So New Dawn Realty gives you your time back; it's what we do. So, I might have a client who is new and sends me a bunch of properties and has spent all this time researching and pouring over the internet and what we see is that they get very discouraged because these properties tend to be under contract or pending.

And so what New Dawn Realty does for you is get you your time back that precious time that you don't have. You can go to NewDawnRealEstate.com and you can sign up for email alerts and what that does is you can put in your search criteria and it shoots you an email each and everyday with the newest, latest and greatest listings that come up and so it does it gives you more time, more freedom to spend with your family and your friends and the things that are important to you in life, helps you to find your life rhythm.

And another thing that New Dawn Realty does is we help promote during the process what is under contract, whether you are buying or selling a home. We collaborate together and we figure out a process to meet all those dates and deadlines that are so important with title commitments and you know loan conditions, deadlines and all these things and the process can seem daunting and so we give you that time back and make it simple and just streamline it for you.

Interviewer: Great, well how can clients reach you?

Interviewee: They can reach me directly at 303-883-3070 or visit my website at NewDawnRealEstate.com

Interviewer: Wonderful, Dawna thank you so much for joining us today.

Interviewee: Sure thanks for having me.

Interviewer: For more real estate related videos please join us online at MetroBrokersTV.com.

Marketing and the MLS

Use all the great tools Metrolist has to offer to create custom branded reports, informative presentations and interesting blogs with up to date statistics and reports on real estate in Colorado.

Interviewer: Today we are talking with Mike Hixon from Hixon & Associates. Mike, welcome to the program, good to have you here.

Mike Hixon: Thank you.

Interviewer: We are talking about building a personal brand for realtors and the MLS and how that may all tie in and help but let's start with talking about brand and image, why is that important today for realtors?

Mike Hixon: Oh, brand and image is huge as far as establishing your brand, because everything that you send out, you want to have it branded, so down from your email to every bit of marketing literature that you send out, even to colleagues or associates as well, you know everything that's got your name on it leads people to you.

Interviewer: I tell people it should all look the same: your website, your Facebook, your Twitter, your e-mail it should all provide kind of the same service and lend some type of message and credibility.

Mike Hixon: Yes, exactly.

Interviewer: Which I imagine you do with all of your associates?

Mike Hixon: I do.

Interviewer: Some easy ways to do that, obviously we just talked about a few but if you are a realtor and you are just starting out and you say, 'What do I do about establishing a brand?", what would be the first thing you would give him?

Mike Hixon: Well you know it's interesting that you ask that because I just had a conversation with a colleague of mine, who went through a training course with me. Had I had the benefit of knowing a lot of this information upfront, it would have been huge.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Mike Hixon: You know I mean the first thing you've got to do is, you've got to setup an email that tells people every time you send them something what you do, and who you are.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Mike Hixon: I mean that's the first thing. And then of course you know your business relationship, how you are going to setup your office and the name of your office and how you are going to brand everything you send out, from letterhead to email.

Interviewer: I am an internet marketing guy and people always talk about that because that seems to be the wave of technology today and so forth, and a lot of people get wrapped up in it, but the bottom line is I still tell people, 'as you can do all that, this really still comes down to a relationship business', talk a little bit about that.

Mike Hixon: Big time relationship business, it is strictly relationship, you know I think I read, heard something the other day that says, "If you think you are a realtor, you are wrong, what you are is a marketer; and it's all about marketing. I mean people have to know your name, they have to see you, you have to have exposure, they have to see you somewhere and a lot of it is referral business, but you know there are a lot of folks out there that, if they see something on the internet, like YouTube or whatever that's their first point of contact and a lot of it is electronic now.

Interviewer: I hear a lot about how in the last 10 years, realtors are really breaking off into specialties, distressed property specialist, divorce specialist, whatever it may be, how important is that to incorporate into your brand?

Mike Hixon: I think it's important, I don't know that you want to just be strictly branded by one specific niche but, if you do a lot in general and your specialty is short-sales or REO, that's important to get it out specifically to your colleagues or you know other realtors in the business because a lot of times that's where I get referrals.

Interviewer: Lastly Mike, the MLS obviously is very cooperative and user-friendly for agents to help brand the agent and help talk about their personal marketing and so forth, talk about a few ways in which the MLS does that for realtors.

Mike Hixon: MLS is huge for realtors as far as getting information out to your colleagues in the business. So how do you use that as far as sorting up your listings is I think pretty important. I see so many times when you come across information that you are looking for, and it's just been skipped over, it's important information that you need, especially things that you are searching on, you know, but the more information you put in, the better off you are going to be.

Interviewer: Mike thanks.

Mike Hixon: You are welcome.

Interviewer: Appreciate you being here.

Mike Hixon: You bet. Thank you.

Learn more about How to Succeed in the Real Estate Market on Broker IPTV.

Enhance your Listing Presentations with RPR

The Realtors Property Resource is a valuable real estate tool that gives you in-depth property knowledge to enhance your listing presentations. There is even a new mobile app to let you log-in from your smart phone!

Interviewer: Today we are talking with David Barber from Re/Max Unlimited, and the topic is RPR. First of all David, welcome to the show.

David Barber: Thank you Dan, it's nice to be here.

Interviewer: Lot of agents don't know what RPR is or what those initials stand for, so let's start there.

David Barber: Okay RPR is the Realtors Property Resource. This is an ambitious project started by the National Association of Realtors and their end goal is to catalog 157 million parcels of property in the United States. It's been in existence for a little over 24 months and is becoming alive in a lot of markets and being a very valuable tool.

Interviewer: And obviously they are partnering with your local MLS is which is where they are getting a lot of the data I assume.

David Barber: What they are doing is consolidating data in this area from Metrolist, and also from a lot of public records. So, in the past, when you used to spend a lot of time going to different public sites to gather information, their goal is to have it all in one location.

Interviewer: Yeah I think that's what I like best about it, when I've used it, I can see the data that's coming from your local MLS and then it gives me a side by side comparison about the data that's coming from the public records so you can see if it kind of jives.

David Barber: Exactly, and it is based on what's called the realtor evaluation model, where companies like Zillow and Trulia are using an automated evaluation model that are basically just granting public record data. This allows us as realtors to personalize the information we know about the market place whether that property backs to a busy street or has an enhancement that makes it a little more valuable.

Interviewer: Well as a realtor, if I don't know about it, what can I do on RPR that I can't do on say my local MLS?

David Barber: Well it's, if you think of it as a CMA on steroids. You've got a lot more detailed graphing, you have overlays or maps that you can do a lot more in-depth research. As a realtor, and this is a realtor-only benefit, you do need to have a NRDS number to log in and it gives you tools to enhance your listing presentation that a normal CMA doesn't offer.

Interviewer: Yeah, one of the cool things I thought was just the amount of data that they have on distressed properties. Obviously that's very big with consumers today, they want to know about foreclosure, short sales; people that may be in a distress situation and this is pretty well detailed and laid out there.

David Barber: Exactly, one of the other enhancements is that it gives you some visibility in what's going on in the world outside of our market. So if you have a relocation client, you can take a look at their property, see what they have and what it's worth in their market to kind of help them understand what it's going to be like in our market.

Interviewer: That's where, like the California buyer that comes out here, wants to know about the postage size.

David Barber: Absolutely.

Interviewer: Wow! It's right.

David Barber: Exactly.

Interviewer: All right, they are adding new tools to RPR all the time. You mentioned that they added some more two weeks ago, is that right?

David Barber: Yeah most recently, they've added some new mapping products, you can check flood zones, you can overlay price changes. They've also put in a mobile application, once you are set up and registered on the main RPR site you can log in from your smart phone.

Interviewer: I think I'll do that. David thanks great information.

David Barber: Thanks Dan.

Customizable Searches with Metrolist and PrimeAccess

Create customizable search templates for clients with Metrolist and PrimeAccess. Instantly know how many properties relate to your specific client's needs.

Interviewer: Today we are talking with David Barber from Re/Max Unlimited and the topic is PrimeAccess, a new functionality that they have implemented. Welcome to the show.

David Barber: Thank you Dan, it's good to be here.

Interviewer: How are you?

David Barber: Good, good.

Interviewer: So tell me, last year Metrolist launched some new beta functionality with new searches tell me what's that all about?

David Barber: Well there are a couple of things in the new beta searches. First of all, you get a running tally as you add criteria to the search, you get a running count of how many properties are falling into that category. So rather than hitting the "how many" button and you can constantly see up in the corner of the display how many properties match what you are looking for.

Interviewer: That's cool, that saves you a step.

David Barber: Absolutely, and one of the other nice things is you can customize the layout of the screen you are looking at, once you get search results back.

Interviewer: So almost like set up a template.

David Barber: Certainly, you can either do that and save it as a template or if you are looking for specific things, say you have a client that's looking for acreage property, you can go into a custom menu, add "acreage" and then pull that column directly to the front. So you can see if they are looking at, say 20 to 40 acres, you can look through that criterion very quickly.

Interviewer: And so maybe you haven't heard from them in a while and they want to say, hey is there anything new that's come up, you could easily go back to that template, is that right?

David Barber: Absolutely, you can save it and pull it up at any time. If you save it as a client search, it will always come up that way. If you save it as a default, then everything that you go in and search as will come up like that.

Interviewer: So I think what you are saying is, we don't have to change the display every time if we've got the same client looking for the same product.

David Barber: That's exactly what I am saying.

Interviewer: And do you say the best way to do that is to first set up the criteria and then save it for that particular person.

David Barber: You've got a lot of different ways that you can do it. It's a very dynamic system and you can adjust things as you move through your search or you can set it up with all the criteria and then save it for the client.

Interviewer: Do you use any specific customized options on a regular basis?

David Barber: It really depends on what my clients are looking for, if they are looking for particular neighborhoods you can save that. As I say, acreage properties, zip codes, school districts, or any number of things. It gives you a lot of freedom to search for which criteria is important to your clients.

Interviewer: Last, but not least, if an agent wants to find out more information about how they set this up, how do they do that?

David Barber: Go to www.metrolist.com and they can go to the help center or call Metrolist tech support.

Interviewer: And they will walk you through it.

David Barber: Absolutely.

Interviewer: David, great information, thanks for being with us.

David Barber: Thanks Dan.

RE Technology: A New Benefit to Realtors

Cindy Sheahan of Metrolist, explains the new Real Estate technology.com site a new member benefit from Metrolist.

Interviewer: Today we are talking with Cindy Sheahan she is an account manager with Metrolist and welcome to the show.

Cindy: Hi Dan how are you.

Interviewer: Well, we are talking about RE technology I imagine RE stands for real estate technology. What is it?

Cindy: Real Estate technology.com is a site that is a comprehensive and objective site for real estate agents to go to find all kinds of information about the technology products that are out there?

Interviewer: And this available to me as a member of Metrolist?

Cindy: Yes it is it is available to you on our web page.

Interviewer: It's just a link of off there?

Cindy: Yes it is, you would go to our home page and on the left hand side just scroll down find RE technology link and click on that, log on, create an account and go ahead and do some research there.

Interviewer: So when we are talking about RE technologies some information that maybe on that site give me some examples of it?

Cindy: Well there is all kinds of product reviews so if you are looking into buying some type of new technology for your real estate business and you are not sure what to buy you can go there and do some research find some reviews from people who are using it people like yourself that are in the business and just get all kinds of great information all in one place so that you don't have to do the research and recreate what they have done already for you.

Interviewer: Right, I imagine everybody is talking about whether or not they should use an ipad in their real estate business so I wouldn't be surprised if that was one of the first things I saw popped up on there. All right, it sounds like it's a big clearing house for all kinds of real estate resources, am I right?

Cindy: Yes you are right it is a one site stop that you can look at to find information about products you can get reviews on those products you can get tutorials on how to use those products and, in addition to that, there is all kinds of articles that are available and web sites and blogs and columns that are there that are available for you to do the research right there all in one place.

Interviewer: Got you, so you guys just decided to compile this for us as real estate agents who belong to Metrolist?

Cindy: It's been done for you by a third party RE technology.com and because it's embedded in the MLS it's available to Metrolist users at no additional charge.

Interviewer: Got you.

Cindy: It's also embedded on MLS systems all across the country so hundreds of thousands of agents are having access to this.

Interviewer: I would imagine things about smart phones, information about web portals, real estate web portals, things of that nature.

Cindy: Right you will find information about social networking and all the social media that's out there. You will find information about how to stay in touch with your clients, how to stay on top of business, anything that you might think of using to move your real estate business forward.

Interviewer: Sounds good. Thank you very much I appreciate it.

Cindy: Sure you're welcome.

Interviewer: Good information.

New Instanet Enhancements for MLS Users

Instanet, an online real estate forms solution, has added some enhancements to the system for Metrolist users

Interviewer: Today we are talking with Cindy Sheehan she is an account manager with Metrolist and welcome to the show.

Cindy: Hi, thank you, thanks for having me.

Interviewer: Well we are talking about a topic that is kind of near and dear to your heart this is kind of where you spend a lot time and that's Instanet documents?

Cindy: Yes.

Interviewer: And recently there has been some enhancements to the program so tell us about that?

Cindy: Yes we've just recently made some enhancements. One of them is that you can save the document to Microsoft Word, which means that you can save it off site, off the Instanet system and work on it separately. And fill-able fields, that was a big one that everyone was asking for, so now the forms have fields that are fill-able; as much as you need to write in there, you can and they expand to take all the information that you need to put in there.

Interviewer: What types of fields are fill-able?

Cindy: Just about all of them! Additional provisions and the names of the buyers and when you save them in Instanet, you can view them in Microsoft word. You can save it that way, you can save them as PDF and see all the information that you have saved and you can click on the print preview button now and see what the information looks like before you print it.

Interviewer: Yeah that's good. So is this the same as expandable form fields?

Cindy: Yes.

Interviewer: You know its fill-able is just another word for it?

Cindy: Right, right they are expandable so they, they expand to take the information that you enter.

Interviewer: And I imagine some of the feed back you had been getting from consumers is well we could really like a print preview of this and this functionality and how that works before we go ahead and send it.

Cindy: Right so Instanet made these changes for us.

Interviewer: All right now I know one change that you are excited about is and realtors in general would be as glad is that there is an easier way now to upload documents into your MLS listing is that right?

Cindy: Yes, we have made it very, very simple all you need to do is go to your listing, open it up on the screen under the change listing tab and just click on upload documents. You can put in anything that you have. If you've got HOA documents or a roofing certification, a seller's disclosure, mold disclosure, really anything a buyer might ask you for, you can go ahead and upload it.

Interviewer: Will that appear under the disclosures link, in your listing or will it be a separate link?

Cindy: You can do it either way you can either upload everything all together and call it disclosures or documents for, you know, "1, 2, 3 main street" or you can upload them each separately it's up to you.

Interviewer: But it will be that little blue link right at the top of the listings that we have got to click on.

Cindy: Right it will be in the Instanet box between the photo and the map on every listing detail sheet and it will save your documents.

Interviewer: Does it have to be a PDF can it be a word doc, Excel or does it or PDF is it?

Cindy: There are a lot of different formats that can be uploaded. So, it's pretty open.

Interviewer: that gives us some options. So, a little bit more and more people I imagine are using this?

Cindy: Yes

Interviewer: And this is some of the feed back you got about changes to make and so forth?

Cindy: Right, right.

Interviewer: And so how has this been received?

Cindy: Very well I think the document upload has been hugely well received its really easy to use now the fill-able fields was a real concern, people were asking for that to be changed and so there it is its changed. Being able to save things in Word is a nice thing too because you can work off-site you can save it to your computer and the fields are again expandable in word as well.

Interviewer: Well at least my transaction manager will be happy.

Cindy: Oh good

Interviewer: Thanks, good information! Thanks for being here.

Cindy: Sure, you're welcome. Thanks for having me.

RPR: An Agents Best Resource

In this Broker IPTV video, Rohn Goldstein of the South Metro Denvers Realtors Association, introduces RPR, the Realtors Property Resource, a comprehensive tool to gather information on all properties sold and for sale.

Interviewer: Today we are talking with Rohn Goldstein, CEO of the South Metro Denver Realtors Association, and Rohn welcome to the show.

Rohn Goldstein: Thank you

Interviewer: We are talking about a topic called the RPR and a lot of real estate agents don't know about this yet, so why don't you tell them what it is.

Rohn Goldstein: The National Association of Realtors has been kind enough to have a four-legged stool of technology, that is available to realtors. The first one that everybody knows about is realtor.com of course, and then the second one the people seem to know about a little bit is realtor.org which is an internal site that gives them tons of information about real estate. The third one which was announced a couple of years ago was called houselogic, it's a consumer site about how to care for your house, and then the fourth one, the one that we're so excited about called Realtors® Property Resource or RPR

Interviewer: Yeah. Now, when people ask me what it is, or other agents ask what it is, the best way I could describe it is that The National Association of Realtors has essentially put together a national database of homes that have been sold or are for sale correct.

Rohn Goldstein: That's correct, 147 million homes show up on RPR, and it derives data from all different kinds of sources, from multilists around the country, from public records around the country, from school districts across the country, from data sources, from the census... and pools all that information into one amazing report

Interviewer: Yeah! Well, give us a sample of what type of information is available on RPR.

Rohn Goldstein: Well, in just a couple of minutes I can pull up a specific address, get the mapping for the address, get all of the comparables or things that the County Assessor may be using, pull in data about the school districts, data about employment figures, data about whether this house is in foreclosure or some other stressed situation, give a range of value that RPR thinks that the house is worth, which, by the way, can be amended, if the realtor knows more information than the national database is pulling up, and all of that information and a 100 more items show up in the RPR survey.

Interviewer: I think the cool thing that they do here is they take information from your local MLS about what's being published about the property and then they take information from the public record and they cross-reference and marry the two, so you really have the best of both worlds.

Rohn Goldstein: You really do. You know, I used to have to pull information from multi list then go to public records, and then go to one mapping source, then go to a data source likes the census. All of that's in one thing.

Interviewer: Alright is it only available to realtors, or is it available to the consumer as well?

Rohn Goldstein: It's only available to realtors, it's part of what realtors pay for, when they pay for their membership, so consumers have no access, non-realtor agents have no access to it, lenders, appraisers, none of those have access to it. This is a realtor only service.

Interviewer: Alright, how do they access it?

Rohn Goldstein: I think, the easiest way is to go to Metrolist, as they always do, login and go to the tab across the top that says "search", when they pull down on the search button, they will see advanced, basic and different kinds of searches just like they always have if they look down the list. There will be one that says RPR, now the first time somebody goes to RPR they need to log on, and to do that they're going to need to know their national realtor database system number or NRDS number. They might have it on a card or they might have it on the back of one of the realtor magazines or if they don't have it in any of those other ways, they might just call their local association, who will be glad to give on that NRDS number, and they will be able to logon. If they have any issues at all, there is a 1-800 number for RPR, that'll help him through every step, really good people to work with.

Interviewer: Easier than that I use the live chat function on RPR. When I had a question I didn't even have to pick up the phone.

Rohn Goldstein: It's great, it just depends on whether you want to talk to somebody one way or the other, but either way they are there for you. I want realtors to take advantage of this.

Interviewer: Thanks Rohn. Good information.

Rohn Goldstein: Thanks.

Interviewer: Appreciate it.

New and Improved MLS Refresh Listings System

Kevin Best, Account Manager for Metrolist describes the new changes to the refresh listings category in MLS. The new system will show more accurate statistics for MLS listings.

Interviewer: Today we are talking with Kevin Best, Account Manager for Metrolist, and Kevin welcome to the show.

Kevin Best: Thanks Dan, glad to be here.

Interviewer: Well, we are talking about a very popular topic, "Refreshing Listings". Whats the whole purpose behind refreshing listings in the MLS, how will you describe it for people?

Kevin Best: Well, why you would refresh a listing is you want it to be able to be redistributed to all of the new listing searches that brokers do as well as the prospect match e-mail system that Metrolist provides for the brokers.

Interviewer: All right, and so Metrolist has made some changes now to the refresh listing functions, is that correct?

Kevin Best: That is correct. As a user you are going to see very little changes. When you refresh your listing, it's still going to be distributed the same way it is today to all of the "new search" searches being run, as well as, the prospect match e-mail system. However what will happen in the background is instead of showing withdrawn in the listing history, it will actually show refreshed. By doing that our new MLS numbers will be much more accurate as well as our withdrawn listings.

Interviewer: All right, now how does this, when somebody does this, how is it going to impact statistics?

Kevin Best: With the new listings one of the challenges in the past has been that every time I refresh the listing, I got a new MLS number and it counted as a new listing.

Interviewer: Okay.

Kevin Best: In this instance, once this product is up and running, you will no longer get the new count however it will still function as a new listing. The same on the withdrawn side, when I "refresh" it took the withdrawn listing, created a line item for withdrawn and you could never really tell how many properties were truly withdrawn off the market.

Interviewer: But it doesnt sound like it affects my search for new listings or prospects. Is that right or doesn't?

Kevin Best: It does not.

Interviewer: Okay.

Kevin Best: Everything from that function is going to be exactly the same way.

Interviewer: All right, now here is an important distinction, by refreshing we've got to emphasize that you are not necessarily affecting days on market, is that correct?

Kevin Best: That is correct. Your total days on market will continue to be calculated the same way it is today, the same way it always has been based off the original list date of the property.

Interviewer: Now if I wanted to affect days on market and have it show as zero, I would have to withdraw or take the property off the market for what... 30 days?

Kevin Best: 30 days, enter it back into the system on the 31st day and your days on market will go back to zero. Listing history will show the listing history obviously but the days on market will reset to zero.

Interviewer: Okay, great function, I appreciate what you are doing.

Kevin Best: Thanks Dan.

Interviewer: Thanks.

FHA 203 (k) Renovation Loans for Fix-Up Properties

In this video from BrokerIPTV.com, renovation loan specialist Tom Yoswa from MyProspectMortgage.com discusses FHA 203 (k) loans, which can assist buyers with fix-up properties.

Interviewer: Today we are talking with Tom Yoswa. He is a renovation loan specialist. How are you?

Tom Yoswa: Hi Dan. I am doing well.

Interviewer: Well we talked in a segment about what a residential loan or renovation loan specialist does, can you explain it again?

Tom Yoswa: Well, basically, I loan people money to purchase and renovate a house. You know, what I find in the market that we are in right now, there is a lot of bank foreclosures, there is a lot of HUD properties, those properties in particular, you know, a lot of them, if you show me one that doesn't need work I will show you 10 of them that probably do. So basically it enables you to take those homes, buy them and fix them all with one loan and one close.

Interviewer: And most realtors and consumers would probably know this is an FHA 203(k) loan, is that right?

Tom Yoswa: Yes.

Interviewer: Okay, yeah.

Tom Yoswa: It's basically nothing more than a regular FHA loan with the same FHA guidelines. However, there is a construction element to it and we put the money into Escrow afterwards for the repairs.

Interviewer: And traditionally what type of buyers are using this loan and what's that price point?

Tom Yoswa: Well I mean in this market right now there is a lot of first time home buyers. You know I think there are some statistics out there say you know almost 50% of all home buyers right now are first timers, which makes sense because of the market and the interest rates, etcetera. So you know, when I look at first time home buyers most of them are not buying you know $300,000 houses, they are buying $150,000 houses and you know, the large majority of those homes need some sort of work.

Interviewer: Right.

Tom Yoswa: Carpet, kitchens, bathrooms, new roofs, etcetera.

Interviewer: So a $100,000 will say what 220, 225 is pretty much the pool you are swimming in?

Tom Yoswa: I would say for the most part I mean there are other, you know, it can go higher, it can go lower, it just really depends on who the buyer is and what they are looking at.

Interviewer: And what type of repairs can they make under this program?

Tom Yoswa: Dan, you can do just about anything, you know carpet, paint, kitchens, bathrooms are usually the typical ones. People don't know you can put appliances into the loans, if it has a furnace or any of the HVAC stuff that isn't functioning, you can do that.

Interviewer: Hot water heating?

Tom Yoswa: All that stuff,...

Interviewer: Roofs?

Tom Yoswa: Roofs, you can do it, obviously anything exterior, landscaping in some situations, etcetera.

Interviewer: All right, a couple the obstacles that prevent people from buying a house. One is usually down payment, how much money do they have to put down with this loan?

Tom Yoswa: Well I mean, there is again, options there, too. I do conventional as well as FHA, it's the same guidelines as FHA and conventional. So with the 203(k) loan, it's, you know, as little as three and a half percent down.

Interviewer: Okay.

Tom Yoswa: So you know whatever the purchase plus the renovation is combined, it's three and a half per cent off of that, but there are other programs, HUD has a $100 down program if it still exists, I think it does.

Interviewer: Yeah.

Tom Yoswa: And you can use that in certain situations, so it really depends but it's as little as three and a half percent down.

Interviewer: So one of the questions I know I have been asked by buyers is can you combine the programs? I want to do the $100 down HUD program, but I need the construction financing. Can you do it?

Tom Yoswa: I have done it, just so long as it's a full-price offer.

Interviewer: Oh, it's got to be full-price offer?

Tom Yoswa: It's got to be a full-price offer. So if HUD's asking 160, you bid 156, no-go. If you bid, if it's 160, you bid 160, then yes, and then again, I am not 100% sure. I believe the program is still there.

Interviewer: It sounds good. Tom, thanks I appreciate it.

Tom Yoswa: Thank you very much, Dan.

You can reach Tom Yoswa at 303-668-4499 and at MyProspectMortgage.com online.

New Status Categories in MLS Simplify Listings

Kevin Best, Account Manager for Metrolist discusses the new functions added to the MLS to identify the status of properties listed.

Interviewer: Today we are talking with Kevin Best, Account Manager for Metrolist and Kevin welcome to the show.

Kevin Best: Thanks Dan, glad to be here.

Interviewer: I love all the new changes you guys were doing with Prime Access, its making my life easier. So I appreciate that, I should tell you that right out of the gate.

Kevin Best: Thanks.

Interviewer: And you are going to make some more, you are going to add a couple new functions to the MLS, is that right?

Kevin Best: That is correct. One of the biggest frustrations or challenges that brokers in the metropolitan area have been dealing with is truly identifying whats the status of the property and is it available for showing? Our Rules and Regulations Committee created a task force that reviewed this problem and has come up with a solution by creating some new fields in the MLS.

Interviewer: What are those new fields?

Kevin Best: There are going to be two new fields that are going to be required, an approval conditions and a status conditions as well upon listing input the type of seller is also going to be a required field.

Interviewer: Okay, so you know in the past we've had to guess, is it a foreclosure or is it not a forelosure. Is it a short sale? I know that used to be put in the terms and some agents used to put also put it in the remarks, but now there is a very specific field for this, is that right?

Kevin Best: That is correct. Between the approval conditions and the status conditions they will be able to identify, is it a short sale, a court owned property, equitable interest. And also has the property already had offers submitted for it or is it even available for showings at the current time.

Interviewer: I think whether there have been "offers submitted" is a big, big deal because obviously in the past if it's a short sale or foreclosure, it will say active, and we dont know, we can tell if it's one of those two properties, but we dont know if there is two or three offers already in to the banks. That's going to help a lot. I imagine you got a lot of input from realtors about this and this is why you are making the change?

Kevin Best: That is correct. As I said, the task force that the Rules and Regulations Committee put together, did a lot of research on this, and has determined this really is the best way to go. Its going to make everything so much easier, there is the pending status. So if I've submitted an offer to a lender, I put the property into a pending status and between those two fields, I am going to know really what's going with that property.

Interviewer: And a logical question that I asked you is, you know give me a working definition of pending versus under contract, because it almost sounds like it's the same, but it's not?

Kevin Best: Its not. If it's under contract, we have the mutually executed written contract. Pending either means that I have submitted the offer to the bank and I'm waiting, or it could go as far as to say the bank is verbally committed, that they will accept that offer but we don't have anything in writing at this point.

Interviewer: All right, I've got some short sales, I've got some foreclosures, they are listed, do I need to manually go in and now fill-in these fields or will this automatically change over?

Kevin Best: That automatically changed over on December 22nd, 2010. We ran a program that changed everything based on the information that was on the listing at that time.

Interviewer: Okay, and if people have more questions about this who do they contact?

Kevin Best: As always, whenever it comes to rules and regulations, the best resource is our Compliance Department at Metrolist.

Interviewer: Okay, one other quick question, just for definition, and this is off the notes but, there are some realtors in the past who...were a little loose on how quickly they changed active to under contract. What are the Metrolist rules on that?

Kevin Best: All statuses need to be updated within 72 hours.

Interviewer: Okay.

Kevin Best: So whether it goes from active to under contract or even from listing agreement to active in the system, unless the listing agreement says different, it needs to be done within 72 hours.

Interviewer: Good information, thanks, appreciate it.

Kevin Best: Thanks Dan.