Ken's Blog

Minnesota Mortgage Company Launches New Web Site

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:25:38 -0500

Metropolitan Financial Mortgage Company, a Minnesota mortgage company, launched it's new web site today which is a real upgrade from what they had. The previous site lacked good content for Minnesota home buyers or people looking to refinance. The new site offers free reports including;

20 Ways to Sell Your Home Faster and for More Money

Adding Up the Impact of Your Credit Score

Credit Basics

Glossary of mortgage terms

The companies new domain name is Minnesota mortgage company which should bode well for some of the keywords they are trying to get ranked for.

Congratulations to Ron Wellbaum and the crew at Metropolitan Financial Mortgage!!

The Ultimate Source of Inspiration for Blog Posts and Tweets

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:27:34 -0500

How many of us have ever sat down at our keyword wanting to put out some good content for our readers and been struck with writers block? I'd be surprised if everyone didn't suffer from at least one occurrence. It's a tough challenge we bloggers face, how to blog frequently enough with quality content in order to build and maintain a relevant readership.

Like many of you I too struggle with this challenge but recently I was re-introduced to a site that is starting to help me get past writers block and really enjoy blogging and tweeting again. I'm guessing that many of you may already be familiar with it but if your like me, the last time you discovered it, you were to busy to really pay attention to the goldmine that lay before you.

The site I'm talking about is Guy Kowasaki's www.alltop.com and this is about the third time I came across it but this time was more timely and relevant because it happened at a time when I was suffering from Tweeters block and looking for some good sources of content. This site now boasts 700 categories of content and you can setup your own page which tracks those categories/topics that are important to you and your readers.

I hope you find this site as benficial as I have and you can use it to help stimulate some great blog posts and tweets in the days ahead.

Great SEO Blogging tips from Matt Cutts of Google

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:23:08 -0500

Matt Cutts recorded this video at Wordcamp 2009. It's a great lesson in white hat seo strategies for real estate bloggers. I've been blogging for over 4 years and I found a lot of benefit in this presentation.

I thought this would be very relevant for AR members as many of us hope to generate new business through our real estate blogging activities. Enjoy!

Tweet Me Homes Launches 6 New Cities

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 10:40:15 -0500

Tweet Me Homes has launched 6 new cities in the past week;

It generally takes a few days to start seeing any volume of homes for sale so if you don't see what you want right away, simply sign up to follow the city where you are looking for a home and let Tweet Me Homes do the work of looking for you.

As Tweet Me Homes does not tweet every home for sale in each area, it is still critical to be using a real estate agent and a local mls listings web site as well. The volume of homes on Tweet Me Homes contiues to rise as we are adding more local and national brokers and their listings.

If you are a Realtor and would like your clients listings to be tweeted through Tweet Me Homes and your broker is not participating, you can take care of it yourself through www.Agentopolis.com

Agentopolis Extends It's Reach

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:48:44 -0500

Agentopolis recently launched a large number of web pages designed to get Agentopolis real estate agents in front of more people who are looking for a Realtor online. According to Google, "real estate agent" is included in a search roughly 4,090,000 times each month. The challenge for agents is how to get in front of the people looking for a real estate agent in their local area, especially considering that there are only 10 organic spots on the first page of Google search results.

As a result of these findings and other keyword research we have done at Agentopolis, we have launched pages to help people find a real estate agent, find a real estate broker and/or find a Realtor. We have made it even easier now for people to find a real estate agent in over 15,000 cities in the US covering close to 97% of the population.

In an effort to make internet marketing a little easier for real estate agents, Agentopolis allows up to 25 featured agents per city and also gives home buyers and home sellers a number of other ways to search for agents, giving each agent more chances to get found. Of course family, friends and past clinets are always the best source for new business so Agentopolis also makes it easy for those groups to give their favorite Realtor a recommendation. Having a number of sincere recommendation attached to your profile makes new clients feel a little more safe and secure about you, even though they don't already know you.

To find out if you are already listed on Agentopolis or to add your name to our directory for free, click on this link Agentopolis real estate agent directory listing

A Template Website that is Actually Decent?

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:27:10 -0500

Ever since my first day in the real estate and mortgage business 8 years ago I have struggled with my web presence. I'm not a designer and don't know HTML so I can't build my own website. Like many of you, I have checked out most of the template sites available for mortgage and real estate professionals but I've never been perfectly happy with what I'm getting for my money.

That all changed a couple of weeks ago when I met the principles at www.itsmyweb.com. They currently only build mortgage websites but I'm trying to convince them to develop a line of agent real estate websites as well. There are a number of reasons why I like these guys;

Great content
Multiple ways to capture leads
Easy integration of 1003 into popular LOS
Easy access to meta tags for SEO tweeking
Google analytics is already hooked up to your site
You can add personal Team Member pages if you own an office.

In all my searching and looking at template sites, I found this option to be the best value for the money and what also impressed me about these guys is that when I met with them, they showed me their list of all the improvements they will be making going forward, as if there mortgage marketing websites weren't already good enough.

If you are a mortgage pro and you've been looking for mortgage web sites that will work with your mortgage software and generate mortgage leads, you should at least take a look at what their doing at Its My Web.

Tweet Me Homes Delivers Real Estate Listings through Twitter

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:47:14 -0500

TweetMeHomes is a new service that instantly delivers homes for sale and real estate to home shoppers using Twitter. We've currently set up 40 major metro areas and made it super easy to subscribe. You will get instant notification of any new homes for sale on your twitter account or as a text message on your cell phone. Each Tweet Me Homes city page also links to a corresponding page which provides access to MLS listings in the same area.

For the Home Buyer

It couldn't be easier! Create an account on Twitter, visit TweetMeHomes, find and subscribe to the desired city or metro area, and have new homes for sale automatically sent to your Twitter account or cell phone as a text message via Twitter.

For the Real Estate Agent & Realtor

While Tweet Me Homes is in beta, we are currently tweeting thousands of real estate listings and homes for sale across the top 40 metro areas and we are adding new cities and metro areas every day. Real estate agents will soon be able to submit their individual listings through Agentopolis and local, regional and national brokers can mass submit listings through RSS or XML feeds.

The initial feedback we are getting is that this is a great new real estate marketing tool that makes it easy for Realtors to connect with home buyers where they live on the Internet. A recent article show the tremendous growth in social media use and surprisingly, it's not just the younger generation.

Contact Ken Horst for more info at 612-251-8237.

How to Follow Local Real Estate Listings on Twitter

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 12:10:42 -0500

I recently created a short video to show how to use Twitter to follow real estate listings in your local area. Tweet Me Homes, a new real estate marketing site, is currently in beta and has home tweets available in the top 40 metro areas in the US. Follow this link to watch video http://www.screencast.com/t/gfZpwteJ

Agents and brokers can submit RSS or XML feeds by location and their real estate listings will be tweeted to home shopping followers in their metro area. By mid August, individual agents will be able to submit their listings to www.TweetMeHomes.com through the home listing feature on Agentopolis so their listings will be marketed both on Agentopolis and Tweet Me Homes at the same time.

Stay tuned for videos on how to get local real estate listings sent to your mobile device and how to use RSS feeds to send local listings to your IGoogle or My Yahoo page.

Follow Tweet Me Homes on Twitter

Don't Buy Beach Property In Honduras Just Yet!

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 11:50:10 -0500

My wife is Honduran and I have been traveling to Honduras for the past 25 years. It is an amazingly beautiful country with a great culture and people. Unfortunately it is one of the poorest countries in the third world with roughly 70% of Hondurans living in poverty.

I've always wondered why real estate prices in Honduras have never really seen risen like in Coast Rica and I guess the answer comes down to a number of reasons including; foreigners cannot own beach property in Honduras and a concern about how stable the government is. The first reason has never been a concern for me as my wife and her family are Honduran citizens. I never really put much concern into the second reason as it always appeared as though Hondurans and their government were pro democracy and liked Americans. Maybe I was wrong about that one.

Recently, the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya's, who is being backed and supported by Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Cuba's retired dictator Fidel Castro, is pushing to rewrite the constitution so that he can remain in power indefinitely. See "Honduras Lurches Toward Crisis Over Election" http://tinyurl.com/ns2h9n

I'm not sure how this is going to play out in the next few weeks but if I were a foreign land owner in Honduras today, I'd be a little concerned. I hope it all works out because Honduras has some of the most beautiful beaches in the world!

I'll keep you posted!

Video Tutorial - How To Add Your Free Listing on Agentopolis

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Sun, 31 May 2009 22:46:36 -0500

Recently Agentopolis started a Twitter page which has become very popular and given us a strong second wind in this age of social media. Agentopolis has added roughly 7500 followers in the past 60 days, a combination of Realtors and home buyers and sellers. As a result, we have seen a nice lift in traffic and have been getting many emails asking how to get listed and take advantage of this free real estate agent marketing and real estate listings marketing.

To answer this question and help you get your free listing on Agentopolis, I have created this short (under 5 minute) video showing you step by step exactly how to add your agent profile to Agentopolis for free!

Add your free listing to Agentopolis

Feel free to share this with other real estate agents and Realtors who are looking for new ways to get in front of home buyers and sellers.

Eden Prairie Agent Uses MLS Maps for Lead Generation

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Sun, 31 May 2009 19:26:29 -0500

Wade Ryan of Remax Results in Eden Prairie, Minnesota has been providing local home buyers with mls listings information as way to generate home buyers leads for quite awhile. Using a couple of different real estate sites that focus on both map based search and simply mls listings search, Wade has been able to stay ahead of the competition. Using terms like mls minnesota and minnesota mls, Ryan has managed to get in front of a small set of home buyers and first time home buyers who are familiar with the term mls.

Ryan and his team of ReMax Realtors plan to start using a lot more of the social media tools including FaceBook, Twitter, outside blogs and through sites like Agentopolis, MLS Maps, and more.

Agentopolis Passes Trulia on Twitter

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:55:50 -0500

Real estate agent directory Agentopolis hit two milestones last night on Twitter. We reached 4,000 followers and we passed Trulia on www.wefollow.com. Twitter is fast becoming one of the top sources of traffic for the Agentopolis directory with more and more of our visitors also spending time on the Home Search area where Realtors can list their properties for free.

Agentopolis has also seen significant traffic gains from Twitter on a number of our other real estate sites including www.mlsmaps.com, our MLS listings site using map based property search, and www.mnonlinemls.com, a consumer facing Minnesota MLS site.

Stay tuned as Agentopolis will be presenting a free webinar in May on the topic of "Using Twitter to Find Home Buyers and Sell Homes". We are also in the final stages of deployment for our killer Twitter app that will allow Realtors who post their listings on Agentopolis to automatically have those listings fed to home buyers through Twitter in the market where the home is listed. We are running in beta and have already started to build a list of home buying followers in the top 40 metro markets. We will be live in May!

February Google Searches that include "MLS" & "Map"

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:10:57 -0500

Smart consumers are discovering that they can find an real estate agent site that provides free access to the local MLS listings by state. A growing trend in broker reciprocity MLS sites, as indicated by our Google analytics report, is people looking for map based MLS Search, and as you night have guessed, people search for the same thing in many different ways. In February 2009 mlsmaps.com saw 167 different search terms that included "MLS" and "Map" Here are the top ten keyword search phrases, in rank order, typed into Google by people looking for MLS listings on a map base solution. Each term links to the Google SERP so you can see the competition for the term and who is on the first page

I'm still surprised at the number of real estate agents sites I see without a link to the local mls listings. While we have seen an increase in Realtors using map based search solutions for their visitors, this is still a great opportunity for agents to develop a competitive advantage in their local market place.

Real Estate Downfall Video Parody

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:56:12 -0600

Not that there is anything funny about the state of real estate today BUT, this video parody could not be any funnier. This is a must see for anyone who has had anything to do with real estate in the past few years. Enjoy and be sure to share this with any of your real estate buddies!

Real Estate Video Parody

Plunge, Surge, Plunge, Surge!

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:42:05 -0500

Is it just me or is anybody else getting sick and tired of seeing one of these two words in every other headline? There was a time when the word "Surge" or "Plunge" in a headline related to the stock market meant something but lately, with the market making dramatic redirects every other day, these two terms have seemed to lose their oomph.

Frankly I'm kind of sick and tired of the media anyway. If it wasn't for the stock market gyrations and the pending election ( I can't wait for that to be behind us as well) I think the major media outlets would have to layoff at least 20% of their staff because their wouldn't be any news to report. The only good news about the plunging-surging stock market is that it is taking the attention away from the real estate market, which doesn't need the media's help to alarm consumers. My bet is that as soon as the election is over and the market mellows out a bit, we can count on the media to start using the word "Plunge" in reference to the real estate market, in hopes of generating readers with more gloom and doom. Don't you love those guys!

Using the MLS To Find Your Next Home

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 23:29:36 -0500

The Internet is vast and full of possibilities and if we don't know how to ask for what we want, the Internet can prove to be time consuming and frustrating. The biggest thing to keep in mind about the net is that almost every piece of information you need is on the net and available, you just have to know how to ask for it. That said, what should a person looking for a home to buy type into Google in order to find the best selection of real estate and homes for sale in their area? The answer includes the words "MLS listings".

Originally only available to real estate agents, the mls or Multiple Listing Service was where Realtors put their listings, homes for sale, so that other real estate agents could easily find them and present them to their home buyer. The mls is a database that can be sorted by a number of criteria including things like location, city, state or zip, the price of homes, features like pool, fireplace, number of bedrooms and/or bathrooms and more. The way it works is a realtor who is working with a home buyer asks them questions about what they are looking for in a home. Whether they are a first time home buyer or buying their last home, home buyers have a good idea of what they want in a home. Once the agent knows what you want, they go to their computer and enter the criteria into the MLS search. The mls then gives them a list of all the homes for sale that meet your criteria including photos. At this point they usually sit down with their client and go through a number of homes on the computer to further reduce the number of homes on the list as there are usually hundreds of homes that meet your criteria in most major metro areas and it wouldn't be a good use of your time or your agents time to try and go out to every home on the list. Once you have narrowed your search down to between 5 and 10 homes your agent will make appointments to get you into those homes and hopefully find one you like and make an offer.

The good news is that now home buyers don't need an real estate agent to access the mls database of homes for sale in their area. Your local mls database is available on many websites and agent websites, you just have to know how to ask for it. Generally when shopping for a home people type terms into Google like "real estate" or "homes for sale" preceded by a location i.e. city or state. The problem with this query is it is too vague or broad for Google and frequently the results on the first page of Google are a bunch of independent Realtors who only show the homes for sale from their clients. If you want to find web sites that show roughly all the homes for sale in your area, you must include the term "mls listings" in your search, instead of "real estate" or "homes for sale". As a result of combining a city or state with the term mls listings as in Minneapolis mls listings, you are more likely to get websites that give you access to the Realtors database, the mls and this will make your home shopping a whole lot easier. Once you have looked at the hundreds of homes available and you have narrowed your search down to 5 or 6 homes, you can contact an agent who will make appointments to get you into those homes.

Up until recently this was as good as the home search system got and it worked pretty good until you tried to search for a home in a particular neighborhood. Because most neighborhoods don't have names, it is difficult if not impossible to search for a home in neighborhood. The good news is that now some websites are starting to present the mls data on local maps so if you are interested in living near some friends, or within walking distance of your job or kids school, you can simply highlight that area of the map and the map based mls search site will show you every home for sale in that specific area. This mls map search is also available to use for free but as I mentioned above, you have to know how to ask for it. Fortunately a new website has been set up to help you find local web sites that offer map based search, the site is www.mlsmaps.com and it is a national directory of free mls web sites, with map based mls search available in most major metropolitan areas. As this technology is relatively new, it is not yet available in every market but for the most comprehensive list of where it is available, visit www.mlsmaps.com, choose your state, choose from a list of cities, and click "search all listings".

So the bottom line is if you want to see the most comprehensive list of homes for sale in your area, remember to search by your city followed by "mls listings" and if you want the ability to narrow your search down to a specific neighborhood or location, add "mls map" to your city or simply visit www.MLSMaps.com

What's in a trend?

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 08:43:54 -0500

It's hard to know these days what is the cause for the decrease in traffic to mls listing sites, real estate and homes for sale sites. Generally this is a slower time of the year for people looking to buy real estate but if you factor in the current state of the economy, the pending $700 billion dollar bailout, and plunging home values, you would think the dip or slow down in real estate would be dramatic. Not so according to the traffic reports I'm seeing. While there is a slight dip in the number of people looking for mls search and homes for sale, the dip is far less than what I would have bet, considering all the bad news in the real estate and mortgage business.

The other factor that I don't think has hit the real estate market yet is the death of the seller funded down payment assistance programs which officially died on Tuesday. This could have a horrifying effect on first time home buyers as it was the most asked for first time home buyer program. I've heard as many as 20% of all current home buyers where using a program like Nehemiah. If this is true and we lose 20% of our home buyers over the next few months, I think we will see a noticeable decrease in the Internet traffic related to real estate and home for sale.

Time will tell, in the end everything all works out, it's just harder to forecast the end this time as a result of our country's depression like economic state. Hold On!

MLS Maps Breaks Into Googles Top 5 rankings

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:23:17 -0500

It's been a long time coming but MLS Maps has finally made the first page of Googles search results for the term "mls listings". Not only that but today we cracked the top 5 for that term and as a result our traffic has more than tripled. In addition to mls listings, www.MLSmaps.com is also working to get pages ranked for every state with the term MLS as well as over 300 cities. This is important for our Realtor partners as the term "mls listings" gets searched over 42,000 times per month on Google alone and this number continues to grow every month as consumers get smarter about how to find homes online. I cover this in my related posts; "Growing Trends in Home Search Use of MLS & Map in Search Phrases", "More Evidence of Home Buyer Search Trends" and "August Home Buyer Search Terms Using MLS & Maps"

Most of our traffic is coming from our home page and the term mls listings, but we have also seen a big uptick in traffic from Yahoo for the terms free home values, free house values, free home market value, and free home value. This traffic is starting to generate an increase in leads from home owners who want a CMA in markets all over the country, similar to housevalues.com. We are getting very positive feedback from our home values page as we clearly explain the three types of home values so consumers know what they are getting when a Realtor calls them.

We'll keep you posted as to what folks are using in mls and maps related search terms and if you haven't looked into your own map based IDX solution yet, you might want to think about it before your competition does!

Mortgage Debacle - Part 17

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 15:23:56 -0500

Boy, don't think for a minute that we are out of the woods on this mortgage mess. The latest reminder of our sins-of-the-past is the government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Once considered unthinkable the feds are now saying they will step in and all but take over these two mortgage giants who's willingness to look the other way will end up costing us tax payers billions. Well at least their bad business practices helped keep jobs plentyful for the past 5 years, clearly not the case today with the jobless rate at a 5 year high of 6.1%. How many of the those jobless people came out of mortgage and real estate do you think? Oh well, all is fair in love and war and .... business? OK maybe not business but you have to admit, if it wasn't for the blind sided decision making of Fannie and Freddie over the past few years, most of us wouldn't have gotten our giant flat screen TVs. Come to think of it, I didn't even get one of those out of the deal.

For more info about the gov bail out, visit http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080906/mortgage_giants_crisis.html

August Home Buyer Search Terms Using “MLS” & “Maps”

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 09:37:49 -0500

In two previous posts, “MLS” and “Map” terms used in Search, and “more evidence of home buyer search terms”, I showed lists of search phrases that are being typed into Google with more frequency, using a combination of the terms “mls” and “map”. Here are the top ten search terms in descending order as recorded on www.mlsmaps.com for the month of August.

For the first time since we began tracking, “mlsmaps.com” as a search phrase in Google made the top ten list suggesting that the brand is growing. Also mlsmaps.com recently made the first page of Google Search Results for the term mls listings, which is searched 301,000 times per month, according to Google’s Keyword search tool. Each term below links to the Google search results page.

For more information about MLS Maps and how you can participate in your area, contact Ken Horst @ 612-251-8237.

Mortgage Insurance Companies Maximum LTV and CLTV in Declining markets

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 10:11:32 -0500

I thought this table showing the different Mortgages Insurance companies and their rules and guidelines for declining markets would be helpful for all of us. As most of us know, it's not enough to have lender approval anymore as the MI companies can ultmiately dictate how deals get done. The nice thing about mortgage brokers is that we are not stuck with one MI company and can switch lenders and MI companies based on the information below to get loans done. Also, keep in mind that FHA is still the best game going for high LTV loans, up to 97.75% in Minnesota. FHA is not an option for high value homes but for most of the housing market this is currently the best option.

With a Minnesota down payment assistance program like Nehemiah and FHA, we can still help people buy homes with no money down, which according to the NAR is very important to about 45% of home buyers today.

» MGIC*:

- Max. LTV/CLTV: 95% in MGIC's distressed markets with a minimum 680 FICO

- http://www.mgic.com/guides/underwriting.html

» PMI*:

- Max. LTV/CLTV: 95% in their Level 1 market(s) with a 620 FICO, 90% max. LTV/CLTV in their Level 2 market(s)

- http://www.pmi-us.com/resourcecenter/mi_guidelines.html

» Radian*:

- 5% maximum LTV/CLTV reduction in declining markets for all products except loans >95% LTV/CLTV, which are reduced to 95% LTV

- Minimum 680 FICO and maximum debt ratio of 38% at 95% LTV/CLTV

- http://www.radiangroupinc.com/mortgage/rates.aspx

» Triad*:

- Triad requires a 5% Reduction in Max LTV/CLTV for properties in declining markets, except for loans above 95% LTV/CLTV,
which are reduced to 95% LTV/CLTV

- Loans in AZ, CA, FL, and NV will be limited to 90% LTV/CLTV for MI

- http://www.triadguaranty.com/

» RMIC* (Effective July 14, 2008):

- Max. LTV/CLTV: 95% with criteria that ALL must be met:

· OFHEO Index has declined 2% the most recent 2 quarters (refer to their website home page for %)

· 700 minimum FICO

· Maximum DTI 45%

- http://www.rmic.com/ratesguides/guides/Pages/default.aspx

» United Guaranty

- The maximum LTV/CLTV is 90% for properties in Declining Markets

- The maximum LTV/CLTV is 85% for Agency Jumbo Loans

- Minimum FICO in a declining market is 680

- https://www.ugcorp.com/miunderwriting.html

» Genworth

- The maximum LTV/CLTV in Declining Markets is 90%, with a minimum FICO of 680

- The following states are designated as Declining Markets: FL, CA, AZ, NV, MI, OH

- http://mortgageinsurance.genworth.com/RatesAndGuidelines/Guidelines.aspx

Cool Home Values Calculator

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 09:42:29 -0500

I stumbled onto the web site of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) today and found their House Price Calculator. This calculator takes a different approach to home values than sites like Zillow, in that it it projects what a given house purchased at a point in time would be worth today if it appreciated at the average appreciation rate of all homes in the area. There is also the standard disclosure with a nice plug for real estate appraisers;

"The actual value of any house will depend on the local real estate market, house condition and age, home improvements made and needed, and many other factors. Consult a qualified real estate appraiser in your area to obtain a professional estimate of the current value of your home."

I purchased my home back in 1997 and when I put my info into the calculator, my homes value came back almost dead on.

In addition to the calculator there is a lot of other great information for the housing industry and for people buying and selling their homes.

Home Values Come in Three Versions

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 15:24:07 -0500

Home values, free house values, house values, CMA, comp check, etc. these area just some of the ways we refer to a homes value. As most of us have seen, there are different versions and reasons to seek out home values.

One web site has based it's business on the belief that consumers will want a quick, free estimate of their homes value. While Zillow has met this need, their home values are generally not very accurate and can not be used for anything more than satisfying your curiosity.

In the mortgage business we typically order a comp check before we procede with the mortgage. This is a no cost professional opinion of the value provided by a licensed appraiser. If the comp check comes in OK, we can proceed with the loan and order a full real estate appraisal knowing we won't waste the borrowers money on an appraisal that comes in light.

Realtors also offer something similar to the comp check called a CMA or comparative market analysis. This is a servcie they provide to their listing clients to help them understand their homes value and what it should be priced at.

The third and most accurate version of home values or house values is an appraisal. This is the most expensive and accurate of the three home values and it is required for most real estate transactions and refinance mortgages.

For a table comparing all three versions, visit www.MLSMaps.com/home-values.asp

MLS Helps Shorten the Time it Takes To Find a Home.

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 21:46:05 -0500

Back in the old days the only way to find a home for sale was to drive around in your car until you found a “For Sale” sign, or call a Realtor and wait for them to call you with what they found for you. Not the worst system in the world but it took a lot of time and the home shopper had little control over the process.

Today’s savvy Internet home shoppers have found a fast and easy way to shop for homes, it’s called the MLS or The home buyer has complete control over what they see and when they can see it as it is available on the Internet for free and they control the search criteria.

Now when you call a Realtor to help you buy a home, you can give them the list of homes you have already found and ask them to make appointments to show you those houses.

MLS mls listings sites to make it even easier to find the home you are looking for. When you visit http://www.mlsmaps.com you are within 3 clicks of almost every US. It’s fast, easy and free and you can also research schools, cities and counties.

Escrowing for Property Taxes and Hazard Insurance

Ken Horst (MLS Maps, Agentopolis, Tweet Me Homes) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 09:18:08 -0500

I received a call recently from a past client who was asking about her escrow for tax and insurance. She had been talking with a friend who suggested to her that she try to close the escrow account and pay her property taxes and hazard insurance separately on their own. Her friends biggest reason for this was her belief that the lender is earning interest on your money, instead of you. Here are a few of the reasons why I suggested that she was better off escrowing taxes and insurance;

1. Most lenders will charge a slightly (.125 - .25%) higher interest rate if you do not escrow. Some lenders will allow you to wave this if you have a large enough down payment, at least 20% down.

2. Your money earns interest in your escrow account for you not the lender. Granted it is not a lot of interest, but it is interest earnings in the right direction.

3. You'll never have to worry about some unexpected expense, medical, major auto, etc., wiping out your tax and insurance reserves and causing a delinquent property tax situation.

One of the big arguments against escrowing is that people feel they can invest those dollars and earn a higher rate of return than the lender. Unless you are a seasoned investor, this rarely plays out and the higher the interest rate you are trying to earn with your money, the greater the risk. In addition to that fact, we are not talking about a lot of money to invest for most of us as your escrow balance is capped at only 3 months worth of property taxes and 3 months worth of interest. Your taxes are paid every 6 months, which generally isn't enough time to make a killing in the stock market and your property insurance is paid every year but is usually under $1000, depending upon where you live and the replacement cost of your home, not a lot of money for your stock broker to play with.

So the bottom line is this, I recommend escrowing for most of my clients and I have always escrowed my own taxes and insurance. At a three month reserve cap, we are generally not talking about a lot of money and the amount of time you will need to manage that money and try to earn a better rate of return may not be worth the return, especially if your investment idea tanks and you end up losing your reserves in the market.