Property Management Software – ShowMojo, the pioneer in online scheduling and prospect nurturing, is making its first appearance at a National Association of Residential Property Managers (NARPM) conference, after joining the organization as an affiliate member earlier this year.

ShowMojo will join members of NARPM at the Hilton Chicago, on March 23rd and 24th, for two days of sessions and discussions that will focus on both the basics and the cutting edge of residential property management.

“It’s our best customers who are NARPM members that convinced us to join the organization,” said ShowMojo CEO and Founder Peter Schuh. “We’re really excited to connect with the people we already know, as well as introduce ourselves to many more NARPM members.”

ShowMojo will have a special promotional offer for NARPM members who attend the conference. To qualify for the promotion, NARPM members need only stop by the ShowMojo booth.

ShowMojo has been very busy adding many new integrations to its service. And many of these integrations will be available for display at the conference.

In the last couple months, ShowMojo has announced import tools that let property managers automatically add and update listings, services that help property managers integrate ShowMojo with property management software packages, and calendar synchronization features with products like Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook.

SOURCE: ShowMojo

Allure of the French Riviera Real Estate

Flying into Nice in the morning sunshine, the water sparkles so intensely you’d think someone had been sprinkling diamonds off the side of their yacht. Forget the red carpet; this is the official welcome for the stars who have jetted in for the Cannes Film Festival, which started on Wednesday – and it’s easy to see how it could turn a mere mortal’s head.

The French Riviera still holds the crown for glamour and romance, with its history as an artists’ haven and the setting of the golden age of Hollywood-sur-mer. The coastal drive is a game of celebrity property bingo: Liz Taylor stayed here, David Niven lived there. Despite today’s tourists – this week, traffic slows to an escargot’s pace, and the boulevards are packed – the Côte d’Azur has lost none of its lustre as a place to live.

How could anyone from our climate resist 300-plus days of sunshine a year, fresh produce, sailing and swimming in turquoise waters and lush hillsides covered with lavender and lemon trees?

Michael and Maria Tasos moved with their two children to Monaco eight years ago. They bought and renovated a villa within the national park in the hills above Eze village, a medieval Riviera settlement with easy access to Monaco, to use as a holiday home. “This part of France is the perfect retreat,” says Michael, who works in aircraft leasing. “We’re high up where it’s 2C cooler, and less humid. We don’t get the sounds of mopeds and tourists but can be at the coast in 15 minutes.”

Who can resist 300 days of sunshine? CLICK HERE

Tips on Investing in Real Estate

Investment fads come and go, but this much is certain: People will always need a place to live. And right now, the stars are aligned for investors who want to make a lot of money meeting that need. Mortgage rates are at historic lows, home values in many parts of the country are still attractive, and buyers are venturing back into the market. To get started, you need good credit and a little cash, although leverage will take you a long way. You also need a stomach for risk, because as we learned in 2008, real estate prices don’t always go up.

You can make a lot of money fixing up rundown houses and selling them for a quick profit, but you need cash to venture into this business. It’s tough to get a mortgage for a property that isn’t your primary residence. You may also be competing with all-cash offers.

Even though the best time for flipping was probably 2009 and 2010, when home prices hit bottom, buyers are more confident now than they were three years ago, and there’s more demand for rehabbed homes. Flippers who can find distressed houses “can do very well in a market where home prices are on the upswing,” says Daren Blomquist, vice-president of RealtyTrac, a Web site that tracks foreclosures. “That’s what we’re in right now in many areas of the country.”

Learn the secrets from experts CLICK HERE

Space Real Estate

Bigelow’s business model for his new venture has always been simply to export his terrestrial experience into space, creating multi-use rental buildings containing, for example, hotels to accommodate tourists or scientific laboratories for corporations and even countries without space programs. “It’s just real estate in a different location. So you can sell these space buildings; you can lease these space buildings; the person that you lease them to can sublet them,” Bigelow says. “You just better be sure that you have a way of getting back and forth to it. Otherwise, you’re really screwed.”

And Bigelow’s fellow spaceflight entrepreneurs recognize that, while they have been working on the means to eventually take paying passengers into orbit, he’s the only one to have built a potential destination to visit once they get there. Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson says he’s already considering Bigelow’s multiple-use orbiting platform as part of his space tourism business. “We haven’t developed our own hotels,” Branson says. “We would be much more likely to work with Bigelow in sending people to his. We’d be delighted to one day take people there.”

If the company fulfills its current plans, Bigelow Aerospace will be managing its first property on the moon within a decade. By then, Bigelow will be 79. Even at that age, he still fully expects to be running the company that bears his name. “I do. I definitely expect to be. The rocking chair isn’t for me,” he says.

Will inflatable houses work? CLICK HERE

Housing Lottery

Demand among homebuyers is so high in some parts of the country that builders are holding lotteries to decide who gets to purchase homes in their developments.

O’Brien Homes started holding a monthly housing lottery for its 228-unit development called Fusion in Sunnyvale, Calf., after seeing throngs of prospective buyers camp out at the openings of other new condo complexes in the area.

“We didn’t want that,” said Susie Frimel, a spokeswoman for O’Brien Homes. “We wanted our customers to be pleased with the process.”

Each month, as new sections of the development came under construction, roughly 50 buyers would show up at O’Brien Homes’ sales office hoping to be picked for one of the 10 or so sites available. The participants were already pre-qualified for a mortgage and had their down payment in place. After being assigned a number, they crossed their fingers and waited for each bingo ball to be plucked from the tumbler.

For each unit, the company drew a winner and a backup, just in case the winner backed out.

Lotteries are not a perfect solution, especially for the buyer who walks away empty-handed.

“Some people would come back month after month,” said Frimel. “It got very frustrating for them.”

Adding to that frustration was that home prices rose virtually every time a new group of homes went on sale. The two-, three- and four-bedroom homes started out between $420,000 and $620,000. The last grouping went for $555,000 to $815,000, a 32% increase.

Even with the price hikes, buyers kept returning. O’Brien started issuing returnees an extra bingo ball. If they lost for four straight months, they would get five chances the next time.

The last available home in the complex closed last week. Some customers got shut out. For Frimel, that was one of the hardest things to watch. She had gotten to know many of the regulars well.

In addition to O’Brien Homes, other Bay Area builders are also using lotteries, including Shea Homes at a development in Livermore, Calif. and Shapell Homes in San Ramon, Calif.

Why are buyers back? CLICK HERE

Property Management – Company Raises Over $24,000 For Research Foundation

Property Management -PowerStone Property Management as part of its 20th anniversary celebration continues its support of the Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation (PCRF) which hosted their 15th Annual Bank of America, Merrill Lynch Half Marathon, 10K Run, 5K Run/Walk, 1K Kids’ Fun Run & Snyder Langston Bike Tour event at the Irvine Spectrum Center on May 4-5, 2013. It is one of OC’s favorite weekend family events.

This year the event attracted over 5,000 people and raised $647,000 dollars including $24,809 raised by PowerStone, a full service Orange County, California based property management firm, which also served as a Rainbow Sponsor at the Reaching for the Cure Event.

“The kick-off luncheon and auction this year surpassed all of our expectations. The employees and business partners that attended were so generous,” said Rene’ Decker, CEO of PowerStone, who adds: “Our goal was to improve over last year and we did it in a big way, being recognized as the top corporate contributor for the event. We couldn’t be happier in supporting the great work of the Foundation.”

The Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation holds special events throughout the year. Since its founding in 1982, PCRF has partnered with businesses, foundations, and individuals and has raised over $30 million toward the ultimate goal of ending pediatric cancers.
Source: Powerstone Property Management

Underwater Homeowners New Hope

Given the consistently good news we’ve seen from the housing market, it can be easy to forget just how much damage the bursting of the real estate bubble has wrought on the economy and the lives of average people across the country. According to analytics firm CoreLogic, 10.8 million homeowners remain underwater (meaning they owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth), representing 22% of all mortgages in the country.

On top of the obvious human suffering caused by crushing debt, the fact that more than a fifth of the mortgages in this country are underwater is a huge drag on the economy. Underwater homeowners are much more likely to default on their mortgages, which puts downward pressure on home prices. They’re also generally unable to refinance at today’s low rates and thereby reduce their monthly costs, further increasing the odds of default and limiting their ability to spend. In addition, some economists have argued that the widespread phenomena of underwater homes has exacerbated the unemployment problem because it prevents the unemployed from moving to find jobs.

To counter these effects, the Obama Administration has rolled out programs incentivizing banks to reduce the amount owed on the mortgages of underwater homes. In theory, at least, this can be a win-win-win solution to the problem of underwater homes: Homeowners instantly reduce their monthly payments and begin building positive equity in their homes; mortgage lenders benefit because above-water homeowners are far less likely to default and the foreclosure process is very expensive for banks; and the process helps speed recovery for the entire economy.

What are the win-win programs being considered? CLICK HERE

Home Price Increase a Mirage

If housing is back, why is the percentage of people who own homes lower now than it was over a decade ago? That’s one of the many paradoxes of the housing recovery that’s ostensibly under way in the U.S. It’s true that home values began rebounding from their post-financial-crisis trough 15 months ago. The latest S&P/Case-Shiller index data show the largest monthly gain in home prices since 2005.

But the percentage of Americans who are homeowners is still declining from its peak in 2004, the market is bifurcated (sections of Washington and Los Angeles are booming, while Detroit and California’s Inland Empire are still coping with foreclosures and homes with mortgages that are underwater), and the federal government is underwriting nearly 9 out of 10 new mortgages via a multitude of state-sponsored programs and federally backed bonds.

If a healthy housing market is one that is inclusive and not dependent on government support, “we’re a long way from there,” says Yale professor and housing expert Robert Shiller.

How to create a truly healthy housing market is a question that matters to everyone. Economic research shows that gains in housing wealth are likely to spur more consumer spending than gains in stock wealth are–and getting people to spend more is crucial to a sustainable recovery in an economy that is 70% driven by consumer spending.

Homeownership isn’t for everyone. We got into trouble handing out too many mortgages, including “liar loans,” to unqualified buyers. Today the problem is that a relatively small group of rich investors–not typical would-be homeowners–is driving the real estate market.

That includes private-equity titans like Blackstone (which owns a portfolio of 20,000 rental properties) as well as high-wealth individuals who can pay cash up front for a property for themselves or to rent out. “Investors remain the dominant force behind the house-price bounce back,” says Capital Economics property economist Paul Diggle. That’s reflected not only in the lower rate of homeownership but also in the swelling ranks of renters. Not since 2002 have fewer rental properties been empty in the U.S., and rents are rising sharply in many cities.

Are investors driving home price jump? CLICK HERE

Home Prices Increase

The numbers just keep going up. Home prices are defying gravity and expectations, which has some asking exactly how real they are and what is driving them. The answers lie, again, in the numbers, which vary depending on what particular report you choose.

Home prices nationally, including sales of distressed properties, rose 10.5 percent in March from a year ago, according to a new report from CoreLogic.

That report is based on repeat sales of homes over time. Another widely-watched report, the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index shows home prices were up 9.3 percent in February in the top twenty markets.

This is also a repeat sales index, but it is based on a three-month running average. The National Association of Realtors reported median home prices up nearly 12 percent in March, but being a median, that number relies on the mix of homes sold. It is higher because fewer low-end distressed homes and more higher-priced, non-distressed homes are selling; that skews the median higher.

Those are just a few, but suffice it to say prices are rising based on higher demand and abnormally low supply. Supply, ironically, is low because so far regular home sellers who don’t have to move would rather not sell into a market that is just beginning to recovery.

Also, many homeowners are still underwater on their mortgages, and therefore they would have to pay into their current homes in addition to paying for a new one.

But why are the price jumps so high? CLICK HERE

Home Mortgage Rates Increase

A sudden turn in mortgage rates made for an equally fast turn in mortgage applications. After falling for seven weeks straight, the average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($417,500 or less) increased to 3.67 percent from 3.59 percent, according to a weekly report from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

This is the highest rate in just over a month.

“Underlying interest rates are moving higher, dragging mortgage rates along with them,” said Keith Gumbinger, vice president of HSH.com, a data and analytics site. “This has come as the result of somewhat better conditions in the labor market, helping investors feel more confident that the recovery will overcome its recent soft patch.”

The higher rates cause a drop in mortgage applications. Refinance volume fell 8 percent, while mortgage applications to purchase a home fell 4 percent, according to the MBA report.

Rising rates are not welcome news, especially now in the heart of the spring housing market.

Will you miss the lower mortgage rates CLICK HERE