Archive for February, 2011
I love the Visual Pricing System! However, just recently I’ve been getting the following error, “Incorrect export file–withdrawn Date ……export format may be incorrect”. I’m doing everything the same as I’ve always done. What’s wrong?
We have seen situations where the Visual Pricing System has been terminated or aborted in a less than graceful manner. This may have happened to your system. You can resolve this problem by resetting the MLS choice. To do that, bring up the Visual Pricing System, enable macros, and select the Focus1st –> Configure menu option. The press the “Reset MLS Choice” button. Your MLS choice will be reset. Press “OK” to get out of the configuration dialog box.
Now, from the “Start” tab, press the “Start” button. You will need to find your MLS on the set of MLS options. Once you select your MLS you can choose your MLS (and the press the “DO NOT ask” me button). If this does not solve your problem, please send an email to support@focus1st.com .
Is there a way to PDF all the Visual Pricing Charts vs. doing a PDF for each page separately?
Yes, there is. There is a:
Focus1st -> Print all charts
menu function that will print all the charts that have been created.
When you use this function, the charts will all be printer the current printer. To print to the PDF driver, you need to set it up as the current printer. How do you do that? When you first open the Visual Pricing System, your current printer will be your default printer (which is the way windows works for all the applications). To change the current printer to a PDF driver, you must first print one graph and set the printer as the PDF driver. This will set your current printer to the PDF printer.
When you use the “Print Al Charts” option to print all the graphs, you will be asked what file name to print to for each graph. At that time, if you use the same file name you can then select “append”. Or you can choose different file names if you’d like.
Our MLS does not include square footage. Are we still able to use the Scattegram to help price properties?
While most MLS do have square footage, several MLS’s do not. We find that the MLS that do not are generally on the North East coast. Although there are several large cities in the Midwest. Many of these MLS (Chicago) are now requiring that Realtors do put their information in the MLS.
That being the case, can we use the Scattergram to help price properties where there is not MLS square footage data. The answer is YES.
To price properties we like to look at five factors. These five factors are: Location (of course location is the most important factor), price, size, features/amenities, and condition. When we price a “subject” property we like to look at comparable properties and how they match based on these five factors.
We like the Scattergram because you can visually see how the subject property matches to other comparable properties based on all five of these factors.
Location: The properties that you place on the Scattergram should all have the same comparable location. If a property is located on the waterfront (for example) and another property is located on 5 acres in the country, they obviously do not have comparable locations. In general, we like to look at homes that are in the same neighborhood, or in close proximity to each other. This of course varies from situation to situation. Use your Real Estate background to help in this area.
Price and Size: The Scattergram is a great visual to compare price and size. In most cases, where you have Square Footage you can easily see the correlation between price and size. In some cases, you may want to consider how you look at size. In some areas, where you have basements, you may want to consider Total Square Feet or you may want to consider Finished Square Feet. You may want to look at both graphs (which you can easily do with the Visual Pricing Program) to see which graph has the strongest correlation. That is the graph you should use.
In areas, where the square footage is not provided you may want to edit the information on the MLS Data form and enter the Square Footage from the public records. However, there are still cases where that information is not available or editing the MLS Data form is too much effort. In those cases, we recommend that you graph the number of bedrooms. While this is not as effective as looking at the Square Feet, there can be a correlation between the size of the property and the number of bedrooms.
Features/amenities and condition: To show the special features/amenities and condition we recommend that you include text boxes alongside the data point with the text information that states the special features/amenities that are included in that specific properties. For example, if you are looking at comparable properties and they all have 2 car garages, you would not use that information on the chart. However, if a property has a three car garage, you would want to highlight that. You want to focus on the unique aspects and highlight those on the graph.
Once you are able to place all five of these key factors on the graph, you are much more able to compare the homes and using your Real Estate knowledge and background have a better idea on where the homes should be priced.
I was sent an Activation Code and I’m not sure how to use that to activate my Visual Pricing System.
If you have been sent an activation code to activate the Visual Pricing System, you need to first install your Visual Pricing System. To install download the most recent updated software by selecting the link below:
http://www.vpupdate.focus1st.com
This link will allow you to copy the “setup_VisualPricingUpdate.ZIP” file to your desktop (you may place it where ever you’d like, just remember where you copied it). Open the zip file and run the “setup_VisualPricingUpdate.EXE” install program.
The update software will only work if you already have a valid install in place.
However, it will work if you provide an activation code. To enter the activation code, run the Visual Pricing System, enable macros (as always), then while on the Start tab, use the Focus 1st menu and select the “Activation Release” option.
Enter your email address (use the email address that received this email) and the activation code that was provided to you.
How do I determine what version of the Visual Pricing System I am running?
The version number of the Visual Pricing System is shown on the Visual Pricing Systems “Start” tab. The version number is shown after you read in an exported file. The version number is blank when you first open up the Visual Pricing System. If you read in an exported file and the version number is still blank, then you should update your software. See the picture below to see where the version number is displayed. .
I’m using the NWMLS (Matrix) system. I’ve followed your directions and I can’t seem to location the export function. Where is it?
Be aware that the first time you use the export functionality you may not see the export button as described. However, on the lower right side of the screen you will see an arrow pointer. Pressing that button will expand the functionality and show you the export button. The diagram below shows the bottom bar of the results screen the location of the “export” button located at the far right.
If you press the arrow pointer to see the expanded functionality, and still do not see the export button, make sure the search you are doing is NOT a “Cross Property” search. The NWMLS does not allow you to export Cross Property search data.
What do you do when you search back last two years and the town has more houses than the 500 the mls allows you to view?
In most cases, exporting 500 records is more than enough information. If you are using more than that, you should probably focus your search so that you can get a better “profile” that would be a better match for your sellers home. In most cases, I find that you can be the most effective when you export around 80-100 data points over the two year period.
That being said, there are times when I have wanted to look at larger areas to determine stats. For example, I will use the Odds of Selling, and the Pond for stats in larger areas. I will also do scattergrams for a large number of homes built in a specific year for builders etc. To be able to export large amounts of data you need to: 1) able to export large amounts of data from you MLS, and 2) be able to read in multiple files and merge the data in the Visual Pricing System.
To export large amounts of data from your MLS, you will need to break your search up into multiple files. The easiest way to do that is to adjust the price range. For example, if your MLS restricts you to 500 records, and you need to export 850 records, find the mid-point of the homes. Assuming the midpoint of the homes is $400,000, do your first search on all the homes from 0 – $400,000. Save the results in a file, then redo the same search with the price range from $400,001+. Save the results in a different file.
To get the Visual Pricing System to read in multiple files, you will need to set the “Enable Multiple Export File Read” Option. Open up the Visual Pricing System, be sure you are at the “Start” tab, and select the “Add-in -> Focus 1st -> Configure” menu. Then select the “Enable Multiple Export File Read” option. When you run the Visual Pricing System it will allow you to read in multiple files. Once it reads in multiple files, it will “merge” the data. So if you kept data from a previous export (perhaps a search you did last month), and saved the Visual Pricing System, it will merge the new data by comparing the MLS numbers and replacing older MLS records with updated ones. Thus, if a previously Active property were now sold, the updated sold MLS record would be used.
