Focus 1st, LLC

I’m not able to deselect MLS data for the Scattergram. I get an error stating the cells are protected and that I need a password.

nocorealestate — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 18:03:20 +0000

We have seen this error occur when users select more than one column. When you are selecting (or de-selecting) data for either the Scattergram or Priceline, be sure to carefully select only cells under the specific column. Use your left mouse drag or click to select the boxes under Scattergram or Pricelines column. The right-click to choose either the “select” or “clear” option.

We have a Microsoft “Domain” environment at our office. What is the best way to install the Visual Pricing System ?

nocorealestate — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 16:45:25 +0000

The Microsoft “Domain” Environment is a great environment for shared Resource computers. With the Domain Environment, users have “roaming” profiles that they can access from any of the computers in the Domain Environment.

To install the Visual Pricing System in a Domain Environment follow the steps below:

Logon on to EACH of the resource computers with the Admin capability.
Download the updated Visual Pricing System software from http://vpupdate.focus1st.com . This will download a zip file to your computer. The install application is in the zip file.
Run the Setup_VisualPricingUpdate installation program. Notice that as part of the installation, the default is to install it with access by to users. This will create a “Visual Pricing System” shortcut on everyone’s desktop.

The Visual Pricing System is now installed on EACH of the resource computers. However, for users to have access to the Visual Pricing System, each user must individually activate the release. They need only activate the release one time on one computer. Once they activate the release, it will be stored in their roaming profile. That roaming profile will remember their activation code independent of the resource computer they are logged on to.

To obtain an activation code, contact Focus 1st, (support@focust1st.com ) and request an activation code. You must be a Visual Pricing System subscriber.

To enter the activation code, run the Visual Pricing System, enable macros (as always), use the Focus 1st menu and select the "Activation Release" option (if you are using Excel 2007/2010, the Focus 1st menu can be found by first selecting the Add-Ins menu http://www.tinyurl.com/f1activate ). Enter your email address and your activation code.

After loading in my data, I’m not able to see all my data in the MLS Data form. Where is it?

nocorealestate — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 06:02:43 +0000

After loading in your data, the MLS Data Form contains all the data which was used to create the graphs for the last two years. Data older than two years, is discarded. That being the case, there are times where you may be unable to see all the data if the spreadsheet has been scrolled down too far. This generally will happen if you’ve been looking at data from a previous file and then read in data from a another file which has less data. Take a look at the graphic below.

To make sure that you can see all the data look at the row numbers to makes sure that the row numbers are sequential (rows should go from number 5, to number 6, number 7 …). If the row numbers are not sequential you may need to move the slider (located on the right edge as show in the photo above) up.

If the slider is too far down, you may have situations where it looks like there isn’t any data on the spreadsheet. Again, if this is the case, move the slider on the right all the way to the top.

Is there a way to print all of the Visual Pricing Graphs in one easy step?

nocorealestate — Mon, 23 May 2011 15:06:39 +0000

Yes, the Visual Pricing System has a “Print All Charts” feature that will allow you to print all the charts and graphs you’ve created in one easy step. To access the “Print All Charts” feature:

On Excel 2007 and Excel 2010, using the Menu’s select the Add-Ins –> Focus 1st –> Print All Charts…

On Excel 2003, use the Focus 1st –> Print All Charts…

Once you select the “Print All Charts” option you will see a dialog box similar to this:

Select the printer you want to print to. After selecting the printer you will see the following dialog box:

All of the charts and graphs created by the Visual Pricing System have been selected by default. If there are graphs/charts that you do not want to include you may unselect them. Once you’ve got the selection of charts you want to print out, press the “OK” button and your printing will occur.

Note: If you do not have the option to select charts to print, be sure to you have the most recent version of the Visual Pricing System. For information on Downloading the most recent version select this link.

If you are using the Primo PDF driver to create PDF files, printing multiple pages will work better if you have the ‘Post Processing’ option set to “Do Nothing” as shown below. For each page, you will still specify the filename. If you specify the same file name each time, you will have the option to append the printed page to the existing file.

The graphs currently show 2009 and 2010. It is currently 2011. When will 2011 graphs be created?

nocorealestate — Fri, 20 May 2011 17:08:19 +0000

Graphs are created for two years. This is to help make identifying trends easier for you. Once you move into a new year, the applications will look to display data for the new year. However, in the beginning of the new year, the amount of data is small enough that showing data for the new year would not provided enough information to be valuable. We think you would prefer to see the previous two years until there is enough data to make it worth looking the data for the new year.

So, how much data is enough? The Visual Pricing System will wait until the end of June before it moves to the next year. However, if you’d prefer to see the new years data plotted earlier, you can adjust the “Change Over Month” value. This is the month when the new year’s data will be plotted. You may easily change the “Change Over Month” value back and forth as you read data to get different years.

To set the “Change Over Month” value:

On Excel 2007 and Excel 2010, using the Menu’s select Add-Ins –> Focus 1st –> Configure

On Excel 2003, use the Focus1st –> Configure menu

You will see a dialog box similar to this:

Use the Drop Down menu to select the “Change Over Month”.

How do I get an electronic copy of the “Overpricing in a Depreciating Market” slide?

nocorealestate — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 17:08:14 +0000

The slide you mentioned is shown below and you can download a PDF copy of both that slide as well as the “Overpricing in an Appreciating Market” slide, by the link shown below. The key difference is that in an appreciating market, if you overprice your listing, all you have to do is wait for the market to come up to the price. In a depreciating market, if you overprice your listing, the market will never come up to where you are at, and you lose both time and value.

Download Overpricing Slides

How do I get rid of Duplicate property entries?

nocorealestate — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 06:08:10 +0000

Denver’s PrimeAccess can potential have many “withdrawn” and “active” of the same property. As you may know, PrimeAccess is not the most user friendly site and deleting duplicate property entries, within PrimeAccess, is time consuming. How do I get rid of the duplicate entries?

There is no reason to take all the effort to remove the duplicate entries because program has a configuration parameter that will remove those duplicate entries for you. There is a tutorial on how to modify that parameter. Please see the configuration tutorial below. You may have to run though some earlier discussion on other items.

http://www.focus1st.com/Focus1st/MLSExport/VPS/Config/Config.html

In summary you can set the “Duplicate Entry” parameter by:

Go to the Visual Pricing System “Start” tab
Using the Focus 1st menu, select the Configure menu item
Set the Duplicate Entry parameter to 30 (30 days)

I am a new user. When I create a competitive price line graph it shows results in price per square foot. How do I get results in actual price, like “Selling Price (in thousands)”?

nocorealestate — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 23:37:17 +0000

On creating Competitive Price Lines, you can decide if you want to show Price per Square Foot or Actual Price. When you are on the Visual Pricing Start tab (tabs are located at the bottom of the program), select the Focus 1st menu and then select the Configure menu item. Using Office 2007/2010, the Focus 1st menu can be found under the Add-In menu (at the top of the application menus).

When you select the Configure menu, you will see a dialog box as show below. Select the Pricing tab. You can then check or uncheck the Graph Price per Square Feet box to get what you want.

Then select the OK button. You are now ready to create the Competitive Price Line graph you want.

In looking through the tutorial, I’m trying to find the “Focus 1st” menu. The directions state it is under the “Add-In” menu. I don’t have a “Add-In” menu.

nocorealestate — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 04:47:19 +0000

The Add-In menu appears in some versions of Excel. In other versions (Excel 3.0) the Focus 1st menu is right at the top menu. So you can get to the Focus 1st menu without having to go through the Add-In menu. Also, be aware that the menus change when you move from chart to spreadsheet. The Focus 1st menu will only be shown when you are on one of the spreadsheets and disappears when you are on a chart.

I just downloaded the Visual Pricing System and I’m wondering why I don’t have the Competitive Price Lines or Scattergram Pricing charts. Are those extra products that need to be purchased?

nocorealestate — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:32:01 +0000

The Competitive Price Line chart and the Scattergram Pricing charts are part of the Visual Pricing System. In short, after you read in an exported file, select the "Pricing tab" (located at the bottom), you will see the "MLS Dataform" worksheet. This worksheet includes all the data used to create the graphs. This is data for the past two years which was used to create the charts. Of course, this is much more information than needed (or wanted) to create the Scattergram or Price Line charts. You can select the data you want by using the Scattergram and Price Line columns on the left. You can select the data by selecting one or more boxes then right-clicking. When you right-click, you will get a drop down menu which will enable you to select the data. Once you’ve selected data, you can create your graphs. (By the way, the program has an automatic selection tool that you can make use of.)

Please take a look at the following tutorials. I’m sure you’ll find them very useful in creating these graphs.

Select this link for more information on how to select data using the MLS Data form.

Select this link for more information on how to create the Scattergram charts.

Select this link for more information on how to create the Competitive Price Line charts.