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Post by Melissa Smith on Mar 26, 2005 10:56:09 GMT -5
Guests may ask questions here without registering. Simply reply to this message and I will do my best to answer any questions you may have.
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Post by William on Mar 26, 2005 10:58:12 GMT -5
I just don't get it. What is this?
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Post by Melissa Smith on Mar 26, 2005 18:17:11 GMT -5
OK. The best way I describe it is as a refrigerator magnet for your computer. Think of all the people that shop for a house, or are even considering it. One of the first things they do is research. They want to get an idea of what to do, what it involves, and the costs.
Next,they want to figure out how much house they can buy before they start looking. Once they start looking, they continue to look at houw each house fits into their budget.
How do people do this? Well, they go online to a search engine and punch in some information such as "mortgage claculator" or other similar thing. The results come up and guess what? YOU ARE NOT THERE!
That's right. Try it! You will get mortgage-calc.com, bankrate.com, eloans, ditech, and all the other names. No matter how much you try, the big operators will always dominate this market and you will continue to get the fringes of the purchase market.
Real Estate Assistant is designed to change that!
What you do is make and give out these tools to customers for free. You give them away like candy. That way they use your software by clicking on the desktop icon rather than going online at all.
So what makes them call you? Well, I customize your software to have your information all over it. All of the help files suggest contacting you for further assistance. They see your name each time they start the software.
What I do is make the software. You pay a one-time fee for us to customize the software specifically to your needs and you get a copy of the software that you are free to copy to other CDs as often as you like.
You can buy CDs by the hundreds, or even thousands and make copies to give away. You give them to everyone you can. You can use flyers or run "FREE SOFTWARE" newspaper ads. Your objective is to get the software into everyone's hands so they use your software rather than go online for mortgage calculators.
Then when someone needs your tools, they get to see your name and contact information.
Face it. The world has changed. People don;t call an LO now for quotes on mortgage rates, and who buys mortgage calculators except for LOs and finance salespeople. These people now go online to get their information.
With the Real Estate Assistant, you can STOP this and get them calling YOU!
Let me know if you have any other questions.
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Post by joe on Sept 7, 2005 19:37:56 GMT -5
Font Size. I'm old, I have trouble reading stuff that small. Some of my clients are my age too and I'm guessing they might appreciate something a little larger also? Is this an option?
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Post by joe on Sept 7, 2005 19:45:27 GMT -5
So ... Kevin is all but gone :-(
IF I purchase REA, well, uh, do the new owners have the background to keep the shop running, fix bizarre problems and keep the product competitive with updates, upgrades, etc?
PS I wish you well w/ your new business venture.
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Post by joe on Sept 8, 2005 6:50:13 GMT -5
In the demo, most of the screens have a ? (question mark) in the upper right corner. When you click it they all say, "Hey, how 'bout that John Smith, what a great guy, call him if you have any questions." Which is cool, but, when you click the close button ("X" out) it brings you back to start instead of where you left off.
I'm thinkin' they're not going to be thinkin' John is such a cool guy if they have to be going back to "start" all the time?
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Post by joe on Sept 11, 2005 6:02:49 GMT -5
I'm beginning to wonder if this forum is the best way to ask questions but I'll give it another shot:
I'm liking this REA thing, it's not perfect but it's FAR better than anything I could do.
However ... off the top of my head, here's a few of the things I've noticed;
Calculators; I'm just starting to go through them but at least one, after you've run amortization and click go back, presumably to tweak your numbers, it not only clears all your numbers, it also send you to the wrong calculator.
Content: Localization Issues;
* Realtors up here only get 6% not 7.
* Property taxes around here are more like a whopping 3.5% NOT 0.9 ... i wish ;-(
* Up north I'd be laughed out of town if I ever suggested we could go a third layer of roofing shingles.
Other content;
* I know the FSBO section is optional but in the "Steps to ..." section there's some more FSBO stuff at the expense of my realtors ;-(
* There's too many references implying that "John Smith, LO" can do the work of a realtor and/or attorney.
That's just off the top of my head. Can you accomodate any/all? Are these considered customizations or bug fixes? Or perhaps I'm just too picky?
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Post by Melissa Smith on Sept 15, 2005 9:02:33 GMT -5
Font Size. I'm old, I have trouble reading stuff that small. Some of my clients are my age too and I'm guessing they might appreciate something a little larger also? Is this an option? The font size is fixed. There is no way to please everyone since so many people use different resolutions. You will be handing this out to people. The majority of computer user resolutions run from 640x480 to 1024x768. Higher and lower resolutions are at the extremes where the font gets difficult to read or is too large. HOWEVER, due to repeated requests I am considering the possibility of increasing the font size. I can probably go up 2 more points. If that is the last thing standing in the way of your order, I will be glad to do this for you, but please bear in mind that it may be rather large for users with lower resolutions. This is especially important if you are using a resolution higher than 1024x768. |
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Post by Melissa Smith on Sept 15, 2005 9:03:34 GMT -5
So ... Kevin is all but gone :-( IF I purchase REA, well, uh, do the new owners have the background to keep the shop running, fix bizarre problems and keep the product competitive with updates, upgrades, etc? PS I wish you well w/ your new business venture. Thank you for your wishes. I have the background and support necessary to run the ship. No reason to worry. The program is simple and should be free of any "bizarre problems". I will also be providing you with updates when you need things changed on your orders. As for upgrades, I dont think anyone in the software industry can look down the road ahead and decide when they will make upgrades or what they will entail until they decide to do so. As of now I have no plans for a newer version since this version is only 6 months old. Software is as much about art as it is about skill. I have the skills necessary to run this business, but how my ideas for any possible future versions will compare to Kevin's will only be known in time....... |
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Post by Melissa Smith on Sept 15, 2005 9:05:12 GMT -5
In the demo, most of the screens have a ? (question mark) in the upper right corner. When you click it they all say, "Hey, how 'bout that John Smith, what a great guy, call him if you have any questions." Which is cool, but, when you click the close button ("X" out) it brings you back to start instead of where you left off. I'm thinkin' they're not going to be thinkin' John is such a cool guy if they have to be going back to "start" all the time? I can change this to pop up the same way the "About John" page comes up on the "Steps To Ownership" page when you click on the "John Smith" link. This would give you a pop-up "About" page instead of taking you to the real page. This would address your problem and wouldn't take me long to sort out. If I had designed this from scratch, I would have designed it as a series of pop up pages. Kevin designed this in frames however and unfortunately, HTA applications do not allow for a "Back" function and rewriting the code from scratch is simply not practical. |
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Post by Melissa Smith on Sept 15, 2005 9:07:45 GMT -5
I'm beginning to wonder if this forum is the best way to ask questions but I'll give it another shot: I'm liking this REA thing, it's not perfect but it's FAR better than anything I could do. However ... off the top of my head, here's a few of the things I've noticed; Calculators; I'm just starting to go through them but at least one, after you've run amortization and click go back, presumably to tweak your numbers, it not only clears all your numbers, it also send you to the wrong calculator. Content: Localization Issues; * Realtors up here only get 6% not 7. * Property taxes around here are more like a whopping 3.5% NOT 0.9 ... i wish ;-( * Up north I'd be laughed out of town if I ever suggested we could go a third layer of roofing shingles. Other content; * I know the FSBO section is optional but in the "Steps to ..." section there's some more FSBO stuff at the expense of my realtors ;-( * There's too many references implying that "John Smith, LO" can do the work of a realtor and/or attorney. That's just off the top of my head. Can you accomodate any/all? Are these considered customizations or bug fixes? Or perhaps I'm just too picky? If I knew exactly what calculator you were working with, I could fix the sending to the wrong calculator. That's easy. As a matter of fact, that may be an error unique to the "demo" that I have not examined. As for the clearing of the numbers, there's nothing to be done there. As the calculator uses the numbers, it posts them to the new page. As I said before, this is written in frames and HTA does not allow for a "back" function. Therefore, when you click to "go back" you are really clicking to go to a new version of the same page. If you purchased, I would be willing to attempt an workaround that might open the amortization in a new page, but only if you ordered and with no guarantees. This is the first time I have ever heard of anyone having a problem with this (and I have spoken to many users) and I don't think that several hours of troubleshooting would be worth even trying unless a paid customer requested it Regarding the content issues: All content is editable. Please just provide me with the text as you would like it to read. Please check your spelling as I would be copying and pasting. You are not too picky at all! That's the idea behind the software. I can accommodate any and all "content" changes but not changes to the actual structure. I am capable of altering the structure, but I will make changes to that at my own discretion. Some changes are possible, but at the price, not practical. When I am faced with structural changes, I will offer customers the option to get a custom quote where I charge more for a major retooling of the code. Other suggestions I keep handy for possible future versions and/or products. I simply can't accommodate all requests at the pricing I have. It is designed for content level changes only. I hope I have answered your questions. If you have any other questions, please post here. I am sorry that I didn;t get back to you sooner but I have been very busy and didn;t notice your posts. Thanks! |
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Post by joe on Sept 27, 2005 4:29:06 GMT -5
Thanks for answering my questions. Good answers they were. I now know that you are MORE than capable of managing your new company :-)
Regarding the calculators; It seems that anytime i go to a calculator w/ amortization, click the amortize button and then go back ... it goes back to the bi-weekly calculator. Hope that helps?
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Post by Nicole on Jan 12, 2006 14:00:12 GMT -5
Do you have a reverse mortgage calculator available?
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