What a feeling...

Heather and I were in Charlottesville , VA this weekend attending an amazing masterminding weekend with David Finkel. There were about 25 of us at this very intimate event; I learned so much. Thank you David

One of the many nuggets that I walked away with after this weekend: when somebody helps you out or gives you words of encouragement, no matter how small or insignificant a deed - a thank you card or note of appreciation is absolutely invaluable.

Today when we got home, a large box had arrived for us. We love getting mail, especially unexpected mail, so we were really excited to open it.

Inside there was a card saying “You Totally Rock” and the message read, “Hi Heather and Alan, Thank you so much for all your help. I so appreciate all your time teaching me how to use the software. I wish you so much success in your business. You are a great team.…..”

This generous gift came from one of our new users Sandy C, from California.

When we read the card, our faces lit up. What a feeling! And inside the big box it got better, there was yet another box to be opened...filled with Brownies… My Favorite, how did you know? After a long exhasuting trip back home, our day got new legs - Thank you Sandy for sharing your thoughtfulness (and sweet tooth) with us.

Ok so why am I, the boring number crunching engineer, writing this in the MyPropFolio blog? Well, I realized after a weekend full of these lessons and coming home to another reminder - how much relationships with clients shape our business and even more so my own mindset and attitude. Helping Sandy learn about MyPropFolio, knowing how happy she is using our system and incredibly thankful for our support is so encouraging and inspiring. We have a relationship beyond software, and the next time she reaches out to us with a question or problem, or even some constructive critism, I will be eager to hear from her.

We all need relationships, to survive in life, and to succeed in business. Taking the time to build strong relationships with your internal teams and external partners from the start can take you so far. Think about the relationships you have with your banker, water or electric company technician, or contractors - even possibly your family and friends in this crazy busy world. When was the last time you spent time developing that relationship, making a stronger personal connection? Now think about the last time you've called upon those same relationships to ask for a favor, accelerate a deadline or voice a complaint. Would you feel differently makng the challenging calls if you frequently shared positive stories, genuine gratitude or simply just checked in from time to time without tasks or questions. And vice versa, how do you feel getting customer appreciation out of the blue?

My task for this week for myself and for you all - invest some positive time in a relationship and add a new one each week. We all want to build long lasting and profitable alliances - here's how we do it. We pick up the phone, send a thoughtful note, share a lesson learned with our partners and co-workers. Its critical to our overall success.

FED cut rate to 2%..

The media has painted a great picture of the grim reaper at the door waiting for anyone who is even contemplating investing in Real Estate - the truth is that the Grim Reaper was standing at the door for the last 2 years waiting for all of the lazy non educated investors to buy properties at inflated prices and high interest rates. Those are the people who are hurting in today’s market - not the smart investors who are swooping in to buy current inventory at pennies on the dollar.

So let’s look at the facts at why this is the best year ever to invest in Real Estate,

Yesterday the FED cut rates to 2%, thank you Mr. Bernanke
The FED has reduced the interest rates on money loaned to banks to 2%. Investors are not seeing all of these benefits been past on. Read my next blog post!!

Banks and home owners are selling their properties for pennies on the dollar, thank you Mr Bush
Go to Vegas, Phoenix, Sacramento etc and you can see fire sales happening all day, every day. A lot of investors and homeowners bought properties that they cannot afford and are selling at deep, deep discounts.

2008 Stimulus package gives amazing tax benefits for people buying in 08, thank you Mr Bush
Get to deduct 50% of personal property THIS YEAR!! How many of these “GRIM REAPER” media sources are educating you about Chattel?

What a year to invest! On top of these financial gains, yesterday I spoke to Kim, a Californian investor who called two REO realtors to buy properties this week.

Wouldn't you think that these 2 Californian realtors, where the Real Estate market is SOOO bad would be jumping through hoops to sell Kim properties?? Think again - both Realtors past her onto one of their associates as they are "too busy" at the moment....

Who do you listen to??
The media who are always on top of what is going on in the streets….
or the real estate agents who are too busy to take your calls??

The sugar buzz is wearing off...

Wow what a crazy 2008 it has been, our brilliant engineers are working their fingers to the bone and what an amazing job they are doing..

This morning I got an email from Susan, one of our first MPF members with the following words of encouragement

"MPF is a great tool - especially some of the recent upgrades."
Susan S, Tennesse

With regards to the recent upgrades, have you seen the new buyers section???

Wow I was so impressed with what Mike and Paul have developed - I think that we all need to thank them for the many hours they are putting in to make our lives so much easier.

Over the next few weeks we will be receiving even more enhancements in the buyers section, we will be able to say good bye to using all other autoresponders - yippeee - which will inturn reduce the cost of using MyPropFolio. In fact for all of the smart members who joined first it will reduce the price of MyPropFolio to free..... I hear you all say - damn I wish I bought it months ago...

I am so happy that MyPropFolio is available now as we are beginning to see investors raising their heads again in the Real Estate market. This week I had a nice pint of Guinness with Stuart Newton, who is an amazing local property developer. Stuart has a number of lots that he is selling and informed me that last year and Q1 of this year sales were hard but in the next week he believes that he will have all of his development under contract with very solid buyers. Investing is getting excitting again...

One last note, I really want to thank all of our members who give us great feedback on what they like (and don't like) about MyPropFolio. If you want to see any of the new features and benifits from MyPropFolio, don't hesitate to give us a call or an email - we love to use and demo the system

Have a great weekend
Alan O'Brien

Weekly Release Update 3/14/2008

Hello Everyone,

Each week, MyPropFolio will release updates and new features to the applications. This week, we have published some great new functionality. Please read below for the list of updates.

Improved Cash Flow Analysis (APOD)

• You can now calculate and save your cash on cash return with in seconds. You can even estimate this with accelerated depreciation. You can enter your financing assumptions, estimated property income and expenses and work out how much money you are making every month. It is possible to do this with to scenarios, if you intend to Buy and Hold the property or Sell it as a rental.

New Estimated Future Calculator!

• This new feature estimates your potential profit on a property you wish to buy. Simply plug in values based on a projected time you wish to hold the property. Press Calculate and within seconds your projected profits will be displayed.

New Role!

• If you decide to hold a property as a rental now you have that option by placing it in the Hold section, keep your eyes open as in the next few weeks you will be able to manage your properties as well.

Never loose a vendor again

• You now have the ability to grow your vendor list while having complete control over which vendor your team are able to work with. This enables your team to work with the vendors that YOU decide are performing.
  

Find your info in seconds, even if you don't have all the details

• Our search functionality has been enhanced so your searches will display any matches that include your keyword. Quickly search for Properties, Buyers, Vendors or Users even if you can't remember all of the information.

If you have any question, please visit our support page or join us for a live support webinar on Monday’s at 5pm PST to preview the latest features.

Thank you for using MyPropFolio,

Paul Sohal

Support Webinar Follow Up 03/10/08

MyPropFolio has its weekly support call on Monday’s at 5 pm PST (users check your inbox for information). These calls give MPF users a sneak peak at new features, as well as to provide a live forum for YOU to give feedback and suggest future features. We want you to deliver you the very best Real Estate tool to grow your business – so please join us as we listen.

Mike Traub, one of MPF’s Real Estate Techie runs these calls.

These calls are 1 hour and consist of the following:

1) 20 minutes - MPF training on different product aspects
2) 30 minutes - Users Questions and Answers!
3) 5 minutes - Overview of new Features to be released that week
4) Wrap Up

We follow up on user requests that are made on the webinar on Wednesday’s through this blog.

We had the following questions asked on this week’s webinar.

Application
Can the Dashboard calendar integrate with Outlook?
We have taken on discovery of how long it will take to integrate and will get back to you with an answer in the next week or 2.

Need a clear explanation of the User Roles on the user screen.
We are updating the user screen this week with details of each user role. It will be available on this Friday’s product update.

Hot-keys?
We are implementing that the enter button will default to saving the page that you are currently on and estimate that this will be live on March 28th.


Questions about the Webinar
Will the support webinars be repetitive?
From March 17th (St Patricks Day – so I will not be on the call…) all support webinars will be recorded and added to the support page within the MPF application. By implementing these recordings we will try to eliminate repetitive questions as much as possible.

To make suggestions on new features that you would like to see – Make sure you are on the weekly live calls…

Will reminder emails to be sent out more than 24 hours ahead?
In the future, an email will be sent out to all users on Friday’s and Monday’s as a reminder of that weeks call.


How can we contact support directly?

There are two easy ways to contact us for support,
1) Email
Under the Support tab of MPF, press the “Contact Us” link under Contact Support and you can send us a support e-mail.

2) Phone
We are available by pone Monday through Friday 9am – 5pm PST at (408) 649-5431.

We are posting this number on our support page (Support tab, under the Contact Support). This will be updated on Friday March 14th, when we release new code.


To get all of the latest tips and tricks to improve your business as well as to make suggestions of what you want to see be on the weekly support webinar’s every Monday at 5pm PST.

Keep investing right to make money and most importantly HAVE FUN

See you soon
Alan