again a linked in question, answered by me:
Here are three options to try. I haven’t used any but the costs aren’t too high so it might be worth experimenting with each:
www.TenantVerification.com
www.E-Renter.com
www.1-Background-Checks.com
costar and loopnet leave a lot to be desired. there’s room for a free advertising driven solution. bring it on and it will thrive.
I don’t know if overseas outsourcing is the panacea that Timothy Ferriss’s Four Hour Work Week makes it out to be…
I tried it with a project to build an owner database and was disappointed with the results.
I think a full or half-time commitment to a single overseas assistant could be the best bet as you could train the individual to meet your expectations and learn your business.
If you’re interested in trying this, a good place to start is Finn Johnson’s RE Back Office. Finn comes from a commercial real estate background so he understands our needs. He can offer the overseas assistant solution you might be seeking.
Did you pay your architect or graphics person WAY too much money in 2007? Or do you have someone in-house is is overworked?
Try out Newplans. They will create or redraw site plans, floor plans, and renderings in full color, and dirt cheap. Beautiful custom maps. Hours and hours of work completed for less than 100 bucks in most cases. The quality of my marketing material has gone up dramatically as I use them all the time.
The dirty little secret? The work is completed in India. It’s actually a beautiful arrangement. I upload the work and instructions at 5 pm, and receive the completed work in any format I desire the next morning. I usually have them give me an Illustrator file so my in-house graphics people can do touch up and corrections.
For the moment, Microsoft has edged out Google in a battle to photograph the Earth.
I was impressed with Keyhole — a satellite imaging application that allows you to “fly over” and label satellite images, and has great potential for brokers, owners and the like interested in developing sexy marketing presentations. Google showed a lot of foresight in buying this company. They rebranded it Google Earth. Google Earth can give a “simulated” 3-D view by taking satellite photos that were taken from directly overhead and “tilting” them.
Google had a great innovation with its street view photography. In certain cities, you can get street level views of (primarily downtown) areas. [Microsoft actually did this first, but only in Seattle and San Francisco. I've read they may be moving to expand this].
Taking it to the next level are the “oblique” (ie three dimensional, taken from a 40 degree angle) aerial images from Pictometry. These images are acutally shot from light aircraft and are much more useful for real estate professionals.
You can view these images from free when you pick “birds eye view” from Windows Live Search Maps. You can go to a number of vendors on the web that sell high quality Pictometry images for $25 each. I use Mapmart.
With these birds eye images, I know longer have to pay hundreds of dollars and wait for days or weeks for a professional to fly and shoot my projects. If you are in the real estate business, you owe it to yourself to start using Pictometry images for prospecting and marketing efforts.
I was a big laptop hater. They struck me as ungainly, ugly, and impractical to lug around to coffee shops, on vacation, and so forth. I was scared to death of dropping them and losing my $2k investment. I’ve killed enough mobile phones that way.
Then along came the Asus Eee. This sucker costs as little as $300 and is small as a hardback book.
It has wireless internet built in along with a web browser. It doesn’t come with Windows, but it can be installed, and frankly I don’t need it for my work as a commercial real estate broker. I can log remotely into my office computer with software that is pre-installed on the computer and access Outlook (and Argus and the Office Suite and anything else our company hosts on the remote terminal for that matter). It is also preloaded with OpenOffice, which has opened all the MSOffice documents I’ve worked with so far.
Naysayers argue you can get a “full sized” laptop for $400. They are missing the point. It’s so small that you can use it on a coach class tray table (I did already), and it’s great for kids. Women could carry it in a clutch. Not that I’m looking for attention but if you are this is for you: more than one person has come up to me saying, “your laptop is so small.”
As a salesperson widely representing sellers of commercial real estate, I receive a lot of voice mails. I never could stand listening to them, so thank you Simulscribe.
All my calls now forward to my Blackberry, and unanswered calls are transcribed by Simulscribe using voice recognition technology and emailed to me.
The transcription technology is not “all there” yet but I get the gist of 95% of my voice mail messages without ever having to listen to a rambling monologue. Visit http://www.simulscribe.com and get 30 days free service to try it out with no commitment to stick with it further!