Sacramento Real Estate Tube | Non-Spammy Real Estate Videos » Technology

Using Google Maps during house hunting?

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 06:17:29 +0000

It’s amazing how we can use technology in our search for real estate? Have you used “street maps” in Google Maps yet in your real estate hunt? I made a short tutorial video to show how to use “street maps” with an Android Phone. If you have an iPhone, see this post by REbliss.com.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Ryan Lundquist
Sacramento Real Estate Appraiser
Lundquist Appraisal Company
TEL 916-595-3735
http://www.LundquistCompany.com
http://www.SacramentoAppraisalBlog.com

How to set up a monthly budget worksheet

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 13:42:25 +0000

Chad Focht, a local mortgage specialist with Mason McDuffie, created a monthly budget worksheet in Excel. This video is a brief overview of how to use it and how it works. Please watch the video and if you’d like a copy, email or call Chad, and he’ll get it over to you. Chad’s email is chad and his phone number is 916-798-1234. @chadfocht.comwww.ChadFocht.com
What do you think? Would something like this work for you?

How to make a scatter graph with Sacramento MLS

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 03:27:41 +0000

One of the tools in my real estate utility belt is making trend graphs. Why is this important? I find that being able to visually display all sales or listings on a graph is a very convincing resource. For example, when a home owner hires me to do an appraisal for bankruptcy or any other reason, and I include graphs of historic sales over the past three years, sales over the last twelve months, and then other graphs showing sales for 3-bedroom units, and properties similar in size to the owner’s house, it’s easy to begin to get a picture of what is happening in the real estate market. The great thing too is that you can graph so many different facets, whether square footage, age, date, bed-count, days on market, short sales vs. REOs vs typical sales, etc…

You can see some examples of trend graphs here if you wish. For now, I made a brief video tutorial to help local Realtors and real estate professionals in the Sacramento area export and work with data from our local MLS. It’s a huge benfit to be able to share things like this with clients, and once you have a little practice, you can crank out graphs very quickly. And don’t worry, if you don’t have Excel on your computer, simply download Gnumeric for free.

If you have any questions, let me know, particularly if you are a local Realtor. Call me at 916.595.3735 or connect with me on Facebook or my blog or websites.

Ryan Lundquist
Certified Real Estate Appraiser
Property Tax Consultant
TEL: 916.595.3735
www.LundquistCompany.com
www.SacramentoTaxAppeals.com
www.SacramentoAppraisalBlog.com

MapQuest Route Planner Will Plan and Optimize Your Route

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 13:18:34 +0000

Bryan from www.REbliss.com gives us a techie tip again. This is great when searching for a house or if you work in the real estate field. What do you think?

“MapQuest has released a route planner that will optimize a route for up to 25 addresses. One of the best features of the Route Planner is that you can save your map to view on your iPhone or view later. It is a tremendous time saver to be able to map multiple addresses and optimize my route. The MapQuest Route Planner and iPhone are great tools for the mobile real estate professional.” (from YouTube).

See Bryan’s blog post for details, visit his Twitter account at @reblissdotcom or catch REBliss on Facebook too.

Google Cloud Print Will Let You Print To Any Computer In The World

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:32:01 +0000

Google has unveiled their Google Cloud Print. You will be able to print to ANY printer that is connected to the internet from any computer. This is exciting news for the mobile real estate professional.

How will this impact real estate? Or what about your profession, if you don’t work in real estate?

See www.REbliss.com or this specific blog post for more information: http://rebliss.com/blog/2010/06/15/google-cloud-print-will-let-you-print-to-any-computer-in-the-world/

Energy Efficient House: Updated Video with Housing Group Fund / SMUD in Sacramento

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Sat, 29 May 2010 03:57:18 +0000

If you have not seen the SMUD Energy Efficient House yet, check it out. This video is less than three minutes and it’ll walk you through all the basic features of the house. I have a much longer video up HERE (8 minutes), but the video in this post is condensed to make it a bit easier to digest. Enjoy.

Description from Previous Video:

I had the pleasure this morning of touring a SMUD Energy Efficient Remodel Demonstration Project at 3893 32nd Avenue in Sacramento (SMUD is our local utility company in Sacramento County). This house was purchased in September 2009 as a bank-owned heavy fixer and then rehabbed by Housing Group Fund into a pristine and very energy-efficient home. I saw this property when it was purchased and the difference is truly remarkable (not to mention all the energy efficient gadgets too).

I made a video to give you a tour. What do you think? Have you ever heard of Quad-Lock before?

This event was promoted at several Sacramento Association of Realtors meetings, and it seemed to be a draw among local real estate professionals. The event today was attended by real estate agents and local media mostly and was dubbed the “SMUD Energy Efficient Remodel Demonstration Project”. SMUD claims that the state-of-the-art technology in this house can save up to 60% off utility bills (up to $1,500 per year in utility bills for the home owner). I wouldn’t mind that savings on my home.

I’d never seen the Quad-Lock technology before. This house is apparently the first home in Sacramento to have this nifty insulation installed. I’d be very curious to hear from anyone who has installed this before. Does it work well?

For more information, see the following:

http://www.smud.org/
http://www.HousingGroupFund.com

You can catch up with me on my website at www.LundquistCompany.com or my appraisal blog at www.SacramentoAppraisalBlog.com. You can see the original post regarding this updated video at the following link: http://sacramentoappraisalblog.com/2010/05/06/an-energy-efficient-house-round-2-of-video/

Ryan Lundquist – Sacramento Real Estate Appraiser – 916.595.3735

Use Google Maps to Help You Locate The Property Lines

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Fri, 21 May 2010 05:11:32 +0000

Bryan from www.REbliss.com brings us the video above. From YouTube: “Google Maps has integrated Plat Maps into Google Maps from some counties in the US. This is an exciting feature that will be helpful to anyone buying or selling real estate.” See the following link for more details: http://rebliss.com/blog/2010/05/05/buying-a-house-use-google-maps-to-help-you-locate-the-property-lines/

What do you think? Could you forsee yourself using an app like this to locate property lines? Do you have other apps you use for real estate?

Subscribe to our Website: Sacramento Real Estate Tube

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 18:15:37 +0000

This screencast video quickly explains how to interact with our website at SacramentoRealEstateTube.com. There are two subscription options to get posts delivered to you right away: RSS & Email Subscription. Additionally, you can interact with the “Sacramento Tube” real estate community on both Twitter and Facebook.

I hope this is helpful. Thanks for your support and for continuing to check out (and submit) real estate related videos.

Twitter:
http://www.twitter.com/SacramentoTube

Facebook Page:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Sacramento-Real-Estate-Tube/117589858267005

How to Create a 3D Model of Your House Plan for Free

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:51:15 +0000

Bryan at www.REBliss.com gives us another great piece of technology. How do you think you could use this?

From YouTube: “Sweet Home 3D is a free interior design application that creates a 3D model of your house plans. You can upload a copy of you house plans or draw the plans yourself. The application is easy to use and there is an online version so there is nothing to download or install. You will need to register and log in if you want to save your 3D model.”

Yahoo’s Sketch-a-Search Could Change the Way You Search for Real Estate on Your iPhone

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:32:00 +0000

From Bryan at www.REbliss.com: Yahoo released the Sketch-a-Search iPhone app that lets you search with your finger. Say you are searching for a restaurant within 5 blocks of your current location but want to avoid a certain area, just draw a shape on the map and that area becomes your search area.

No keywords, or typing—just draw on your screen with your finger to identify where you want to search. You’ll get a bird’s eye view of your restaurant results, all conveniently located near your destination.

You can read more about this app HERE. Like Bryan says in the video, this could have a great use once real estate searching is integrated.

How to Make a Free Podcast for your Blog or Website Using Google Voice

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:08:59 +0000

If you have a blog or website, this is a great way to make FREE podcasts. Whether you have a real estate related blog or not, this might be worth considering.

This video is a screencast for how to make a FREE podcast for your blog or website by using Google Voice. This is what I do for my real estate appraisal blog and I’ve also used this method for other websites too.

This is so easy to do. All you need to do is set up a Google Voice account for free (see link below), leave a message on your phone, and then embed that message (with HTML code provided by Google Voice) on your blog or website in the location you choose.

If you have any questions, let me know. I hope this was easy to understand and I hope it works out well for you. I would love to hear if you end up using this “podcast” system or if you have other tools. Send me a link to your post so I can give it a listen. Thanks.

Google Voice: http://www.google.com/googlevoice/about.html
Google Voice Account Request: https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/

Take care.

Ryan Lundquist
Lundquist Appraisal Company
916-595-3735
www.LundquistCompany.com
www.SacramentoAppraisalBlog.com

ZipRealty iPhone App With Augmented Reality

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:30:26 +0000

From REbliss.com. Bryan McDonald brings home the techie bacon for us again.

ZipRealty’s iPhone app includes an augmented reality feature that enables the user to look through their iPhone to see what homes have sold recently and what homes are currently listed for sale. This tool can be very useful for home owners as well as real estate professionals.

See Bryan’s full article here:

http://rebliss.com/blog/2010/03/08/ziprealtys-iphone-app-is-not-just-for-homebuyers/

Make a PDF from a Web Page

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:48:55 +0000

PDFmyURL.com is an easy way to convert web pages to PDF documents. I know it is already easy to convert a web page to a PDF document, go to File – Print. Select Adobe PDF (or what ever PDF writer you have) Click “Print”. This process is not long or complicated but what if you could do this 3 step process with just one click? Anything that makes my life easier or eliminates mouse clicks is a no brainer for me.

This is a tip from Brian at www.REBliss.com.

Free Flood Maps at www.fema.gov

Sacramento Tube Admin - Ryan Lundquist — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 06:29:01 +0000

How to find a flood map for free using FEMA.gov (this guy isn’t local, but the information is good).