Yes! You Can Obtain a Property Survey for Your Client Online!

Land surveys are still an integral part of the property purchasing process and vitally important during the purchaser's ownership of that land. Property lines are the first thing people refer to when disputing issues like misplaced fences, garages, driveways and even homes!

While some lenders offer title insurance, nothing beats an accurate and properly documented property survey upon closing. 

Title insurance protects clients against losses incurred in situations like defects on title or land survey. This protection is a compensatory measure extended as part of a claim clients may file in pursuit of correcting such a defect.

But beware that the process of filing a claim with the title insurance company is a long and complicated one.  Your clients are better served by knowing upon close that they've purchased a property with clean title - with a survey that documents this.

Then when do lenders consider title insurance a viable alternative to having a survey? Traditionally, when a seller doesn’t have an up-to-date survey in their possession, conducting a new survey tends to be a long, expensive and arduous process. Here's why:

·         A surveyor would have to be obtained

·         The surveyor would have to meet the client

·         The surveyor then performs research

·         The surveyor then heads to the property to perform field work which includes taking accurate measurements of the property

·         The surveyor proceeds to complete drawings

·         And then the survey is delivered

The beauty of today's real estate climate is that now your client can have the best of both worlds – title insurance (which most lenders require) and a survey of the property, if one exists, and without having to trudge through the entire survey process. Some real estate sales professionals who access GeoWarehouse don’t even realize that in the GeoWarehouse store you can purchase a survey of a property electronically!

This makes life so much more manageable for already stressed buyers and sellers. If a seller doesn’t have a survey and a potential buyer makes the offer conditional upon one, you can purchase a survey - easily. If the seller doesn’t want to bear the costs associated with the survey but the buyer is adamant about having one done, the buyer can also opt to pay the necessary fee to have the survey conducted.

Click, click – property survey, and that’s it!

For more information about how you can get property surveys online, please contact GeoWarehouse today at 1-866-237-5937.

What is the difference between GeoWarehouse and ViMO?

The marriage of GeoWarehouse to ViMO is proving to be one of the most powerful toolsets available to real estate sales professionals. To have ViMO, you must be a GeoWarehouse subscriber. This has led to some confusion, and a number of people are still not fully aware of the ViMO app nor the many benefits it offers. Some believe that ViMO is GeoWarehouse’s mobile app and that it serves the same purpose - it doesn’t!

This blog will help separate fact from fiction.

GeoWarehouse is a tool that real estate sales professionals primarily use to perform due diligence and investigate details about properties and neighbourhoods. Through GeoWarehouse you can even reveal encumbrances and liens on properties; electronically request surveys and condo certificates and much, much more. GeoWarehouse is the Ferrari of real estate research and due diligence!

While ViMO, on the other hand, is a tool that can be used to perform research about a property,  a neighbourhood or demographics, it is primarily a marketing tool. A real estate sales professional can use ViMO to post listings as well as market them; collaborate with other professionals and even use it to electronically sign documents.

ViMO is a tool that comes in very handy when working remotely and out of the office. Imagine increased ease transacting while on the road with clients or working open houses. ViMO makes the buying and selling process way more efficient and with far less paper. That said, full service client representation involves more than just the buying and selling of properties. This is where diligent real estate sales professionals turn to GeoWarehouse: to validate legal ownership of a property, check registered mortgages to ensure the existence of sufficient equity, or to review a property's history to ensure that everything is copasetic.

As a real estate sales professional your sales related duties are important. Yet of even greater significance, is your role as the first line of defense against mortgage fraud and as the first professional - in a string of professionals - to deal with the administration of legal documents that facilitate a property transfer.

While you can use both GeoWarehouse and ViMO to perform some of the same basic functions, these two tools are optimized when you combine them.  Not only will you achieve more while on-the-go, you can also help make the entire buying and selling process more efficient.

If you are a GeoWarehouse customer interested in more information about ViMO you can view the full demo here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxkxwZbUmNs.

Not a GeoWarehouse customer? Find out why you should be and reach out to our sales team today! Please call 1-866-237-5937.

Gas Prices Inching Up – Could We be Headed for a BOC Rate Increase

Fluctuating economy conditions create a well-known international financial domino effect. When market conditions show negative response to fluctuations, one of the adverse effects the economy bears is a tightening of credit conditions. From there, a financial domino effect can create a larger economic instability, which, in turn, can have dramatic impact on housing markets.

Let’s look at a recent chain of events that began overseas and ended up impacting the housing market within Canada:

·         Earlier this year gas prices dropped to lows not seen in years, to well under a dollar. This resulted in our own dollar sinking.

·         This drop then resulted in the BOC deciding to take measures to protect the economy by lowering interest rates.

·         In January 2015, the BOC reduced the country’s lending rate by .25.

This only fueled an existing rate-war between mortgage lenders.

Think about how this chain of events has impacted your overall business these last few months. Did you witness an increase in business as a result?

Now that gas prices have inched their way back up, what’s next for the Canadian economy - specifically housing and other domestic economic contributors? Some believe that increased gas prices spell a rise in the value of the Canadian dollar, which would then prompt the BOC to feel confident enough to increase interest rates.

However, this line of thinking is based on the assumption that the only factor impacting the BOC’s monetary policy is the price of oil. This isn’t the case. So how CAN we predict what will happen next?

If you are a real estate sales professional who pays close attention to the economy, we're interested in your predictions for Canadian interest rate activity through 2015. As many believe that recovery from the 2008 recession remains one of this past century’s most difficult, how much more complicated would that make any further economic instability?

We’d love to hear from you on this! Please post your feedback and ideas on our Facebook page, Twitter @GeoWarehouse or in our LinkedIn Group.

Regardless of how interest rates may fluctuate, GeoWarehouse remains a steadfast tool for your real estate due diligence.  Remember, GeoWarehouse is the premier, online due diligence tool for viewing property ownership history, comparable sales, value, home ownership, and registered mortgages, as well as obtaining condo certificates, surveys, Parcel Registers*, MPAC assessment reports and more. Call us today at 1-866-237-5937.

Marketing Refresher: Social Media Marketing for Real Estate

Social media is not just a fad – this is undeniable – and real estate professionals across Canada are taking advantage – are you? Check out these great infographics if you need a refresher on just how and why social media is so crucial for your overall marketing strategy!

Twitter – with over 270 million active users, this platform should not be ignored:

Facebook – With the most active users of any social network in the world, this platform offers the most potential for your business:

Make yourself more marketable and keep in touch with clients all in one place – contact ViMO today at www.myvimo.ca. 

GeoWarehouse - The Real Estate Tool That Does it All!

With the real estate industry so hot, that means competition is high, and any tools you can access to help you compete are worth their weight in gold. GeoWarehouse is one such tool - and real estate sales professionals are raving about what this great tool can do.

Wondering what all the fuss is about? Check out this quick video to see just a few of the things GeoWarehouse can do to make your job easier: 

Already decided to take advantage, but just waiting to get your feet wet? Check out this great “Getting Started” video. It gives you step by step instructions to help you set yourself up: 

Want to know more about this great real estate tool, or find out how you can start reaping the benefits? Call GeoWarehouse today at 1-866-237-5937 to learn more! 

Liens, Liens, Liens – Which Ones You Can Spot, and Which Ones You Can’t!

It may not happen often, but when it does it can pose closing challenges that can be insurmountable. What are we talking about? Liens!

An unanticipated lien can kill a deal if the homeowner doesn’t have the means to resolve it. The sooner you uncover liens, the better. Once the ball starts rolling on a deal, so much time and expense is expended for all that a solution to quickly uncover liens is paramount for any real estate sales professionals.

Now – there is no magic bullet for liens as there are some liens you can learn about through a simple search and some you can’t! For example:

Construction – if someone has had or is having work done on a property or is building a home a construction lien could exist without it appearing on a Parcel Register*.

Unpaid property taxes – this is a huge one because all taxes must be paid before the property title will be transferred. While a lien may not be formerly registered on title, unpaid property taxes could exist, will be uncovered on closing, and could therefore sabotage a deal.

Condo fee arrears. Like property taxes, if your client has fallen behind on their payments to condo fees, a lien may not be registered but upon the lawyer receiving a status certificate, unpaid condo fees will be uncovered and will have to be paid on closing.

Other liens that will appear on the Parcel Register* include:

• Unpaid tax debts/debts to the government
• Liens registered through the court once a creditor has obtained a judgement
• Condo liens – once registered
• Property tax liens – once registered

You can greatly mitigate a lien going undetected by performing some basic diligence.

Checking the Parcel Register* will uncover most liens. If a lien comes up and you need to communicate more details on the lien to your client you can go a step further and look at the instrument image associated to the registration number of the lien. The instrument image will reveal more details about the lien, such as the contact information of the registrant.

Where condo owners are concerned – we have come a long way since the days of the 10 day condo certificate process. While some condo certificates do still take time to obtain, the process to get them is far simpler. You can now request a condo certificate online and receive it electronically – vs waiting to have that mammoth 100+ page document delivered to you.

Property taxes – you can handle this 1 of 2 ways. You can ask your client to provide you with their most recent property tax statement or you can request one from the tax office directly. Now requesting it from the tax office may include a fee so you may just want to mandate that on all new listings one of the required documents that your client provide be their tax statement.

Taking these simple steps can help you root out more liens and allow your client to address any issues before an offer is extended. Don’t let anything impact a closing.

For more about any of these documents or how to obtain them, please visit www.geowarehouse.ca today.

*An official product of the Ontario government pursuant to provincial land registration statutes.

A Divorcing Client May Require More Due Diligence

A divorce can send folks scrambling. In a perfect world, when people split they would be able to talk through what to do with their assets, but in a nasty divorce especially, where emotions are high and everyone is trying to come out a winner, this is not always possible.

Through marriage, people work together, sometimes over their entire lives, to accumulate assets which include real estate. This is why it is not uncommon that some may do whatever it takes to try to get what is theirs out of the divorce.

A very common occurrence with divorcing spouses is that one may want to sell a property that has the other spouse’s name on it with the hope that if an offer comes in they will be able to convince the ex-spouse to sell – some may even deploy other tactics to provide you with a signed offer.

Avoiding this is simple.

• When you are considering taking on a new listing, prior to visiting the property, perform a search to confirm who the legal homeowners are.
• At this point you can contact your client to confirm that all legal homeowners will be at the engagement meeting with identification.

This is the only real way to verify that you are dealing with all legal homeowners – meet them, see them, see their ID. It is a red flag if you uncover that there is another person on title and your client says that they won’t be available to meet in person, but that they can send a copy of their ID and any documents can be faxed to them to sign. As a rule of thumb, if you can’t meet and see ID for all legal homeowners, you may want to pass on the listing.

From time-to-time you may encounter someone that says that their spouse lives out of province or country – in this instance another option is to send the other party to a lawyer in their country to certify their identification and identity.

In the most innocent scenario, taking the extra step to verify who owns a property will mean that you can flag an issue and work through it, or, in the ugliest scenario, prevent blatant mortgage fraud.

Protect yourself and your clients. Use GeoWarehouse to easily find out who is on title. Contact us today at 1-866-237-5937.