New Realtor.com Buying Power Tool Shows What Homes Are Affordable Based on the Buyer's Finances
With interest rates constantly changing and home prices at all-time highs, understanding what you can afford has never been more important. To give buyers a more objective view of their budget, Realtor.com has introduced a new buying power tool to help home shoppers see whether a specific home is "affordable," "a stretch," "difficult" or "out of reach." It uses a home a shopper's specific financial details, current mortgage rates, taxes, insurance and HOA fees to determine if the monthly payments will be comfortable. Buying power labels now appear directly on home listings on Realtor.com, making Realtor.com the first national home search site where shoppers can filter their search by selecting their desired affordability range. Recent Realtor.com surveys found that more than two-thirds (68%) of shoppers were surprised by what they could actually afford for their first home. Additionally, 32% of recent buyers found it difficult to understand how changing mortgage rates affected their monthly payments and 62% were surprised by closing costs. Realtor.com's affordability calculator and buying power tool can help prevent these unhappy surprises during the home buying process. "There is nothing more disappointing than falling in love with a home only to realize that you can't afford it, and nothing more exciting than realizing you can afford that dream home. However, there are many factors that go into affordability," said Colleen Coyle, vice president, product management, Realtor.com. "We introduced this tool to help shoppers better understand how much home they can afford and if specific homes fit their budget given their personal financial situation. This tool is especially important right now with rising interest rates – which can add hundreds of dollars to monthly payments and impact buying power." A home's affordability is more than just the asking price. Many first-time home buyers don't realize the added costs of things such as HOA fees, taxes and insurance, not to mention closing costs, which can really add up. Realtor.com's new buying power features give home shoppers the opportunity to input their monthly income, debt payments and savings to determine their budget. Users can save this information to their buyer profile and then search only for homes that fit that budget. To calculate buying power, buyers can visit the Realtor.com affordability calculator and enter their income, monthly debt payments and available funds. By saving this information to their profile, listings on Realtor.com will include an affordability label – "affordable," "a stretch," "difficult" or "out of reach." Users can also filter their search by homes that are within their desired affordability range. Learn more here.

Homesnap's New 'Sell Speed' Tool Predicts How Quickly a Home Will Sell at Different Price Points
Homesnap on Monday announced the debut of Sell Speed, a proprietary artificial intelligence algorithm composed of hundreds of up-to-the-minute real estate market data points that predicts how quickly a home will sell at various prices. This new feature gives agents confidence in recommending price levels in a rapidly-changing real estate environment. Currently available in beta to Homesnap Pro and Homesnap Pro+ users, Sell Speed helps agents better understand their market and develop pricing strategies. Agents can view the Sell Speed of their current listings or any off-market property. With Sell Speed, agents can: Advise sellers on pricing strategy and likelihood to sell: Agents can use Sell Speed to help their clients set realistic goals and expectations about the price their home can command. Agents can illustrate how price variations affect the timeliness of an offer and guide their clients toward striking the ideal balance between asking price and days on market. Enhance listing presentations with pricing insights: Agents can use Sell Speed to identify the ideal property list price for an off-market property. By arming themselves with accurate, data-driven pricing models based upon proven market predictors, agents can win more listings. Use Sell Speed to assist buyers in negotiations (Pro+ agents only): Homesnap Pro+ agents can access the Sell Speed on any listing – even if they are not the listing agent. Pro+ agents can leverage Sell Speed as supporting evidence to prepare offers and facilitate negotiations. "In this intense housing market, pricing homes accurately is more important than ever. Sell Speed was designed to help Homesnap agents amplify their market knowledge both to keep their current clients informed and at ease and to secure potential clients," said John Mazur, Homesnap CEO. Agents can adjust a home's price up to 30% in either direction of the list price or estimated home value. As the price is adjusted, the selling probability timeframe dynamically updates to produce the estimated time in which the property will sell. Unlike other price-predictor tools that can cause confusion with clients and home searchers, Sell Speed is not consumer-facing and is available only to Homesnap Pro agents. "We consider Hundreds of data points to produce the Sell Speed of a home," said Guy Wolcott, Homesnap Founder. "Homesnap's proprietary machine learning algorithm takes current market conditions, similar listings, recent sales, buyer activity and listing agent behavior among others into account to produce the Sell Speed." The Sell Speed agent tool is currently in beta and available on web, iOS and Android devices to registered Homesnap Pro agents. For more information, visit www.homesnap.com.

Homesnap Launches New Net Sheet Calculator: Tell a Seller How Much They Could Make Today
Homesnap has just released a Net Sheet Calculator. With just a few clicks, you can send your clients an easy-to-ready Net Sheet PDF. This PDF includes individual costs, total costs, and net proceeds. You can find this new tool on Homesnap Pro, where you can find the rest of our on-the-go tools.

10 Things You Probably Didn't Know Google Could Do for You
It's not often that a company provides a service so popular that it becomes a verb, but you probably have heard the phrase "Just Google it" many times. Doing a search using Google has become part of most people's daily routine: there are 4.4 billion worldwide searches every single day. But did you know that Google is much more than just a search engine? It is also a highly complex math calculator, a real-time currency converter, a sophisticated multi-lingual translator, a digital dictation machine and more. In fact, Google has so many hidden talents built into its search bar, these five may be only scratching the surface of what Google search can do for you. Here are five things that you can do with Google search shortcuts that you may not know about, but may save you an enormous amount of time.

How to Set Your Goals Now for More Commissions in 2017
It's a safe bet that most agents would like to earn more money in the year ahead, but do you have a plan for how you can step up your game in 2017? We're not talking about simply having vague goals in mind, but instead formulating a tangible plan that includes hard numbers for how many transactions you need to close to hit your income target, as well as how many leads you need to engage to generate those transactions in the first place. Or, as we say in the RE Technology offices, you need to plan your work and work your plan! Fortunately, with a little guidance, this is simple to do—and, it's a great time of year to start planning ahead. Here are a few things you need to keep in mind when formulating a plan for 2017: 1. Establish your baseline Before you figure out where you want to go next year, first you need to figure out where you've been. How much commission did you earn last year? From how many closed transactions did you earn this commission? How many buyer transactions closed? How many listings? Once you've figured this out, you can begin to visualize how many more transactions you need to close in 2017 to hit your income goals.

Weekly Video Tip: Golden Hour Calculator
We keep telling you to shoot your exterior footage at "golden hour." Golden hour this, golden hour that, shoot at golden hour or your footage will look bad! It won't, but you can take advantage of the natural beauty of the sun's light by shooting at specific times of day that yield the softest, and some might say best, quality of light. And the absolute easiest way to plan your shoots is to use the Golden Hour Calculator by Roger Moffatt. The website takes all the guesswork out of it for you. You don't need go to weather.com to look up the sunrise info, just go to golden-hour.com and all the work is done. The site will take a guess at your location, but if it's not right, simply navigate around the map, or use the dropdown menu on the right to select the closest location to you and the information will adjust.