From the desk of Galen Parker

We have added a NEW page; Featured Investment Properties and the ability to select a default display/landing page. Select from Featured, Summary, List or Map views to customise your site. These new customisations are a better way to manage ‘how-to’ engage your network/affiliates or direct investors.

Also in this release

a) ‘Default Cash Deposit’ can now be overridden in the customise section of Business Admin. By default this value is the Min Property Deposit;

b) Rental CPI has been separated from CPI for property performance calculations. Default values can be defined in Business Admin -> Customise;

c) We’ve added the option for 30% rental discount to the list of NRAS Rental discounts options available in Estates section 2;

d) Deal Management. Commissions, Deal Events, Logos and Client Interactions has been improved; and

e) Customise calculator default assumption now possible via Business Admin and for affiliates via Sales administration.

Featured Investment Properties

• Please see image below for placement of the ‘Feature’ tab on the public site
• No performance information is displayed
• The display content and icons are kept to a minimum
• A short text area is provided to present / introduce the project
• The project display order is NOT determined by property performance
• The ability to amend the text is coming soon. What this means is each Subscriber with access to a project can amend and update the introduction about the project to best suit their service offering

Selecting feature projects

• Please see image below, access via Business Admin
• One or more projects can be selected
• Where multiple projects are selected, the display is ordered accorded to the most recent selection
• Organisations with multiple URLs (business brands)  and S1 subscribers in their network can separately select/manage the projects for each brand and each S1 subscriber

Selecting a default display page

• Please see image below showing access via Business Admin
• Click on Customise, edit, select the preferred default page then click ‘Update’
• Organisations with S1 services in their network can also manage the landing page for each S1 service

The owner of investmentproperty.com.au has big plans for the investment property industry. We are pleased to say that Property Compass® will be powering these plans. A temporary site has been setup in the mean time, http://investmentproperty.com.au/

“The record for the most expensive .com.au domain name, investmentproperty.com.au was broken today at auction for $125,000.”

Source: SMH

Asher Moses

September 15, 2011

From the desk of Galen Parker

1. New dedicated server: A new dedicated server operating net.4 technology has been setup to accommodate our growing demands.

All subscribers will be required to move to this new server. Please click here for instruction on how to reset your Property Compass® URL. We WILL NOT be supporting version 1.5.9 which is on our older server. Subscribers have started moving to the new server; if you have not already done so we urge you to action this request ASAP.

You will not be able to access your site if it remains on the older server after Friday 9th September 2011.

2. Release notes: Would you like more investors? We have been looking at how you can benefit from the traffic on your website. We are quietly confident that this new release may help you serve more investors.

a) Public site, user intuitiveness: see image below showing new menu layout.

b) Members: users are now required to have an account in order to; print reports, send an enquiry / referral and reserve a property. Please see image below showing a member that has signed in. Note the welcome message and personal photo replace the profile tab text.

c) Investor data : We are trying to responsibly liberate investor data to our subscribers. The following screen grabs, show the new features in Business Administration.

This is the old menu.

This is the new menu and associated functionality

If a photo is available of the member it will appear besides their name. By clicking on the client name / image  the following screen will appear and provide you with valuable information about the investor.

As you can see from the image below; this investor has had interaction with other sites. A logo of the organisation will appear if the investor has submitted an enquiry or produced a report off another site.

d) Investment reports : via this new tab you are able to view a log showing the investment reports activity.

e) Link to pubic site: please see below for new direct link to public site.

f) Twitter: your company (last 3) Twitter messages  will now appear in your profile. To activate this feature, please provide us with your company Twitter details.

From the desk of Galen Parker

The Marketplace console is now live! Click on browse network in Business administration to view. This console is exclusively for Marketplace Listers. The console will display, live feeds (and updates) from Marketplace Listers across Australia and a map showing the locations of the Marketplace properties.

The live feeds will display the following updates;

• New projects made available to the Marketplace
• Project announcements
• New Marketplace Listings agents
• Property Exchanges
• Property Settlements
• Changes to the commission

Click on a specific update for additional information and clicking on the property pins will open property details.

Projects with a ‘Marketplace’ status are available for the entire network to access.

From the desk of Galen Parker

The Property Compass® search facility incorporates a powerful Investment Calculator. The system assumptions used in the calculations can now be edited to suit your business and affiliates.

This is a very powerful feature, as well as being customisable per business it also extends into the Sales Administration; hence each of your business affiliates can also edit the assumptions your business uses to suit their own business requirements.

This gives your business and affiliates greater flexibility, for example:

• a mortgage brokers can pre-select a special interest rate to be used in the search
• you may offer a marketing package that includes all costs (example, legal cost + Landlord Insurance) as part of your service; hence associated values can be set to $0.0 since these will not be paid by the investor

Of course these changes are reflected in the Investment Report as well as the ‘Notes on Investment Information’.

Depending on your login access;

• Please enter via Business administration to customise on a business level

• Log in the Sales administration to personalise per user (affiliate)

Please see below for some of the values that can be edited; please see the complete list via your log in.

From the desk of Galen Parker

The new feature ‘Browse Network’ will allow you to engage and network with other subscribers from across Australia (and internationally). To take advantage of this facility we recommend you add an introduction / profile about your business and services now!

For instance you may specialise in:

• Establishing SMSF
• Seminars
• Providing loans for international investors
• Multi-spoken languages
• Estate structuring and asset protection
• Securing exclusive property listings
• Working with investors only

By doing so, you are able to make your business know to others.

How to add your message

Via your business administration click on ‘Customise’ select ‘AgentMessage’ then ‘Add. Please add / amend your company profile in the section provided.

Once added, your message will appear as shown in the example below

From the desk of Galen Parker

In this release;

a)     Affiliates URL; and

b)     New regional search.

a) Affiliates URL

This feature provides the means to assign / tag an affiliate to a referral or sales advice, without the need to log into the Sales Administration console.

How it works

Add a new (PSP card) member into your Property Compass platform, then update their login (username) and password. See image below:

Please see below, on how to add the member’s login to your Property Compass assigned URL.

Example: http://<your Property Compass assigned URL>/ref/<member login here>

How a URL should look: http://invest.sample.com.au/ref/abcloans

Guidelines

1)      No spaces in the login are allowed.

Example, the following URL is NOT suitable.

http://invest.sample.com.au/ref/abc loans

2)      Email addresses can be used.

Example: this URL is suitable

http://invest.sample.com.au/ref/tina@abcloans.com.au

B) New regional search

Please see image below:

From the desk of Galen Parker

What you are about to read is probably the most significant update so far!

Since the launch, the Property Compass® has been a single service offering. A one size fits all.  And over the past years we have continually added more features. Of course, depending on the business and/or user, some features were never used; and having a single price for all of the different users did not work either. We have learned much from your feedback.

We have considered the industry with a new perspective and now the Property Compass® offers several services. Each can be used on its own or connected to provide a tailored business solution. This announcement includes:

a) New services on offer

b) New network features “an Australian first!”

c) Launch of the Marketplace “an Australian first!”

d) New schedule of fees

a) New services on offer

Please click here to view a visual flow of all the services and how they link together

b) New network features

“You can now aggregate properties from multiple property listers (including developers) across Australia.”

ONE platform; giving open access, that allows subscribers to establish direct, independent and individual agency, co-agency  / trading terms. Resulting in a national property listing / sourcing solution.

Of course this is another Australian industry first, from Property Compass®!

How to access

This new (coming soon) link will open a console to browse, communicate and network with subscribers across Australia (and some international subscribers).

This functionality is (being tested / refined); in the mean time access / introduction to subscribers within the network is being done manually via email introductions. Please contact us should you need more properties or expand your network.

Once selected the console below will display.

Subscriber profile

Available against each subscriber is a profile containing direct contact details and company overview.

Marketing / distribution mode

In this console, listing agents are grouped into three main categories, Independents, Conjunction Listers and Marketplace Listers. Listing subscribers (S3) are able to add additional functionality into their subscription agreement to suit their marketing /distribution preference. These options include:

Independents list and sell the properties via their own network / marketing.

Open-agency listers (and developers) can work with other selected listings subscribers and also work with selected non-listing subscribers (S2). Direct trading terms/co-agencies must be arranged between subscribers. Commissions are NOT shown against projects with a co-agency status. Agreements can be uploaded against each project and signed between respective parties separately.

Marketplace exclusive listers can grant project access to the entire network. Trading terms are included in the subscription agreement with payments based on the Fee-for-Service Table. There is no requirement to sign separate agreements. A prerequisite of a ‘strict listing standard’ must be met for projects to qualify for the marketplace.  Additionally, a full disclosure of commissions and agency agreements are displayed against each project.

Selecting marketing / distribution mode

Listing subscribers can select their preferred mode for each project in Section 3, please see image below.

Changes to the project list / status

As seen in the image below, projects now display these statuses; Sample, Internal, Co-agency and Marketplace. This is a short brief on the statuses;

Projects with a ‘Sample’ & ‘Internal’ status only appear on your website. Other subscribers are unable to see these projects.

‘Open-agency’ identifies that this project is shared with another subscriber. The number beside the status indicates the total number of subscribers currently granted access to this project. Projects with a open-agency status will ONLY display to subscribers you have selected.

Projects with a ‘Marketplace’ status are available for the entire network to access.

Key benefits for listers (property suppliers)

• Eliminates the need to re-load properties, track availability and statuses; this ensures real-time data integrity, saving time and resources maintaining the data
• Instantly increases your stock list across Australia

Key benefits for non-listers

• Aggregate properties from multiple listers across Australia
• Eliminates the requirement for several website access / stock lists to work from

Network ethos

We envisage these features will give you greater capacity to trade. However we will not tolerate undue canvassing. We ask that professionalism be extended to fellow subscribers. These new features are NOT to be used for mass marketing or relentless telephone calls.

c) Marketplace

We have also introduced the ‘Marketplace’. The Marketplace is a managed process and has a Fee-for-Service trading terms and is subject to strict listing criteria.

Key criteria

• Properties must be loaded with complete disclosure, as per the listing check list
• Property listers must adhere to their ‘role & responsibilities’
• All deals must be submitted via a Sales Advice
• Nominated ‘Excepted Exchange Date’ must reflect the investor’s capacity to proceed
• All ‘Expected Due Dates’ are to be tracked with pertinent commentary
• Service delivery; timely communication to all involved in the deal is mandatory
• Property commissions are apportioned as per the Fee-for-Service Table
• Properties can only appear exclusively in the Marketplace

Key benefits

• All Properties are listed to the same disclosure standard
• All transactions adhere to one trading term based on the Fee-For-Service Table, please click here to view
• Entities sourcing properties across Australia can rely on this managed process

Please click here to download PDF showing a visual of the marketplace.

d) New schedule of fees

This is our first price review in over 6 years. This schedule of fees takes affect from 7 June 2011 and applies to new and renewing subscribers. Please click here to view

In closing…

We believe these services can assist you to grow your business without limitations.  Please click here to learn more about services on offer.

Thank you

From the desk of Galen Parker

This enhancement was introduced to assist listing agents to communicate with all subscribers that work with the listing agent. The entities that access the listing agent’s one or more properties are included in this notice. This notice can assist you with communicating the status of your projects.

Let’s consider the following;

Once a project is loaded and ready to market; a notice can be sent advising of it’s release.

Or

Where there are 1-2 remaining properties in a project offered with an incentive; a notice with this incentive can be sent.

Or

Other notices that would warrant the attention of entities working with you.

To access the notice section

In Business Administration, please click on Projects / Project name. You will notice the project name now, has a new ‘message icon’. Click on the project name.

Once selected a pop up will appear with ‘Post a Notice’.

The way it works

These notices are limited to 140 characters and can include links/URL’s. The notice will be emailed to each entity separately. The system automatically includes the project name in the notice; hence the recipient’s email will include the project name in the email subject / heading. In the email body this is how the notice will appear:

Hello <business name of recipient>,

<name of Lister>, a lister you have subscribed to, has posted a notice for <name of project> via your Property Compass Network.

< notice message will appear here >

To reply to this notice on your site click here {this links back to your Business Admin login area}.

Getting feedback

Each entity can reply separately to this notice, directly from their email service or via their login.

Adding a URL / links to your notice

If required, please use this service or other to shorten URL’s; https://bitly.com/ paste the shortened URL into the notice.

A final note

This notice system is also avaibale to subscribers wanting to seek additional information from a listing agent. To access please click on ‘Display and syndicate’ / ‘project name’. These notices will be sent diretly to the listing agent.  Please see image below;

From the desk of Galen Parker

These enhancements are designed to assist your maketing style.

This new functionality will allow you to hide the following values from your website display:

a) IRR
b) 5 year predictive
c) Property address
d) Minimum deposit

You are now able to select any or all to assist with your marketing style. Please see image below.

Please enter via Business Administration and click on; Customise / Select your preferences in Site Display Options

Please see image below.