The
Online Valuation Service for Property ProfessionalsThe
Online Valuation Service for Property Professionals
Q1 - How long before I can have access?
A - Access
is normally instant for both trials and permanent subscriptions, and always the
same day that we receive your payment
Q2 - How does the Trial work? Are there restrictions?
A - No, you get a fully working version for 14 days to see if you the Hometrack Agent Reporting Tool is for you
Q3. What do I need to do if I wish to subscribe permanently after a trial?
Q4 - Will the reports be branded and can I change the branding?
A - Yes, Hometrack arrange for the branding to reflect the contract owners company (i.e. me). but I have removed as much as I can. Unfortunately there is still one or 2 references to me which are hard coded to refer to the account owner apparently and can’t be removed. Most of the branding on them is now the standard Home Track branding. Unfortunately Hometrack advise me it is not possible to brand them with YOUR individual company name/logo.
Q5 - Will there be training available on how to use the reports?
A
- In all honesty they are pretty simple to use, but there is a very rough and
ready unedited instruction video I put together last year which you can view at http://www.jrservices84.com/hometrack/newreport/runnewreport_demo.htm
but ignore the bit at the beginning of the video that says to log on
to Hometrack you must add a '2' to the url - that was temporary.
Q6 - What happens if I decide I want to cancel part way through the 6 month contract?
A - In order to keep the scheme viable, it is necessary to have a commitment from each subscriber. Previously this meant a whole 12 months contract but I have recently been able to reduce this to 6 months in order to help subscribers in the current difficult financial climate. However the full amount of £180 will still be due if you decide to leave the scheme before your 6 month contract is up. This is because these are the terms levied by Hometrack that mean I too am bound for the full £6000 p.a. irrespective of whether I/you wish to continue.
Q7 - Should I call you John if I have problems using or operating Hometrack going forward?
A - Realistically my role is to set the scheme up and take responsibility for the account being maintained. In other words I will just be the account manager. There could be numerous and varied reasons why you may not have access at any given time including local ISP network issues, or your pc configuration or indeed many market or input reasons why you may not agree or understand the data produced by Hometrack. So whilst I am happy to field questions about any problems you may be having and see if I can help, please understand that I will have no additional knowledge or training on Hometrack than you, and unfortunately am not a techie able to help with all manner of pc problems.
Q8 - What is the difference between the online one-off version of Hometrack reports and this version?
A - Hometrack tell me the main difference is that our version will allow us to CHOOSE which comparables show on the report. The online version for consumer’s just gives a very broad valuation based on the rough area (first part of post code I believe) so is not necessarily accurate at all but just a 'rough guide' This valuation product we are all using as investors is called "Agent Reporting Tool", and both it and the Realtime & PreVal tools are far more sophisticated and reliable in their data/valuations
Q9. This Hometrack Report does NOT give a SPECIFIC valuation for the
property I am researching – is it meant to?
A
–
This trial is for the standard £30pcm version which most investors use and it
is not designed to give specific valuations. It was designed for estate
agents originally, and now investors too, for comparatives AND to provide a
professional report to help negotiate with the vendor. It assumes that estate
agents/ourselves, being property professionals, will either already know the
value or will use the comps to ascertain out the true value for ourselves.
Q10. What if I DO require a tool that gives SPECIFIC valuations?
A.
There is an alternative tool called Hometrack REALTIME, which I can
provide you with access to on a Pay-As-You-Go basis. Contact john@thepropertyinvestorpa.com
for more details
Q11 – How Reliable are the
Reports?
A - It is important to remember that it is just a tool rather than a
guaranteed valuation service. As such, sometimes it is not the right tool in
that it is not giving you relevant information. Most of the time this is not the
case but occasionally the figures do not make any sense and contradict
themselves. So like any tool, only use it where appropriate. Sometimes another
tool is more appropriate, and I certainly use Hometrack in conjunction with
Rightmove, nethouseprices, phoning estate agents, talking to a knowledgeable
investor in that area or even employing a surveyor.
Q12 – Is there a Way to search for more than
one property type at the same time or do I have to run separate reports?
A - Yes you can do a wider search. When you get to step 3 in the valuation, you
get some additional options in the dropdowns. For example, having already
selected a specific property type, in step 3 you get the additional choice to
widen the search to ANY TYPE. This can be useful as not all data in the database
is complete so it can throw up more data that may be of use.
For example you might want to widen the search to
ANY
property Type
and
ANY Property Style
and
bedrooms AT LEAST 1
– Occasionally
this is useful to capture comps/values that have incomplete data or are entered
wrongly
Equally you can use these fields and the
MIN – MAX value
fields in step 3 to
filter the results to give data more meaningful to your own specific search.
Q13 - How else is Hometrack Useful?
A - You catch a lot of people who have had their properties valued recently for failed remortgages, failed sales and failed equity release valuations and these can show up on HT [but vendors do not disclose this]. This often proves helpful.
In summary, Hometrack is a hugely useful tool but you have to know when and when not to use it.
Q14 - Where can I find out more from Hometrack?
A - Go their FAQ page at http://www.hometrack.co.uk/FAQs/
Q.15 - Can I have more than one trial?
A - No, its strictly one trial per investor as this is a one off concession just to see if this is the right tool for you