All Forum Posts by: Seth Williams

Welcome to the forum @Austin Jones! Sounds like you've got a good plan to diversify a bit into the land realm. If you get stuck on anything, let me know. :)

That's awesome to hear your story too @Tim Bishop - and thanks for the kind words. 

I remember having a very similar experience when I switched over the land. It was such a refreshing change of pace to go from fighting against hard competition with SFRs (the kind of property everyone and their mother is chasing after) to land (where you're basically the only player in town).

Choosing the right niche really does change the whole game (I probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere if I hadn't figured this out early on). I'm glad you've been able to see this for yourself. :)

That's amazing @Mike T. - congratulations! It sounds like you've had a truly remarkable first year in the land business. I'm totally honored if I played a small part in pointing you in the right direction. You should give yourself a TON of credit for taking the kind of action necessary to cover that much ground in 2015. That's huge!

I look forward to seeing how things pan out for you in 2016. If your past success is any indication, I have a feeling it'll be another great year! :)

Thanks for the heads up @Josh Norris - that's good to know. 

I agree, that cost does seem a bit high for most smaller operations, but the fact that it's mac-compatible is a nice perk (since nobody else seems to have gotten on the mac bandwagon). I suppose the cost would be easy to justify once you have a handful of loans paying for it, but I can see how it would be difficult for someone to shell out that kind of cash when they've got nothing and they're starting from scratch.

Nevertheless, that's a good option to know about. Thanks again for sharing!

Thanks @James Maher - but we're actually talking about much more than just a loan amortization formula. We're looking for a full, all-encompassing software solution... something that allows users to add monthly servicing fees, generate closing statements, payment coupons, track payments, factor in partial payments, calculate late fees and much more.

I can certainly appreciate what you're saying, but the loan amortization numbers are just a small part of the overall solution.

Good question @Josh Norris. It's been surprisingly difficult to find any good information out there, especially for mac-based software. One I'm looking into right now is called ZimpleMoney, which looks like it could be promising - but I still don't know enough to have any solid opinions on it.

If you're willing to install Windows on your Mac (like this), then a lot of additional software options will open up for you...  but even so, I'd love to find something that's either web-based or compatible with the Mac system. For all the Apple computers in the world, it seems like there's got to be something out there.

@Nelly Licona - in most cases, my audience is tax delinquent property owners.

This is a great question @Jason Polley. I've wondered the same thing from time to time.

I've got a lot of experience with AgentPro247, and a little bit with CoreLogic/RealQuest - so granted, I'm more familiar with AgentPro247 and there's probably a little bit of bias here.

I've found that AgentPro247 is a very versatile data company, in that you can do both property research and pull lists. I've also found that the data can be a bit "hit or miss" (sometimes it's a bit outdated), depending on the county you're targeting, and this can definitely present some problems when it comes to direct mail campaigns.

Luckily, they just added a feature that tells you which counties are covered and how current the data is (it literally shows the exact date it was last updated). This is a HUGE plus - and it effectively solves the problem, as long as you're willing to verify the currency of the data. With this information, you'll know how recent the data is and whether or not you're willing to trust it (as opposed to using the old "guess and hope" method).

When you're logged in, just click on the green "Tools" button, scroll down to "Geographic Coverage", click on your state and you'll see the full list, with the date each county was last updated. 

From what I've seen of CoreLogic, they've got some pretty solid and reliable data as well, but it's also several times more expensive (which can be a big obstacle for newbies on a shoestring budget). I haven't yet found a way to use their data to research properties in the same way that AgentPro247 allows. It probably possible, but I haven't figured out how do it yet (and either way, I'm sure the higher cost still comes into play).

Thanks for sharing @Brian Gibbons!

Does anybody else know of any good loan management / amortization software solutions out there?

Does anybody know of any good Loan Amortization software solutions out there?

I've been using Loan Amortizer Enterprise (loanamortizer.com) on my PC for several years. It's a pretty decent program and it gets the job done most of the time, but it's also a pretty old piece of software and it doesn't seem to work on a Mac - which is a little problematic.

I know there are dozens of smart phone apps that can do the basic amortization calculations these days (mostly - generating amortization schedules and calculating loan payments) and I'm sure there are probably dozens of other highly sophisticated loan management software solutions out there (I know even Microsoft Excel has a standard amortization template), but I just need something that can do the following:

- Generate a full amortization schedule based on loan amount, interest rate, number of payments, balloon payments, additional monthly fees, etc. 

- Generate payment coupons and/or reminders that can be mailed/emailed to the borrower each month.

- Track loan payments and determine past due amounts and late payment fees, if needed. 

- Generate year end interest paid statements.

I'm not a big loan servicing outfit, so it doesn't need to to be overly complex and have ALL the bells and whistles. I'm just a one-man shop trying to manage a small handful of seller financed properties in-house. 

If anybody knows of a good software solution that might be a good fit for someone in my situation, I'd love to hear about it!