In an effort to educate our customers about all the changes in Winter ‘10, we have developed a comprehensive set of release notes for this new version of Propertyware. The release notes are a comprehensive user guide with a summary of all the new features by the various Propertyware modules.

What’s Included in the Release Notes?
For every new major software enhancement, Propertyware Release Notes provide:

•    A brief description of all new functionality
•    Implementation tips to help administrators to get started with new features
•    Best practices and tips to help you get the most out of the Propertyware application
•    Complete instructions for how to use the new functionality

Download the Release Notes Here

Thank you again for choosing our solution. Everyone here at Propertyware are committed to the continual development of the industry’s most powerful property management solution that will allow our customers to experience the highest levels of success.  I invite you to please share your feedback with ways we can improve Propertyware to make it an even more valuable tool for your business by joining our customer community at http://www.propertyware.com/forums.

Sincerely,
Sina Shekou
President
Propertyware, Inc.

Date: Friday – January 8th, 2010
Estimated Downtime: 12:00 AM – 1:30 AM PST

Date: Saturday/Sunday – January 16th, 2010
Estimated Downtime: Sat. 9:00 PM – Sun. 9:30 AM PST

We will post updates during the upgrade at http://www.twitter.com/propertyware

We apologize for the inconvenience, but look forward to providing you all the great functionality that we’ve been working hard to deliver in our upcoming Winter ‘10 release. Stay tuned for the formal announcement of the new features and our scheduled trainings.

With the popularity of the iPhone and the media hype about Google Droid, there is no doubt people are going online with their mobile devices more than ever. In an effort to target more mobile users, Google announced to its Adwords advertisers that it is introducing click-to-call this month. They went on to say, “…beginning in January, your location-specific business phone number will display alongside your destination url in ads that appear on high-end mobile devices. Users will be able to click-to-call your business just as easily as they click to visit your website.”

These mobile ads are location specific. The program is based on the customer’s physical location and offers ads containing the closest physical location of the advertiser.

One of the primary differences in this new service compared to what Google had been doing is allowing phone numbers to be included in mobile ads. Previously a potential customer could click on your phone number when performing an organic search but there was no phone number included in paid ads. Advertisers will be charged for these clicks at the same rate that clicks to visit a website are charged.

This program is specific to smart phones and mobile devices that have full HTML browsers such as the iPhone, Google Droid and Palm WebOS. The phone number will be included as a fifth line in ads displayed on these phones.

A recent experience of helping a friend house hunt has helped me realize what a winner this program can be. We spent a great deal of time trying to contact rental companies and searching the web while driving around looking at homes, this is not an uncommon occurrence. In one instance an unsuccessful attempt to Google a company based on their yard sign was very frustrating. With this new offering from Google it will now be much easier for potential customers to start a phone conversation from your optimized Google listing. This program removes yet another barrier between you and the potential lead so we can expect better call conversions that in the past.

To participate in the program advertisers need to target their mobile campaign to these smart phones. Campaign settings need to include both the location address and phone number to utilize the service. If an advertiser does not want to participate, they should not include a phone number in the campaign.

With the new year comes the opportunity to reflect on what we’ve learned in 2009 and make some resolutions for things we can do better in 2010. Everyone here at Propertyware has been busy and we’ll soon have several incredible announcements to share with you about how we can help to make 2010 the most successful year ever. It’s a bold statement, but there’s substance behind it too Check back in the upcoming week for more sneak peeks about many of the great new features and services coming to Propertyware in 2010.

Please note that our customer support and sales teams will be observing the holidays from 12/24/2009 at 3:00 PM ET until 12/28/2009 at 8:00 ET.

Happy Holidays!

Qualifying homeowners facing foreclosure will be able to stay in their homes — as renters — under a new program announced by Fannie Mae on Thursday. The Deed for Lease Program is designed to help borrowers who aren’t eligible or haven’t been able to sustain other work-out solutions, including a modification, according to a news release.

Read More on MarketWatch

The foreclosure crisis has turned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into big property owners, but neither has become a significant landlord.

A program Fannie adopted in January, under which it offers month-to-month rentals to tenants living in properties it has seized, has produced only 142 active leases. The government-sponsored enterprise said many tenants instead opt for a cash alternative to help them move.

Likewise, at Freddie Mac, which since March has offered leases both to tenants and to former borrowers who have been foreclosed on, most occupants have chosen “cash for keys” over the relative instability of a month-to-month rental agreement.

The GSEs said they consider the programs successful. Their aim is simply to ease the transition, one way or another, for tenants and borrowers as the GSEs dispose of seized properties. The programs were not meant to be a structural answer to the deluge of homes moving through foreclosure.

But the slow uptake of leases is another example of the hit-or-miss nature of efforts to deal with the foreclosure crisis. Tens of thousands of properties flood mortgage companies’ inventories each quarter. The vacated homes blight neighborhoods, sap financial institutions’ resources and drag down housing markets.

For lenders and investors stuck with these assets, a tenant can mean a source of income from a property that would otherwise decay while unoccupied and more time to arrange a sale in a difficult market.

“The root of the question is: Do we try to sell this property now, as quickly as we can, which usually translates into a cheaper price, or do we try to hold onto it and keep the tenants in place so it is income-producing?” said Travis Hamel Olsen, the chief operating officer at Loan Resolution Corp. His Scottsdale, Ariz., company services troubled mortgages and specializes in arranging short sales.

In addition to the roughly 200 leases Fannie has executed so far, it has offered 77 leases to tenants and is reviewing 71 lease applications. That compares with the 57,469 single-family properties Fannie took over through foreclosure in the first half, which, net of the 58,392 properties it unloaded during the same period, left it with an inventory of 62,615 seized single-family residences.

Many properties that Fannie has seized, of course, were occupied not by tenants but by borrowers. The GSE has a little more than 1,800 properties with tenants who have not gotten either a lease or “cash-for-keys” agreement with Fannie. (The latter is aid Fannie gives tenants who decide to vacate seized properties; it can include one month’s rent.) More than 3,500 tenants have accepted cash-for-keys offers this year, Fannie said.

“We want to make sure that these tenants, who are falling victim to foreclosure because their landlord … did not make payments on their home, have the option to either stay in that home because they have kids embedded in the school system or whatever other reasons there may be, or provide them a smooth transition and a graceful exit by providing relocation and some additional financial assistance,” said Amy Bonitatibus, a Fannie spokeswoman.

Brad German, a Freddie spokesman, said the McLean, Va., company’s program was developed “to give borrowers and renters who are caught in the foreclosure crossfire an opportunity to rent on a month-to-month basis” while Freddie shows their homes and tries to sell them.

Freddie checks to see whether properties are occupied after it seizes them and offers leases to eligible residents. Typically, 50% to 60% of the properties it takes over are not occupied, and most residents decide to accept payments to help them move on.

“Another significant segment of the potential renter population simply vacates on their own without cash-for-keys,” German said.

The company declined to specify how many leases it has made. Freddie took over 35,987 properties through foreclosure in the first half, bringing its net inventory to 34,706 after accounting for properties sold during the period.

One recipient of relocation assistance was a 73-year-old woman in Rochester, N.Y., who was facing eviction in June from an apartment she had rented for 19 years. According to her attorney, Michelle DeMareo of the Monroe County Legal Assistance Center, the woman encountered a series of dead ends while seeking more time to move from the real estate agent and the local attorney who were handling the foreclosure, and from a Fannie consumer hot line.

Ultimately, the tenant got a deal under which she received $1,500 and agreed to vacate the apartment by Sept. 2. But the process “wasn’t pretty,” DeMareo said.

She speculated that the low number of leases, and instances in which tenants simply vacate without compensation, could be explained by miscues in communicating the availability of rental and cash-for-keys help while the eviction process begins. “They’re desperate, and they’re scared to death that they’re going to end up in a homeless shelter, so they leave as soon as they can.”

To an extent, the GSEs’ policies of continuing to rent to tenants of seized properties have been superseded by a recent federal law that prevents lenders from forcing tenants out.

Among other things, the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act, which took effect in May, requires companies that seize properties to assume existing leases for the remainder of their terms. (Leases can be terminated with 90 days’ notice if the property is sold to someone who plans to occupy it as a primary residence.)

Dean Baker, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, has been an early and active proponent of a more sweeping approach, calling for legislation that would give former borrowers the right to enter into long-term leases on properties they have lost to foreclosure. (If the properties are sold, the buyers would be required to assume the leases.)

Baker has advanced the rental option as a solution to mounting foreclosures that provides no windfalls to borrowers, since they lose ownership of their homes, and requires no taxpayer money.

In part, the idea is to minimize disruptions to neighborhoods caused by large numbers of vacant homes through the engineering of an orderly transformation of a potentially large portion of owner-occupied housing into rental stock, and allowing residents to stay put.

According to an analysis the center published in July, bubble prices have probably left many homeowners who bought during the boom’s peak years with mortgage burdens far exceeding market rents ­ the gap may be on the order of $1,500 to $2,000 a month in places like the Los Angeles area.

But if a borrower who is headed toward foreclosure can afford a market rent, it may make more sense for the lender to simply reduce the monthly loan payment to the affordable amount through a modification and avoid the hassle and costs of foreclosing and becoming a landlord. Baker has argued that his plan would give troubled borrowers more bargaining power to seek modifications, since lenders would not be able to seize unencumbered properties, and would drive down foreclosures overall.

Others see a business case for offering long-term leases to the former owners of seized homes.

Steven Horne, the founder and president of Wingspan Portfolio Advisors LLC, a Carrollton, Texas, servicer that specializes in highly delinquent loans, said he has argued for a couple years that the “lease-to-own structure is potentially a good, legitimate successor to what was formerly a big chunk of the subprime borrower base.”

Rental arrangements may let lenders and investors unload properties “in a more controlled fashion for a better price,” particularly in neighborhoods that have been hit hard by a glut of homes going on the market, depressing prices, he said.

Horne acknowledged, however, that many of the investors buying distressed assets have little interest in establishing or managing tenant relationships. “They want to turn that property over as quickly as possible ­ sell it for what they can get for it and move on to the next deal,” he said.

And for banking companies, the encumbrances of property management lie on the uncomfortable side of the wall between finance and commerce.

“No bank wants to be a landlord,” said Edward J. Fay, the chief executive of Fay Financial LLC, a Chicago mortgage servicing and investment management firm.

In nearly all cases, the cash flow from a borrower who can afford rental payments would outweigh the amount of money that could be recovered in a seizure and sale of the property, Fay said.

For that reason, “I’d just keep them in the mortgage” through a modification, he said. “At the end of the day, I’m still going to have an eviction process to deal with if the person stops paying on a rental,” and renting confers responsibility for property upkeep on the former lender.

Loan Resolution Corp.’s Olsen identified another potential pitfall of renting: It could expose lenders to a variant of “ruthless default,” if borrowers who can actually afford their loans trade into lower rental rates. But generally, he said, when a property enters foreclosure, “that homeowner has pretty much put their money where their mouth is, saying that, ‘Hey, I can’t afford this mortgage and, hey, let me prove it to you: Here’s the house back.’ ”

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Enjoy the holiday, eat lots of turkey and be safe

Qualifying homeowners facing foreclosure will be able to stay in their homes — as renters — under a new program announced by Fannie Mae on Thursday. The Deed for Lease Program is designed to help borrowers who aren’t eligible or haven’t been able to sustain other work-out solutions, including a modification, according to a news release.

Read More on MarketWatch