{"id":646,"date":"2013-02-22T13:18:36","date_gmt":"2013-02-22T20:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/broker-blog\/?p=646"},"modified":"2013-02-22T13:18:36","modified_gmt":"2013-02-22T20:18:36","slug":"web-based-resources-for-the-private-money-professional-re-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/broker-blog\/?p=646","title":{"rendered":"Web based resources for the private money professional (re-post)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Clay Sparkman<\/em><br \/>\n<em>I originally published this article in January of 2010. Two years later, I think it is as useful as ever. Thus the re-post (for those who missed it the first time around).<br \/>\n<\/em><br \/>\n<em> <\/em><br \/>\nToday I will focus on a few web based tools that I have found to be useful in the business.<br \/>\nLet\u2019s start locally (Portland, Oregon) and then expand out from  there.\u00a0 A really nice little site if you are doing business in the  Portland area is:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.portlandmaps.com\/\">www.Portlandmaps.com<\/a><br \/>\nThe City of Portland provides PortlandMaps.com as a new way of easily  accessing public data regarding properties and property areas.\u00a0 A wide  variety of data is available for the Portland Metropolitan Area,  including the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Assessor\/Tax Lot Information<\/li>\n<li>Aerial Photography<\/li>\n<li>Building Footprints<\/li>\n<li>Building Permits<\/li>\n<li>Census<\/li>\n<li>Crime Data<\/li>\n<li>Elevation<\/li>\n<li>Parks<\/li>\n<li>Mass Transit<\/li>\n<li>Natural Hazard<\/li>\n<li>Schools<\/li>\n<li>Urban Growth Boundary<\/li>\n<li>Underground Storage Tanks<\/li>\n<li>Water\/Sewer<\/li>\n<li>Zip Code<\/li>\n<li>Zoning Maps<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Fortunately most states offer all kinds of helpful data on-line now.\u00a0  For instance, this handy site offered by the state of Oregon gives you  access to a wide range of licenses, permits, and registrations.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.licenseinfo.oregon.gov\/index.cfm\">www.licenseinfo.oregon.gov\/index.cfm<\/a><br \/>\nOf particular interest to me is this site which allows me to lookup a mortgage broker\u2019s license:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.licenseinfo.oregon.gov\/?fuseaction=link_class&amp;class_list=1732,14592,26398&amp;class_name=Mortgage%20lenders&amp;LinkType=P\">Oregon mortgage broker licenses<\/a><br \/>\nIt is also frequently useful to lookup the license status of a given contractor, which you may do in Oregon at:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.licenseinfo.oregon.gov\/?fuseaction=link_class&amp;class_list=13833,13830,13831,1536,1551,1683,1537,1555,1556,1713,1677,1666,1665,13829,13828,1739,14724,26481,1674&amp;class_name=Construction%20contractors&amp;LinkType=P\">Oregon contractor licenses<\/a><br \/>\nI\u2019m sure that just about everyone in this business already knows about Zillow:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zillow.com\/\">www.zillow.com<\/a><br \/>\nZillow is a great little comp tool, easy to use, with a vast national  database, and free.\u00a0 It does not offer the range of options available  with most professional comp tools, but then they are expensive.\u00a0 I can  remember when we first signed up to MetroScan at Fairfield.\u00a0 The price  was very substantial and the software was localized to the machine, so  that you could only use it at one workstation at one site without paying  even more, and updates were given monthly via mailed CD-ROMs.\u00a0 We also  had very limited regional access and had to pay for access by county  (that is if a particular county were available at all).\u00a0 We\u2019ve come a  long way.<br \/>\nAlso, I hear good things about the Zillow blog, though I haven\u2019t had time to properly check it out for myself:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.zillow.com\/blog\">www.zillow.com\/blog<\/a><br \/>\nI know I don\u2019t need to tell anyone about Google Earth.\u00a0 When I was  first introduced to this site, I just about fell off my chair!\u00a0 I still  can\u2019t quite believe that such a powerful far reaching tool exists, at my  fingertips and for free.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/earth.google.com\/\">http:\/\/earth.google.com<\/a><br \/>\nAnd it just keeps getting better.\u00a0 The Street View layer of Google  Earth is incredible.\u00a0 It allows you to do drive by inspections from your  home office or living room.\u00a0 Of course it is not really as good a an  actual drive by, but it certainly allows you to get a feel for a  property and its neighborhood.<br \/>\nNow, if you want to look at real estate trend data for a given  area\u2014something I would think you would want to do these days before  making just about any loan\u2014this site is terrific:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.altosresearch.com\/altos\/Home.page\">www.altosresearch.com\/altos\/Home.page<\/a><br \/>\nThe Scotsman Guide has long been regarded as the \u201cbible\u201d of the  commercial and residential loan industry, offering detailed categorical  listings of various active lenders and loan sources.\u00a0 Their online site  is here:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.scotsmanguide.com\/\">www.scotsmanguide.com<\/a><br \/>\nAnd Lendicom may be of interest to you.\u00a0 This site is geared toward  commercial lending, and allows borrowers and brokers to sign up and  submit specific loan proposals to lenders who have also signed up  online.\u00a0 If you are a hard money lender looking directly for commercial  loans to fund, you may sign up as a lender and create an account that  allows you to specify detailed criteria regarding the specific loans  that you would be interested in.\u00a0 In the interest of full disclosure, I  am an officer and a part owner of the company that offers this site.\u00a0  Maybe that\u2019s why I like it so much.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.lendicom.com\/\">www.lendicom.com<\/a><br \/>\nIf you are aware of any sites that I didn&#8217;t mention which might be  useful to the subscribers to this blog, please take a moment to respond  via comment or send an e-mail.\u00a0 Either way, I will make sure that any  useful information is shared.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">&#8212; Clay (clay@privatemoneysource.com, 503-476-2909)<\/p>\n<p><em>Clay  is Vice President of Fairfield Financial, a primary source for private  money since 1964.\u00a0 Fairfield is currently targeting loans in Oregon and  Washington, with potential to loan in:\u00a0 AK, CA, CO, ID, FL, GA, ID, MT,  NV, NY, OK and TX.\u00a0 To submit a loan to Fairfield for consideration: <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.privatemoneysource.com\/loanproposal.php\">http:\/\/www.privatemoneysource.com\/loanproposal.php<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Clay Sparkman I originally published this article in January of 2010. Two years later, I think it is as useful as ever. Thus the re-post (for those who missed it the first time around). Today I will focus on a few web based tools that I have found to be useful in the business. Let\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":""},"categories":[17,22,28,29],"tags":[37,38,42,43,46,54,55,58,60,61],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/broker-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/broker-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/broker-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/broker-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/broker-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=646"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/broker-blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/646\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/broker-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/broker-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/privatemoneysource.com\/broker-blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}