Archive for June, 2011

Inman Agent Reboot Denver

BULL Forms is excited to participate in Inman’s Agent Reboot Denver

As we have mentioned before:

We are dedicated to providing Colorado Real Estate Agents with the best technology available at a reasonable price. We have chosen to work with Inman because we feel their audience is amongst the most tech savvy and innovative within the Real Estate community.   If you are attending agent reboot please checkout our “Chair Drop” for your opportunity to save $5.00 off of your first month’s subscription to our DORA form solution.  If you are not attending and would still like to receive the discounted first month please view our “Chair Drop” below:

If you are in the Denver area and are undecided about attending we strongly recommend it.  We attended the conference in South Florida and benefitted greatly from hearing industry experts discussing what they know best and networking with the other real estate agents in attendance.

For those that are attending, be on the look out for a BULL Forms giveaway. BULL Forms is giving away an annual subscription valued at $99.99.

Inman News is the leading source of independent real estate news, information, advice, research, opinion and commentary for industry professionals and consumers alike.

Facebook and Colorado Real Estate Agents

Is your business currently on Facebook? If not, it might be time to reconsider.  Setting up an account or fan page takes only minutes and gives you direct access to the social networking giants millions of users. Below is an interaction that took place earlier today:

BULL Forms Doing Business on Facebook

Bob ended up signing up for our service and hopefully will be a satisfied customer. Follow Bob on twitter here @bobschenk and like his company website here. Sure, this interaction may have happened over email, but with social media becoming more of a factor in the way we communicate, why not capture all potential leads and communicate with them via their preferred channel.

We feel our solution is the best way for Colorado Real Estate agents to complete all of their forms.  If it is not, the only way we will get better is by listening to our users.

As we have said before, we want feedback.  If you prefer to reach us by Facebook, can you do so here, if you want to reach out to us via twitter, our handle is @bullforms_co and as always you can contact us via email by using our contact page.

BULL Forms Colorado is in the Chrome Web Store!

BULL Forms Colorado web app is live in the Google Chrome Web Store.

Good news for all of our users generating Colorado Real Estate forms using Chrome as their web browser of choice.  Our web application is now live in the Google Chrome Web Store.  What does this mean for you? First of all, you can easily install the application by heading to the Chrome Web Store and searching for BULL Forms. Once installed, you will be able to easily navigate to BULL Forms Colorado and start generating DORA Forms within seconds. We have outlined the steps to installing the application below:

First head to the Chrome Store chrome.google.com/webstore

BULL Forms Colorado Google Chrome Web Store

Now search for BULL Forms Colorado:

Search for BULL Forms

When you reach the results page, go ahead and click on our BULL Forms Mascot, “Bob the Bull”

Web Store Search Results

You will then be taken to the details page:

Installation Page

Click on install and the magic will happen behind the scenes.  Now the BULL Forms Colorado Web application has been installed into your Chrome Web Browser.  You can access it whenever you start up your computer or open a new tab, as pictured below:

Installation CompleteAnd that is a wrap folks.  Click on “Bob the Bull” and you will be taken to your favorite site for Generating Colorado Real Estate Forms.  As always, stay on the lookout for improvements and we will notify you as soon as we have added more functionality to the application.

Thank you,

BULL Forms Team

June Agent Spotlight – John James

Introduction

Welcome to our inaugural agent spotlight.  This is a new feature of our blog where we will take some time and profile some of our current users.  If there are any questions you would like to ask us, or if you would like to be featured in our next agent spotlight, please contact us via our contact form.

Our first featured agent is John James of Coldwell Banker Distinctive Properties, our questions and his answers are posted below:

Name: John James

Company: Coldwell Banker Distinctive Properties

Website: www.JohnJamesCb.com

How Long Have You Been in Real Estate?

4 Years

What area of Colorado / type of property do you specialize in?

Steamboat Springs and the Yampa Valley in Northwest Colorado. I specialize in resort homes and properties.

What other real estate contract software did you use before switching to BULL Forms?

RealFast…never again.

Tell us how BULL Forms has helped you in your day to day business.

What I especially like about BULL Forms is the time it saves me. I have a Mac and most real estate forms software are not Mac friendly, especially RealFast. To write a contract, I would have to open up a Windows environment on my Mac, then open the software, then click on the form I wanted and wait for the blank form generate. Then when finished I would have to save in a proprietary format, then save to a PDF, then save that in a shared folder so I could print or send from my Mac. With BULL Forms, it’s browser-based, so I can get to it on any device, the interface is clean, easy to read and use, AND I can print a PDF at anytime in the process. A form that took me 20-30 minutes to create on RealFast, now takes me about 5.

What are your favorite features of BULL Forms?

AutoSave is the first favorite. Not having to click “Save” to make sure my work is backed up is essential. I also like the ability to copy a previous form as a template and start a new form. I love e-signatures and its ability to email a completed form to all parties. It’s easier to get signed and much better than forms in various stages of completion floating around everywhere

What features would you like to see added to BULL Forms?

“With short sales and foreclosures becoming a bigger piece of our business, we need larger space to fill in for Additional Provisions and Attachements would be helpful.

Offline support could be useful for when internet access is not available.

E-signatures are great, but they do seem to be in a beta stage right now. The ability to auto-populate the signers, their email addresses and relationships would make the process run more smoothly.

Also, I would like to see the ability to attach other documents to the forms I’m sending out for e-signature.

Finally, a truly paperless transaction seems to still be a ways away. Right now as a buyer’s agent, I have to obtain email signatures from the sellers to have a fully executed digital contract. Many listing agents would not be willing to hand those out. The ability to offer the option to the other party to sign electronically through their own agents would be great. Also, some forms like a Seller’s Property Disclosure need to be filled out by the seller and not the agent. Sending them a form to e-sign, print, fill out, and re-send does not sound appealing.”

BULL Forms Note: We love feedback! Positive or negative. In response to user feedback, we have added more space in the additional provisions.  You can also add an additional blank amendment to your contract. This is the first time we have heard about offline support, as it is built into some of the newer browsers this is definitely a feature we will look into adding. E-signatures is currently in its first iteration.  We have some pretty exciting functionality updates in the works. Paperless is the future, and we are working on some cool things. We will notify you when we improve the functionality!

What do you do when you are not selling real estate? What are some of your hobbies?

I’m also a snowboard instructor at Steamboat in the winter. In the summer, I like to bike, hike, camp and play golf.

What other online applications outside of forms would you find helpful in your day to day life or business?

A better County Records search than what my county already provides is top on my list.

 

John James Coldwell Banker Colorado Agent Spotlight

We would like to thank John James for participating in our first agent spotlight. Please do yourselves a favor and follow him on twitter, @1stduderiding.  If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to drop us a line via email… support at bullforms.com or use our contact page.

– BULL Forms Team

DORA Form Updates Coming Soon

Colorado Real Estate Professionals be on the look out there are some form changes on the horizon.  Here is a quick summary of the updates:

2 Forms Deleted

  • Addenda to Contracts: Short Sale Addendum
  • Optional Forms (Not Mandatory): Estoppel Statement

1 Amended Form

  • Notice Documents: Inspection Notice (will now be Inspection Objection)

4 New Forms

  • Addenda to Contracts: Short Sale Addendum to Contract to Buy and Sell Real Estate
  • Addenda to Contracts: Short Sale Addendum to Listing Contract
  • Disclosure Documents: Estoppel Statement
  • Closings: Post Closing Occupancy Agreement

The entire body of the rule can be found here (PDF link)

As always, when the forms are updated we will make the changes to our program ASAP at no additional costs.  If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact us.

Cheers,

BULL Forms Team

Feature Update – Classic View and Strike Out

We are excited to announce that we have just launched a new way to use BULL Forms.  Most of you are used to seeing a screen such as the one below when completing a contract.

BULL Forms Quick View

We are now calling this view “quick-view.”  Our intentions with this view were to make completing contracts as easy as possible by removing all of the additional text that experienced Colorado Real Estate agents do not need to read when completing their contracts.  While reception to “quick-view” has been mostly positive, we have received several requests to be able to view the contract while inputting information.  Another requested feature was strikethrough.  Given that you cannot view the entire text of the real estate contract was not visible in “quick-view” it was impossible to implement strikethrough.

Therefore, we decided to launch “classic-view.”  Now, when you toggle your view to “classic-view” you will see something like the image below:

BULL Forms Classic View

Using “classic-view” you can now see all of the Division of Regulatory Agencies (DORA) contracts while you are completing them. You can also easily switch between the views by clicking on the view toggle near the top of the page.

BULL Forms Select View

While you are in classic view you can also use the strike through feature.  Start by clicking on the “Turn Strike Out On” link, as pictured here:

BULL Forms Strike Out

Once you have clicked on the link, your cursor will take a new shape, start by clicking where you would like to begin striking out, drag your mouse along as far as you would like to strike out.  Don’t worry, the tool only allows you to create straight lines! When you have reached the end of the sentence or the end of the area you would like to strike out, click again, you should see something like below:

BULL Forms Strike Out in Progress

Once completed fret not, it is possible to remove the strike out from the document.  You can do so by clicking on the red “X” at the end of the line, as highlighted below:

BULL Forms Remove Strike Out

This about wraps up our coverage of our new “Classic-view” and strike out features.  Now get out there and generate some Colorado Real Estate Contracts and make some deals!

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please drop us a line.

Thank you,

BULL Forms Team