About Missoula County, MT

Attn: Montana Builders and New Home Buyers
Are You Ready to Comply with House Bill 451 on October 1, 2009?

I attended a course for Supervising Real Estate Brokers yesterday with one of the state's top real estate attorneys, Zane Sullivan. We work a lot with local builders and new home construction so I was especially interested in the information he provided on HB 451 that goes into effect on October 1, 2009.

The law was designed to require builders to provide certain disclosures on new homes, and also a written warranty.

Builders are now required to provide the following in writing:

1.) General Liability Policy: a disclosure that the general contractor has a current general liability policy;

2.) Workers Compensation: a disclosure that the general contractor has a workers' compensation policy or is an independent contractor without employees;

3.) Billing Cycle: a provision setting out the billing cycle establishing the payment schedule to be followed by the owner;

4.) Change Orders: a provision establishing procedures for handling change orders by the owner;

5.) Inspections: a statement of all inspections and tests that the general contractor will perform or have performed prior to, during, or upon completion of construction and a statement that the owner is entitled to receive the results of any tests conducted by the general contractor or conducted at the general contractor's request;

6.) Additional Inspections: a statement that the owner is entitled at the owner's expense to have any inspections and tests conducted that the owner considers necessary; and

7.) Written Warranty:a statement that the general contractor is providing an express warranty that is valid for a period of at least 1 year from completion of the construction project.

The builder's warranty must provide:

• detailed descriptions of those components that are included or excluded from the warranty,
• the length of the warranty, and
• any specialty warranty provisions or time periods relating to certain components.
• the requirements that must be adhered to by the buyer, including the time and method for reporting warranty claims, in order for the warranty provision to become applicable.

Most reputable builders already provide the information that is required in the legistlation but this will make it mandatory for all builders in the state.

HB 451 is available in full on the State's Website.

If you are thinking about building a new home in Western Montana, contact Kevin and Monica Ray of Access Realty for information on available lots or land/home packages that are currently being offered at 406-207-1185. We provide information and assistance and can help you through the process.

Are Your Missoula or Western Montana Property Taxes Too High?

If you're like most of us, you recently received your notice from the Department of Revenue for the property taxes on your home or land in Western Montana. The Montana constitution and state law require periodic reappraisal of property and 2009 is a reappraisal year.

And if you're like me, your mouth dropped at the value that was assigned to your property - our appraised value was significantly higher than what our property is worth. If you're assessed value is high then the taxes assessed to your property may also be high.

So what can you do?

1.) Request an Informal Review: To do this, complete a Request for Informal Review Form (Form AB-26) and send it to your local Department of Revenue office within 30 days after you receive your assessment notice. This form allows you to attach information to it - such as a summary of similar properties and recent sales prices to show the market value. We provide a Free Comparative Market Analysis for residents in Western Montana upon request.

The completion of this form requires your property's Geocode and Legal Description, if you don't have that information, you can look it up online on the Montana Cadastral.

2.) You can also File an Appeal Directly to the County Tax Appeal Board. To do this, complete a Property Tax Appeal Form (which is much longer than the Request for Internal Review Form) and send it to the Clerk and Recorder in the County in which the property is located before the latest of these dates:

• 30 days after you receive your assessment notice
• 30 days after you receive the determination of your Informal Review Or
• By the first Monday in June

The forms are available by clicking on the above links, at your County Clerk & Recorder's Office or online at www.stab.mt.gov.

If you are appealing your property's market value or classification and your taxes become due before your appeal is resolved, you will need to:

• Specify the grounds of your protest in writing, and
• Pay the taxes disputed under protest by the due date.

If you are successful in your appeal, your County Treasurer will send you a refund.

Property Tax Assistance Programs

There are also several programs available for qualifying Montana property owners. Contact your County Treasurer for more information or visit the State's website at www.stab.mt.gov.

• Disabled Veterans or Spouses of Disabled Veterans
• Low Income
• Extended Property Tax Assistance
• Elderly Homeowner/Renter Income Tax Credit

Completing the forms just take a few minutes and could save you hundreds or possibly thousands of dollars on your property taxes.

I Thought Your Office Would Be Much Larger based on Your Internet Presence

Creating a strong internet presence through the use of websites (with good SEO), blogs (like ActiveRain and ActiveRain Outside Blogs) and posting your listings on other national sites, can help you reach more potential buyers and establish yourself as a local authority in real estate.

We had a buyer/investor from Texas contact us this week when he was in Missoula about looking at investment properties in the area. Kevin spoke to him on the phone several times about what types of properties he was interested in and they agreed to meet at our office.

When our client arrived he said,

"I thought your office would be much larger based on your internet presence. I was expecting you to have an entire two story building or something. When I was searching online, you guys took up the top 10 places on Google for what I was searching."

While we maintain two small offices, we are highly mobile and work mostly on our laptops. Our internet presence and marketing is our priority. We maintain several websites, blogs (including ActiveRain and our Outside Blog), and online ads. As a result, we tend to do very well in the search engines for local real estate terms and often come up before the larger real estate companies in our area.

What we've learned is that

1. The internet can be a great equalizer for smaller real estate brokerages, and
2. The size of your internet presence does not have to correspond with the size of your office space or the number of agents you have working for you.

How is your internet presence and how does it help you in real estate?

Missoula MT Sept 8, 2009 - Agreements with Intermountain MLS of Boise and Northwest Montana Association of REALTORs in Kalispell, plus two others, continue to grow Goomzee’s nationwide footprint. Goomzee®, a leading text message marketing and lead generation provider that connects buyers and sellers in real time, announces agreements with four more multiple listings services.

Intermountain MLS of Boise Idaho spans southern Idaho and eastern Oregon and is the largest multiple listing service provider in Idaho. Northwest Montana Association of REALTORs spans Montana’s beautiful Flathead Lake communities and is the largest multiple listing service provider in Montana. Goomzee also has signed agreements with Missoula Organization of REALTORs and Wilmington Regional Association of REALTORs with respective deployments pending.

“It is the Intermountain MLS’s practice to provide our members with the best available information resources and tools, increasing their value to their customers and making them more productive,” said Greg Manship, CEO of the Intermountain MLS of Boise. “Goomzee will be a great asset in helping agents connect with buyers using today’s mobile and web technology.”

Mike Sparr, CEO of Goomzee, celebrated the signings.

“The nation’s leading MLS groups are recognizing Goomzee’s unique value proposition and continue to move forward with implementations. Recently in California, for instance, we’ve been selected as the provider of choice for three additional MLS groups totaling over 51,000 members. The nation’s leaders continue to acknowledge that Goomzee’s service, agility, and dedication to helping their members is unrivaled and for that, I’m thrilled.”

With the addition of Intermountain MLS, Northwest Montana Association of REALTORs (NMAR), Missoula Organization of REALTORs (MOR) and longtime client, Billings Association of REALTORs, Goomzee has further secured its leadership position throughout the Inland Northwest. Additional rollouts in Pennsylvania, and pending rollouts in North Carolina, California and other key markets continue to secure Goomzee’s leadership position nationwide.

Goomzee’s existing partners continue to rave about the power Goomzee’s technology delivers to their agents, and their organization.

“Goomzee has provided a cutting edge product to the membership with very little effort by MLS Staff while having developed many opportunities for rev share or site license to its partner,” states Rosemary Scardina, CEO of The Lehigh Valley Association of REALTORs. “The Lehigh Valley Association of REALTORS MLS couldn't be more pleased to be working with Goomzee. ALL MLS' SHOULD CHECK THEM OUT.”

Goomzee’s text message marketing solution, Realty Connect, compliments any MLS system and not only simplifies text message campaign publishing with their MLS Publishing Wizard, but also delivers valuable real-time market intelligence to the MLS organization on what buyers are looking at, when and where. Before Goomzee, there was no efficient way to gather this information for a 360-degree picture of the market.

About Goomzee
Goomzee® Corporation, based in Missoula, MT, is a mobile and online service that connects buyers and sellers using text messaging technology. Its industry-leading text message marketing platform, Realty Connect, delivers unmatched value and innovation to pacify sellers, buyers and sales professionals by facilitating live interaction while delivering property information and photos to buyer’s cell phones. Goomzee was founded in 2003 and services clients worldwide, including the world’s leading mobile technology and telecommunications firms, real estate brokerages and franchises, multiple listing services and REALTOR associations. Learn more about Goomzee online at http://www.goomzee.com.

Add a Video Tour of Your Local Area to Your Website with a Mueller Map

Awhile ago, ok it's been quite awhile now, I won a Mueller Map for listening to JC KC Social Media Edge on Blog Talk Radio (formerly Twitter Tuesday) that is hosted by ActiveRain's Jason Crouch, Ken Cook and Mike Mueller.

I'm still pretty new to video but had some videos put together using digital still photos and RealEstateShows.com. We also had access to some great local videos on YouTube from our local Realtor Association. View Our Missoula Local Tour Here

Adding a Mueller Map to your website is a great way to show people your area through local videos that you have created or that you are able to find on YouTube.

Each point on the map is connected to a video of that location. Viewers can either click on the point on the map or on the list on the right column to get the local video to pop up.

You can also set up your Mueller Map to have your contact information on the Info tab behind the video - it even includes links to your Social Media Sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube, and Email)!

We plan to add more of our own videos to the site over time but are excited to be able to offer this to visitors to our website!

According to Mike's webiste AreWeConnected, you can use a Mueller Map to:

• map your listings (with slideshow or video)
• map your neighborhood restaurants (interviewing owners or patrons)
• map your interesting local points of interest

If you choose to get a Mueller Map for your site, Mike Mueller does most of the work by setting up the Google Map and the spreadsheet for you to enter your information. All you have to do is fill in the link to the video on You Tube and some basic information about the video. Detailed instructions are provided on how to complete those parts.

Some nice features of the Mueller Map:

• It map can be updated by a simple spreadsheet (by the Agent)
• Embed this in a blog post, in a sidebar, or as a single webpage
• Map can be built to most any size (this is large but could be as small as a sidebar widget)
• Map Only or Map with Sidebar Legend
• Link to Directions, link to more info, or link to website, there are no limits

A GREAT BIG Thank you to Mike Mueller for helping us get this set up! :)

View Our Missoula Local Tour Here

Click Here to Get Your Own Mueller Map

Become a Fan of Mueller Maps on Facebook