Even though the FHA 203k Loan Program has been in existence since the 1970’s, many of us have never heard of it!  Let me tell you a little about it, because there’s never been a better time to use it.

So just what is an FHA 203k Home Loan?  Some call it the “Green” loan because the FHA 203k Loan was created to encourage the renovation of older homes.  In order to qualify, a home must 20 years or older.  In the US today, 80% of all homes are 20 years old or older!  That’s potentially 100 million qualifying homes.

But wait, there’s more! The 203k is a purchase loan and rehab loan in one.  With only 3 1/2 % down, homeowners can benefit from having a single loan. Not only does this loan have flexible qualification requirements for those with less than perfect credit, but it is assumable and it can be gifted to family members.

So now you know a little about the 203k loan, but why is this such a great time to use it?  There are two great reasons.

1. Because there are so many foreclosures and short sales on the market. Unfortunately, many of these homes have been poorly maintained, and potential buyers don’t have the necessary funds for renovations.  The 203k is a perfect solution.
2. Renovating is “green”. Need I say more?

If you’d like to become a 203k Specialist, there is a fabulous certification program available to you. You can learn all about this program at the REBuild USA website. Once you are a certified 203k Specialist, you have access to use the REBuild USA  partner programs.  REBuild USA partners include big names like Lowes, Pillar to Post, Wells Farogo and (of course) Obeo.

Well Fargo has FHA 203k certified loan reps in most markets nationwide. They have worked closely with the REBuild USA program, and they know what it takes to get an FHA 203k loan approved.

Pillar to Post inspectors are experts in FHA  qualifications. They will work with the buyer to insure the buyer know what must be done in order to meet FHA guidlines.

Nationwide, Lowes has trained their management and staff to know what it takes to meet the 203k requirement. Instead of just setting your potential home buyer loose to find their own licensed, insured, bonded contractor, simply help your home buyer fill out a simple form on the REBuild USA website, and Lowes will do the rest. They will take care of the estimates and work with the loan officer to make sure all requirements are met.

And of course Obeo will be there, every step of the way with a very very cool new product.  But I’m not letting the “cat out of the bag” yet!  Stay tuned to learn more about how Obeo is going to revolutionize the way you work with home buyers!

Obeo is excited to introduce our new Obeo Mobile Tour!

As potential buyers view your Obeo listings with their mobile phones, the tours will load in a special viewer built for mobile devices. This new viewer is designed for a smaller screen size, optimized for cell phone bandwidth and is supported on dozens of mobile phone browsers like the iPhone.

Interested buyers can now view beautiful photos, property details and contact information on any Obeo listing from their phones. Obeo Tours also look great on the Apple iPad. This FREE upgrade to all your Obeo listings is just one more way we are putting your listings in the hands of as many potential buyers as possible. Enjoy!

PS – As a reminder, you can also download a free property video of your listings and play these on your video enabled phone. Learn how.

An NBC affiliate in Dallas just did an amazing story on how Maribeth Peters, senior vice president of Allie Beth Allman & Associates in Dallas, is using Obeo’s Virtual Staging to sell her listings.  In the article, Maribeth explains that when potential buyers view a property, they “want to feel like it’s a true home and they want to connect with that home.”

In order to make that happen, Maribeth knew she need to stage her new 4,000 square foot listing in  Dallas’ Briarwood neighborhood.  But did she really want to spend $3,000 to $4000 and risk damaging walls and flooring?   Peter’s knows that buyers start looking on-line, so she had Obeo virtually stage the living room, dining room and master bedroom for a fraction of the cost.  She now markets the “before” and “after” photos of her listing.

The article goes on to to explain that The home’s owner, Ron Fancher was amazed by the staged photos. “I said, ‘Wow!’ It was beautiful,” he said. Watch the short news story below:

To read the entire article, please click here.

To learn more about Obeo’s Virtual Staging, please click here, or call 800-729-6236

Here is a quick list of additional products/services that Obeo offers to help you in your marketing efforts…

• Virtual Staging – NEW!
• Obeo StyleDesigner Interior Design Tool
• Obeo SpaceDesigner Interactive Floor Plans
• ObeoConnect Call Capture
• Custom Domain Names
• Realtor.com Posting
• Printed Marketing Materials
• Offline Tour CDs
• Custom Audio Narrations
• Much More!

To learn more about each of these  products, click on the product name above or download our PDF product brochure to the right.

Note: Not all products are available in all areas. Please contact your local Obeo representative for a complete list of marketing options available to you in your area.

We are very excited to announce to you our FREE social media auto-posting services! Obeo now takes the hassle out of being social by automatically posting your new Obeo listings to your personal Facebook Wall, Twitter Feed and/or YouTube Video Channel.

This new service from Obeo will help you be more social and will instantly spread the word about your new listings. Obeo will even show you which websites sent you the most traffic on our detailed statistics reports.

To set this up, just visit your Obeo Members Area and tell us which websites you want your listings to go to. Once this is setup, we will automatically post your new listings for you as soon as the photos are uploaded. Here is a quick tutorial.

Another free upgrade we have added is the ability to link directly to your Facebook/Twitter page from the Obeo HomeSite tour. This will allow potential buyers that look at your listings to become your fan on Facebook or follow your posts on Twitter with a few clicks.

We have created a few webinars in the upcoming weeks to teach everyone about this new feature and how to better use social media in your marketing strategy. Click here to view our upcoming webinar schedule.

Obeo is excited to announce a new solution for your empty vacant properties!

Using the latest 3D rendering technologies, we are able to take a photo of an empty room and then fill it full of beautiful furniture & decorations. Our virtual staging team can add designer couches, tables, rugs, lamps, tv’s, draperies and many other furniture items to make the home look like a million bucks.

Staged homes typically sell faster and for more money. With Obeo Virtual Staging you can help potential buyers visualize the home better and be more excited about moving in.

This product is not just for vacant homes either. You can move existing furniture out of a room for the photo, and then let us upgrade the appearance of the home online with one of our many virtual furniture collections.

Take it a step further with Obeo StyleDesigner and allow potential buyers to customize the color of the walls, floors, countertops and cabinets using our interactive design tools.

Pricing starts at just $75 per room, so it’s a big savings over traditional staging.

Click Here to learn more about Obeo Virtual Staging and to view demos.  You can also see our  live demo tour.

Obeo is very excited to introduce several new video options for you to enjoy!

This free service takes the still photos and panoramas from your listings and turns them into an interactive video presentation. Any past and future Obeo Tour can now be exported to a high-quality video. These video options (a $20 value) are available to our customers for a limited time at no additional cost.

From the Obeo Members Area, you can now build a powerful listing video by simply clicking a few buttons. You have full control over the information displayed in the video, you can change the order of the photos and also select the background music to play during your video from hundreds of available songs. After saving your options, a video will be automatically generated and posted to your Obeo Tour.

After the video is created, you can download the listing video to your computer. This video can then be played on your laptop, ipod/iphone or any other portable media device. You can also post your video file to dozens of video sharing websites for additional exposure to your listing.

Obeo already syndicates our listings to over 150 local & national websites for additional exposure. Now we take that even further by posting your video automatically to YouTube.com, one of the most popular websites on the Internet. This service is current free for all Obeo clients, for a limited time.

Obeo HomeSite will now accept video links and embedded videos from 3rd party websites as well. This means that if you have a property video hosted on another website you can link directly to that video from your Obeo HomeSite Tour. A new video icon will show up on the virtual tour which launches the 3rd party video.

Obeo has created several tutorials for you to learn more about our video options. Click here to learn more about our video features and how to enable them on your Obeo listings. We also have several live webinars to explain all the details about this new feature.  Click here to view our live webinar schedule.

We hope you enjoy these new video upgrades to your Obeo listings and please let us know if you have any comments or questions. Thanks!

Facebook has over 150 million members worldwide and is one of the top ten most visited websites on the Internet. Facebook allows people and businesses to connect and interact with each other in a common platform. We have created this page on Facebook to allow  our clients, employees, photographers and fans of Obeo to interact more with each other and get the latest information about Obeo.

On the Obeo Facebook page, you will find:

• Brief information about Obeo.
• Recent Obeo News/Updates.
• Special promotions on a regular basis.
• Great photography examples from our Obeographer network.
• Comments and discussions about Obeo.
• A list of Facebook members who are fans of Obeo.

The Obeo fan page is located at:

http://www.facebook.com/SayObeo

If you are already a member of Facebook, we invite you to become a fan of Obeo. If you are not yet a member of Facebook, what are you waiting for? It’s free to join and it’s a great way to interact with friends, family, co-workers and other people that share your same interests. Enjoy!

Obeo offers even greater flexibility with our postcard mailing options. You can upload your own list of contacts and we will send out the postcards for you, or you can just have the cards printed and we will send them to you to mail out. If you would like to target new business, we can even send out the postcards to a targeted zip code, street name or area radius search.

Our quality top notch and our pricing is also very competitive. You can get a single postcard for 19¢ or only 50¢ with postage included. We also give discounts for larger volume orders. NOTE: This product is currently only available in the United States.

The process is very simple…

1) Login to your Obeo Members Area and click on the “Obeo Publish” graphic in the top-right corner of the page.

2) Select your professional postcard design

3) Customize the postcard with your personal message and photo.

4) Choose your mailing option.

5) Within 24 hours, the postcards will be printed and in the mail to you or your clients.

Stay in touch with your clients this season and give them something to remember you by.  Order your professional holiday postcards today!

UPDATE: Save 20% until January 11th on all of your prospecting and personal marketing needs, including postcards, business cards, brochures, flyers, and much more!

Enter code ‘PLAN2009‘ at checkout to take advantage of this offer.  Offer valid on ObeoPublish marketing materials ordered from Dec. 18th, 2008 – Jan 11th, 2009