This report was produced in a direct effort to provide more understandable insights about some of the most critical business finance issues effecting commercial borrowers. Our approach in this report is to describe current commercial loan circumstances in six words. We have adopted a similar model in other commercial finance reports such as “seven words to describe commercial property loans”. The “simpler is better” perspective reflects the belief that after hearing an almost endless number of reports about commercial lending difficulties, what small business owners might really need is a more concise explanation about these problems and the resulting impact on their business financing options.Before proceeding, it is important to emphasize that small business finance options are often more complicated than anticipated by many business borrowers. We are definitely not attempting to characterize business loans and working capital financing as either straightforward or simple. In fact, quite the opposite is the case. The unfortunate reality that most business financing processes have always been excessively complicated and that meaningful improvements are not on the way is one of our ongoing observations. We nevertheless feel that it is critical for each small business owner to have an absolute and total understanding of the entire commercial finance process in the face of the prevailing commercial lending complexity. To help in providing more understandable insights about commercial loans and business banking problems, this particular report is one of several thorough efforts on our part.Our first example of six words describing business financing options is “banks are saying no more often”. For any small business owner still unaware of this harsh reality and who might doubt this observation, a series of candid conversations with other business borrowers will probably remove all doubts. The failure of banks to provide an adequate level of business loans on a widespread basis is the primary point to remember. It is important for small businesses to realize that they are not alone when they hear their bank say no to routine requests for commercial financing.”Commercial property values have decreased dramatically” is a second observation. There are very few exceptions. The biggest business financing impact is likely to occur with commercial refinancing situations. Many banks are aggressively recalling existing commercial real estate loans and this literally forces a borrower to seek business refinancing even if a business owner has no interest in refinancing their commercial mortgage. With decreasing commercial real estate values, business refinancing will be a challenge for most small businesses.”Lines of credit are disappearing fast” is another six-word description of commercial financing. Even the most successful businesses need a reliable source of working capital financing, so this situation is especially serious if a business cannot replace bank financing when it suddenly disappears. Even if a business still has an adequate line of credit, it is important to realize that on a widespread basis banks are reducing and eliminating business credit lines with almost no advance notice.As our final observation in this report, “business financing is in intensive care”. Extreme measures such as firing their banker and finding alternative commercial funding sources will need to be anticipated by small business owners in many cases. Bankers have not been sufficiently candid about commercial lending problems in the past, and nobody should expect that they will publicly announce that they are in any kind of financial trouble. On the contrary, a prevailing outlook from most banks is they are lending normally to small businesses. When dealing with any commercial lender, commercial borrowers will need a healthy amount of skepticism.As we noted, this article is one of several efforts to help small business owners survive an extremely challenging commercial lending environment. This report was intentionally designed to produce a concise overview of several complex small business finance issues by describing commercial loan difficulties in six words. A better understanding of practical business financing options for commercial borrowers should also be realized by reviewing related reports such as “six words describing working capital management” and “seven words to describe merchant cash advances”.
Using Technological Tools To Market Properties
In today’s information age, property agents need to find and use technology tools to sell a property. Gone are the days where property agents just need to place ads in newspapers with plain text to snag a potential buyer.As the owners of the property get more internet savvy, more of them will be inclined to sell or rent on their own, without the need for property agents. Transaction data is readily available on the URA (Urban Redevelopment Authority) web and tools such as Streetsine’s X-Value are also available to home owners. Even property portals who have been immensely loyal to property agents so far, are not immune to the fact that more home owners are DIY sellers as well. ST Property, the internet arm of SPH (Singapore Press Holdings) allows home owners to list their property for free, with add-ons such as featured listing also available to them for a small fee.It is definitely much tougher for agents at the moment with dwindling interest from buyers and plummeting transaction volumes. As the industry moves into the technological age, agents with the knowhow have a huge advantage over those who are still using traditional methods of marketing.The most common new-age marketing channel are websites. If you do a Google search for Singapore property today, you will be faced with a barrage of websites touting the latest project launches in Singapore. These are created and run by property agents. If you are not already on the bandwagon, I would suggest you not jump into it now as property websites rely solely on web traffic and getting them is becoming increasing competitive and expensive. Paying a few thousand dollars to SEO companies to increase pagerank and buying keywords using Google AdWords is not unheard of. It is not guaranteed that the huge investment will come with a huge payoff, unlike 2 or 3 years back where there wasn’t much competition.If not websites, what then? Agents have to be mindful of the fact that property still and remains strongly a people business. There are still many property owners still willing to pass the job of handling their property to professionals as long as there is value added service. Therefore a good balance of online and offline marketing should be the way to go.One suggestion is to use a virtual 360 tour to market your properties. By having this added weapon in your repertoire of marketing tools, a home owner can see that you can bring an extra element over the rest. A virtual 360 tour brings the potential buyer a walkthrough of the entire house, sort of a preview before the actual showing. This cuts out unnecessary time and effort to show the house at every opportunity, in the process saving the buyer’s time to view properties that are not suitable, the seller’s time to prepare the house for viewing and the agents time to travel back and forth for non potential buyers.Ask any home seller and they will tell you the worst thing about selling their house is the distress of showing the place. Plans get interrupted, privacy of their own home is violated and having to rush back to entertain home-shoppers at short notice is something they can do without. By offering this solution, the seller will be able to see that you are looking out for him by implementing a basic filtering of buyers.A virtual 360 tour has to be accompanied by a floor plan of the house and a write-up with detailed description and directions. Before arranging a viewing, direct any enquirer to the hosted page. Statistics have shown that 70% of buyers who have viewed an online virtual tour of the property before coming down for the actual viewing are more inclined to offer a price on the house. If you haven’t realized by now, the actual viewing is in fact a 2nd viewing of the property.Another technological tool to complement your Virtual 360 Tour is using QR Codes. QR codes can be printed on traditional print media to bring the prospect straight to the hosted page where your Virtual 360 Tour is. All the prospect has to do is take out his smartphone and snap a shot of the QR code with a QR code app and he will be re-directed to the website. You can publish your QR codes on flyers or your newspaper advertisements. The possibilities are endless.This article serves to help Real Estate Professionals gain an edge over the rest in a highly competitive market. All opinion is of the author only and does not guarantee that results will be the same for everyone. Property is essentially still a service and Real Estate Professionals will be wise to use any tools ON TOP of GOOD SERVICE they are providing to their clients.
All About Forex Currency Trading
The forex market is entirely dependent on the currency exchange rates that are quite hard to predict. A trader should have know-how of the ins and outs of the forex currency trading. The basic activity is to trade or exchange the currency of a country to another. The value of a certain currency is a major consideration for the trade. When you purchase a currency at lower rates and sell it at higher price, you gain profit. This is a very simple explanation on how this large market of forex currency trading operates and makes money.Forex currency trading is the best alternative if you want to make money easily. Most traders are enticed with the forex market since you can do the trading anytime, anywhere. The forex market is open 24/7. Furthermore, it is the only world market that offers high liquidity dealing with trillions of cash transaction every day. Forex currency trading is not restricted to individual traders since even banks, import firms, government agencies, global companies and anyone interested could join this high profit-making venture.Those individuals who are just starting with the business should know that forex market is a totally arbitrary as the currency forex rates can shift anytime and even a portion of shift to significant profits or losses. There can be various factors which are accountable for the shift in a country’s economy that indicates the currency value such as banking and finance, gross domestic product, economic growth, inflation, natural calamities and many more. You should also understand the shifting trends and anyone starting with the forex should have confidence with the investment potentials on a currency when joining the forex.There are few currencies that show stable conditions such as the United States Dollar (USD), the Singapore Dollar (SGD), and British Pound (GBP). These are the recommended currencies to invest in if you don’t want to take the risks of losing the trade or if you are making big investments. There are alternatives for day trading that is composed of vulnerable currency such as the combination of two currencies, which show a big shift in the value in a certain day. You can use several online guides for forex currency trading. There are several websites devoted for free information on how the forex currency trading works. You can easily access the updated forex rates of many countries. Furthermore you can use a tool such as a forex calculator to determine the latest rates of your chosen currency.