AutoPano to create panos

I have the opportunity to create a virtual tour of a new listing and I want to learn how to use Autopano Pro. So far it’s very simple. I’ve taken my photos by holding the camera because of a lack of time. Daylight is fading fast and so is my battery life. I stand with my camera as close to my body as possible and still able to see through the lens. I’m also guessing at the 2/3’s rule for each photo’s overlapping. Lastly, from past experience I have learned to make a simple photo that helps me differentiate between each room. I always take a picture of my feet before going to the next room.

Using Autopano seems simple. After uploading my photos to a folder on my laptop I open Autopan Pro. I’m able to choose the first few photos which were of the living room as I stood in the foyer and photos of the foyer as I stood in the living room. Thankfully the house is vacant.

 

When taking the photos I find it’s easier to blend them together and still have part of the ceiling and part of the floor if I hold the camera at a 90 degree angle. Portrait, not landscape. This causes the pictures to need to be rotated when you begin to work with them. But with Autopano it’s able to stitch the correct photos together and it left them in portrait mode. And it allows you to upload all the photos you have taken (including the ones of my feet) and it sorts through and creates multiple panoramic shots.

Although it’s not intuitive I discover the next step is to double-click on the panoramic photo. It’s turned portrait so I use the icon that turns it 90 degrees counterclockwise and the photo looks great. There are other icons to correct the color, the type of projection, the vertical and center and more. Even the Yaw Pitch Roll. When you choose that icon you are able to give each a number and it applies the changes to your panoramic photo. That is something you can lose a lot of time in tweaking.

I click Save, Render and Export to PanoTools for each of the panos because I really don’t know what I need and I don’t want to have to recreate anything. I’ll just save everything to CD later and put it in a drawer to save disk space.

In the kitchen the pantry door is out of alignment.

I’m sure I can use the control points icon to create points on each picture and force it to line up. But even though I’ve created the pano photo and turned it 90 degrees counterclockwise, the control points use the original photos that have not been rotated. It would be easier if they had been rotated. But you are able to change the scale to fit the entire photo in the screen and this helps. I try adding control points but it doesn’t appear to be working. I use the mouse to draw a square around a corner near the pantry door in picture one and then another square of similar size the same place in picture two. Then I click on the add control points icon. Nothing appears to happen. I do it again, several times, in different areas. Control points do not appear to be added. On another pano, the bathroom, I’m able to add control points on door corners, vent corners and the towel holder and delete pictures. But then I don’t see what I need to click on to save my changes. Apparently just Xing out saves it and my pano looks much better.

Overall, I’m very impressed with AutoPano and I will definitely keep using it. It was amazingly accurate on creating the panos, easy to correct lighting, color and angle. It needs more documentation on using some of the features but that’s really the only con.

Now on to creating the floorplan and website.

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Neighborhood analysis. . .

The most common report requested is the Fannie Mae 1004. This requires details regarding the subject, of course, but also regarding marketing conditions and specifically the neighborhood.

Marketing conditions and neighborhood data can be difficult to determine and up to individual opinions. For which appraisers always have.

Let’s first look at the form:

 

The first section under Neighborhood Characteristics is asking if the location of the subject’s neighborhood is Urban, Suburban or Rural. The acceptable guidelines for making this determination can be found at Fannie Mae Single Family Property Guidelines. To summarize: “An “urban” location relates to a city, a “suburban” location relates to the area adjacent to a city, and a “rural” location relates to the country or anything beyond the suburban area.” They are not refusing to lend money on specific types of neighborhoods.  But if you choose urban or suburban as the neighborhood location, it will be much harder to explain why you had to extend the search more than one mile from the subject or more than six months from time of sale to obtain comparables.

Next, how Built-Up (the degree of development of a neighborhood) is the area. >75 is checked if there is little vacant land. <25 is chosen if the subject’s neighborhood is mostly vacant property. The Fannie Mae Single Family Property Guidelines states “The degree of development of an area may indicate whether a particular property is residential in nature. When underwriting a mortgage secured by a property located in a rural or relatively undeveloped area, the lender should focus on the characteristics of the property, zoning, and the present land use to determine whether the property should be considered residential in nature.” The same information applies to Growth.

 

Under the heading One Unit indicate the price range and predominant price of properties in the subject neighborhood. The natural inclination would be to use the local Multiple Listing Service and see what comparables exist within the subject’s neighborhood. But this part of the grid actually needs to know the range of all homes found within the neighborhood. LOW under PRICE will indicates the lowest priced home which could be occupied, not one in need of repair or only attractive to investors willing to renovate. HIGH is the highest priced home in the area and be extremely high in comparison to the subject. Predominate is usually a range such as 95-115 referring to $95,000 – $115,000. It is tempting to ensure your subject’s value is within the Predominate’s range which may not be accurate. But the subject’s value should be between the low and high range unless the subject is not in any condition to be occupied.

Age may read NEW in areas where there has been new construction. And if the area was recently rural but builders have now converted pasture land to garden-home communities the LOW could be NEW and the HIGH 100+. Under AGE new construction would read as NEW. Predominate may or may not be the age of the subject and it is usually a range. Sometimes two ranges. Take the example of new construction: Predominate may read as NEW-5, 50-75 indicating there is new construction and there is also established areas.

Fannie Mae Single Family Guidelines indicate: “The price range must reflect high and low prevailing prices for residential properties that are comparable to the property being appraised (one-family properties, two-family to four-family properties, condominium units, or cooperative units) and, in some cases, for competing properties (one-family properties when the property being appraised is a two-family to four-family property or a condominium unit, or condominium units when the property being appraised is a cooperative unit). Isolated high and low extremes should be excluded from the range, which means that the predominant price will be that which is the most common or most frequently found in the neighborhood. The appraiser may state the predominant price as a single figure or as a range (if that is more appropriate).

When the subject property has a sales price (or value) that exceeds the upper price range, the property is considered as an “over-improvement” for the neighborhood. The property is considered as an “under-improvement” if its sales price (or value) is less than the lower price range. If the subject property is an over-improvement, the mortgage terms generally should be more conservative because the property may not be acceptable to typical purchasers. The appraiser must explain why the property is an over-improvement or under-improvement and comment on the adjustments that were made in the “sales comparison analysis” adjustment grid to reflect that condition.

The lender should consider whether a property in an urban area is among those being renovated. Since demand for this type of property can be strong, the property should not be regarded as over-improved if there is a strong market interest, which is indicated by the existence of comparable properties.”

The Multiple Listing Service will not be very useful when it comes to determining percentages for Land Use. Using the county map book will give you much information in this regard by noting major highways and streets. The Fannie Mae Single Family Guidelines also have advice: “Our appraisal report forms provide an area for the appraiser to report the relative percentages of the developed land in the neighborhood when discussing the present land use, rather than simply referring to the zoning classifications. The appraiser should report separately the percentage of developed one-family sites, developed two-family to four-family sites, etc. Undeveloped land should be reported as vacant. In addition, if there is a significant amount of vacant or undeveloped land in the neighborhood, the appraiser should include comments to that effect to ensure that he or she adequately describes the neighborhood. If the present land use in the neighborhood is not one of those listed on the appraisal report form—such as parkland—the appraiser also must indicate the type of land use and its related percentage. The total of the types of land uses must equal 100 percent.

Typically, dwellings best maintain their value when they are situated in neighborhoods that consist of other similar dwellings. However, some factors that are typical of a mixed-use neighborhood—such as easy access to employment centers and a high level of community activity—can actually enhance the market value of the property through increased buyer demand. Urban neighborhoods also frequently reflect a blend of residential and non-residential land uses—including residential multifamily properties, other properties that are used to provide commercial services (such as groceries and other neighborhood stores) in support of the local neighborhood, industrial properties, etc.

When different land uses and property types are present in a neighborhood, that fact should be considered a neighborhood characteristic that the appraiser needs to take into consideration when performing the neighborhood analysis and defining the neighborhood boundaries. To ensure that any positive or negative effects of the mixed land uses are reflected in the sales comparison analysis, the appraiser should select comparable sales from within the same neighborhood whenever possible. If this is not possible, the appraiser may need to make “neighborhood” or “location” adjustments to the “sales comparison analysis” grid for any sales that are not subject to this same neighborhood characteristic.”

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Possible real estate listing. . .

Although the real estate market is slow and some could justifiably say unstable, the phone is still ringing. The calls are not very productive but just the sound of the phone ringing gives everyone hope.

 

When the market experiences oversupply some positive things occur. Some individuals choose to give up their license. Fewer agents mean more opportunities for the ones left. But, when it’s difficult to obtain financing and when the public is scared by the news media even more opportunities is not enough. We also have to be more creative in drawing attention to ourselves and our listings.

 

This past week I received an interesting call. A well-established industry is looking for money to expand their building. They decided selling an adjacent 6-7 acres would be what they needed for their expansion fund. So they called asking how to determine the value of the property and wanted us to present a marketing plan. Great? Hmm.

 

The property is landlocked. This means there is no road frontage. None. Not a driveway, an alley, absolutely no access on its own. The property also has the railroad tracks on one side.

 

Now the real estate agent has a problem. First, when approached by a potential listing, the agent has to determine who would be most interested in the property in its present state (next door to an industry, zoned industrial, no access). I’m coming up blank. Okay, next determine what changes could be made to make the listing more attractive to a wider audience. First, zoning can not be changed. In another situation zoning could possibly be changed, which might take months, but in the meantime the property could still have exposure with the potential zone change. But not in this situation. Next door to an industry, within an industrial park, the zoning is not going to change.

 

So we have narrowed down the list. Garden home builders will not be interested in being next to a railroad track (although I have seen it done, more than once and within the past two years), no commercial stores which attract the public, no public services. And considering its remoteness, not even storage buildings.

 

Okay, so it looks like only another industry. What about the neighbors? To the south of the landlocked property was a nursery which recently closed and sold to an undetermined business. That’s a possibility. So our marketing plan includes one plan of action: direct mailings to industries and neighbors indicating the value of the area and the opportunity to own acreage conveniently located.

 

In preparation for my appointment I have aerial photos, courthouse information and direct mail marketing suggestions. Not much to go on. And still I have to explain the landlocked issue and determine a price.

 

Of one thing I am certain. Even before searching the local MLS this is not the type of transaction that will be considered hot. I intend to make it plain that although there is insufficient data to determine a DOM (days on market) range, we anticipate steadily working the advertising for at least two years before there’s any possibility of success. And that’s only if a market turn occurs as anticipated this summer. It could take longer. And since they already have the money allocated, I’m sure this is not what they want to hear.

 

And if I don’t get the listing, I won’t mind. I have the attitude of working every possibility but realize there are some listings I really don’t want.

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