Pivoting and liking it....

A couple of years back when we were dreaming and building our vision of Mogul Launcher, our initial thought was that if we loved and needed our service,everyone would love and need our service. I mean, who couldn't benefit from a regional real estate website that provides local real estate news, market analysis and mortgage rates for real estate investors? What real estate agent couldn't benefit from a real estate platform that would allow them to market their property listings? We soon found that our thought turned out to be a a bit off after holding meeting after meeting and hearing from you out there in social media land. It wasn't that our ideas were wrong or ill-conceived. In fact, everyone loves Mogul Launcher but they wanted something different. They wanted something fresh and that they can call their own. We learned fairly quickly that we needed to change direction and not only provide a better service but heed to the needs of our customers if we wanted to compete with the big boys. “Pivot” is a term used by Eric Ries to describe a change in direction of a startup while staying grounded in learning. We agree 100% with Eric! If we don't learn to pivot, we're building a company that only a few of us would benefit from. As we created Mogul Launcher from it's infancy, we had become protective founders when it came to others suggesting changes to the site. We didn't want to hear that our baby needed to be changed. We liked it just the way we dreamt it to be. We thought everyone else was wrong. It turned out that we were wrong. Through much time and consideration, we had to ask ourselves, "Who are we providing this site for?" We quickly came to the decision that it's for all of us. Ultimately, we want those in the real estate community and those associated with real estate to benefit. In the end, we ate our share of humble pie and refocused our vision to build a 'customer first' real estate tool. After all, we are customers too. Pivoting was difficult to embrace but the more we hear from you and the more we adhere to our mantra of 'customer first', we're learning that we must pivot if we want to achieve any sort of success. So, we are working toward making some changes that we hope you will like and benefit from. We look forward to hearing from you and please sign up. We need your support as we continue to move forward. Thanks for reading and Happy Hunting!

Triumphs, Challenges and looking forward

Looking back and seeing how we got to this point seems surreal to me. I know, I know, we haven't arrived but I get really excited to see how far we have come since the birth of this idea. We have experienced both triumphs and challenges as we have sought to build Mogul Launcher. To be completely honest, we had no idea how we would get the idea from my brain to the world wide web. When we started out, I didn't know the difference between asp.net, PHP and Ruby. We didn't know the price structure we wanted to incorporate in regards to our subscriptions or weather or not we wanted to incorporate ideas with another company. What we did know was that there was a void and a necessity for our idea. We knew that many of people (agents, brokers and investors) shared the same frustrations I had with the real estate sites provided for us. I knew that some of these sites created monopolies that would price some of us out of the market and didn't provide me the information I needed to become an investor in real estate. So, we did what every good entreprenuer does, we took an extended weekend to hammer out a business plan. We began to put to paper who we are, what we wanted to be and where we wanted to go. This was both challenging, fun and exciting. But this was just the beginning. It would be great to say that everything has been smooth up until this point but i want to be truthful in saying that this is not the case. We have had several challenges along the way. We are on our 3rd developer, we have changed code after building out phase one, we have had several delays and oh.....we all have full time jobs. The full-time job issue isn't really an issue because we all agree that we can sleep when we're dead but our day jobs do occupy time and effort that we would rather be spending on building Mogul Launcher into the resource we envision. We have encountered great times and we have learned a lot during this time as well. I have learned that I am not that brilliant and that I don't have that much control. I have seen my shortcomings rise to the surface and I have also learned that when you surround yourself with pros to do a job.....you let them do their thing. I had to learn to trust others with my baby and realize that it's their baby too. I look forward to waking up in the morning and tackling the challenges of the day. I love collaborating on ways to improve our site to make it more efficient and streamline the process for our users (fans). I love seeing more people "like" us on FB, become a follower on Twitter, "connect" with others on Linkedin and join as members on our site. This gives us extra incentive to build something that people can find useful. Looking back, this road has been adventurous and educational. We look forward to making Mogul Launcher into the site for real estate investors to buy, sell, manage and maintain their real estate investments. We look to always improve and provide the best vehicle to make you a better property investor. Thanks for taking the time to read. We look forward to hearing from you on any of our social media platforms and don't forget to spread the word. Happy hunting!

The beginning.....

I thought we would start our first blog from our start, with the beginning of how the idea of Mogul Launcher was birthed. Giving the background to our story, I hope will provide an insight of what we are trying to accomplish. Growing up, my father was a real estate agent turned real estate investor. As a 5 year old, most of my weekends were spent with him driving around and working on his properties . I got paid $1 a day. (Hey, that was a lot of money for a 5 year old) I learned a lot about tools and maintaining properties as the years whizzed by. I learned how to unplug tubs,sinks and toilets. I fixed leaks including roofs, built walls and dug ditches. (Fun stuff, I know) When i was 18 years old, fresh out of High school and in college, my dad got real sick and was bed ridden. He brought me into his room and asked if I could help him with his properties until he got well. So I did what any good son would do when their dad needs help. I quit my job and school and started working for him full time. I continued to learn about the real estate business and now from a managerial point of view. (I still unplugged tubs and toilets though) About 7 years ago I ventured on my own. Owning investment property for the past 7 years, we all know that you run into challenges along the way. It's not as glamorous as people want to make it out to be. As a property investor/owner, I would scour various websites to look for properties, local market news, regional analysis and vendors to help me manage and maintain my investments. A lot of these websites either didn't provide me the information I was looking for or led me down rabbit holes that I deemed useless. In addition, there was one well-known commercial real estate website that charged an arm and a leg to view it's properties and didn't provide much more then that. They were the only real estate site around. We had no other choices. So, out of this frustration, I came up with the idea of Mogul Launcher. Mogul Launcher not only brings all of this pertinent information to one site, it's a real estate hub. It's a market-place where those interested in real estate investment will be able to utilize our site to assist them with their real estate needs. We are a company of 5. We are excited about providing Mogul Launcher as a tool for real estate investors. We have completed phase 1 of our site and as we receive feedback, we are trying to button up some loose ends. It is definitely the bare bones of what we envision for Mogul Launcher. We are proud of how it has come out and are excited to get this company off the ground. Our next 3 phases are planned out and ready to go. We are currently looking for funds to get these phases rolled out and will keep you updated as to how we are progressing. We hope you will join us as we build this company into a service that will be helpful in your real estate endeavors. Happy Hunting! James

New Direction

In the past we have written or posted articles concerning California real estate. We have decided today, June 18th 2013 to go in a new direction with regards to the Mogul Launcher blog. We want to use this platform to bring you into the inner workings of our company. We want to let you in behind the ML curtain, our challenges, successes, failures and new updates. So, we hope you enjoy our blogpost as we move from our start-up phase to wherever our company goes. So, join us as we venture out and build this company to serve the real estate investors here in California. Happy Hunting, The Mogul Launcher Team

The commercial real estate market has shown steady signs of improvement in recent months, as the regions hardest hit by the recent financial crisis are finding ways to decrease vacancies. As a result, commercial real estate loans will likely experience a similar bounce-back in the coming months. Allen Matkins and UCLA Anderson recently announced the joint California Commercial Real Estate Survey, which revealed increased optimism in the market. "Since the end of the recession we have seen developer optimism spread to all markets and types of commercial space along with an increased willingness to go forward with new development," UCLA Anderson Forecast Senior Economist Jerry Nickelsburg explained. The two organizations noted that high optimism in the commercial office space development sector over the past few years did not necessarily lead to tangible growth, though the survey indicated those sentiments will now bolster construction of new real estate. If you are looking to obtain a commercial real estate loan and want to ensure your loan application process yields positive results, consider using a service like Boefly. With its advanced algorithms, the firm will put you in contact with thousands of lenders through just one loan application, ensuring your eventual match is the best fit. The survey found 70 percent of respondents intend to begin developments in locales such as San Francisco and Los Angeles within the next year. Additionally, much of the optimism in the industrial real estate market seems to be the result of strong occupancy rates of 96 percent in Orange County and Los Angeles. "This growth in multi-family housing is encouraging. It is in markets where there have been substantial job gains – especially for younger workers who prefer to rent apartments in urban areas – and where property values are high," John Tipton, partner at Allen Matkins, said.

Southern California Real Estate Market Forecast

Spurred by government aid, the Southern California housing market is starting to stabilize and find the bottom. Homeowners were granted a $10,000 state tax credit if they are to purchase a property after May 1, 2010. This helped add some incentive to offer more purchasing in an economy that has not witnessed home prices as low as they are currently since 2003. With that credit expiring at the end of last year, 2011 started with limited buyers but now “purchases in process” are at the highest purchasing yet. There has been a glimpse of optimism around the market recently, much of this based on the increase in pending sales. Just recently in the past months the amount of residential and commercial properties that are “pending sale” to a new buyer has increased almost 25%.

There was some loss after the expiration of homebuyers credit, home sales in the state should continue on a stronger pace due to the recent addition and signing of california based tax programs, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be steady. Scared mortgage rates and unpleasant property sales are advised to endorse a comeback in the state’s markets.

Home sales have improved over the last two years, but still have a long and winding road to get through the tough economic environment. Orange County still has to compensate from costly unemployment, the most demanding element in a housing market revival since unemployed workers don’t certify to acquire homes. There’s no other counties or cities that has experianced so many lossess and financial crisis from the foreclosure disaster as the greater Los Angeles area. But an improving trend in home sales with the help of lower priced distressed properties has helped the area. Another round of lower priced foreclosed homes is beginning to hit the market, and that should aid in the Southland’s recovery with the statewide tax credit.

In commercial sales we are seeing a little reawakening on the small enterprise side and a lot of refinancing happening with the big industrial sectors. Most of this a dance of economics and irregular day by day, we’re not seeing too steady of profit anywhere in particular. The next year should hopefully see big gains in the industrial financial markets but without more development, southern california will be a bit stagnant and not suitable for investors too soon.

throughout the rest of this year, we are believing to see stability coming into the market with the higher purchase power we are seeing consumers having. This will enable more buyers to enter the market, helping to support home prices and better mortgage rates. By those actions occuring there will be an improving financial structure to supply individuals with more loans, equity, and confidance. This has always shown to be a major contributing factor to spurring on improvements throughout all of our economy, real estate is a major back bone to many business industries. If we see this forecasting come through then it will set the foundations for a better and more economically stable Orange County in 2012.

Real Estate Investing For Newbies

Everyone is aware that investing in property can make you rich in no time. If you know what to do and you play your cards proper, your investment can quickly develop into a winner.

Like any other company, it entails a particular diploma of risk, and that danger will get greater if you don't really know what you're accomplishing, due to the fact as you can win, you can also loose really a bit of dollars if you make lousy investments, specially in the beginning of your company improvement.

However, if you are a newbie in the company you really should not be as well apprehensive, due to the fact all you need to do is get all the info you require earlier than truly producing an investment and generally preserve up-to-date with the novelties in the discipline.For far more information about "investing for beginners", you ought to pay a visit to: investing for beginners

If you are actually fascinating in investing, a single of the issues you could think about in order to get you started off is a actual estate investing plan or a actual estate investing seminar, due to the fact you can get all the facts you want there.

The most critical items you have to know about is the latest legislation; you have to know all the laws and regulations that have any connection to your filed of activity, in order to avert any threat when starting up an investment.

As soon as you've received all the legal facts you require, you have to examine it meticulously, simply because you need to steer clear of any chance introduced to your investment out of mere ignorance. Understanding the legal frame of the investment is not at all as challenging as you may well believe (following all, so several individuals are carrying out it), but you do need to be careful and entirely understand all the implications it has.

When you can transfer on to the following step, you want to get data about the existing industry selling price of the property you are thinking of to buy. You must not just ask the seller and get his word for it, since his curiosity is to get the greatest price tag doable.

Rather, you ought to ask an evaluator or make your very own assessment, ask about the rates in that location and other information that may aid you get a clear thought of what the value of the house genuinely is.

If you are nicely knowledgeable on the real latest marketplace worth, you stand a significantly greater opportunity of scoring a deal. You can commence negotiating with the seller in order to acquire a excellent price tag. Keep in mind that the crucial to any negotiation is to know much more than the seller, due to the fact that will assure you finding a bargain and that is the essence of a excellent actual estate investment.