Monthly Archives: March 2017

HIS Marketing Admin 7:15 am on March 30, 2017  

Five More REsearch Upgrades in March!

We just couldn’t wait to launch another collection of enhancements to REsearch, again inspired by member feedback! Here’s the list, and we’ll introduce each upgrade to you in greater detail next week!

1. Google Street View

Google-Street-View-Open

You can now quickly bring up an interactive Google Street View window in REsearch! We’ve added a new Street View icon, and grouped it with the Map and Tax Map icons. Clicking it will open Google’s Street View panorama when available for an address. Once open, you can zoom or rotate the panorama, navigate up and down the street, expand to a full-screen view, and even click through to open Google Maps in a new window. Learn more!

2. Import Contacts

Import-Contacts-Blue-Arrow

You can now import your contacts into REsearch to make them easier to look up while in the system and to set up as Prospects. You can also choose to skip or replace duplicate contacts when importing. Contact importing is currently supported for users of Microsoft Outlook andGoogle Gmail, with more systems planned! Learn more!

3. Map Search Exclusion Areas

Map-Search-Exclusion-Zoom

You can now select or draw an area to exclude from a map search! For example, after drawing a map search to cover an entire neighborhood, you can choose to omit matches in an exclusion area. Just select a boundary and choose whether to “Include” and “Exclude” matches within. As always, you can have multiple areas drawn for a map search. Learn more!

4. Combine Offices in Market IQ

Combine-Offices-in-Market-IQ-Blue-Arrow

You can now combine offices in Market IQ! Brokers with multiple offices can now run Market IQ reports that combine sets of offices together, merging sales and other numbers, to build different performance reports and see how they compare to other offices. Just group the office numbers you’d like to combine within parentheses in the Market IQ “Search By Office ID” form. Learn more!

5. Form 1004MC Tool for Appraisers

1004MC Appraiser Menu

REsearch is a real estate power tool that’s used by a wide variety of professionals, and many of our members are also appraisers. We’re excited to unveil our first tool designed specifically to meet their needs! Under a new ‘Appraiser’ section in the main REsearch menu, you’ll find a 1004MC report generator. This tool will help complete the standard Fannie Mae Form 1004MC (Market Conditions) addenda.
This appraiser tool is currently in beta, and we encourage our appraiser members to test it out and let us know how we can improve it. And we have more appraiser enhancements in the works!

Your Hawaii MLS!

Stay tuned, as we’ll share more details about each of these enhancements in the days to come! These five upgrades come on the heels of others introduced earlier this month:
Most importantly, like many of the new features and improvements added to REsearch, these come from suggestions and feedback from members like you. As Hawaii’s only local MLS provider, we’re proud to be able to offer a system designed to meet the specific needs of local real estate professionals.
Thank you for helping us make REsearch the best MLS system for Hawaii. And if there’s something you’d like to see improved or added, please let us know!
HIS Marketing Admin 10:44 am on March 24, 2017  

April 2017 Training Schedule

Go To MeetingBelow is the schedule of upcoming online training classes for the month of April. Even if you’ve participated in a session before, it’s often a good idea to get a refresher. Our live trainers can answer your questions and help you get the most out of REsearch. Descriptions of each HIS webinar can be found here. To sign up immediately, simply click on the links below. If you are going to attend online classes as a group, only one person needs to sign up.

April 3-7, 2017

April 10-14, 2017

April 17-21, 2017

April 24-28, 2017

Instructions on how to register for online classes:

  • To register, please click on the applicable link located below the class. This will take you to the Citrix GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar registration site.
  • Please complete all the required fields marked with a red asterisk (First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Phone, and Organization or office name).
  • Click “Register Now” to complete the registration process. Once registered a confirmation email will be sent to your email address to confirm your registration along with a unique web ID number and instructions on how to login to the session on that day.
  • If you need login assistance, please feel free to contact our Customer/Technical Support team at 800-628-3121, press # and then 457.

Remember, after you have participated, please make sure to fill out the survey or e-mail us your feedback so we can continue to improve upon our training efforts!

System requirements for online classes:

  • PC-based attendees – Required: Microsoft Windows® XP or newer
  • Macintosh®-based attendees – Required: Mac OS® X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) or newer
  • Mobile attendees – Required: Apple iOS 8 or newer, Google Android 4.0 or newer System requirements apply only to the GoToMeeting webinar service, not to the REsearch system.

Questions? Comments? Please feel free to contact us via support@hiinfo.com or call (808) 599-4224 or (800) 628-3121.

HIS Marketing Admin 4:53 pm on March 17, 2017  

zipForm Issue: Completing Purchase Contract

HAR and zipFormThe Hawaii Association of REALTORS® notified zipForm users of an issue that may affect users over the weekend.

“ZipForm has notified us that there is currently a glitch when filling out Section Q of the Purchase Contract. Only the first line is fillable. ZipForm will be working on this over the weekend and plans on releasing the fix on Monday. In the meantime, you may want to type ‘See attached Addendum’ as an immediate solution and use the Blank Addendum to type in the details.”

For more information or help with zipForm, please contact HAR.

HIS Marketing Admin 7:38 am on March 16, 2017  

New ‘Search History’ in REsearch!

Easily access your most recent searches and quickly save searches with the new ‘Search History’ feature in REsearch!

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Back in a Flash!

When you’re working with a client, or researching your favorite neighborhood, you often use similar search criteria over and over. While you can create a ‘Saved Search,’ sometimes you just want to jump back to a specific search that you ran earlier in the day. Now you can!

search-history-blog-2

search-history-blog-4The new ‘Search History‘ tab, which now appears at the top of the search screen, conveniently displays your most recent searches. And your ‘Search History’ list will stick around, even after you log out of REsearch and come back later in the day, or in the month… the last 50 searches you ran, accessible at anytime.

When you click ‘the Search History’ tab, your recent searches will appear in a list. You can click ‘Run Now‘ to load a recent search again, or name and save it to create a ‘Saved Search.’ The search history list also shows when each search was run, and you can delete a recent search by clicking the red ‘X’ in the last column on the right.

Swifter Saved Searches

You have always been able to run a search and then click ‘Save Search’ in the lower right of the search screen, adding it to the ‘My Saved Searches’ list. But with the new ‘Search History’ list, it’s easier than ever to review the searches that you recently and frequently run, and create a ‘Saved Search’ right then and there!

Now if you find yourself running the same search very often, you can use the new ‘Search History’ menu to quickly turn it into a ‘Saved Search.’ Just give it a name and click the heart icon, and it will be added to your ‘Saved Searches.’

This intuitive new addition to REsearch will help save you time and help you work more efficiently. And it was inspired by recent suggestions from members like you! We always welcome your feedback on ways to ensure that REsearch is the best real estate tool available. This is only one of the many great things we have planned for 2017, so please stay tuned for more good news, and mahalo for your continued support!<

HIS Marketing Admin 9:15 pm on March 9, 2017  

More Permits, More Searchable Fields

Information is power, and we’re putting more in your hands by adding 78,000 new Honolulu building permits to REsearch, adding new fields (like Electric Vehicle Charger and Accessory Dwelling Unit) and making more fields searchable!

Permits-FormatDid you know REsearch can provide you information on building permits? To show full details of available permits in your search results, be sure to select the ‘Permits‘ format among your other options.

More Permits

While we are constantly updating our public records data, we thought we’d tell you about our most recent infusion of information for Oahu. In addition to updating the nearly 174,000 permits in our system, we’ve added information for an additional 78,145 permits. REsearch now includes Honolulu permit information going back ten years!

More Fields

Along with these new permits, we’ve added new fields to the permit information available in research. Highlights for Honolulu include:

  • Ohana Permits: Allowing an extra unit on a property for family members.
  • Accessory Dwelling Unit Permits: Similar to Ohana units, but with fewer restrictions.
  • Solar Power Installation Permits: Solar instilations for photovoltaic energy.
  • Electrical Vehicle Charger Permits: Installations for EV charging equipment.

To learn more about ADUs on Oahu, check out HawaiiADU.org.

More Information on Display

We’ve improved the display of permit details in the ‘Permit’ format. In addition to adding new fields, we’ve expanded the permit summary to display the specific types of work involved in the permit (if available).

Permits-Display

More Searches

The real power of this additional information comes from being able to search for properties with specific permits associated with them. So we’ve both reorganized and expanded the permit fields that you can include in a search.

Permits-Searches

To add fields to your search form, click the “+ Add Fields” button in the search request recap bar at the bottom of the REsearch screen. You can then search for fields with ‘permit’ in the name, or scroll down to the permit category.

Permits-Criteria

Hawaii Information Service is dedicated to providing you the best information available, and ensuring REsearch remains the best one-stop-shop for real estate data for every parcel across the state. We are continuously updating and expanding the information that we provide, and if there’s something you’d like to see in our system, please don’t hesitate to let us know!

This upgrade to our permit information is the third of three updates delivered this week, and just one of the many good things we have planned for 2017. Please stay tuned for more good news, and mahalo for your continued support!

HIS Marketing Admin 3:03 pm on March 8, 2017  

Improvements to Market Statistics

We’ve upgraded Market Statistics in REsearch to make them easier to use, understand, and even explore on your mobile device, too!

Stats-at-a-Glance

We unveiled the new Market Statistics in REsearch last year, providing more information in a more visual way. Today, we’re introducing a number of improvements to make Market Statistics even more useful.

Cleaner Navigation

As we continue to enhance Market Statistics in REsearch, we want to ensure that it remains easy to use. We’ve now moved the five main report types to a “slide-out” menu along the left side of the display. Across the top of each page there is a secondary menu that will allow you to specify the island, period ending date and other options that are specific to the page you are currently reviewing.

Stats-Slide-Out

New ‘Market at a Glance’ View

Now when you visit Market Statistics, you’ll first see a “Market at a Glance” page that includes a summary of the last year’s activity across Hawaii Island and Kauai. Clickable map pins will give you a view of the district boundaries. From here, you can select reports from the left menu and report options from the menu bar (island, month, and display types).

New Monthly Reports

You can now easily access market statistics for specific months, by selecting a period ending date from the drop down menu.

Stats-Monthly

More Mobile

Stats-More-MobileFinally, we’ve made a number of improvements to ensure that market statistics look good on any screen size, including smartphones! And of course, you can still save and share them by downloading them as PDFs.

More to Come

We will continue to improve Market Statistics in REsearch, building upon your helpful suggestions to provide more options to get the information that you need. We are also preparing to introduce new and improved infographics, which were introduced last year to make it easier to share market highlights with clients and on social media.

This is one of three enhancements we’re launching this week, as previewed in our video update, and is just part of the many great things we have planned for 2017. Please stay tuned for information on expanded permit information. Mahalo for your continued support!

HIS Marketing Admin 7:15 pm on March 7, 2017  

More Loan Information in REsearch

In order to provide a clearer picture of a property, we’re enhancing the TMK Full format to include the expanded loan information available in REsearch!

Loans on TMK

While much of this loan information was available through the ‘Loans’ format in REsearch, we’ve received great feedback from users that it would be more useful if it were more visible. As a result, we’re now displaying it by default in the ‘TMK Full’ format.

If loan information is available for a property, there will be a new ‘Recorded Loans‘ section between the main sales section and permit section. This will also highlight the expanded loan types recently added to REsearch, including new Finance Company (FNCL) loan types:

  • ARM: Adjustable Rate Mortgage
  • RM: Reverse Mortgage
  • CM: Commercial Mortgage
  • AG: U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)

This loan information will not be displayed by default in Customer Format. Also, please keep in mind that the loan information in REsearch reflects only loans that are recorded with the Bureau of Conveyance. Ultimately, we believe this enhancement will help provide you with a more complete picture of a property!

More to Come

This is one of three enhancements we’re launching this week, as previewed in our video update, and is just part of the many great things we have planned for 2017. Please stay tuned for information on an upgrade to our Market Statistics and expanded permit information. Mahalo for your continued support!

HIS Marketing Admin 9:45 pm on March 1, 2017  

Infrastructure Upgrades Complete!

Behind the Scenes at Hawaii Information Service:
This past weekend, Hawaii Information Service completed the last major phase of a comprehensive upgrade to its infrastructure, meaning faster, more reliable, locally hosted services for you!

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While we are always excited to announce new REsearch features and other enhancements to our products and services, our latest upgrades are mostly invisible to you: we have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to complete a comprehensive refresh of our infrastructure.

Did you know…

REsearch is proudly hosted in Hawaii on a local, enterprise-class hybrid cloud system, which means it remained available to members despite yesterday’s nationwide web services outage that affected more than 140,000 sites. The outage did delay delivery of this email by our email marketing provider, however!

These improvements cover everything from servers to network connectivity — including hardware, software, and services — to achieve best-in-class system performance, reliability, security, and resiliency. And our infrastructure refresh comes after extensive research and proof-of-concept testing to ensure that we are deploying the best solutions for your specific needs.

We previewed some of these upgrades a while back. Late Friday night, the last phase of this major project (focused on real-world testing of our best-in-class backup and recovery system) was completed successfully.

We are constantly striving to provide you the very best MLS and real estate products and services. In addition to this latest technological milestone, we have much more planned for 2017… so please stay tuned for more good news from Hawaii Information Service!