Creating Saved Searches in the Vault
A reminder that you can create saved searches with listings from IRES, RECO, Summit and Pikes Peak in The VAULT!!!
Home Finder Reports
Another great tool in the Vault is the Home Finder (HF) report. This report allows you to set up a saved search for your contacts to get emailed alerts from **ALL MLSes** about new listings or changes hitting the market.
These reports can be sent to either individual contacts or a selection of multiple contacts, but again, these contain a much more specific set of criteria that can be utilized in these reports, so you most often will create these reports on an individual contact basis.
Login to The VAULT http://vault.homesincolorado.com/RAD/
To set up a new Home Finder report, click on the Home Finder tile from the homepage of the Vault:
Here, you will see the list of all your HF reports you’ve generated. To set up a new report, click on the red “New” button from the options at the top of the grid list:
On the options, you will need to enter the following criteria:
- Report Name: this is the name you will see for this report in the list of all your generated reports.
- Criteria: come back to this section after you’ve filled out all the other fields needed.
- Contacts: this is the specific contact you are setting this report up for. If you start typing the contact’s name into this field, it should pop up for you to select. However, you also can click on the red “Browse” button to the right to search for a specific contact if it’s not populating in the field. You also can manually add a new contact by clicking on the “New Contact” button here to set up a report for a contact that you don’t already have in your Vault account.
- Optional Display Title: this adds a custom title to the report that goes out to this contact.
- Email Frequency: you can choose to send this report anywhere from Immediately to once every four weeks and can be changed at any time. For example, if you send this report to a client in the early phases of their home buying or selling process, you may want to send this report perhaps only monthly at first, but as they get closer to listing or buying their home, you may want to change the frequency to daily or immediately at that point.
Once of you’ve determined all of the basic options for the report, you will click on the red “Edit” button to the right large box for criteria. This is where you will set up all of the specifics of the search parameters for the report.
On the criteria pop up, you will have a couple of different ways you can choose to set this up. You can choose to use the regular search criteria fields by just inputting the data you want to use. Or you can also create a customized area using the map search, and then applying the other data fields to use for the report criteria.
Regardless of how you set up your search, there are a few other common fields you should always select when creating these types of reports so that your report only contains the relevant information that you want to specifically show on your HF.
- Status Fields if you don’t select any of the various statuses, your report will contain all of them (including withdrawn/expired sold, etc.).
- Property Type/Subtype depending on each MLS, you’ll want to choose the appropriate options for just homes for sale, as some MLSes allow commercial or rental properties to be listed with the MLS, so you want to make sure to exclude those property types from your report.
Setting up a Basic Search
Using the various search field parameters, set up your basic search using things like city/county, neighborhood, or school district, along with the other amenities such as beds, baths, square feet, etc. to put together your search criteria. Once you’ve entered all of the particulars, click the red “ok” button at the bottom of the window:
NOTE: If your criteria contains no search results, a pop up message will let you know. However, you can still create the report to email your client any future listings that hit the market with your specifics in this search.
Setting up a Map Search
Sometimes using the basic search functions to search for the specific area you are looking for just aren’t targeted enough, so this may be when you would use the map to plot the specific area for the search. When you click over to the Map Search tab, fill out the basics for Status Fields and property type, along with the other nongeographic amenities you want to include, then to collapse those options to access the map, click on the two arrows on the top right of that section:
Now, you can use the polygon tool to draw the desired boundaries for your map search:
Once you’ve completed the boundaries, give a name to the area and click “Ok”:
After entering the various criteria for your HF, click on the red “Ok” button at the bottom of the page. This will return you back to the set up screen where you can click on the “Preview” button in the top right to look at the report before sending it out:
After previewing the report, click the “X” in the top right of that pop up to return to set up window. If it looks good and you want to send this report, click on the red “Save & Send” button in the top right. It will send this report to the contact within a few minutes, and then will also proceed to send the updated report at the selected frequency to that contact.
When your clients receive the HF report, they can click to view the various properties included in the search results on your website:
On your site, they can opt to save their favorite listings by creating a customer Home Finder account on your site:
Once they have a client HF account on your site, you’ll be able to see all of their activity on your site by clicking on that contact’s first name in your Contacts/Leads section of the Vault, and by clicking on the Website activities tab:
NOTE: For all three types of reports Market, PDR and HF Deluxe agents can opt to also create a customized intro & follow up text on these reports, as well as upload a custom cover image for the Market Reports. This can be accessed from your Profile in the Vault, and click on the tab for Reports.
Finding "Favorites" or "Saved" Properties on HomeFinder
On a HomeFinder report that an agent sets up in the Vault for a client - there is no "favorites" - it's just setting up the report to email to the client based on the criteria.
BUT... on the website side of things, there's also a HomeFinder "account" function, where a client can create an account, create a search, and in there, they CAN save their favorites. When that occurs, the agent would need to look at their Leads & Contacts section to see everything that the client was making as a "favorite" on their search. It'll show up in a few of the details tabs when you click on the Lead's first name in that section in the Vault.
Essentially, an agent can set up the HomeFinder report in the Vault - which sends the notices to the client. Then, if the client wants to take it a step further and create an account on the agent's site, that is how they can manage those listings they are getting sent to them from the Vault report, and the agent can then also see everything done on the website account in their Leads & Contacts section.