In Escrow Again And Web Faxing

I got the word yesterday that the property I am a mortgage writer on in California has once more gone into escrow. Last time, it fell out of escrow, so maybe this time things will go better. Not that I need the loan to be paid off. I've been getting on-time payments and have no worries about the borrower.

I also started testing out web faxing options, as mentioned last month. I purchased JotNot for the iPhone. That seems to do decent job, although the resulting image can be a little blurry, despite my best efforts to hold the phone as still as possible while taking the picture. For most stuff, it should be ok, but I would not want to use this for real estate contracts or any documents that have a lot of fine print.

Based on reader's comments, I tried using the free service from MyFax.com (www.myfax.com/free) to send a fax. (The free version limits you to sending 2 faxes per 24 hours, but this is keyed off your email address, which has to be valid because you need to click a link they email you to actually send the fax. However, you can get around this limitation by using a disposable email address service such as sneakemail to generate as many email addresses as you want.) Since I still have my landline fax, I tried sending faxes to myself so I could check the quality. In short, I don't think I will use MyFax. The images taken with JotNot (JPEG files) came through so pixelated that they were unreadable. To be fair, I don't think a real fax machine would have done much better, given the blurriness of the source, although being able to set the machine to "fine" mode might produce slightly better results. MyFax also seemed to have trouble scaling. The image sizes I sent were very close to a standard piece of paper (8.33" x 11.11"), yet the resulting fax from MyFax rescaled the image so there was 4 inches of blank space at the bottom and 2.5 inches on the right side.



Click the above picture for full size. These captures were taken at 100% zoom. The top is the source JPEG file from the JotNot program and the bottom is the resulting fax image from MyFax. (The documents I was testing with contain medical information, which I why I am not posting whole page images of the scaling problem.)

Thinking this might just be a problem with the conversion of JPEG images, I used a scanner to create a PDF file as the source for MyFax. Results were a bit better, but there were still unacceptable issues. Text was legible at least but while the scaling problem went away, the last page of the two page fax had the bottom 2 inches cut off. To be sure this wasn't just a fluke, I faxed it twice and obtained the same results.



Click the above picture for full size. These captures were taken at 100% zoom. The top image is the original .PDF file from a scanner and the bottom image is the resulting fax image from MyFax.

MyFax also sends an email confirmation when a fax has been sent or failed to be sent. I found these confirmations to be unreliable. I sent 10 faxes total and received 5 confirmations that the fax was successfully sent, 2 that the fax had failed, and 3 faxes produced no email message at all.

Given that most of the paper I have to fax has small print, I think I will have to buy a scanner to get my paper documents into electronic form. I'll also try some of the other web fax services and see if they produce better results.

AT&T Discount Plans

Not real estate related, but I had to pass on this huge money-saving tip!

Last week, I purchased iPhones for my wife and I. Previously, we had cell phones on the Sprint network and were billed separately. As part of my cost-cutting hunt that led me to eliminate my landline phones, I switch our cellphones to a family plan from AT&T where we share minutes. That saved us about $30 a month. Then, I found an even better discount.

AT&T has apparently has agreements with large corporations and schools throughout the country to give employees and students discounts. I first read about this on an iPhone hacking site that I can't find again, so sorry for no linkback. But here is the link to AT&T site to check your eligibility. The iPhone site mentioned I could get a 15% discount on my current service. Since my wife works at a university, I figured I try. She was eligible and so I signed up. Within minutes I got a confirmation back that I was signed up for the discount.

Today, I got a new info packet from AT&T that shows my new costs. Instead of a 15% discount, I got a whopping 55% discount!! My cost went from $106 a month to $48! In looking at the details, my Familytalk Nation 700 plan went from $60 to $9.99. I still have the unlimited data plan for the iPhone and all the other service features.

The iPhone data plan ($30 a month) is not eligible for a discount, but even so, this is still a huge savings. If you or your spouse work for a large organization and use AT&T, it's worth the 5 minutes to check to see if you are eligible! I do not know if the amount of the discount varies depending on what company / school you are affiliated with, so your mileage may vary.

March Updates

It's been a good week!

I received another interest payment for the hard money loan I made on the property in California. I also received another on-time payment from my hard money loan to my (former) co-worker. And last, but not least, I got a great monthly update on the Houston apartment complex.

Total revenue for the month of March was $199K, the highest amount so far. Management also collected some bad debt that they had previously written off as uncollectable, so that was bonus money coming in.

Occupancy was 95% for the month of March and cash flow for the month was just over $32,000. The property is performing better than expected. Management will be revising their forward-looking projections based on the improved performance. The investor distributions for the first quarter will be mailed out this week. But the best news of all of is that management will be increasing investor distributions in future months based on the better-than-expected performance of the property!

Houston Apartment Update

The monthly report for the Houston apartment complex was positive once again. As mentioned last month, occupancy for February was at 96% (not quite the 97% they estimated, but still darn good). Income for the month equaled their highest month ever. Repair costs were higher due to the quarterly unit inspections, which resulted in more repairs than normal.

I wrote last month about the income from telephones and wondered if that was all really from people using pay phones. I never did get a response to that question (and I never really pursued it because I felt it was a minor curiosity issue and I didn't want to take up the manager's time with such things), but in this month's report, management mentioned that they have entered into an agreement with a national phone company to make that company the preferred phone provider for the residents. In exchange for this, we received a one-time payment of about $24,000 plus we will receive a monthly commission on new service in the units.

Need Faxing Solution

I'm looking to join the growing number of people who no longer have a home phone line (landline) at their house. I was looking at my bills the other day and realized I'm paying close to $50 a month for two phones lines that I almost never use - one line is my standard home line and the other is for a business fax machine. I make and receive almost all my calls on my cell phone now, so I don't see a need to continue to have and pay for a landline.

I first thought about this several months ago. At the time, I realized that my home security system uses the landline to contact the monitoring service in case the alarm goes off. So I believed I was stuck with keeping the line if I wanted my alarm system to work. While laying in bed the other night, it dawned on me that I should call the alarm company and see if they have any options that do not require a phone line - perhaps using an internet connection or something instead. It turns out, they do! The alarm system can be set up to use radio frequencies. To switch to this, there is a $125 installation fee (they have to install a new device at my home) and my monthly bill will increase by $5.

So it's looking good for the elimination of the landlines. But the remaining hurdle is my fax machine. Receiving faxes is not a problem because there are many companies that can do that for you, convert your fax to a PDF file, and email it to you. These companies also offer sending services for sending computer files as faxes via email. However, at least two times a month, I need to fax receipts - documents that are not computer files. So to use the email fax service, I would need some way to convert these documents into a computer file.

Alternately, there is a product called Magic Jack. This device plugs into a USB port on your computer and then you can plug any regular phone into it and make voice calls using your internet connection. It might be possible to get one of these devices and plug my fax machine into it and send faxes that way. Unfortunately, Magic Jack is not guaranteed to work with faxes, so it would be a hit-or-miss proposition if I went this route.

I do not have a scanner, so if I went the email fax route, I would need to buy one to convert my receipts into computer files to fax them. A scanner with an automatic document feeder (which I want because the typical real estate contract is 15 pages long and I don't want to manually feed all those pages) runs about $300. The eFax service runs $14.13 a month, which includes 130 pages of incoming faxes and 30 pages of outgoing faxes per month. I don't see myself ever going over those amounts. Magic Jack costs $40 for the first year and $20 a year after that, but there is the possibility it won't handle faxes.

If I went the eFax and scanner route, I would save $30.34 a month by eliminating my two landlines, which includes the monthly eFax fee and increased monthly alarm fee. That means the costs for the radio alarm installation and new scanner would be recovered after 14 months.

Does anyone know of any other fax sending options I might be overlooking?