buynokian96

by michaelramallah

Internet Marketing Tools – Structuring Surveys to Get Desired Results

Surveys are awesome internet marketing tools, but how do you get the answers you are looking for? What is the best structure for a survey to get good results? What is the best way to ask questions on a survey? Should you ask multiple choice questions? Or are open-ended questions better? Or should you ask a combination? How do you know what type of questions to ask when?

I would start by asking why are you bothering with a survey at all? I mean, really why are you putting the survey together and what do you hope to get out of it? If you are just throwing a survey together because I said it was a good idea, or based on some other survey you have seen on the internet, then you haven’t really thought it through! You have to know where you want to go with the survey.

Your reason for putting together a survey will help guide the type of questions that you put in the survey.

Whatever you do don’t ask questions that you can’t use the answers to! Don’t ask something that you don’t know how to do something with that data. Don’t waste your time asking questions that you think you should be asking.

You want to ask questions that you can take immediate action on – action based on what answers people give you.

One of my favorite ways of doing that is to ask what their biggest question is on a certain topic within your niche. Then, on top of that you can continue with multiple choice questions.

The more important thing is to make sure you are ready to act upon the data. Don’t spend a ton of time building a survey… and don’t spend a ton of time gathering the data until you are ready to be able to use it. Until you are ready for all that data you really don’t need it – you are just wasting your time.

A good rule of thumb is to figure 10 minutes to put together a survey, maybe a little longer the first time, but after that 10 minutes to put up the survey and send it out in an email. That way you get it out fast and get results fast.

That guideline will help you decide how to format your questions, won’t it? I mean, if you have a great tool that makes multiple choice check boxes and such easy to create, then you can use that option.

One of the disadvantages with multiple choice questions is you are kind of “leading the witness”…they only have specific responses they can give, so it might not give you the whole picture. It might just be the closest thing to what they want. It can also bring up things that they hadn’t thought of on their own, but sound good when you suggest it.

By letting them tell you what their biggest question is first you get some great feedback and then their mind is already tuned into what they want to learn as opposed to what you are proposing to teach them.

Use surveys as one of your internet marketing tools-know what you want to get out of the survey. Then ask a good open ended question and follow it up with some supportive multiple choice questions. But make it fast and get it done and be ready to act on the information you get back. If you do that you are letting your list help you build your business.

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by dbking

The Importance of Structural Surveys for Homebuyers

The Importance of Structural Surveys for Homebuyers

There was a time when almost all homebuyers commissioned a structural survey on the property that they were intending to purchase. This article takes a look at why more and more homebuyers are prepared to purchase a home without a full structural survey.

What is a Structural Survey?

Almost every property ever built suffers to some degree from movement and in some cases the movement is so severe as to undermine the value and integrity of the property. Older period houses were built on very little foundations, mostly a dept of about 200cm and made up of coke to help with the rising damp and a wider spread of bricks below ground level which acted as the foundations. In a way this was reasonable practice as it was a wildly held belief at this time that brick built homes would only last about 30 years.

As we have since found out however, there are millions of these homes still around today and almost all of them have to some degree suffered some form of subsidence. The most crucial aspect of any form of subsidence is to discover if this is an on-going situation or if it is something that has occurred many years ago and has now stopped.

Without a full structural survey on the property that you intend to purchase you will have no idea of the structural integrity of the property and you could be making one of the largest financial mistakes of your life.

Given the cost of the average home today and the fact that you are likely to be paying for it for a period of 25 years and will in the end pay back during the life of the mortgage around three times the amount borrowed, it is unthinkable that you would make such a financial commitment that will cover most of your working life without bothering to commission a full structural survey. It’s quite clear that as the age of our period housing stock grows so will the risks increase with regard to structural problems so why would you take such a risk?

Worst Types of Structural Problems

Probably the worst types of structural problems are subsidence which insurance companies nor appear to be excluding from their house insurance. The simply won’t take the risk because they odds are not in their favor.

Subsidence is a failure of the house foundations to support the load and can happen to any part of the house. One such location on Victorian houses is the front bay window. These bays were build on even less foundation than the main building and have in the past been prone to dropping more than any other part of the house. In cases where the drop is excessive the only real remedy is to remove and rebuild at a cost of about £25,000. Clearly, it would have been a whole lot cheaper to have a full structural survey and then you would have been aware of the problem before you purchased the property and included it your negotions.

Conclusions

You would have to be mad to buy any kind of period property, flat or house, without having a full structural survey. You can find a local surveyor and compare costs for any kind of structural survey at Surveyors Supermarket, the UK’s fastest growing price comparison site for homeowners.

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by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles District

Structural Surveys – Are They Worth The Money?

Structural Surveys – Are They Worth The Money?

As more and more homebuyers try to save money on their house purchase by cutting back onr structural surveys I decided to take a look at some of the risks involved.

Valuation Survey

First off, almost all property that is purchased with the aid of a mortgage is subject to a valuation survey. The valuation survey is done on behalf of the lender to establish the value of the property that you are purchasing. The survey is quite basic and does not include any kind of guarantee as to the structural integrity of the property.

Some property purchasers think that because they have already paid out for a survey then that is all they have to do but this can be a huge mistake.

So What Is A Structural Survey & Do I have To Have One?

Usually it is not a requirement by the lender or anybody else to have a structural survey and sometimes this can lead to problems as most people have no idea if the property they are purchasing has got structural problems or not.

The other point is that structural surveys do not come cheap and there is a growing tendency to risk it so to speak.

Structural surveys on any property are aimed at finding structural weaknesses in the property that could drastically affect the value. Here are a few examples of structural problems on a property that home buyers are unlikely to notice and can cost a small fortune to put right:

Dropped supporting walls commonly known as subsidence;
Hairline cracking to brickwork;
Dropped and cracked arches above windows;
Bulging outer walls;
Bulging roofs;
Uneven floors;
Cracked ceilings;
Dropped and cracked cornice.

Those are just a few of the major structural problems that property purchasers can inherit when they purchase a property. It may be that the problems occurred years ago and have now stabilized but they may still give you a major headache when you go to sell.

In the event that you purchase a property with subsidence that is ongoing then action will be required on your part to remedy which is likely to result in huge expenses. If you think your building insurance will cover you – think again as it is very unlikely that you are covered for subsidence.

Structural Surveys Can Save You Money

Twenty years ago almost everybody that purchased a property had a structural survey done so that they could feel safe. The main aim of a structural survey is for you to be aware of the major faults concerning your purchase before you make the commitment to purchase.

As is common, in cases where there are structural problems that need attention you will be able to use the survey to renegotiate the price of the property should you still wish to proceed. In cases like that then not only is your structural surveyors’ fees money well spent but in fact you may make a few thousand on it.

Conclusion

Purchasing any property involves a large amount of money and a huge commitment. When you consider the costs of the structural surveyor’s fees it might be wise to look at it as additional insurance and peace of mind for your investment and money well spent in the long term.

You can find local surveyors and compare costs for a structural survey or homebuyers survey at Surveyors Supermarket The UK No: 1 price Comparison Site For Property Surveyors.

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