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  • Benefits of Commercial Property Management
    By admin on November 13, 2008 | No Comments  Comments

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    The commercial property management organizations are quite useful for handling day to day business of any commercial premises. The companies have specialized professional to deal with specially the commercial issues. To some extent these are different from the normal housing property. The companies will help the clients to ensure consistent and hassle free service, so that they could reach their point of success. Generally the clients are like large commercial properties placed in the most important part of the city. They can also be commercial warehouse storage or mini storage businesses. The companies are going to deal with the leasing, rent collection, maintenance and various types of administrative works for the owners and the tenants.

    Normally the commercial property management service includes the following.

    • The managers will regularly visit the properties to inspect the present status. They will also find out if there is any miscommunication between the owners and the tenants. Because, a simple misunderstanding can turn into a horrible lawsuit, if not taken care of in earlier time. At the same time the managers could inform the owners about the current status of their properties, and vice versa. Actually, he plays the role of a bridge between the owners and the tenants.

    • A good liaison between the owners and tenants is always looked for. The commercial property management organizations will minimize the chance of occurrence of any potential disputes between these two parties. They will resolve most of the managerial issues by themselves without bothering the owner or tenant.

    • If required, the companies will prepare a detailed budget for their clients including service charges and capital flow on yearly basis. This will help the client to plan out his annual expenditure accordingly. Some of the companies have an expert division to take care of critical issues about the property.

    • In case the property is leased for the same amount over the years, then it requires a rent review. The commercial property management organizations will take the responsibility of calculating the approximate rate considering all influencing factors, using latest statistical methods. Depending upon the current situation and influencing factors the rent might increase or decrease. This is going to be of great help to either the tenant or the owner.

    • Some times the tenants like to sub let the property for any commercial purpose. This situation will also be seriously handled by the companies.

    • The companies will take responsibility of dealing with the insurance provider, if there are any critical issues over the claim from the owner or the tenant.

    • The commercial property management organizations will suggest the clients for refurbishing their commercial property. Sometimes a new look can improve the business turnovers. May be the commercial property requires some renovations or a different interior decoration to give it a more attractive appearance. The companies can arrange practical solutions applicable to these cases, which will bring a significant improvement to the profitability of the business.

    • On top of all the companies will serve the clients with highly efficient procedures to cover all critical and simple events, so that nothing is left to take care for. They are very much liable to look after issues from the maintenance of the building to maintenance of a good working relationship between the owner and the tenant. They will be a total solution to any commercial property.

    Storage

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  • Maximize Your Time With Property Management
    By admin on November 11, 2008 | No Comments  Comments

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    Being an established landlord, whether you are the owner of residential homes, duplexes, condominiums or some other other type of family dwelling or even self storage or portable storage is a good way to stock your money into something that is real and tangible, rather than invisible commodities like stocks that, though they may be more lucrative, are also riskier in the long run. With family houses and dwellings, you get a fair return on the money that you have invested and you learn valuable skills ranging from knocking down a wall to installing light fixtures and staining wood, especially if you are a smart buyer who has an eye for cosmetic upgrades and curb appeal, and an adventurous nature that is not afraid to pick up a sledgehammer or use a table saw.

    The tangibility of your investment is just the tip of the iceberg, however, because once the initial investment has been made and the home has been purchased by you, there are numerous intricacies and untold details that come with the territory as far as lease agreements, taxes and legal obligations are concerned. This adds heavy weight to the already large amount of responsibility that comes with ownership of the dwellings themselves. If you are not local, meaning you live somewhere other than where your units are located, or if you are not familiar with all of the laws and find yourself in over your head, you will most certainly want to look into property management companies as a way to optimize your business and make your life much easier. 

    Property management companies are professionals who have amassed great knowledge in all aspects of the business. They can provide a substantial amount of service, for a substantial fee. They will oversee relationships with tenants and create rapport with them as their go-to resource for answers to their questions or to voice their concerns. If something breaks, such as an air conditioning compressor, or if a clay plumbing tile in the back yard shatters from tree root pressure causing sewage to accumulate by the back gate, property management companies are trained to handle such situations quickly, and they do it so as to save you from having to spend a fortune, making the repairs as affordable as possible. They want to see you make money and profit, for when you do, they do as well.

    In addition to current tenants, many property management companies will work to find new tenants, placing ads and answering and interviewing those potential tenants, doing background and residential history checks on your behalf. Especially when you are located in another state, it is so helpful to have a staff of dedicated professionals doing the legwork for you, as well as filing your taxes, keeping track of expenses and monthly payments in and out of the business. They also keep you current on city inspections and zoning regulations, so you do not have to.

    Property management companies can seem like a prayer being answered, because of the wide range of services that they offer. Granted, the fees can and often are substantial, the more comprehensive the services are that you have chosen, but depending on your skill level, available time commitment and location, if you are not able to complete the tasks on your own, it is much better to pay for assistance as the responsibilities mount with your growing empire than it is to just let it all go and risk losing your business. Is it worth the money to minimize your risk, maximize your time and make your life substantially easier by working with property management companies? Only you can decide that.

    Storage

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  • Advantages of Real Estate Management
    By admin on November 10, 2008 | No Comments  Comments

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    The most challenging part faced by any manager involved with properties is to organize their contacts. It becomes their daily function to maintain a precise and updated real estate contact management system. Normally they receive hundreds and thousands of business cards and contact information during their communication with vendors and clients. In earlier days people used to maintain a folder or file for keeping the business cards or contact information. But, now new technologies have transformed the scenario. Nowadays most of the managers use some type of electronic instrument like computer, smart phone or some other type of contact management device, to take care of this problem.

    The real estate contact management software will provide you all facilities so that you can maintain your data in an organized manner and offer  better customer service . These are actually known as customer relationship management software, where you can enter all your information related to the contacts. There is software readily available, which can maintain a difference between contact information for regular clients or vendors and prospective customer or vendor information. A contact is a person with whom a business relationship already exists. Whereas, a prospect is a new person with whom you might have a chance of having business in future days, provided you maintain regular contacts.

    All the information must be organized perfectly using the real estate contact management software. The functionality of the software has a wide range. It has an in built search engine, which helps you to search on any field for the contact information. It is not necessary that you have to remember the name or business name, to find out their contact address. It is better to keep a note of the place and the reason of meeting the person, when you enter the information related to the client. This will help you to keep track of the person, if you meet him again in future.

    Learn your real estate contact management software by heart, so that you can use this confidently. Most of the systems have varieties of beneficial features. If you do not learn them, you can not use the advantage of those features. While entering new contact information, you can assign categories for them. This will ease up your look up process. You must keep different type of personal information about your clients or vendors like their birthday, anniversary date etc. Make it a habit to wish your clients or vendors on their important dates. This will generate a good friendly relation between you and your acquaintance.

    You can easily set reminders using the real estate contact management system for any upcoming event related to your clients. If you miss any of these events, you can use an automated following up process to make up the situation. Often you may not have enough time to enter all business cards. Then you might use a business card scanner to scan the cards and input the system directly. Always remember to update your database with latest information regarding your clients. It will be preferable, if you make a daily routine to update all the information at the first hour of your office. This way you can always receive up to date information from your software.

    But, the most important feature of maintaining the system is to keep regular back ups. This is very important because if you do not keep any back ups, you might lose all your information accidentally, if your computer breaks up.

    Any management firm from self storage to yacht storage to apartments and more can use a software like this.

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  • Advertising For Your Vacation Home
    By admin on November 8, 2008 | No Comments  Comments

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    If you are an owner of a luxurious property placed in a famous tourist site, you will require adequate help from real estate management companies to show you the right direction for advertising and marketing of your vacation home. If you do not follow a proper marketing strategy, you will not get plenty of bookings from the vacationers. You have to be skilled in marketing your property, so that you become successful in your endeavor, especially if your property is placed in a famous tourist spot. You have to face a strong competition from other entrepreneurs. To fight with these odds, you have to acquire the right advertising and marketing plan to take care of your business.

    The experienced real estate management companies follow different methods for advertising and marketing the property of their clients. Normally, the common methods are advertising through local newspaper, magazines or brochures. Putting up hoardings beside the highways or at popular places can be another useful method of advertising. Sometimes, they also use the local cable service to advertise for their clients. But, there are some critical issues which do not get solved by these approaches. First is of course the price. For a famous holiday spot, the cost of putting up simple box advertising might cost you around 300 dollars just for one day appearance. For a colored ad, the amount will be more than double. This is not always feasible for the owner.

    Another problem with this type of publicity made by the real estate management companies is the advertisements are being limited to the local people only. But practically people will come to visit the place from different sides of the country and sometimes across the world. How would they know about your property at their booking time, if the advertisement does not reach them? Thus the whole purpose of advertising and spending money for it boils down to nil. Newspaper and magazine ads will never reach your target audience, irrespective of the cost and manifestation of the advertisement.

    In this scenario, some of the real estate management companies have found a unique way of advertising your property, which is using the internet. Internet advertising will unveil your property to a wide range of people all over the world. This opportunity was never available with traditional advertising methods. Price wise, this will be considerably reasonable, especially when you account the amount of return you are supposed to get back. The companies will develop a web site for your property providing detail description of your vacation home. You can even attach pictures of various views of your house and the landscape, so that the prospective client shopping online can visualize your property.

    Again, a beautifully organized website does not mean that you will get approximately hundred visitors per day in your website. Here also, a successful promotion of your website is required. The real estate management companies will help you to promote the website at various important and popular search engine sites. This will help you to receive a major number of guests at your site. Simultaneously, this will also increase the probability of getting more bookings. As the contact details will be provided in your web site, prospective clients can communicate through phone calls, fax or emails, in case they have more queries or they want to book for holidays.

    You should also keep seasonal decorations in a self storage place or storage shed to give the property a cozy feel.

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  • Guide To Property Management Companies
    By admin on November 7, 2008 | No Comments  Comments

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    You must consider few important factors before you are going to hire a real estate management company . Since, you have already invested a lump sump for your apartment or storage property, you must be careful enough so that you do not spend your hard earned money for an irresponsible management company. You may find many management companies over the internet, but how much dependable they are? Can you really rely on them for taking utmost care of your storage property? Are they actually eligible to find out a suitable tenant for your property? To know about these, you should consider these factors about the management company to find out their credibility.

    Get information about what are the other properties the real estate management company takes care of? You must know that how they are being managed? If possible, visit personally those places to find out the exact status of the maintenance of the property. Also, if you are going to rent your house to commercial organization, the management company must have experience in handling that particular business. The rules, regulations and laws will not be same for different types of renting or selling. The company must be aware of the laws, which are uniquely related to your business.

    Another important factor to consider is that what is the charge for the real estate management company ? Though the fee will vary from one locality to other, but it should not be excessively high. According to recent statistical study, at some place the charge is around 4 percent of gross rent for large buildings, and somewhere it is around 12 percent for single family home. So, there is no approximate cost which you can estimate in advance. But, the fee should be in conformity with the charge for other management companies in your locality. Also, make sure that there is no hidden charge, which you might get to know after signing the contract.

    Before you go to hire the real estate management company , go shopping to find out that who is going to be responsible for your property? The person should have adequate experience in this field. Since, he is going to deal each and every issue related to your property on behalf of you, you must maintain a good, friendly relation with him. Find out all information about their process of collecting fee or paying of utilities. Clearly specify your option, if you want to deposit the rent in your bank account or you want to deduct the utility bill from your account, etc. This way, there will be complete transparency between your manager and you.

    Marketing and advertising both are very important to promote your property to prospective customers. Check that what method of advertising the real estate management company will follow for your property? Also, be aware of the approximate cost associated to this expenditure. Other than this, you must ask them about the reports and maintenance of accounts. The company must have customer help line open for 24 hours 7 days, so that any urgent call is attended then and there.

    These were the few important factors to influence your decision making process, but until and unless you feel comfortable and confident about the management company, do not finalize with them. Before spending for the company, make sure that you can rest at peace without worrying about your property.

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  • Do You Need A Property Management Company?
    By admin on November 6, 2008 | No Comments  Comments

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    If you are going to buy any property, then your next consideration will be, whether you require any property management company to take care of the property or not? It is a very vital decision for your property. A good management company is going to cost more money on top of your expenditure for the property. Do you have that much financial stability to support the monthly fee for the company? It is definitely true, that a good, dependable manager will help you out in all steps of managing the property. Actually, you do not have to bother about your property. The company will take care of it on behalf of you, and if you wish you might get good return by using your property for business usage.

    First you should decide how you are going to use your property? You can use it for your own purpose, or you can rent it to apartment or storage tenants or you can sell it. A good property management company will deal with all these issues separately, if you give them the responsibility. If you use the property for yourself and the property is a new one, then you might not require any company at the beginning, as there will be no major maintenance or repairing work to be done for first few years. Again, there are people, who like to take the hassles of these most mundane jobs. Time is a major factor. If you are a terribly busy person, then it will be quite difficult for you to find time for these property related works. In that situation, you have to take professional help.

    If you want your property to let, then also the property management company will help you in various ways. You can take care of your storage or apartment tenants, if you have enough free time and energy. This way you can definitely reduce your expenditures, and increase your income. But, do you really have the ability to listen to regular complaints from your tenants and offer customer service ? Just the regular rent collection job or fixing the toilet of the tenants, can make your life miserable. In addition to this, if your tenant never pays the rent within the due date or creates nuisance or disregards the rules and regulations of the agreement, can you really manage that situation? You must ask these questions to yourself, before you take any decision.

    In case you are planning to earn from the property by reselling it, then you have to consider a property management company . You cannot even fix a reasonable price for your property without their help. There are many factors, which influence the price. Unless you are skilled enough in this stream, you will not be able to calculate the approximate value of your property. If you are investing in multiple properties, then you will not find any time to concentrate on a particular one. Then you have to use your time to find more, better deals, than by spending on simple maintenance issue for one. A company will deal with all these issues with more proficiency and you will get more free time to plan about your next investment.

    A good property management company will save your time, money and energy, in days to come. Your property is not going to remain vacant for many days. They will find a sincere buyer or renter for you, so that you do not face any problem with your property. Even if you find it little expensive, it will pay you back in due course.

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  • Common Services of Property Management Firms
    By admin on November 5, 2008 | No Comments  Comments

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    A reliable realty property management company generally offers a full property management services contract. This contract will assure your property the best possible care and attention, so that you can rest at peace. You might buy a property for your own use or for using the property to earn money through rent out to travelers or renters or reselling. Whatever be your objective, the management company will help you to attain your goal. Normally, the companies offer some common services, which are listed below.

    • The first and foremost duty of a management company is to help the owner to earn maximum amount of money out of the property. The company will suggest you on marketing and advertising for renting out. To find a suitable renter for your home is totally the responsibility of the company.

    • A property management services contract will also offer you full maintenance and repairing service to your property. Any service like installing a ceiling fan or painting the walls will be handled by professionally skilled persons. An emergency complaint from your renter will be attended then and there with earnest sincerity.

    • The company can also take the regular duties of paying the utility bills and collecting monthly rent from your renter. This service will be very much helpful to you, if you are terribly busy or you stay in a different place. Even if it is not so, you are not required to take the pain of these mundane works.

    • Another extremely important part of the property management services contract is the cleaning service. A housekeeping team will regularly visit your property to keep it clean and organized. If your property is vacant for some period of time, then you will require it to clean before the check in of apartment or storage renters or guests.

    • If you have a pool within your property, it will require regular cleaning up. Fully trained and state certified pool technicians will maintain the pool in a weekly basis, to keep it clean and unpolluted. They will test the pool water in a regular manner to find out the chemical balance of the water. If the balance is not maintained, then they will add chemicals to bring up to the required level.

    • A regular maintenance of your lawn is another important service, which you receive through the property management services contract. A good care is taken by cutting, trimming and weeding the lawn, to give it a beautiful look.

    • A thorough pest control treatment is done inside and outside of the property to prevent pests and insects from entering. The manager does checking up the property for any insects or bugs at regular intervals.

    • If you want to surprise your guests with any kind of special service like a birthday cake or a bottle of champagne, the company will provide that customer service to your guests.

    • A property management services contract will assure you help, anytime for 24 hours 7 days. Any call from your apartment or storage renter or guests or you, will be attended immediately with sincere efforts. There are some companies who do not believe in automated phone service. At any wee time there will be someone to talk to you in your crisis, and he will find out a best suitable solution for you. What more can you ask for?

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  • How To Find Property Management Companies
    By admin on November 4, 2008 | No Comments  Comments

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    If you are looking for property management companies , you can search online. There are many websites which will help you to find the right company for your requirement. These sites are dedicated to serve you with list of good residential or commercial realty managers to manage your rented properties. Through these sites you can easily find a certified, professional realty management company to serve your purpose. Whether you are a manager or storage renter, it does not matter. The sites are going to be helpful for both the parties by meeting up their requirement. You just give a search with these words in any search engine, and you will get a list of hundreds and thousands of companies.

    Realty managers can add their property management companies to these sites, by paying a reasonable amount. While adding the company, the contact information must be provided, so that the renters can communicate if they wish to contact your company. The apartment or storage tenants will also be able to view all properties advertised through your company account. These websites actually be of great help to advertise your company and services to tenants and homeowners over a wide range of area. The monthly cost for adding your company to the list of these websites, is around 50 dollars. However, if your website advertises the link for the search website, then the monthly fee can be eliminated.

    If you are a renter looking for your new home, then you can easily search for your local property management companies , using these websites. You can use the search functions with various parameters like property type, zip code or postal code, approximate value or rent of the property etc. Some websites might provide a list of realty managers available in a particular state. Normally, the websites maintain a list of featured realty management companies with their detail description. Actually, these companies are pretty much dependable as they have been selected to appear in the featured list. You can also ask for a quote from as many companies as you wish.

    Most of the sites have a quick link page to find property management companies in the popular states. You can click on the links to find out the featured companies in that particular state. Once you have selected a state, you can further refine your search by using more parameters provided at these link pages. This will make your search process much easier and less time consuming. Thus, you can also avoid the complicated search process for finding out the right company from the listing. If you have any questions regarding this issue, you can ask to the experts. You will receive a justified reply at your earliest.
     
    While shopping for a suitable property management companies , first look for their reputation in the market. Also find out their expertise in important areas like renting, collections, marketing, publicizing, maintenance, tenant relations, financial analysis and knowledge of local and state laws. In addition to that, many companies have special accreditation by national level organizations. You can depend on these companies without any hesitation. Once you find out the list of all companies available to your locality, review their credibility one at a time by visiting their respective websites. If you feel confident about them, then you can request for quote from those companies.

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  • What Is Real Estate Management
    By admin on November 3, 2008 | No Comments  Comments

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    Real estate management has become a most important function of the realty industry. Actually it is the managerial procedures and maintenance of the properties, so that the owner of the property gets satisfied by the end result. It also deals with the future planning about the properties, which will increase the value of the property. Actually, the future planning will include proposals of physical and financial programs related to the property. Basically the managers are responsible for managing the physical site of the property. They are also responsible for managing the customer service transactions related to the property and managing the leasing procedures and serving the tenants.

    Nowadays, real estate management has become a popular profession. As the population is increasing day by day, the requirement for living space is also increasing. This has resulted to more and more buildings of different types. Another important aspect is that more people are considering this stream as a better investment of money. To satisfy these requirements specially trained and educated professionals are being required. People without any specialized training were not being able to manage this scenario properly. So, institutes have designed specific courses for becoming a successful professional in this industry. An adequately trained person will definitely handle any property related issue with better control.

    The ultimate objective for the real estate management people is how to reach the highest and best use of any property under their observation. It means that the property will be best used and it will be able to generate highest net operating income, with respect to the location, size, storage and design. Any other usage of the property is not going to give this expected return. The process to find out this optimum usage plan is quite difficult. This is not a simple issue, only qualified professional can deal with these projects. The managers will work on to find out the specific plan for the particular property, which will give the best return to the owner.

    The real estate management people will develop a management plan to achieve the objective of the owner. The process of developing this plan will require a detail analysis of the physical, financial and operational conditions of the property. They will also study the competitive aspect of the property to determine the ultimate plan. If the conditions are not enough supportive for achieving the goal of the owner, then the managers will recommend suggestions for improving the physical, financial or operational status. They will also support the owner to apply the modifications to the property.

    Generally there is a step by step approach taken by the real estate management professional to develop the management plan. Matter wise it could differ from person to person, but the content of analysis will remain same for every property. The steps will be as follows.

    • Regional analysis
    • Neighborhood analysis
    • Property analysis
    • Analysis of alternatives like operational changes, structural changes etc
    • Cost benefit analysis and
    • Conclusions and recommendations.

    A manager is totally responsible to implement a high standard of concern in managing the property and the fund of the owner. He must be loyal to the welfare of the owner and should not indulge in any illegal activity in opposite. Any kind of such action will not at all be beneficial for the owner, the management firm and himself.

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  • Perfect Real Estate Management Solutions
    By admin on November 1, 2008 | No Comments  Comments

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    Real estate property management software is the perfect solution for realty business entity. The web based software will provide you with the advantage of placing all the listing on the website. You can also create your own areas, school districts and property types using this software. The software will help you to upload images of your property on the website. Important feature like search functionality is also included in this software. This integrated application is very useful in managing different types of real estate, by ensuring better control, customer service and greater support for your real estate portfolio.

    The real estate property management software is designed for all types of business sets like multi unit residential, condominium, commercial, industrial, shopping center etc. Generally, the software has a modular set up, so that you can invest according to your exact requirement. You can add on other modules like storage or mini storage as and when you invest to expand your business. Some of the modules are database having the details of property, owners and tenants, tenant receivable, accounting, budget, maintenance management, data security, utility billing, payroll accounting etc. The software will help you to achieve total transparency in your business. At the same time, it will reduce transaction costs by increasing operational efficiency.
     
    The real estate property management software will offer you the most comprehensive database engine, to keep you more organized. You can record all of your business details into a centrally maintained easily accessible database. The software is going to help everyone in the office because each and every one can access any information related to the business at any point of time. The database can store information for various categories like properties, buildings, units, leases, tenants, applicants, owners, suppliers etc. You can put any query to the database and it will be reported back to you within a few minutes.

    The accounting is another important feature of any real estate property management software . A powerful and robust account will allow you to easily and accurately record and track transactions for your business. Generally, it includes features like accrual based accounting, charting of various accounts, inter company accounting and many more. The tenant receivable module can be used to charge rent from tenants and track their outstanding receivable as well as security deposits. The module can generate a number of different types of reports based on the information. You can schedule regular preventive maintenance and keep a record of all maintenance done using the maintenance management option. The utility billing module will help you to track consumption and bill a minimum charge.

    The real estate property management software is going to help you in each and every respect of your business. You must invest for software to give your business a smooth run. It is going to save a lot of time. You can also use the website facility to give a facelift to your business. A website is going to bring more business to you, as you can reach many distant clients over the internet. The software will help you to organize your business properly, so that you can handle multiple clients at a single time, making the most complicated job easy to handle. The software will be a big support to your investment strategies by measuring performance data across all parts of your business.

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