When performing a mortgage valuation, appraisers prefer using comparable evidence. However, this approach has a number of shortcomings. First of all, it will always be retrospective by definition. Further, the illiquid nature of the physical commercial property market means that transactions are only rarely observed. Moreover, comparable deals may include covenants, incentives and lease clauses that are undisclosed but clearly price relevant and thus distort the comparability.

A forward price curve implied from derivatives could facilitate valuations and increase valuation accuracy by providing market forecasts for rents, yields and capital values on a daily basis. Such forecasts could be incorporated into the valuation process and would provide a timelier indicator than retrospective transaction data. Some appraisers already use derivative prices on the IPD All Property Index and its subsector indices as a starting point for the valuation process. Note that the valuations in turn are used to calculate the IPD indices. In effect, if appraisers follow more closely the forward curve of property prices, the index could follow the prices of the derivatives on them.

The formal launch of the Property Derivatives Interest Group (PDIG) on 16 September 2005 has set the crucial signal for the property market in the UK, which may serve as a role model for property derivatives trading elsewhere. However, the UK is somewhat fortunate because the available indices that are run by IPD are mature and widely accepted as accurate. That is not (yet) the case in most other countries.

In 2006, the market could build on the growth of the previous year and attracted further investment banks. Several banks started to quote option prices on IPD’s main index. Further, it was hoped that the arrival of sectoral transactions would deliver a further boost to the market. However, after a few trades on sector and even subsector indices in 2006, there were no more such deals in the first half of 2007. In essence, it remained a simple swap and forward market on the All Property Index with a few option trades, before trading volume soared in the wake of the US subprime mortgage crisis. The uncertainty introduced by the crisis attracted a number of new participants in the property derivatives market.

CFE contracts are linked to the median price of existing home sales as tracked by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Further, HedgeStreet allows anyone with a US$ 100 deposit and an internet connection to trade financial instruments called “housing price hedgelets” based on single-family house prices in six different cities (Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Diego and San Francisco). Just as the CFE contracts, the HedgeStreet hedgelets are based on indices of NAR. CBOE and HedgeStreet announced on 22 February 2006 that they collaborated on retail distribution of their contracts via joint marketing initiatives and that they would share certain technologies and hosting facilities to achieve cost and distribution synergies. The agreement also involved an equity investment by CBOE in HedgeStreet.

Moreover, the London-based International Real Estate Exchange (INREEX) intends to offer contracts tied to average home prices published by the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), the agency that regulates the mortgage organizations Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The exchange’s trading technology allows investors to trade the national or a state index online.

The low trading volume in the contracts based on the S&P/Case–Shiller index caused Radar Logic, an analytic and data company providing a range of daily indices and analytic tools, to launch a further index family for residential property. The Residential Property Indices (RPX) represent the median transaction prices per square foot paid in one of 25 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) on any given day. In addition, there is a national composite index, representing over US$ 10 trillion in residential properties. The RPX market targets investors that are exposed to mortgage credit or to the housing market cycles in general.

How can a faster download speed increase the profits from your online business website? Well, it can, because poor download speed is the most frequent issue associated with usability complaints online. An improved download speed will increase the usability, therefore a CSS redesign will increase the number of customers interested in a credit, real estate or whatever you have to offer.

A business site with CSS layout will download faster than a financial website with tabular layout, because browsers have to read each table twice before their content can be displayed. First, their structure is being read, then their content. Tables will only appear when the entire table is downloaded. With CSS layout you will be able to use significantly less code to achieve similar results. You can also place all the code in an external CSS file, which is downloaded only once for the entire website. With tables the same information must be downloaded for every page separately. Finally, CSS allows you to have control over the order in which elements appear on your website, for example you can decide to display the vital information about your credit and payday loans offer and let the images and advertisements be shown later. Your customers will definitely appreciate it.

Increase in reach

If your business website becomes available to more people, you will also get more visitors and potential customers, which will improve your sales profits from all your financial services. For example, a CSS-based website about real estate offers will be compatible with mobile phones, PDAs, WebTV and other types of web services. You shouldn’t ignore the impact of this on your business, because currently as much as 60 million PDAs are sold around the globe, and one third of the entire population has some kind of wireless device.

CSS also allows you customize a separate document designed specifically for handheld devices. Such web page will be used instead of the original document, thus ensuring your business website is available to all those who might look for current stock market prices, credit interests, forex currency values and many more. Whatever and wherever they are looking for, you can provide it smoothly. That’s not possible with a tabular layout.

Although switching your financial website from a sturdy table layout to a sophisticated CSS layout can take a long time and require a lot of effort (especially if your business is a large one), but considering all the profits, and the money you will be able to save, it is surely a great investment.

CSS layouts and web standards have been present on the web for many years, but only recently did they become a commonly applied financial solution for online businesses. Such situation was caused by the fact, that most browsers didn’t support CSS correctly (especially Netscape 4). Today CSS 2.0 is fully supported by almost every browser available.

Is there any reason to convert a thriving financial website that deals with payday loans, real estate etc. from a table-based layout to a CSS layout? The reason is simple, it will give you more money and improve financial stability of your business. Here’s how it works.

Reduced bandwidth costs

Files on business websites that adopted CSS layout are much smaller in size that those used on sites with traditional layout. You can reduce the size of your files as much as 50% if you decide to switch layouts. With smaller files you will be able to reduce your bandwidth costs, which for a high traffic financial site usually indicates huge savings.

The file size is reduced so dramatically because all presentation information is located in an external document, which is downloaded along with the page and then stored in your computer’s cache. With tables all layout data are located inside each web page document, so it has to be downloaded repeatedly with every page.

What is more, you can rely on CSS as an replacement for advertising JavaScript image rollovers, which gives you even more reduction in size.

A higher search engine ranking

A CSS-based financial website will be displayed higher in the search engine rankings when a particular phrase (such as payday loans, real estate, mortgage, etc.) is searched. This is because the code on your site is cleaner and search engines can access it more easily. You are also able to place the most important content at the top of your document and the whole content is more dense in comparison to code.

Obviously, a higher search engine ranking will provide your business with more customers interested in a credit, mortgage or other money service.