Own Multiple Properties - No Problem

Take a look at this idea. HomeFree is a site that has products availble to Realtors, Investors, Home Owners. "Homefree is the personalized online toolbox that helps you make smart home maintenance decisions in just minutes a month. It helps you stay on top of your home's needs—keeping things under control before they break."

The About Us section of the website has a brief story of how the founders came up with the idea. "As a multiple property owner, (we) could relate. "Larry and I started talking about these homes we had that we just couldn’t keep up with," he explains. "That’s when it hit us that there were no great products available that could help with maintaining your home." Looking at their own lives and their in-the-trenches experiences as homeowners, they struck upon the concept of Homefree."

Check out the Demo~!

Retirement Planning within your IRA

There is a small IRS provision that lets you extend your real estate purchasing with tax-deferred dollars. One of the requirements is that the real estate is not being used for your own personal use, such as a vacation home or an office for your business. To learn more than I can explain ask a financial advisor who specializes in IRA's or your real estate professional.

UPDATE: Realtor Magizine Article

Marketing a Home For Sale with Online Auctions

I just read an Article from MSNBC.com that talks about motivated sellers that are still showing the house through an agent but using eBay to market the home for sale. The article suggest that "online home auctions are not putting real estate agents out of business. Many agents are learning how to use these Web sites to their — and their clients’ — advantages."

Real Estate Español and Asian Pacific

RealEstateEspañol.com is a real estate/financial services portal created to serve the Hispanic–American community and the official Internet site of the National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP). This site allows homebuyers to search for an agent profile, list a property for sale, or search new listings if you would like to purchase a property. In addition, you can read valuable educational materials, useful interactive tools, ask advice from the loan counseling service, or contact a mortgage center.

Also the Asian American and Pacific Islander Community has a national professional trade organization dedicated to closing the homeownership gap (AREAA). AREAA’s membership represents a broad array of real estate, mortgage and housing-related professionals that serve the diverse Asian Pacific American market.

Find a Experianced Realtor

Homethinking is an online service that helps home owners choose the best neighborhood realtors to sell their house.

They measure performance by monitoring real estate transactions to know which houses each real estate agent has sold, for how much and how long on average it took them to do so. There are also user reviews by home owners who have sold their house with the particular agent that helps determine the rank of them.

Pocket Realtor by Sprint Mobile

The Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act of 1999 *(E911) has helped a company called Smarter Agent and Sprint offer of a wireless phone application called Recently Sold Homes. Smarter Agent combines a cellphones E911 GPS capabilities with real estate content about properties, neighborhoods and interesting places around your (ie: cellphone) location, location, location.

Check out a screenshot of the application. The application can be purchased by anyone with a Sprint or Nextel phone (Coverage Area). You'll be able to conduct unlimited searches for a single monthly fee of $4.99, plus data charges from Sprint.

*The wireless E911 program is divided into two parts:

Part I requires carriers, upon valid request by a local Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP), to report the telephone number of a wireless 911 caller and the location of the antenna that received the call.

Part II requires wireless carriers to provide far more precise location information, within 50 to 300 meters in most cases.

Birds Eye Music Video

This video from Zero7 flys over some Real Estate with a Google Earth type map integrated with images of the band.

U.S. Home Price and Sales Volume Decline

The median U.S. existing-home home price dropped 1.7 percent and the sales rate dropped 12.6 percent in August 2006 compared to the same month in 2005, the NAR trade group reported today.

"Regionally, existing-home sales in the Northeast rose 1.9 percent to a pace of 1.07 million in August, but were 11.6 percent below August 2005. The median existing-home price in the Northeast was $271,000, down 3.9 percent from a year earlier.

Existing-home sales in the Midwest rose 0.7 percent in August to a level of 1.44 million, but were 11.1 percent lower than a year ago. The median price in the Midwest was $176,000, which is 1.1 percent below August 2005.

Existing-home sales in the South slipped 0.8 percent to an annual sales rate of 2.51 million units in August, and were 7.4 percent below August 2005. The median price in the South was $184,000, down 2.6 percent from a year ago.

Existing-home sales in the West dropped 2.3 percent to an annual pace of 1.29 million in August, and were 22.8 percent lower than a year earlier. The median price in the West was $345,000, up 0.3 percent from August 2005."

Maps Reveal New Shapes of Land

Have you ever looked at an ordinary map of the world. All of us all have but Mark Newman uses the science of cartograms to view the world through the prism of population, greenhouse gas emissions, etc...

Population

In this map the sizes of countries are proportional not to their actual landmass but instead to the number of people living there; a country with 20 million people, for instance, appears twice as large as a country with 10 million. Where did Russia go?
Overcrowded Homes

Overcrowding is defined here as when there are more than two people for each room in the house. If you are interested to see more cartograms, visit the website of the Worldmapper Project. Mexico grew into a shape that looks like California?

SMS Delivers Instant Property Details

CellSigns Products turn the front yard "For Sale" Sign into a interactive sales system with SMS technology.

"Home buyers can request property information by sending a text message with the property id to CellSigns. Then the buyer can request a callback, schedule showing or request a property brochure by email - all via text messaging."

Available for the Listing and FSBO market.

Take a Test Run send a TXT message - - - To: "79274" with the Message: "CS20051"

UPDATE: House4Cell looks to be a service only for the Realtor market, but wanted to share the Flash Demo.

Condo Buyer's Look Out

Buying a condo in a high-rise is getting to be a popular way to break into the home ownership market. Newly built condos and/or renovated condos tend to look fantastic, but you have to be ready to investigate your location in the building. Condo's can house a ton of hidden problems that you can avoid if you look out for them. If you already own a condo than you might know what Im talking about. For example, I was reading an article in the Chicago Tribune , a home inspector was telling a story about a client who was distressed to discover that the garbage chute in his new condo building made a 45-degree bend right outside his unit, near a common wall. The condo owner would hear cascading trash hitting the chute wall all night. Ouch~! I wonder if he'll disclose that in the re-sale of his condo?

What if a homebuyer moves into a condo that is next to the Elevator. "Ding~!" Everytime a neighbor goes up and down from/to the lobby?

What if a homebuyer moves into a condo that is next to an EXIT door to the parking garage. "Squeek, Slam, Chatter" On the way out of the door to get to the car?

What about parking - If the condo includes a parking space, I'd suggest trying to get a spot on the 1st or 2nd level. Why circle down and drive up to your parking floor everytime you leave the building?

If you think of some other hidden problems in buying a condo - please comment.

Redfin News Story

Redfin is a online discount real estate brokerage firm and have been featured in the evening broadcast of KRON4 in San Francisco.



Related Post:
Full-Service Realtors work hard for their customers and know their neighborhoods. The trouble is, alternative brokers figured out how to sell homes cheaper by setting up Internet offices and letting you view MLS listings on your own.
Discount Brokerage

Attention Sellers: 1st impressions are HUGE

When you bought the hose it was state of the art design - but in 10, 15, or 20 years it might now be dated. Ask yourself or a Realtor their opinion about the look and feel of your home. Is the interior of our home what homebuyers expect to see when they shop for a house in this area? Also don't forget to touch up the exterior of the home for a marketable curb appeal.

Or ask a professional home stager:

Staged Homes
Center Stage Home

According to a 2004-2005 survey of 200 staged homes conducted by StagedHomes.com staged homes sell for an average of 6.9 percent more than homes not staged and in half the time.

UPDATE: Property Stylist Blog

Appraisals Get Tricky in a Cooling Market

More comments about home values in the news recently because a homebuyer dosen't want to overpay for a house and the home seller wants to have a competitive selling price.

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The housing slowdown is making it increasingly difficult for appraisers to use comparable sales data in calculating a home's worth.

Gary Crabtree of Bakersfield, Calif.-based Affiliated Appraisers says he now takes into account pending sales, current list prices, supply and demand, time on the market, price fluctuations, defaults and trustee's sales, incentives, and the market perceptions of real estate agents.

Crabtree says valuations become complicated when real estate practitioners engage in "the re-list game," in which a home that has sat unsold for a long period of time is removed from the multiple listing service and re-listed with a new price and MLS code to make it look like a new listing.

"Just looking at historical data can be perilous," says Appraisal Institute spokesman John Bredemeyer, who explains, "You've got to answer the question: 'Where are we in this cycle?' And you've got to factor that into your valuation."

Source: Baltimore Sun, Ken Harney (09/15/06)

Home Valuation Tools

Keep your eyes open when you buy or refinance a home and make sure the value is current and correct. Many internet companies provide free tools to value a homes market rate. Just how accurate and trustworthy are these Automated valuation model (AVM) tools? And what exactly are AVM's? - Below are a few opinions about AVM's

Yes: Fannie Mae's Perspective
Yes/No: AVM threat and opportunity
No: The BIG AVM Lie ("horror stories")

If you decide to hire a appraisal instead of using a online tool - here is a link to the Appraisal Institute. The members have met rigorous requirements relating to education, testing, experience and demonstration of knowledge, understanding and ability. Also try AppraiserUSA.com.