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Celebrity Homes for Sale 2007-08-20 02:26:23 This week’s Trend Spot (http://www.move.com/l/1) gives you the inside look at celebrity homes like “That 70’s Show” star Wilmer Valderrama’s multi-million dollar Los Angeles bachelor-pad with photos and detailed descriptions of their luxurious amenities, incredible views, fanciful designs and elegant decorating. Trend Spots is sponsored by Move.com, the leading online network of websites for real estate search, finance, moving and home enthusiasts. Wilmer’s Valley Crib: Tarzana, Calif., Just minutes from the Hollywood nightlife, this bachelor pad is the home of famed “That 70?s Show” star, Wilmer Valderrama. When Wilmer isn’t attending the hottest parties and premieres, he hangs out in this $2,250,000 home that easily becomes the center of the party. The five-bedroom and five-bathroom home features ...

Hosting Open Houses 2007-08-20 01:36:52 Hosting an open house is one of the only things you may have to do on your own. Fortunately, it’s easy. The first week the property is on the market, just host an open house Saturday or Sunday afternoon, from 1 - 3. To get it ready, clean and stage your home , put away your valuables and bake some cookies so it smells nice. Set out some fliers, which we’ll help you print, on the dining room table; remove fliers from the yard-sign flier box so that people will come inside. You may also want to leave a guest-book for people to sign so we can follow-up later. Promote the open house on the Internet using your Fizber blog.  When people come by, just set up at the dining table or on a couch to answer questions. You’ll do much better than most agents at selling your home, because you know the property better than anyone else. ...

Advantages of using a home appraisal 2007-08-20 01:03:12 Sleep well at night knowing that your asking price is totally accurate. Here are a few advantages of using an appraisal: 1. You will have irrefutable evidence as to how you arrived at your price. You will have in hands a written appraisal complete with pictures, measurements, and, information on your house and on comparable sales. As a FSBO you will have this report to show everyone who comes to look at your house. Every buyer will see in black and white the appraised value of the house as arrived at by a professional appraiser. 2. Buyers will feel more assurance that they are not paying too much for the house if they decide to buy. Often, buyers get “Buyer’s Remorse” because they feel there are still some unknown variables in the transaction. The number one concern a buyer has, other than the structural soundness of the house, is that they are paying too much for the house and being ripped off. Having an appraisal helps set their minds at ease and makes negotiations ...

How to Set the Right Price for FSBO House 2007-08-20 00:52:03 Of all the problems our FSBO will encounter, pricing their house correctly and accurately is by far the most crucial. The wrong price could cost them thousands of dollars any way you look at it. Here’s why: A price that is “too low” will result in a “net” that is thousands less than they could have gotten with a little research. A price that is “too high” will cause the house to stay on the market for a longer period of time and quite possibly?never sell! Not selling means paying more mortgage payments, taxes and, insurance until the FSBO lowers the asking price to what the market may have supported in the first place. In addition, if the house sits on the market for too long it will get “Shopworn”. The FSBO will get discouraged and think about giving up altogether. As FSBO Professionals, we all know the only way to determine the correct price for a house is what comparable houses have recently sold for and been recorded for. (i.e., ...

Windows House 2007-08-20 00:17:11 ...

Selling HOUSES, Buying HOMES 2007-08-20 00:03:42 I googled for trends in search when selling or buying property, look what I noticed: we sell HOUSES and buy HOMES. WHY? The possible explanation is that to minimize emotional involvement we call it a house when we sell it, and maximize emotional involvement by calling it a home when we buy it. A “home” is where you live your life. A “house” is where you pose waiting for the photographers to show up. Trend history sell home sell house buy house buy home ...

RED… a GREAT Home Staging Color 2007-08-19 14:09:00 What are the best paint and carpet colors to use when preparing your home for its sale or when home staging? Well that is good question which I actually first wrote of in a post last October entitled: If Switzerland was a Color what Color it would be? But that post had to do with the base colors to use in a home that is for sale, not decorative accent colors. So what about accent colors? What accent colors can effectively be used to give you an advantage when it comes to staging and selling a home. Well, I have to admit that red is one of our favorite staging colors for props that we use here at Real Estaging. In fact, it seems as though we never have enough red props in our prop library. We have come to learn that the color red sells homes and therefore we end up placing a lot of red props in the homes that we stage. Please understand that while red is not used (typically) as the dominant room color when selling a home; the color red, when used strategically in props and accessories, ...

A Long Way Down 2007-08-19 06:22:44 Media pundits are tripping over themselves to be the first to “call the bottom” of the housing market now that the Fed has stepped in to lower the Fed discount rate.  Remember the discount rate is the rate that banks pay the federal reserve to borrow money; its not the rate you borrow money from the banks. As Dr. Housing Bubble points out, regardless of the recent Fed action we’re still very much in the throws of the housing bubble.  Dr. HB looks at markets across the country and ascertains correctly that we’ve only just begun to unwind a massive, spectaculor, devestating credit and housing bubble. Here are a few signs that we’re only going to feel more housing-related pain in the coming months: Credit is still materially more expensive than it was 6 weeks ago.  This reduces borrowing power of home buyers which will depress prices.  The additional credit cost also makes a percentage of refinance candidates ineligible due to the increased debt burden o ...

Canadian vs. American Real Estate 2007-08-19 04:59:16 The market across Canada is hot-hot-hot Canadians seem to be in the throes of a home-buying frenzy. To wit: The number of home-sale transactions in Canada is projected to rise by 8% this year (as opposed to a 5.7% decline in the U.S. seen by the National Association of Realtors). And the average price, nationwide, should pop up by 9.5% to about $285,000. The American Realtors association doesn’t calculate a U.S. average sale price, but it predicts that the 2007 median — the point at which 50% of homes sold for less and 50% for more — will decline 1.4% this year, to $218,800. According to data from a recent report from Royal LePage Real Estate Services, a leading real estate franchiser based in Toronto. Independent data from the Canadian government second those findings. The most intense activity is in cities in western Canada, said Phil Soper, chief executive of Royal LePage, who described the market in the rest of the country as healthy. Still, he said, he is surpr ...

Summer Market Remains Hot 2007-08-17 13:36:36 August Prepares to Roar into Fall Market Resale home transactions reached unprecedented heights in the first half of August, up 17 per cent from the same period in 2006, Toronto Real Estate Board President Donald Bentley announced today. So far this month 3,838 properties have sold with an average price of $355,829. “The market has shown tremendous strength in recent months,” said Mr. Bentley. “Given that August sales have been brisk thus far and that the past four consecutive months have all set records, we are looking forward to a robust fall market.” The rate at which transactions are occurring has increased over 2006 as well. On average, properties are currently on the market 32 days before selling as compared to 38 Days during the first half of last August. Sales were particularly swift in the neighborhood of West Agincourt (E05) where there was an overall increase of 71 per cent in sales compared to mid-August 2006 as detached home transactions doubled. I ...

NovaStar to Cut 37% of Workforce 2007-08-17 07:48:53 NovaStar Financial, which temporarily halted funding nearly two weeks ago amid the major disruptions in the secondary market, announced that they will be laying off nearly 40% of their workforce as demand for their mortgage products has declined precipitously. NovaStar is a primarily subprime mortgage lender. From Market Watch: Friday said it plans to cut about 500 employees, or 37% of the workforce, “to align its organization and costs with an expected reduction in loan originations.” The Kansas City, Mo.-based company said it “continues to meet all loan commitments, and its servicing and portfolio management organizations are not affected by the reduction.” The company said David Pazgan, chief executive of subsidiary NovaStar Mortgage Inc., would leave the company as part of the reduction. Share At: ...

Fed makes surprise move - lowers discount rate to 5.75% 2007-08-17 06:58:48 In an extraordinary and unscheduled move the Federal Reserve cut the discount rate 0.5% last night in an attempt to calm the credit markets that are roiling the global economy.  Stocks immediately rallied as investors regained a bit of the confidence lost over the past two weeks.   The Fed, which many called obstinate and “not in touch” with the realities of the market was widely applauded on Wall Street this morning for the move. Lowering the discount rate reduces the cost of borrowing money to US banks; it does not necessarily reduce the cost of credit available to US consumers.  However, some lower rates could be seen in non-agency products such as jumbo loans if the reduced cost of borrowing capital spurs renewed investor interest in mortgage backed securities. Here is the Fed statement in its entirety: Financial market conditions have deteriorated, and tighter credit conditions and increased uncertainty have the potential to restrain economic growth going forward. ...

Prices Up. Sales Down. 2007-08-17 05:30:48 Following national trends, home prices for Q2 in the Wilmington area are up compared to last year while overall sales are down. In New Hanover County, 1152 homes sold between April 1 - June 30, down 23% from 2006. Nationally home sales slid 10.8 percent; North Carolina as a whole slid just 4.5%, according to a NAR report released Wednesday. The biggest drop in sales was in Florida (41.3%) followed by Nevada (37.5%). The median sales price in Wilmington is up 6% from Q2 2006, and the numbers are as follows: Q2 2006 median sales price: $219,658 (which is $144.8/square foot) Q2 2007 median sales price: $233,192 (which is $151.9/square foot) Nationwide, 97 out of 149 metropolitan areas showed year-over-year increases in median existing single-family home prices, including nine areas with double-digit annual gains; 50 had price declines; and two were unchanged. For specific data based on zip code, please check out the reports here. ...

Fizber Goes YouTube 2007-08-17 04:47:59 Take the grand tour - without moving an inch Miami Beach, FL August 16, 2007: FizBer Video, FizBer.com?s new, first-of-its-kind feature, gives you the grand tour of your dream house on streaming video. What?s the point of a web site if it doesn?t tap all the mighty powers of the Internet? FizBer.com now launches FizBer Video, which showcases videos of for-sale houses to thousands of potential buyers on YouTube. The video tour saves time and money for both buyers and sellers, helping to sell houses faster and easier. ?FizBer is constantly striving to innovate, to expand the reach of its notices to as many people as possible,? says Julia Foster, PR manager for FizBer.com. ?FizBer Video throws open the virtual doors of your house to thousands of browsers, so that you can get the price that you truly want for your sale.? To use FizBer Video, customers make a video tour of their home and upload it, along with photographs and other details, on the FizBer web site. The video is then added t ... Youtube

House-price escalator pauses 2007-08-17 02:21:47 Average Toronto house price down nearly $16,000 from June Led downward by a $15,951 drop in Toronto, the average price of a house sold through multiple listing services in 24 Canadian markets fell 0.8 per cent in July from June’s record level. But that average price “? $332,442 “? was still up 13.1% from the July 2006 level, the biggest year-over-year rise since April 2004, the Canadian Real Estate Association said. Its average July price of $581,108 was up $16,406 or 2.9 per cent from June and was 12.2 per cent higher than in July 2006. Toronto’s July average, $366,012, was down $15,951 or 4.1 per cent from June but up seven per cent from July 2006. Toronto Real Estate Board president Donald Bentley said the month-to-month drop was no shock because high-end properties don’t tend to sell well in July and August. “People are at the cottage and so on,” he said. Brian Naphtali, president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, said high- ...