By James R. Hagerty

From The Wall Street Journal Online

PITTSBURGH — In an era when million-dollar houses are no longer exceptional, some homes sell for less than the price of a Brooks Brothers suit.

At an auction of foreclosed real estate here in April, Monte Lowderman struggled to entice someone to bid for a two-bedroom house in one of the city’s roughest neighborhoods.

“Now, folks, I’m not telling you it’s ready to move into,” said the auctioneer. He paused, then added: “You know, the way to make money is recognizing potential.”

Charles Lantzman, a real-estate investor here, didn’t find the house particularly appealing but put up a hand and offered $500. That turned out to be the high bid.

Nationwide, about 3,800 foreclosed homes sold for $1,000 or less in the first 10 months of this year, according to First American Real Estate Solutions, a data provider in Santa Ana, Calif.

Sales like these tend to occur in places like Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh, where dying industry has left behind a surplus of what once was middle-class housing in neighborhoods now known for crime and bad schools.

More distressed homes are headed for the block. As the national housing boom fades, foreclosures are rising on subprime loans, those for people with weak credit records. A recent report from mortgage analysts at UBS AG in New York found that about 2% of subprime loans packaged into securities this year were in foreclosure by October, nearly double the year-earlier rate.

Foreclosed homes generally aren’t a huge bargain. Savvy local investors know their value and compete to buy them. Still, as Mr. Lowderman noted, there is always the chance that one investor will spot potential where other bidders don’t see any. And as lenders find themselves owning more foreclosed property, they become more eager to unload it as quickly as possible. The longer lenders hold these homes, the more they pay in taxes, insurance, lawn care and other maintenance.

In recent years, lenders and mortgage brokers have heavily promoted subprime loans. Many of the borrowers are people in poor neighborhoods who refinance their homes to take out cash or pay off credit-card debt.

The Pittsburgh house bought by Mr. Lantzman ended up at the auction because of one of those subprime refinancings that went bad. Allegheny County records show that CitiMortgage, a unit of Citigroup Inc., granted a $33,600 mortgage to the previous owner in February 2001, at an initial interest rate of 11.5%, which eventually would adjust twice a year, based on prevailing market rates, up to a maximum of 17.5%. In January 2002, the loan was sold to Household Finance, a unit of HSBC Holdings PLC. Household acquired the home through a foreclosure last year and put it on the block a few months later.

As is common in auctions, Household reserved the right to reject bids it deemed too low. A few days after the auction, Household asked Mr. Lantzman to consider raising his bid to $5,000 from $500. Mr. Lantzman sent back a list of problems he had spotted at the house, including damaged plumbing. As his trump card, Mr. Lantzman also mentioned a possible mold outbreak. (Banks hate owning houses with mold, he explains: “They don’t want to hear about that.”) He told Household his final offer was $700. Household accepted. Mr. Lantzman paid an additional $3,000 or so in auction fees and other transaction costs.

Citigroup and HSBC, Household’s parent, both declined to comment on the case, citing customer privacy.

Busy with his day job as the owner of a small construction company, Mr. Lantzman didn’t inspect his $700 house again for several months. Finally, one afternoon in August, he parked his sport-utility vehicle on Olivant Street in front of the narrow, two-story house with light-blue siding. The windows and doors of several houses on the street were boarded up. Mr. Lantzman walked warily around his house and noted signs of minor fire damage on one side. He discovered that the back door had been broken open. Shards of glass lay on soggy carpeting in the entryway. “Probably turned into a crack house,” he muttered.

Once he began examining the inside with a flashlight, though, Mr. Lantzman was relieved. There were no signs of squatters.

“It actually doesn’t look as bad as I thought,” he said. He expects to spend $5,000 to $10,000 on renovations. Then he believes he will be able to rent the place for around $600 a month. Eventually, Mr. Lantzman hopes, the neighborhood will recover and house prices will increase.

At an auction in January, Jesse L. Thompson paid $1,000 for a three-bedroom house on East 97th Street in Cleveland. The house, white with mint-green trim, has been sold a dozen times since 1980, and lenders have foreclosed on it three times in that period, according to public records compiled by RealQuest, a unit of First American Corp. Mr. Thompson, who has been investing in real estate for more than 30 years, says the house needed replacements for a hot-water tank, heating ducts and water pipes stolen from the building during the latest foreclosure. After spending about $8,000 on repairs and redecoration, Mr. Thompson found a tenant to pay $550 a month.

It hasn’t been easy, though. Shortly after Mr. Thompson bought the house, vandals broke in, spray-painted obscenities on the walls and sliced through electrical wires.

Mary Krawiec isn’t impressed by $1,000 home purchases. Eight years ago, she bought a Victorian boarding house in Troy, N.Y., for $10.

The previous owners of the house had a $98,500 mortgage from KeyBank, a unit of KeyCorp, Cleveland. KeyBank foreclosed on the house in late 1996. At the time, an appraiser estimated the value of the house and lot at $52,000. The foreclosure led to an auction of the property, held by a court-appointed referee in the lobby of the Rensselaer County courthouse in Troy. At an initial auction in October 1997, no one bid for the house.

The referee, Richard T. Morrissey, held a second auction in November 1998. Ms. Krawiec says several other people attended, but she was the only one who showed any interest in bidding. Her opening offer was $1. She says the referee gave her a sour look. She raised her bid to $10 and held firm. The referee gave her title to the home in exchange for a $10 bill.

Ms. Krawiec acquired the house free of any liens from lenders or others but did have to pay an overdue water bill of about $2,000.

Usually, when bids at a courthouse foreclosure sale are far below the property’s appraised value, a representative of the lender bids enough to purchase the home and then seeks to resell it later at market value. In this case, KeyBank made no attempt to acquire the house. Justin Heller, an Albany, N.Y., lawyer who represented KeyBank in the foreclosure, says he believes the bank decided that costs of renovating the house to make it salable might exceed its market value. A KeyBank spokeswoman declined to comment.

The boxy three-story house, in a middle-class neighborhood a few hundred yards from the Hudson River, is sheathed in pale yellow aluminum siding. Inside, years of neglect have left their mark, including a bowed stairway wall, crumbling plaster and a leaky skylight. Ms. Krawiec and her husband, Mark Peabody, are renovating the building’s nine apartments. They estimate the total cost of fixing up the $10 house will be $65,000.

Ms. Krawiec and Mr. Peabody, a carpenter, do all the renovation work themselves. “I bought her a nail gun once for Christmas,” Mr. Peabody says.

For now, the $10 house has three tenants, producing rental income of nearly $15,000 a year. Once all nine apartments are renovated, Mr. Peabody estimates, the house will yield rental income of $50,000 a year.

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By Jeff Bater

From The Wall Street Journal Online

An index of pending home sales in October tumbled again, suggesting more softening demand for the housing sector.

The National Association of Realtors’ index for pending sales of existing homes decreased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.7% to 107.2 from September’s 109.1, the industry group said Monday. Its index, based on signed contracts for used homes, was 13.2% below the level of October 2005.

Although the gauge declined for the eight time in a year, David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist, expects a “fairly steady pace” of home sales for the next two months.

“It’s important to focus on where the housing market is now — it appears to be stabilizing, and comparisons with an unsustainable boom mask the fact that home sales remain historically high — they’ll stay that way through 2007,” Mr. Lereah said.

“In addition, a temporary correction in prices distracts from the fact that it is primarily the number of home sales that affects the economy, and the number for this year will be the third highest on record,” he said.

By region, the index showed a 2.1% decline in the Northeast in October from September — and a 13.5% decrease since October 2005. It decreased 0.6% in the Midwest — and was down 15.4% in the 12-month span. The West saw a 2.7% drop — and a 17.4% decline in the past year. The index for the South fell by 1.7% — and was 9.3% lower since October 2005.

The NAR’s pending home sales index was designed to try measuring which way the housing market is going in the future. It is based on pending sales of existing homes, including single-family homes and condominiums. A home sale is pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction hasn’t closed. Pending sales typically close within one or two months of signing.

Last week, the NAR reported sales of existing homes in the U.S. climbed for the first time in eight months during October. The median home price, at $221,000, was 3.5% lower than the level a year earlier, the largest decline on record. The inventory of unsold homes on the market climbed; at the latest selling rate, it would take 7.4 months to clear the backlog; a year earlier, 4.9 months would have been sufficient.

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Ocean County Observer

BY KIM PREDHAM
STAFF WRITER

TOMS RIVER — Believed to be the first prosecutions ever under new state home contractor regulations, Ocean County officials yesterday announced the indictments of four contractors operating locally.

The majority of the indictments are the result of a collaboration — dubbed “One-Two Punch” — between the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office and the county’s Department of Consumer Affairs, the officials announced.

These indictments send the message that Ocean County will take a “hard line” on scam artists, said county Freeholder Joseph H. Vicari, the freeholder board liaison to the Department of Consumer Affairs.

Scam artists are of particular concern in Ocean County, Prosecutor Thomas F. Kelaher noted, since senior citizens make up a significant portion of the county’s population.

“(Seniors) are a population vulnerable to all kinds of scams,” Kelaher said.

In indictments returned Wednesday, the four contractors were all charged with “unregistered home improvement contracting,” which accuses them of violating a state law requiring contractors to register with the state Division of Consumer Affairs.

In all four of this week’s cases, the men allegedly agreed to perform home improvement services without first registering as a contractor, Anton said.

The men indicted Wednesday were: John Murphy, 45, of Troumaka Street in Toms River; Paul Tsarnas, 53, of West Mohawk Drive in Little Egg Harbor; Richard Conway, 47, of Anchorage Boulevard in Berkeley; and Joseph Gresko, 54, of Chambord Court in Hamilton, Mercer County.

Murphy, Tsarnas and Conway were also indicted on theft charges. Their cases originated from complaints lodged with the county consumer affairs department, Anton said.

Anton said he anticipates more indictments will be returned in the future.

The new state law — which went into effect on Dec. 31, 2005 — makes such behavior an offense punishable by up to 18 months in prison. Contractors can also be subject to thousands of dollars in fines, said Stephen Scaturro, director of the county’s Department of Consumer Affairs.

The law represents a new “tool in (the) toolbelt” to use against disreputable contractors, Assistant Ocean County Prosecutor Martin J. Anton said. Previously, prosecutors like Anton often relied on theft prosecutions to bring down such individuals.

But to prove theft, he usually needed to find a pattern of such behavior, Anton said. The new charge is much more straightforward, he said.

County officials touted the cooperation between law enforcement and the county consumer affairs officials for this week’s indictments.

They also emphasized that the contractors targeted had been suspected of cheating homeowners, rather than contractors who may simply have neglected to register. The county is continuing outreach efforts to bring all contractors into compliance, said Scaturro, the consumer affairs director.

Though at this point — nearly one year after the law took effect — officials also noted that contractors have had ample time to register.

To operate in this state, most contractors must register with the state DCA annually, pay a set fee and prove that they have commercial general liability insurance of at least $500,000 per “occurrence.”

The current fee is $90, Anton said.

Contractors must also file a disclosure form stating whether whether they have ever been convicted of certain crimes, which include first degree crimes and any indictable theft or forgery charge.

Contractors can be denied registration for several reasons, including if they have engaged in “repeated acts of negligence, malpractice or incompetence,” or have been convicted of a crime involving “moral turpitude” or any crime relating adversely to the activity regulated by the new legislation.

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By Matthew Heimer

From The Wall Street Journal Online

After hurtling along for years, the nationwide real-estate boom has come to a screeching halt. In 2005, home prices in the U.S. rose more than 12%; this year, the National Association of Realtors expects appreciation to reach just 1.9% — the lowest gain since 1992.

Rising mortgage rates and selloffs by skittish real-estate investors have helped depress housing prices in many metropolitan areas. But there’s another factor that many observers miss: the relationship between home prices and incomes.

When the cost of housing in a given area grows far faster than local wages and salaries, the pool of potential buyers shrinks, and prices are much more likely to sink.

For the past five years, SmartMoney magazine has worked with Ingo Winzer, president of the consulting firm Local Market Monitor, evaluating home-sale prices against local income to determine whether a given market is overvalued, undervalued or fairly valued. Mr. Winzer relies on more than 15 years of housing and income statistics to find out where prices are headed.

According to Mr. Winzer, any market that’s more than 30% overvalued is due for a correction. In the fall of 2003, only eight markets on the list of 152 fit that description; on this year’s list, 37 did. Sure enough, price decreases are beginning to pop up in many of the markets that have shown up year after year as the most overvalued — especially in Florida and California.

What to do if you’re in a falling market? Obviously, that’s a promising climate for a bargain-hunting buyer. A savvy real-estate agent can help you craft a bid that’s low enough to save you money, but realistic enough to be accepted. When one of Frank Borges LLosa’s clients finds an appealing home, the Northern Virginia broker searches the history of the selling agent — data not available to consumers — on the local multiple listing service. If the agent frequently sells below the asking price, Mr. LLosa knows he can be aggressive.

Listing archives can also help buyers figure out the right bidding range. Ask your agent to comb the MLS for “pending sales,” deals that are in contract but haven’t yet closed, to get an up-to-date sense of price ranges in your market.

In an ideal world, you wouldn’t sell a house at all while prices were falling. But if you must, experts agree that it’s best to act quickly, before prices slide further.

Often, that means gritting your teeth and offering the best price to get potential buyers in the door. Here again, getting your agent to tap pending-sales data can pay off. Pay attention to the pricing per square foot for homes similar to yours, and set your asking price at the bottom of, or even below, that range.

South Florida broker Mike Morgan recommends that his clients take 1% to 3% off the price every week until they get an offer.

Another way to motivate a potential buyer: Motivate his broker. In a typical sale, a commission of 6% is split evenly between the buyer’s and seller’s agents. But you can ask that a higher percentage go to the buyer’s agent, or even offer extra money out of your own pocket, so that she’ll steer customers your way.

David Lereah, chief economist of the National Association of Realtors, expects that nationwide prices will bounce back in 2007.

He adds that one-third of the country is primed for growth — a claim that Mr. Winzer’s research supports. And if you don’t have to sell your home, the short-term turmoil underscores the point that it seldom makes sense to obsess over your home’s value the way you’d obsess over, say, your Google shares. Better to sit back, enjoy your mortgage-interest tax deduction, and wait for better days.

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By Rex Nutting
From The Wall Street Journal Online

Home builders’ confidence in the U.S. market improved for a second straight month in November, an industry trade group said Thursday.

The housing market index improved to 33 in November from 31 in October, the National Association of Home Builders reported. The index had fallen for eight months in a row to a 15-year low of 30 in September.

The index shows that about one-third of builders are optimistic about the housing market. A year ago, the index was at 61 and it peaked at 72 in June 2005.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had been predicting the index would remain at 31. See Economic Calendar.

“More and more builders are seeing light at the end of the tunnel,” said David Pressly, president of the NAHB and a builder based in Statesville, N.C. “Our members are telling us that the market is steadying after a significant downward correction. We look for sales to stabilize and gradually move up in the coming months.”

“The data tell us that the worst of housing is behind us,” said Robert Brusca, chief economist for FAO Economics. Realtors also see “signs of recovery.”

“It is still too soon to definitively confirm” that a bottom has been reached, wrote Brian Carey, an economist for Moody’s Economy.com.

The report comes one day before the Commerce Department discloses data on U.S. home construction for October. Economists are looking for a 4.5% decline in housing starts to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.69 million.

All three components of the NAHB index moved higher in November:

* The single-family sales index rose to 33 from 32.
* The future sales index rose to 46 from 42.
* The traffic of prospective buyers’ index rose to 26 from 23.

The index improved in two of four regions, and it fell in the other two.

Specifically, builder confidence in the Northeast improved to a reading of 37 from 35, while the index rose to 40 from 38 in the South. Confidence fell to a cyclical low of 34 in the West and matched a cycle low of 16 in the Midwest

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By Stephanie I. Cohen

From The Wall Street Journal Online

The recent drop seen in natural gas prices is likely to help soften consumer heating bills this winter, the American Gas Association said at a briefing.

The group said consumers may see a drop of as much as 10% compared with last year’s bills, but officials also warned that consumers heating with natural gas shouldn’t expect a sharp decrease in their utility bills.

Consumers have faced a steady increase in winter heating costs in the past five years. The Energy Department is slated to release its annual outlook for residential winter heating bills today.

The impact of natural-gas prices is felt by a large portion of U.S. residents — roughly 68 million American homes, or 52% of U.S. households, heat with natural gas.

Although wholesale natural-gas prices began to drop in September, the price of natural gas throughout the year, not just during the winter months, determines consumer bills, American Gas Association officials said. Utilities typically begin purchasing and stockpiling a significant portion of the natural gas they use to meet customer demand six to 18 months prior to the heating season, according to the group.

“Bills will be lower if the weather is the same as last year but weather is never the same,” said Paul Wilkinson, vice president for policy analysis at the American Gas Association. “We’ve been on a price roller coaster for six years now,” he said.

But officials for the group feel confident consumers won’t see the sharp price increases of recent years thanks to natural-gas spot market prices in the first nine months of 2006 and the fact that natural gas in storage is at a record high.

During the first three months of this year spot prices were significantly higher than for the year-earlier period. But from April to June prices were about the same as the prior year and for the most recent three months prices have been significantly lower than the year-ago period, the group said.

While customers are also likely to benefit from the lack of hurricanes in the oil-producing regions of the U.S. this year, a cold snap during the winter that leads to higher demand is still the primary driver in determining winter heating bills during the heating season.

“This year, the industry has repaired much of the damage to its infrastructure and wholesale prices are lower, but the weather is a wild card,” the American Gas Association said.

Natural-gas utilities don’t make a penny more in profit if the price of natural gas rises but they can typically pass the increase in fuel prices along to consumers.

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By Christine Haughney

From The Wall Street Journal Online

Bidding wars, once waged by prospective home buyers in a red-hot housing market, may be moving to a new front: rental apartments.

As rising interest rates and flattening home values have made renting more attractive, renters are beginning to resort to the same one-upmanship tactics to secure a choice apartment.

In Washington, D.C., the owner of the Ellington, a 190-unit rental building on U Street, has a 12-person waiting list, and nearly a half dozen renters are paying rent two to three months before their move-in dates. San Francisco renters are showing up early to open houses and racing to fill out applications before other applicants. In Manhattan, some renters are offering landlords more money than asking rents, while others are paying the equivalent of the entire year’s rent upfront in cash.

In August, Adrian and Amanda Liang agreed to pay $5,300 a month for a two-bedroom apartment on Manhattan’s Upper West Side — $100 more than the asking rent and $1,000 more than they intended to spend. “I just wanted to get this done as soon as possible,” says 31-year-old Mr. Liang, who moved to New York from San Francisco with his wife after selling his software-services company. “I was sick of looking at places.” The couple had spent a month looking at nearly two dozen Manhattan apartments and had lost two apartments to other tenants because when they showed up at open houses, the landlords said they already had plenty of qualified applicants.

Justin Lindblad, a broker with New York-based Citi Habitats Inc. who represented the Liangs, says another client secured a $2,300-a-month, two-bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side only after offering to pay $13,800 in rent upfront and a $13,800 security deposit. “You’re not in a situation anymore when you can wait around a week and think about an apartment,” says Mr. Lindblad. “You take it on the spot on that day, or you move on.”

Rental landlords, who used to fret as prime would-be tenants jumped into the housing market instead, suddenly are in the driver’s seat. Nationally, rent for a 1,000-square-foot apartment has jumped 3.7% to $1,389 a month from $1,339 a year ago, according to data collected by Boston-based research firm Property & Portfolio Research Inc. Rent increases haven’t been this high since the fall of 2001, when rents jumped by 4.1%.

A big reason for the rising rents — and the emerging bidding wars — is a smaller stock of apartments, caused partly by developers who built condominiums instead or converted existing apartments into condos to take advantage of the once-hot housing market. Rental vacancy rates dropped to 5.3% in the second quarter of 2006 from 6.2% in the second quarter of 2005. The vacancy rate could shrink to 5% by year end, according to Encino, Calif.-based real-estate investment brokerage Marcus & Millichap.

In Manhattan’s pricey Tribeca neighborhood, where Citi Habitats says vacancies are a miniscule 0.55%, finding an apartment has been much tougher than Kerry Stichweh anticipated. After looking at 10 different apartments to buy in downtown Manhattan, Ms. Stichweh, a 34-year-old choreographer and interior designer, and her boyfriend, a 50-year-old hedge-fund executive, abandoned their purchasing plans for the more affordable rental market.

But after touring nearly three dozen apartments, they couldn’t find anything they liked within their $5,000 monthly rent budget. So next month, they are moving into a fifth-floor, two-bedroom Tribeca apartment that rents for $6,500 a month and initially won’t have a working elevator. Still, the couple figures that is a better deal than buying a similar unit — which would cost more than $1.5 million with monthly payments of about $10,500 including taxes and maintenance fees, according to their broker, Craig Filipacchi of Brown Harris Stevens.

The boom in demand for rental apartments follows several brutal years for landlords. From 2002 to 2005, 438,000 renters from age 20 to 34 nationwide took advantage of low interest rates and became first-time homeowners, says Hessam Nadji, managing director of Marcus & Millichap’s research services. Landlords offered free rent for a time and paid brokers to find them tenants.

To be sure, the good times for rental landlords may not last. With the rapidly cooling home-buying market, many condo developers are expected to switch units back to apartments. “The rents aren’t going to continue growing like they have,” says Manhattan developer Douglas Durst, whose second residential apartment building, which has 600 units, has filled up in the past 18 months. While rents have risen roughly 10% from the year before, he is cautious about developing more rental projects.

But for now, it is a landlord’s market. In the second quarter, AvalonBay Communities Inc., of Alexandria, Va., which owns 45,000 apartments nationally and is concentrated in the Northeast, raised its asking rents by 4.7% from the year before and cut concessions by 67% for incentives such as free rent for a month or more and gifts including vacations, microwaves and televisions.

San Francisco renters are increasingly anxious, says Abigail Glynn, a broker with San Francisco-based firm Davis Realty Co. “A lot of them run into the apartment and come running out to hand you the [rental application] papers,” she says.

Rob Hielscher, a 31-year-old commercial-real-estate broker, recently moved back to San Francisco from Chicago with his girlfriend, Lisa Lombardi, a 29-year-old occupational therapist. After two trips to the Bay Area and visits to 12 apartments, they moved into a two-bedroom apartment with a private backyard in the Potrero Hill area. To Mr. Hielscher, the $2,300 monthly rent was a better deal than buying a similar unit — which would cost nearly $900,000, or about $3,800 a month after a mortgage payment, tax savings and homeowners’ fees, according to Potrero Hill real-estate broker Greg Angilly.

“I don’t plan to be a renter for the rest of my life,” Mr. Hielscher says. But “even if the house appreciated, I wouldn’t have the money to go to [Lake] Tahoe or take trips because I would be putting all of my money into a mortgage.”

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By Sarah Tilton

From The Wall Street Journal Online

A small water leak is like a snowball rolling down a hill, says Ed Del Grande, a plumber with more than 25 years of experience. The longer you leave it alone, the more it will drip and eventually it will become an emergency.

He says his city water meter can help reveal hidden leaks. The meter has a visible wheel that moves and measures every drop that goes through the system. So Mr. Del Grande turns off everything in his house that uses water and then checks if the wheel is moving. Ideally, the wheel stops. If it’s still moving, there’s a leak. The most common culprits: toilets.

To keep his drains in shape, he plunges them every few months, more often if they become slow. For washing machines, he recommends upgrading rubber hoses to ones wrapped in stainless steel. He always turns off the water to the washing machine when he goes on vacation as the water damage from a burst hose could be major.

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By Maura Webber Sadovi

From The Wall Street Journal Online

A cooling economy and rising commercial vacancy rates in Southern California’s Inland Empire haven’t slowed a torrent of new stores, offices and supersize distribution warehouses.

The two-county area extends east from Los Angeles to the Arizona and Nevada borders and includes a mix of suburban tracts, dwindling agricultural land and expansive desert as well as the longtime resort destination of Palm Springs and such fast-growing cities as Riverside and Ontario.

The region traces its nickname to the 19th century, when it was known as the “Orange Empire” because of its citrus crop. In the past 20 years it has become a wunderkind of the warehouse-distribution sector, and more recently, a haven for residents priced out of coastal Southern California. That pushed up the population to 3.9 million last year and made it more populous than about two dozen states. “We are today’s Orange County,” says John Husing, an economist with consulting firm Economics & Politics Inc., based in Redlands, Calif.

During the past year, both population and economic growth have downshifted, albeit from white-hot levels to still enviable above-average rates. Total net migration dropped to 91,400 last year from a peak of 109,700 in 2003. New residents still were arriving at about three times the national rate in the 12 months ended June 30, according to Moody’s Economy.com. Year-to-year job growth for the region in August fell to 3%, from a 5% pace in the year-earlier period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

At the same time, new construction is expected to nudge up vacancy rates in the warehouse, office and retail sectors, though rental rates are also forecast to rise, according to Property & Portfolio Research Inc., a Boston-based real-estate research firm. The shift is subtle but notable in the robust warehouse sector, where vacancy rates ticked up slightly to 5% in the second quarter from 4.7% in the first quarter — the first quarterly upward movement since early 2003, PPR says.

Developers — led by the warehouse sector, including some of the country’s largest distribution centers — appear undaunted. The Inland Empire was the biggest warehouse builder in the nation of 54 major markets surveyed by PPR for the 12 months ended in June, during which some 15.4 million square feet were completed. The average annual pace of supply growth will slow through 2010, but PPR says the market will remain the nation’s lead warehouse builder over the period, followed by Chicago and Dallas-Fort Worth. Other sectors are also ramping up. About 4.7 million square feet of retail space is scheduled to be completed this year, up 13% from last year, plus 2.5 million square feet of office space, up 18% from 2005.

Market watchers say the warehouse sector will remain strong, thanks to the region’s proximity to the flood of Asian imports coming into the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, and to its relatively cheap rents — at least compared with coastal prices.

Denver-based ProLogis, which owns more than 26 million square feet of industrial distribution space built or under development in the region, is continuing to expand. This summer, ProLogis purchased a 700,000-square-foot industrial building in Redlands for an undisclosed price, and recently signed leases with clients that will fully occupy a 1.2 million-square-foot speculative distribution warehouse it completed last year in nearby Rialto. “The Inland Empire is at a high point in the cycle,” says Larry H. Harmsen, managing director of North American capital deployment for ProLogis. “I think it’s a broad peak that will last some time because of the fundamentally strong demand.”

Office developers, who have enjoyed strong demand for space from mortgage companies and home builders, could be more vulnerable to a housing slowdown. More than half of the 120,000 jobs created in the area between the first quarter of 2002 and the first quarter of 2005 were tied to the housing market, PPR says.

Chris Atkinson, vice president of Bates Co., a real-estate company in Monrovia, Calif., says the profile of tenants he expects to fill his planned 10-story speculative office building in Ontario by the time it’s completed in about two years could shift to include more accountants and law firms and fewer real-estate companies. However, he says new office construction is the natural follow to the industrial and retail expansion the region has seen to date. “Everyone’s skeptically optimistic,” he says.

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by Natalie Aranda

Beautiful and luxurious gated communities often resemble small towns, complete with shops, security, and environmental services. The majority of people in the United States see gated communities as a lavish lifestyle with spas, saunas, and private restaurants, but there’re actually many affordable homes in gated communities across the states.

Regardless of where you live in the United States, there are gated communities in every part of the country. According to recent surveys, over eight million people live in such gated homes. From Arizona gated communities to George gated communities, these places are extremely popular for older couples who no longer have children to watch. They all seem to flock to convenient living, especially since all of the luxuries are right at their fingertips.

One of the most popular gated communities in the U.S. is located in Arizona. Built against the hot sun and beautiful backdrop, residents are able to escape and enjoy the important aspect of life. The majority of people enjoy Verrado, which is a popular Arizona gated community. With golf courses, parks, and health clubs all looking over the water, it is no wonder that residents are dying to get in. Prices generally range from $100,000 to half a million dollars.

Other hot spots in the United States are Florida gated communities. No matter where you live, chances are you have craved visiting such a warm area. A beloved gated community in the infamous tourist destination is Stone Creek Ranch. Here you can enjoy the lakeside homes with an astonishing view. If you are lucky enough to get into this area with an abundance of environmental service, you will feel as if you went to Heaven. Each home is equipped with a large amount of land, surrounded by water, and in the middle of a beautiful forest. It is simply a breathtaking sight to see if you are able to visit.

What most people realize about gated communities is that the most popular ones are always in warm climates. Georgia gated communities and California gated communities are all the rage, even though they are on separate parts of the U.S. Even though each area brings something different to the table, people love vacationing or even living in the warm weather. If you add the luxury of gated communities with the environmental services and convenient places near by, you can realize why people do not want to leave these hideouts.

Gated communities may seem like a place for only the upper class to enjoy, but not all of them are millions of dollars. No matter where you live, gated communities thrive in every single area. Whether it is a Georgia gated community or simply a California gated community, all of these places are seen as peaceful getaways. With spas, security, and personal assistance around the clock, it is no surprise why these luxurious homes are becoming more and more popular.
About the Author

Natalie Aranda writes on home and family.

http://www.goarticles.com/index.html

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by Timothy K. Clark

Many say that the housing bubble has burst and it’s very difficult for people to sell their homes. Housing sales have decreased dramatically the past few months, and housing prices are falling all across the country. Many homeowners are still holding on to unrealistic expectations and many would-be buyers are making ludicrous lowball offers, so the market is basically at a stalemate. As inventories jump, prices will have to plummet. Many don’t expect it to get better until at least 2008.

Last year and part of this year, home prices skyrocketed to ridiculous levels. And now, no one wants to be the last person to have paid way too much to buy a house.

If you own your house and waited too long to sell, I’ve got a few tips to help get your home off your back:

1 - Start with your Real Estate Agent - Make sure your current agent has a ton of experience. Used to be you could hire any agent, with only 2 months on the job, and the house would sell before her or she pounded the “For Sale” sign into the ground. No more. Get someone with experience, name recognition in the community, and superior sales skills.

2 - A Proactive Agent - Get an agent that will truly “pound the pavement” for your listing. You need a proactive agent that will be out there, moving and grooving on your property. Many of the newbie agents that got into the biz over the last two years will be in “career change” mode in the next few months. The real agents who know how to work will be the ones who survive this cycle. Find one who will work for you!

3 - Know an Agent’s Quality - A great agent will guarantee his or her service in writing. A bad one would run for the hills from a guarantee. A great agent will not make you sign a long term listing agreement. A bad agent will freak out if you won’t sign a fat contract. If it’s not working out, you need to be able to cut the cord.

4 - All the World’s a Stage! - I got an email from a House Stager the other day (her business is called “ReFluff Your Stuff” in Georgia - I love that name!), about listing her business on our main site, so I thought I’d do some research. Hire a stager to go through your house and make your house sellable. Many people wrongly think staging is too expensive. Not true. It’s about being creative, not spending money. It’s actually possible to sell your home “as is” (and not stage) and lose money.

5 - Realistic Pricing Plans - You’re not going to get the big profit you thought you would. Plan accordingly for a much more stingy market. Let your agent do the research on the right price for your home, in your neighborhood. I would recommend not leaving your house on the market too long (and expect some really low lowball offers.) If you’ve already moved and cannot sell, consider renting the house out at a reasonable rate to help provide some relief.

6 - Self Staging - You’re a Do-It-Yourselfer, huh? Okay. Know this - any wild and crazy decorations, furniture, fixtures, colors, and designs in your house will turn off the average John Q. Public homebuyer. You might have the most clever and eclectic taste on the planet. Your artsy friends think your house is “to die for!” But dark, rich colors on the walls and ultra-modern furniture can turn off today’s picky buyer.

- To save money, make sure you have Curb Appeal: manicure the front lawn, add some colorful flowers, paint the shutters, trim bushes, paint the front door a nice neutral color, brush falling leaves off the roof, etc. Lay down sod if the summer beat up your grass. Add a new doormat.

- Is any room in your house red? Blue? Bright green? School bus yellow? Paint it. Creams, whites, pale yellows, coffees, and light earthy greens. With white trim around the doors. Use an eggshell paint to keep off fingerprints and make it easy to clean before an Open House.

- Declutter. Remove those piles of books, magazines, and newspapers. Less is always more. Remove anything and everything knick-knacky. Take out all your family photos. They want to picture themselves living there. Again, less is more. Makes the house look and feel bigger.

- Check under your 70’s orange shag rug and pray someone put hardwood floors there. Pull it up, rent a buffer (or hire someone to simply re-finish the floor), and you’ve got an inexpensive way to add home value.

- Turn cluttered kid’s rooms into a guest bedroom. Not everyone has or likes kids. It could turn them off to see a pink bedroom with ponies and stuffed animals.

- Steam clean the carpets. Remove pets to the Mother-in-Law’s house (you might be used to the odors, but…) if you have them. Use new fresh towels, candles, and flowers during an Open House.

- Replace blinds. Keep curtains open during showings - natural light sells.

- Make sure the house has “feature cards” in every major room (sell features, such as ‘air conditioning’, ‘new water heater’, ‘finished basement’) for showings.

- Get rid of dirty clothes, trash in waste baskets, mail on counters, make it look like no one lives there. Or a photo layout in “Metropolitan Homes.

Good luck in selling your house!
About the Author

Timothy K. Clark is the Director of Marketing for the valuable website ConstructionDeal.com (http://www.constructiondeal.com) which specializes in fulfilling all the construction needs of homeowners and contractors. We match project owners with contractors for residential and commercial improvement, repair, or remodeling work.

http://www.goarticles.com/index.html

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If you would like to buy a house/home we are your source of thousands of available listings of real estate. As a native Licensed New Jersey Real Estate Broker we have many agents in our realty who are very familiar with the needs of New Jersey Real Estate buyers. If you are interested in selling your house, or any other NJ real estate, we are here to help you sell. Our experience real estate office staff will walk you through the whole house selling process. Get in touch with us and we will show you how we can help your sell your home in New Jersey. We are the realtors NJ!

by John Mac

Selling your house is one of the most stressful activities you will have to undertake during your lifetime. With approximately 1 in 3 house sales falling through at some stage before contracts have been exchanged it can make for an extremely frustrating & time consuming period. The average time period to sell your house from first putting it on the market to exchanging contracts is 4-6 months. Can you afford to wait this long, will you loose the chance to move into the house of your dreams.

Many people have unrealistic aspirations when it comes to selling their house, they often want a quick sale for a high price, unfortunately these two factors do not sit well together. In todays slowing market unless you are extremely lucky in order to secure a quick sale you will invariably need to lower your price. How much you are willing to lower your price may determine how quickly you sell your house.

If you are in no rush then you should be able to obtain the market value, or somewhere near, for your house. On average houses sell for 93% of their asking price.

There are several steps you could take to make your home more attractive to potential buyers such as re-decorating, tidying the garden, offering to leave carpets & curtains or certain white goods such as Fridge/freezer or washing machine. Some of these things you could do yourself others you may have to pay for. Simply re-painting walls & woodwork in your house may make it a lot more attractive, the smell of new paint may just do the trick. Does the outside of your house look tired, first impressions are of vital importance, simply adding a fresh layer of paint to the outside walls and getting someone to make your garden look like it has always been well looked after will give viewers of your property a great first impression.

Picking an estate agent is also a key factor in selling your house, don’t just go with the one that gives you the highest valuation for your house - this may be an unreasonable price which will not attract potential buyers. Do your homework & try and find out who the best estate agent in your area is, talk to other people try and find those who have recent experience of selling their houses, they may point you in the direction of a good local estate agent who will have plenty of potential buyers for your property.

However if you need to sell your house fast then your best course of action may be to sell to a property trader who will be a cash buyer able to do a deal very quickly. You will have to be willing to accept a “trade price” for your house but you should expect a good property trader to complete exchange of contracts in about 4-5 weeks. They will generally pay all the legal fees for you plus you will have no estate agent fees meaning that you will keep all the money left over from your sale less any outstanding mortgage.
About the Author

John Mac is Author & Owner of quickcash4yourhouse.co.uk a website including information about how to get quick cash 4 your house.

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By Terri Cullen

From The Wall Street Journal Online
My younger sister Melissa and her husband Joe are ready to move.

Today the couple live in an apartment in New Jersey just across the Hudson River from Manhattan. At 33, Melissa’s had it with city life, tired of dragging bags of groceries up steep flights of stairs, frustrating hunts for a parking space and worrying about having her new car stolen or broken into.

And they know what they want: a three-bedroom, single-family home near us in Monmouth County, N.J. Melissa wants to move closer so our families can spend more time together. Joe lived in the area as a child, and he’s eager to return.

But our neck of the woods has seen some of the steepest home-price increases in the nation over the last several years. In the second quarter of 2006, the median price for a single-family home in our region was $393,600, more than double the median of $188,200 in 2000, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Those price increases have reflected fierce competition, something my sister knows all too well. Last summer Melissa and Joe found the perfect place — a roomy home near us on a fair-sized lot for a hair under $250,000. (Roomy was key — standing 6 foot 5 plus, Joe’s a guy who needs space.) After making an offer, they thought the house was theirs, only to see it snatched out from under them at the last minute by a counteroffer for $10,000 more. That was too much for my sister; deeply disappointed, she and Joe stopped looking. Still, they did keep an eye on real-estate sites, hoping for signs of a letup in the insanity.

Recently she’s seen reasons for hope: Far more homes were showing up in their price range, and others she’d seen a year ago were being relisted at reduced asking prices. Melissa decided it was time to look around again, and last weekend she asked me to come along on a tour of open houses in her price range. My sister had a list of homes she’d found online, but I suggested we tour as many open houses as we could to get a feel for the market.

What we saw was bleak news for sellers in our region, but good news for buyers like Melissa and Joe: block after block of open-house signs. In fact, we were hard-pressed to find a street that didn’t have at least one home for sale — and many had more than one. What’s more, most of the 20 or so homes we visited were vacant — a sign that homeowners have moved on and are motivated to sell, or that speculators are looking to unload properties before prices go any lower. (Asked why one home was vacant, one agent said frankly: “This was a ‘flip’ that flopped.”)

Though some of the agents we encountered continued to promote their “charming” homes as “a steal,” a surprising number were more candid. “The owner way overpriced this home,” said one. “I bet if you offered $30,000 less they’d jump at it.” We believed her, because she was running the open house as a favor for another agent.

Another sign of a turning market: We saw very similar houses with prices all over the map — ranging from the low $200,000s to $270,000. That’s evidence that sellers aren’t sure what houses are worth these days, with some reluctant to accept that market dynamics have changed.

“They look at home-price comparisons from a year ago when there was far more demand than supply,” says Pat Lashinsky, senior vice president of Emeryville, Calif., real-estate firm ZipRealty. Now that there’s excess supply, he says, sellers need to be more willing to negotiate.

One agent on our tour encouraged Melissa to look at homes “in the $270s or $280s” — well out of her price range — and make lowball offers. Think that wouldn’t work? We encountered a husband and wife going the “for sale by owner” route, with an asking price of $315,000. While his wife pointed out the home’s features to my sister, the husband gave me a wink and whispered, “Don’t let that $315 scare you, we’re extremely negotiable.”

After our exhausting open-house blitz, Melissa asked for my thoughts. Though I’m too young to have experienced the 1980s real-estate market implosion, something told me that things are going to get a lot worse for sellers before they get better. To get an expert’s take, I asked Robert J. Shiller, a Yale economics professor, for his insight on where the East Coast real-estate market may be headed.

“We don’t know exactly what’s going to happen because we’ve just experienced the biggest housing boom this country has ever seen,” he says. In addition to homeowners struggling to sell existing homes, construction is at near-record levels: The last time this much inventory entered the market was 1950, when builders were building suburban homes for soldiers returning from war, he says.

Prof. Shiller suggests that the Japanese housing bust may provide a precedent. Home prices there remained depressed for a decade before the market recovered. He says: “The real question is, ‘Is this the beginning of a major period of decline as we saw in Japan, or will we see a kind of sharp and sudden correction?’ ”

Despite evidence of a cooling real-estate market, Melissa and Joe decided they weren’t quite ready to wade back in: They’ll take the market’s temperature again in the spring.

That settled, my sister wanted to know what I thought they could reasonably afford. When they began looking, Melissa believed homes around $250,000 to $260,000 were in their price range, based on the going mortgage rates. But as rates have marched steadily higher, the maximum they can afford to borrow has become a bit of a moving target. To pinpoint how much they could afford, I told Melissa to plug in the numbers on our home-affordability calculator; after doing so, she estimated the most they could afford was a $230,000 loan, assuming they put $20,000 down.

Affordability has long been a problem for first-time home buyers who are strapped for cash. Mortgage payments are taking a bigger bite out of household incomes: The median monthly payment as a percentage of income was 24.3% in July 2006, up from 20.5% in 2000. And now double-digit jumps in home prices in some areas of the country — like ours — are even squeezing households with higher-than average income.

In 1992, when he was 25, Gerry bought a three-bedroom house on a 50 foot by 100 foot lot for $134,000. The home was located in one of the coastal towns Melissa and Joe have been looking at. Money was tight for a few years, but he managed the monthly payments with no problems. Today, comparable homes are listed in the same neighborhood in the $400,000 range, three times as much. But Melissa and Joe’s household income is less than double what ours was back then. Home-price inflation had clearly outpaced incomes.

To get into pricier homes, many homebuyers have turned to adjustable-rate mortgages, which offer low upfront interest rates that fluctuate over time. But as these loans begin to reset, rising interest rates have begun to take a toll on family finances, as this article notes.

For this reason, I’ve urged my sister to avoid ARMs, even though there’s a possibility she and Joe might want to upgrade to a nicer home within seven years — the average length of time before homeowners either sell their homes or refinance their mortgages. A 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.53% statewide in New Jersey for the week ending Sept. 8, according to HSH Financial Publishers. Compare that to 5.48% for a one-year ARM.

True, an ARM would allow Melissa and Joe to get more home for the money: Using this calculator, Melissa used the terms of two mortgages she’s comparing and found her monthly mortgage payment would be $1,458 with the fixed-rate loan, and just $1,303 with a one-year ARM if rates remained where they are. But that’s a big if: If rates hit the 12% cap, she’d be looking at a monthly nut of $3,252. The thought of a sudden mortgage-payment increase of even a few hundred dollars makes my sister queasy, so she agreed the fixed-rate loan is a better fit.

I also urged her to tune out mortgage brokers who tell her she can afford a much more expensive home by using exotic loans such as interest-only mortgages or option ARMs, which let you choose how much your monthly payment will be. These loans leave the homeowner at risk of being “upside down” on their loans, where the mortgage is greater than the value of the home. If forced to sell, they could be in serious trouble.

Finally, since Melissa and Joe have decided to wait to see how market conditions unfold, I suggested they begin “paying” her mortgage now so their first payment won’t come as such a shock to the system. Their current rent is roughly $700 (yes, a spacious apartment can still be had near New York City for less than a grand a month).

So, back to the math: If their monthly mortgage payments are likely to be in the $1,500-a-month range, Melissa and Joe should start using the difference ($800 a month) from their disposable income to either pay down debt or save for a larger down-payment. That will help when the time comes for them to hop off the fence and become first-time homeowners.

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Newark NJ Real Estate, Spring Lake NJ Real Estate, Marlboro NJ Real Estate, Jackson NJ Real Estate are all popular destinations. Spring Lake NJ is the premium shore location with it’s exclusive homes for sale. Newark NJ is a popular city location for it’s proximity to NYC and it’s large business population. Marlboro NJ is known for it’s excellent school district, it’s exclusive homes for sale, the vicinity to NYC and it’s a beautiful area. Jackson NJ is a very popular residential area in Central New Jersey with many different classes of homes. If you are interested in real estate in any area of New Jersey, please let ERA Othello Realty help you. We are the realtors NJ!

Four Steps To Real Estate Investing Success

By homesnewjersey

By: Ernestine Hehn

The following article is the result of years working in the real estate business. It was written to answer some of the most frequently asked questions, as well as address common issues that people have with this topic. I hope that you will find the information in this article helpful.

Real estate investing is always good and sometimes it’s red hot. When it’s hot dozens of real estate seminars begin rolling across the country and thousands of people spend thousands of dollars for investing education.

It’s startling to learn that of all those thousands of eager folks who attend these seminars only about 5% buy even one investment house. Why? The real estate gurus sell the “sizzle” and make profiting from real estate sound easy. The truth is that it’s simple, but not easy.

Here’s a quick plan that will enable anyone to begin building financial independence.

There are basically four steps to investing in single family homes:

1. Buy homes below full market value. Yes, people really do sell homes for less than the home’s full value. The key is to understand that most home owners will only consider a purchase offer that is all cash and within 5% to 10% of their asking price.

The successful investor learns to find financially distressed home owners who have no choice but to sell for less than market value. They have lost their job or been suddenly transferred; they are divorcing; they been living beyond their income; the family has been overwhelmed with medical bills and, not uncommonly these days, their money has gone to support a drug habit.

Those are examples of motivated sellers. They have to sell and they will accept something other than a conventional, all cash offer.

2. How do you find motivated sellers? You work at it! Like any business it is important to develop a little marketing plan. One that is simple, yet very effective, is the one that was proven 75 years ago by the Fuller Brush company; door to door sales.

You are selling your skill as a home buyer to people who must sell. Your are there when they need you and you have the skill to help them solve at least part of their problem. With door to door prospecting you will learn more and buy more homes quicker than any other method. However, most people just won’t walk door to door for three or four hours per week. OK, there are other ways.

You can watch public notices for the announcement of foreclosure sales. Meeting with a home owner right after they’ve received a notice that they are about to lose their home allows you to deal with a very motivated seller. Other public notices that provide buying opportunities include probate, divorce and bankruptcy. You can follow the Homes For Sale listings in your local newspaper or Internet site.

You can telephone the names found in these notices or, and this is the least time consuming, send a postcard expressing your interest in buying their property. It will produce buying opportunities, just not as many as personal contact.

3. After you’ve found a motivated seller you must understand how to frame offers that provide benefits for both you and for the home owner. A good real estate investor quickly learns that this is not a business of stealing property, but of solving problems in a way that benefits the seller.

The home owner is in a tight spot of some kind and you can save them from public embarrassment and, in most cases, give them at least a little cash to get a new start.

No investor can afford to leave cash in every deal. No one but Bill Gates has that much available money. You must use creative techniques like, leases, option and taking over mortgage payments. Little or no cash is needed for those deals. You can find plenty of reasonable priced educational material on those subjects in book stores or on EBay. The same education that seminars sell for thousands of dollars.

4. You make your profit when you buy! Never make a purchase until you’ve carefully determined exactly how you will get to your profit. If you hold it as a long term investment will the monthly rental income more than cover the monthly mortgage payment? Will you sell the deal to another investor for fast cash? Will you do some fix-up and sell the property for full value? Will you quickly trade it for a more desirable property? Have a plan before you buy.

There you have four steps that even a part-time investor can execute in three to four hours per week. What’s the missing ingredient? Your determination and perseverance. If you will unfailingly follow the plan for a few months you will be well on your way to financial independence.

OK, now that you have finished reading this article I want you to find more resources on this subject. Within just a short period of time you will have all of the answers that you need!

http://www.ContentArticles.com

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By Christina S.N. Lewis
From The Wall Street Journal Online

The list of amenities at condominiums and housing developments keeps growing, as developers tout fancy gyms, rooftop pools and on-call staff. Not for you — for your children.

Time was when a patch of outdoor space with a swing set and a sandbox was enough to draw young parents with children. But now, new developments are playing to Type A parents by playing up the kid stuff. In a strategy developers and builders started during the booming housing market — and one they say will help them stand out in a slowing one — they’re spending millions of dollars on elaborate water parks and fake fossil digs and promoting couture romper rooms by name-brand designers.

In Lakewood, Colo., the developers of Belmar, a mixed-use downtown community, spent $600,000 on a kidney-shaped ice-skating rink and $200,000 on an interactive water fountain with an 11-ton, six-foot-high granite ball that children can rotate. At One Carnegie Hill on New York City’s Upper East Side, a just-completed luxury building where one-bedrooms start at $895,000, the amenities include two play houses on the roof with child-size loft-style furniture. Even Donald Trump is thinking family friendly: His recently announced Trump Hollywood, a 40-story oceanfront glass tower in Hollywood Beach, Fla., where three-bedroom apartments start at $1.5 million, will feature an on-call children’s nanny.

Developers are adding these perks to gain attention and marketing mileage, of course. But they’re also responding to the second U.S. baby boom, with about 73.5 million children currently under the age of 18, according to 2005 Census estimates, up from about 64 million in 1990. The amount of money parents spend on their 3-to-11-year-old children is up as well — $115.6 billion annually, according to Packaged Facts, a New York-based consumer-research company. The cost of raising a child to age 18 is now $191,000 for a middle-income family, a 15% increase from five years ago, according to an annual survey by the Department of Agriculture.

‘Marketed to Death’

Two years ago, Miami real-estate developer Bradley Arnowitz began planning his first condominium, a 15-story tower in the city’s financial district that will have an all-glass façade, Italian-designed kitchens and a rooftop lounge. But Mr. Arnowitz says that six months ago, as the South Florida market was becoming saturated with luxury condos, he expanded the project’s family-friendly aspects. He’ll shrink the rooftop bar to make way for a children’s pool and playground, and plans to add a separate kids-only activity room and an on-call baby-sitting service to the building. Mr. Arnowitz says he thinks the child-friendly approach has boosted interest in the building, called Glass Lofts, where apartment prices will range from the low $400,000s to the high $700,000s. “Every other angle has been marketed to death,” he says.

Such a kid-centric marketing strategy dovetails nicely with two factors that affect the decision-making process of many house-hunting parents: guilt and status. Parents typically feel bad about having to uproot their children, says Dave Siegel, president of WonderGroup, a Cincinnati-based youth-marketing firm. So what better way to assuage that guilt, he says, than by moving somewhere with swanky children’s amenities that will make the adults feel they are being good parents? There is also the play-date factor, Mr. Siegel adds: “Not just, ‘Will the kids want to come over and play with my kids?’ but ‘Will this impress other parents when they come over?’ ”

Some developments are counting on children to spread the word. At Mountain’s Edge, a community in southwest Las Vegas in the third year of a planned 10-year development, the signature attraction is a $2.9 million playground, currently under construction, that will include a child-size Wild West main street with saloon, bank and store-front facades as well slides and climbing areas. Also in the works: a climbing teepee and a fake archaeological dig, according to John Ritter, CEO and chairman of Focus Property Group, the project’s master planner.

The park, which will be open to the public but have limited parking for nonresidents, is scheduled to open later this year. Mr. Ritter hopes it will attract children from outside the development who will put pressure on their parents to buy. Says Mr. Ritter: “The kids are going to say, ‘This is where we want to live, Mom and Dad.’ ”

That is pretty much what happened to Theresa Dinkins. Last week, the 37-year-old accountant from Dublin, Calif., toured Rhodes Ranch, another development in southwest Las Vegas, with two of her three children, ages 12 and 13. The 1,350-acre community, with homes priced from about $350,000 to $850,000, includes workout facilities and a private golf course for the grown-ups. “I’m so sick of golf courses,” says Ms. Dinkins. She was more impressed with the developer’s future plans — a water theme park with eight slides, a squirt-gun shoot-out area, and a climbing tower underneath a gigantic bucket of water that tips every half hour. Her kids, too, were enticed. “They’re ready to go right now,” she says.

Playing to the short set does have its risks, developers and housing experts say. Safety codes can nix such things as metal monkey bars (plastic is de rigueur) and tunnel labyrinths (kids must be visible at virtually all times). Liability issues also limit options: Prohibitive insurance premiums led one developer in Las Vegas to turn a planned skateboard park into a tennis court. Play spaces also add to home prices or monthly fees. A well-appointed playroom can cost $10,000 to build and design, a large playground, at least $100,000, contractors say.

That Off-Putting Feel

Not surprisingly, kids amenities are attracting some name-brand star power. FAO Schwarz started a service four years ago that creates playrooms in condos, hotels and homes. Gym chain Equinox Fitness is planning a children’s wellness program for residential buildings in conjunction with its new owner, Related Cos., the New York-based developer of One Carnegie Hill, according to David Wine, Related’s vice chairman. David Rockwell, the award-winning residential and commercial architect who designed that building and its play space, is adding playground design to his practice.

For parents, such amenities also signal that a development is family-friendly, where children won’t become persona non grata with other residents. The on-call-nanny concierge service helped sell Lauren Bank Deen, a 42-year-old mother of two, on Court Street Lofts in Brooklyn, New York. “Certain buildings had a different vibe and while this one has a doorman and a nice lobby, it doesn’t have that off-putting feel,” she said. Ms. Deen, a television producer, closed on her three-bedroom apartment last week.

On the other hand, developers know that not everyone is delighted to see kids doing what kids do — running, yelling, making a mess. Many residential developments have restrictions on how children should act on the premises, including rules barring unsupervised children below age 12 from common areas and provisions for “adults-only” events. Developers courting children will also have to appease customers like Pete Mickeal, a single, 28-year-old former NBA player who signed a contract last month for a $550,000, two-bedroom condo in Mr. Arnowitz’s Glass Lofts project. The child-friendly aspect adds value, says Mr. Mickael, who now plays for a league in Spain. But when he moves into the building when it opens in 2008, he says he may avoid the pool area: “I like kids, but I don’t want to swim in the same swimming pool with them.”

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By Tara Siegel Bernard
From The Wall Street Journal Online

Marriage comes with financial benefits — a fact sometimes best recognized by couples who don’t or can’t get married.

Marriage allows couples tax-free transfers of property and gifts, as well as some inheritance rights without a will. Same-sex couples who can’t officially wed, or heterosexual couples who are unwilling to, need to put extra protections into place when buying or sharing property.

Several states are now offering rights for unmarried couples, while others are taking them away. So local laws need to be carefully considered when choosing a home-ownership structure.

Colorado is one of the latest states to propose that same-sex partners receive the same state rights as married couples — a vote is scheduled for November — while in Massachusetts, gay and lesbian couples can marry and are afforded all of the same state rights. California, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maine and Hawaii provide all state spousal rights to same-sex couples, such as the right to inherit when a partner dies without a will, according to Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights advocacy group in Washington. On the other hand, Virginia law prohibits same-sex unions and says a “civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex” created in other states is void and unenforceable.

What people really need to realize is that “real estate is governed by state law, not federal law,” says Brian Chase, an attorney with the western regional office of Lambda Legal, a gay rights advocacy group. “So what’s best will vary dramatically based on what state you are in.”

But even if you’re permitted to form a domestic partnership or other union recognized by your state, remember that many of these laws are new, nor are they recognized by the federal government, which makes joint ownership and financial planning more complicated. That’s why it’s best to work through these issues with an attorney and a financial professional.

Unmarried couples need to decide how to title their home, or how to structure ownership, because different structures have different consequences.

Many unmarried couples choose the “joint tenants with rights of survivorship” structure, which allows for an automatic and probate-free transfer to a surviving partner. Still, for couples with taxable estates, it can trigger an additional tax bill. Since married couples can transfer assets to each other tax-free, estate taxes aren’t owed until the second spouse dies.

But unmarried people risk being taxed on a property twice: A surviving partner may pay estate taxes on the portion of a property he or she already owned since the Internal Revenue Service may consider the first partner to die the sole owner, and the full value of the property would be taxed again upon the second partner’s death.

Both partners “need to have records to prove their contribution to the purchase and upkeep of the property, or else the IRS will presume the first person [to die] owned everything,” says Rick Kraft, an estate-planning attorney in Boston who focuses on same-sex couples.

Tenancy-in-common — when coupled with a revocable living trust — is a more flexible way to title one’s home, attorneys say. This structure allows partners to own unequal interests in the property, but there’s no automatic transfer after one dies unless it’s designated by the living trust.

A properly funded trust, in which assets are titled to the trust, is a hassle-free way to leave property to a partner because you avoid probate. And, if you’re afraid a family member will contest a will, a revocable trust can be more difficult to challenge, some lawyers say. The trust also can be structured so that after one partner dies, the survivor can live in the home until he or she dies. The first partner’s share can ultimately go to someone else — perhaps a niece or nephew, Mr. Kraft adds.

Feeling generous? Be careful. If you already own property and want to transfer a portion to a partner, it’s considered a gift, explains Kathleen Sherby, a partner with Bryan Cave LLP in St. Louis. And “you’d have to file a gift tax return,” she adds. (Gifts worth less than $12,000 can go unreported; anything above that amount will begin to eat into your $1 million lifetime gift-tax exemption.)

Although many view prenuptial agreements as unromantic, similar agreements are critical for unmarried, property-owning couples. The agreements — often called living-together, property, or domestic-partner agreements — set out in detail how assets should be divided in the event of a break-up or death. In states with laws posing restrictions on same-sex couples, extra care must be taken; these agreements should be clearly structured as an investment or business arrangement.

You will also need to keep track of how much each party contributes to the mortgage. Since unmarried couples can’t file joint federal tax returns, they’ll have to divvy up deductions on mortgage interest and property taxes. A partner who pays 60% of the mortgage is entitled to 60% of the deductions, says Debra Neiman, a financial planner in Arlington, Mass., who co-founded PridePlanners, a national association of planners who service the gay, lesbian and nontraditional community. In states that do recognize same-sex unions, such as Massachusetts, you might file a joint return on the state level.

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By Christine Haughney
From The Wall Street Journal Online

To Corus Bankshares Inc., it is a great time to lend to condominium developers while other lenders cut back in the face of a slowing housing market. To short sellers, it is a great time to make some money betting Corus President Bob Glickman is wrong.

Mr. Glickman, also a major shareholder of the bank with 11 branches in the Chicago area, has become one of the nation’s most aggressive condo lenders. He says more than 90% of Corus’s nearly $9 billion loan portfolio is allocated to condo projects in major cities, up from 40% five years ago. The bank has a market capitalization of $1.13 billion. According to the bank’s most recent regulatory filing for the second quarter, 21% of its loan portfolio is concentrated in Miami and 9% in Las Vegas — two of the cities with the biggest gluts of unsold condos.

“Condominiums in the next five to 10 years will make up an increasing percentage of housing in this country,” says Mr. Glickman, who has spearheaded the condo loans since taking over the local bank that his father Joseph bought 40 years ago. “I think that the desire for people to live inner-city is just a trend that I think is picking up steam.”

He is particularly bullish about the Miami market, where some 100,000 condo units are under construction, planned or announced. In some cases, he has cut Corus’s lending standards there, requiring only 50% of the units to be presold rather than the 80% he used to require. Mr. Glickman is delighted other banks are cutting back condo lending in Miami. “I wish everyone had left because we would like to do more business,” he says.

Short sellers also are happy. The sellers — who sell borrowed shares in hopes of profiting from buying them back at lower prices — are shorting Corus shares eight times more than they did a year ago, according to data tracked by Wall Street Journal Market Data Group. So far it has been a good strategy. Corus’s stock price has dropped 31% over the past three months, falling 1.6% yesterday to $20.19 as of 4 p.m. on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

“If you’re negative on the condo market, Corus is the purest play,” says David Konrad, a senior vice president of equity research at New York-based Keefe, Bruyette & Woods. “The market has attached themselves to this company for better or worse because of that direct exposure.”

What the shorts don’t understand, Mr. Glickman says, is how well Corus has cushioned itself against the effects of a downturn. He says that because the bank lends to a condo project about 60% of what individual units ultimately would sell for, the developer and mezzanine lenders on these ventures are more likely to get hurt than Corus.

Even in a slowing market, Mr. Glickman says he is confident the condos he backs will fare better because he targets larger projects with an average size of $100 million, enabling Corus to weed out lesser-quality developers.

Some of Corus’s competitors aren’t as bullish on condos. Late last year, lenders including UBS AG, Wachovia Corp. and General Electric Co.’s GE Commercial Finance Real Estate division reduced condo lending, citing too much inventory in markets such as Miami and Las Vegas.

Corus has cut back some as well. The bank’s latest filing shows Corus originated $707 million in condo construction loans in the second quarter, down from $976 million in the same quarter last year. Loans for condo conversions — existing properties typically being converted into condos from rental apartments or office buildings — fell sharply, to $10 million from $747 million a year earlier.

Mr. Glickman’s approach so far has panned out in Las Vegas, some analysts say. Nearly 9,000 of the city’s 92,000 planned units have been canceled or are unlikely to move forward, according to Brian Gordon, a partner in Las Vegas-based research firm Applied Analysis. But Mr. Gordon says that Corus came to the market early and that most of the projects it backed — Corus’s Web site mentions more than 3,100 units altogether — have been completed or are far along in construction.

Miami may be more of a problem, some market experts say. Corus has made loans to about a dozen condo projects with nearly 4,200 units, according to the bank’s Web site. While Corus lent to well-branded projects like the Four Seasons Miami, the bank also has backed projects in the more saturated lower-priced segment, says Seth Semilof, a former broker and publisher of Miami lifestyle magazine Haute Living.

Mr. Glickman says he has confidence in the Miami market because many buyers have put down nonrefundable deposits for units, and that he hasn’t seen any buyers walk away from these deposits.

Corus’s latest regulatory filing describes the consequences “in the event of a serious recession” — the bank could be left with $1.5 billion of defaulted commercial real-estate loans and have to take losses of as much as $266 million, or 3% of its $8.8 billion in loan commitments. Corus executives are allocating $47.7 million for loan losses as of June 30, or about 0.50% of the total loan commitments.

Peyton Green, an analyst in the Nashville office of FTN Midwest Securities Corp., credits Corus for disclosing more information than some banks about the consequences of a recession, but says its loan-loss reserves are lower than the 1% or more allocated by many commercial banks.

Mr. Glickman says Corus’s reserves adhere to generally accepted accounting principles based on the bank’s prior performance. Corus hasn’t had to write off any loans in the past six years and very few loans in the past decade, he adds.

Nonetheless, short sellers smell opportunity. Corus has about 58 million shares outstanding, with about 24 million of those owned by Mr. Glickman’s family and company officers. Investors have shorted 57% of the remaining 34 million shares available for public trading, compared with 7% a year ago, according to data from WSJ Market Data Group.

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By Stephanie I. Cohen
From Marketwatch

As home energy bills soar, government agencies and private lenders are offering homeowners thousands of dollars in financing to seal off drafty windows and purchase energy-saving appliances.

These long-term, low-interest mortgages and loans are aimed at efficiency-minded homeowners who want to cut their utility bills. Borrowers can often arrange 30-year loan periods and interest rates below 10%.

Home buyers that find the perfect house with ancient heating and cooling systems and 20-year old appliances can add an additional $35,000 to their mortgage to improve the energy efficiency of the property using a Federal Housing Authority program.

While the program is aimed at allowing home buyers to tackle a broad array of home improvement projects, such as adding a new roof and replacing the plumbing, the funds can be used to upgrade a heating or air conditioning system, add insulation, weatherize doors and windows and purchase high-efficiency appliances, according to the agency.

The Federal Housing Authority’s Streamline K loan program was unveiled in April, 2005 and offers a 30-year mortgage with a fixed or adjustable interest rate set at current market rates. It is a new take on an older FHA loan program that homeowners often found too cumbersome to complete. Check the HUD Web site for more information.

The average loan for the updated program is between $18,000 and $20,000. A couple hundred loans have been administered since the program launched last year but FHA sees interest among lenders ramping up.

The program offers a way to “bring today’s energy technology to yesterday’s houses,” said Doris Ikle, president of CMC Energy Services, in Bethesda, Md. CMC performs audits and energy upgrades for residential customers. Ikle said she has received calls from consumers interested in the new FHA program.

“When people are buying a house particularly if it is an older house…they want at this point to reduce their bills,” Ikle said. Yet buyers often have no money left for improvements once they close on a mortgage, she added.

Slowdown should aid idea

The process for receiving funds still adds several steps to a home closing, which can make sellers resistant. Once a bid on a home is accepted it can take 60 days to complete the FHA process and reach closing, so finding a patient seller is helpful.

But a softening housing market is likely to boost the program’s prospects. In the absence of bidding wars and with houses sitting on the market longer, sellers — especially those whose houses may not be up to modern standards — may be more willing to entertain less traditional offers.

Homeowners must have a professional home energy auditor do an inspection to pinpoint improvements, find a FHA-approved lender (there are about 2,500 in the U.S., although not all participate in this program) and receive contractor estimates.

FHA also offers smaller “energy efficient” mortgages that let homeowners purchase or refinance a home and tuck the cost of efficiency upgrades into a mortgage. Borrowers can add between $4,000 and $8,000 to a 30- or 15-year mortgage to pay for energy improvements. See more about the program.

The upside is that a borrower does not have to make a down payment on the additional financing. In order to have improvements approved a homeowner must show that the value of the energy saved over the life of the upgrade is more than the total cost of the upgrade.

Energy-efficient mortgages aren’t exactly new. In 1992 Congress authorized the creation of an energy-efficient mortgage program. FHA insured 26,600 in fiscal year 2003.

But Ikle thinks interest in home energy efficiency is growing. “I think people are really taking the environmental crisis to heart and energy prices have helped too,” she said.

State programs

As states plug energy efficiency to help ease residents’ energy-bill woes, private unsecured loans offer homeowners focused on the thermostat another financing option with a little less bureaucracy.

Pennsylvania homeowners short on cash can buy energy-efficient heating and cooling systems, ceiling fans, or doors using a low-interest loan from AFC First Financial Corp. in Allentown.

In January, Pennsylvania officials gave $20 million to the Keystone Home Energy Loan Program. AFC, which spearheads the program and has been marketing energy loans since 1999, offers a 10-year loan with a 7.99% interest rate to help finance the purchase of energy-efficient appliances and systems. The interest rate drops to 5.99% for qualified borrowers with low income levels. Read more about the program.

These loans are for consumers who need between $1,000 and $10,000 for home energy upgrades. Peter Krajsa, president of AFC, calls this range of investment the “finance twilight zone” for many homeowners — an amount often too big to put on a credit card and too small for an equity line of credit. AFC began offering energy loans back in 1999.

These fixed, low-interest loans provide more palatable financing than standard credit-card interest rates, Krajsa said. The company has a 70% approval rating for the loans and has issued $2.5 million in loans through the Keystone program over the past seven months.

Maryland officials grappling with a reported 72% increase for homes served by Baltimore Gas & Electric have contacted AFC to inquire about starting a similar program, Krajsa said.

For homeowners outside of Pennsylvania, AFC offers energy improvement loans in nearly a dozen other states through a Fannie Mae program, although the interest rates on these loans are typically between 10% and 13%. AFC completes about 500 energy loans a month, Krajsa said.

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By Amy Hoak
From Marketwatch

Residential real estate, a shining star of the national economy that seemed unflappable over the past couple of years, has hit a speed bump.

Nationally, home price appreciation is slowing down from the rapid pace experienced by many markets over the past few years. Mortgage interest rates are on their way up. Is this any time to be thinking about investing in a home? Of course it is — if you’re buying it for a place to live, not as a speculative investment, and can afford to take the leap.

“Owning a home is still financially not a bad deal, as long as you have the income to support the cost of homeownership,” said Jim Gaines, research economist for the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. Another caveat: “You better figure on living there five or six years to make any kind of profit on the thing.”

Investors who hope to profit quickly on home sales, known as property flippers, for the most part have come and gone from the market, said Raymond Sierka Jr., vice president and regional sales manager with Harris Private Bank.

At the height of the real estate boom, people would buy houses before they were built at preconstruction rates only to sell the homes for a profit a short time later, often before construction was even complete. Speculators in some markets could often sell the property for a 20% to 30% yield, he said.

A normalized real estate landscape boots out those speculators, said Anthony Hsieh, president of online lender LendingTree.com. “It’s just too risky to speculate now,” he said.

People now are “buying for the right reasons,” said Diana Bull, a Realtor in Santa Barbara, Calif., and a regional vice president for the National Association of Realtors. Sellers no longer hold all the cards, she said, which is creating a more balanced market.

Below are several benefits of home shopping in a cooling real estate market — the silver lining to news predicting the residential real estate party is over.

More selection

In a growing number of local markets, buyers have more time to think about a home before they make a decision on whether to purchase it. Last year, that often wasn’t a likely luxury.

“Once you as a potential buyer found a house that met your needs, you had to jump on it right away,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for Freddie Mac. “One thing that we’re seeing nowadays — compared to six or 12 months ago — is many markets where homes are staying on the market longer.”

Home sales are expected to decline in 2006, yet the year should finish as the third strongest on record, according to a midyear report given by Nothaft earlier this month. With fewer sales, more housing inventory is sitting on the market.

It’s a change of pace for agents who not long ago didn’t have many properties to show their clients, said David Drinkwater a Realtor in Scituate, Mass., and regional vice president for the National Association of Realtors.

“Two or three years ago, there was a great deal of reacting in the marketplace because we had a smaller inventory pool to work with,” Drinkwater said. That’s not to say that a well-priced property won’t move quickly in this environment, he said, but buyers need to educate themselves so they can recognize a housing gem when they see it.

More room to negotiate

Current conditions in many markets also afford consumers a better opportunity to negotiate.

“This market is forcing everybody to slow down and take their time,” Bull said. In that time, buyers have more of a say at the bargaining table.

In fact, getting a fair deal is even more of a priority for homeowners who can no longer bank on high appreciation rates to save them if they pay too much, Drinkwater said. If you slightly overpaid in a bidding war at the height of the real estate boom, high appreciation rates helped correct the error, he said. In many markets there is now no such safety net.

Average home value appreciation nationwide should be around 7% for the year, and is predicted to slow even further to 6.2% in 2007, according to Freddie Mac. Local markets vary, however, and even as some markets are cooling, others are still on an upward climb.

Even if you, as a buyer, have the benefit of being more of a haggler than you could have been last year, still remember to look for a place that meets your needs and your budget, Nothaft said. Do the calculations and lay the groundwork before your house hunt ever begins.

Interest rates are still relatively low

It’s easy to get caught up in the upward scooting of mortgage interest rates. But take the northward movement with a grain of salt.

Some people act like “Chicken Little” and feel as if the sky is falling when interest rates go up a quarter of a point, said Gaines of the Real Estate Center in Texas. Instead, keep it in perspective.

Interest rates are still way below what they were five or six years ago, Gaines said. Even if the 30-year hits 7% by the end of the year, investors should keep in mind the double-digit rates of yesteryear.

The annual average for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 16.63% in 1981, and worked its way down to 9.25% in 1991, according to Freddie Mac records. Homeowners may not get rates quite as low as what they could secure in 2004, when the annual average for the 30-year fixed was 5.84%. But relatively speaking, it’s still a deal.

A home is still a good investment

If you’re in it for the long haul — that is, buying a home with the intention to live in it for years — a home is still a decent investment.

Consider this piece of information from the National Association of Realtors: Since record keeping began in 1968, the national median home price has risen every year. In a balanced market, home values typically rise at the general rate of inflation plus 1.5 percentage points. That’s to say nothing of the tax benefits that come with owning your own home.

A look at the volatility of the stock market also proves the benefits of real estate as an investment, said Sierka, of Harris. “The downside of real estate is better than the downside on just about anything else,” he said.

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By Ryan Chittum

From The Wall Street Journal Online

Rents at shopping malls rose in the second quarter at their fastest clip in nearly three years, and strip malls posted solid increases as vacancies decreased in both sectors, a survey shows.

But weakening second-quarter retail sales have damped growth and could slow it further in later quarters as economic pressures squeeze consumers. For the second straight quarter, absorption — the net change in occupied space — showed signs of weakness. Tenants absorbed 4.9 million square feet in the period, up from 3.3 million in the first quarter, but well below the two-year average of about seven million square feet per quarter.

Retail sales moderated due to a variety of pressures, from high energy prices to rising interest rates and a slowdown in the once-booming housing market.

Strip malls benefited from a lull in new centers opening. While 4.8 million square feet of new space opened in the quarter, space of 10.8 million feet is set to come on line in the fourth quarter.

“New construction this year particularly is back-loaded to the end of the year,” said Lloyd Lynford, chief executive of Reis. “Investors would do well to be monitoring impact of that construction,” particularly in markets like San Bernardino/Riverside, Calif., where 1.7 million square feet of new strip-mall space has opened so far this year — a huge amount considering 8.6 million square feet has opened in the rest of the country during the same period.

Still, strip-mall rents rose 0.9% to $18.65 a square foot from the first quarter. Shopping-mall rents rose 1% to $38.89 a square foot, the survey showed — the biggest quarterly rise in nearly three years.

Retail real estate has performed well in the past five years compared to apartments, offices and industrial, which were hit hard by the recession. While the other commercial real-estate sectors are improving sharply, retail has less upside now since it didn’t decline like the others during the downturn.

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By Amy Hoak

From Marketwatch

CHICAGO — Price your home incorrectly and it could mean a long stay on the market, a final selling price lower than what the house is worth or both.

That’s why some homeowners are electing to pay $300 to $400 for an appraisal before putting their homes on the market, said Alan Hummel, past president of the Appraisal Institute and chief appraiser for St. Paul, Minn.-based Forsythe Appraisals LLC.

Presale consultations at the firm rose in the first quarter, he said, as the residential real estate market started to cool in many areas of the country and inventory increased.

Although real estate agents often do their own market analysis to price a property — and many times do a decent job — the appraiser can come in with an independent, unbiased opinion to make sure the price is right, Hummel said. In fact, if a property isn’t getting any serious lookers, an agent might even encourage his or her client to invest in the service for a second pricing opinion, he added.

The greater attention to precise pricing is a change from a couple of years ago, when a house could be listed at a lofty price just to see how much it would fetch, he said. “Now you’ve got to be competitive and you have to know that the offers coming in are reasonable.”

Also, if a property spends too much time on the market, the price it will be able to command often decreases, he said, as some buyers will question the reasons for the property’s inability to sell.

Through the Eyes of a Buyer

An appraisal will look at the home from a visual standpoint, taking into account considerations from the proximity to schools to cracking or flaking paint, Hummel said.

“We’re trying to react the way a typical purchaser would,” he said.

The appraisal also will analyze the health of the local real estate market, giving homeowners more personalized expectations for selling their home — a feature especially important with the plethora of national news stories generalizing the real estate market, Hummel pointed out.

Appraisers can also use a cost approach, which will determine the price tag on a new home built to the same specifications of the existing home, Hummel said. The comparison can be helpful for newer houses hitting the market because it lets sellers know what their home is competing with on the new-construction front.

Looking Back to Move Ahead

It also might not be a bad idea to dig through the file cabinet for the appraisal report you paid for when you first bought your home, said Michael H. Evans, president of Evans Appraisal Service Inc. in Chico, Calif., and a fellow of the American Society of Appraisers.

Few spend time reviewing the paperwork at the time it is completed, when people are primarily interested in securing the home and buying the house, he said. “They don’t go back and review that paperwork unless there’s a significant issue that needs to be addressed.”

Doing so, however, can remind homeowners of flaws found the first time around, and sellers might want to address curable problems before hitting the market.

What should you know about home appraisals? Listed below are five nuggets of appraisal insight, courtesy of the American Society of Appraisers:

1.

What the appraisal report includes: Your appraisal — which could range in length from two or three pages to more than a hundred, depending on its scope — will include details about the house, a description of the neighborhood and side-by-side comparisons of similar properties. It will also contain an evaluation of the area’s real estate market, notations of major problems with the property that will affect its value and an estimate of the expected time it will take to sell the property.
2.

How an appraisal report is developed: Appraisals are opinions of value, and residential real estate appraisals compare your home with similar homes that have sold. Remember, an appraisal is not the same as a home inspection. Inspections look for physical imperfections in the home, making sure it is structurally sound and so forth.
3.

How to get a copy of your appraisal: You paid for an appraisal when you bought your house. If you didn’t request a copy of the appraisal at the time, you can request it from your lender — it’s your right under federal law.
4.

What to look for in the report before you sell: Focus on items that had a negative adjustment — they might be a good checklist for elements to update or remodel. Examples of issues that could cause a negative adjustment: less than the typical number of baths for the house’s size, outdated kitchens and baths, or a one-car garage or no garage in a neighborhood where two- and three-car garages are standard.
5.

Why an appraisal before your home hits the market might be wise: The fresh appraisal will help accurately price the home and ensure it will eventually appraise for your asking price at the time of the sale. Sellers are sometimes shocked when their house appraises below the asking price, which could cause a deal to fall through or for the seller to be forced to reduce the home’s price.

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From the Associated Press

COLUMBUS, Ohio — The Ohio Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Wednesday that economic development isn’t a sufficient reason under the state constitution to justify taking homes, putting a halt to a $125 million project of offices, shops and restaurants in a Cincinnati suburb that officials said would create jobs and add tax revenue.

The case was the first challenge of property rights laws to reach a state high court since the U.S. Supreme Court last summer allowed municipalities to seize homes for use by a private developer.

“For the individual property owner, the appropriation is not simply the seizure of a house,” Justice Maureen O’Connor wrote in a case that pitted the city of Norwood against two couples trying to save their homes. “It is the taking of a home — the place where ancestors toiled, where families were raised, where memories were made.”

Property rights’ advocates, business groups and backers of city planning were watching the Ohio case because of the precedent it could set. The ruling comes a year after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in a case from New London, Conn., that cities can take land for shopping malls or other private development.

Norwood wanted to use its power of eminent domain — the authority to buy and take private property for public projects such as highways — to seize properties holding out against private development in an area considered to be deteriorating.

In the ruling, Justice O’Connor said cities may consider economic benefits but that courts deciding such cases in the future must “apply heightened scrutiny” to assure private citizens’ property rights.

Targeting property because it is in a deteriorating area also is unconstitutional because the term is too vague and requires speculation, the court found.

Justice O’Connor wrote that the court attempted in its decision to balance “two competing interests of great import in American democracy: the individual’s rights in the possession and security of property, and the sovereign’s power to take private property for the benefit of the community.”

Dana Berliner, an attorney for the Arlington, Va.-based Institute for Justice that represented property owners in the case, said Wednesday’s decision will have ramifications in high courts and legislatures across the country.

“This case is really part of a trend throughout the country of states responding to and rejecting the U.S. Supreme Court’s Kelo decision last year,” she said. “There are now 28 states that have taken legislative steps to protect owners more after that decision, and this case is the next movement in that trend, and I believe now not only legislatures but other courts are going to begin rejecting that terrible decision.”

After the U.S. Supreme Court decision, Ohio declared a moratorium that prevents local governments from seizing unblighted private property for use by private developers until 2007. A legislative task force is expected to go ahead with reforms when it meets Aug. 31.

“I anticipate that many of our recommendations, combined with today’s Supreme Court decision, will ensure that Ohio sends a strong message to its citizens that their private property rights are secure,” said state Sen. Tim Grendell, chairman of the state’s Eminent Domain Task Force.

Norwood Mayor Tom Williams defended the plan and said he still believes the project was lawful.

“I believed that we did that right thing then, I believe we did the right thing now,” he said.

Tim Burke, a lawyer hired by Norwood, called the decision a significant disappointment and said it will halt progress on the planned development. He said the city likely will not appeal.

“Norwood, every step of the way, followed the law as it existed,” Mr. Burke said.

Development interests in other areas — particularly Cleveland’s Flats development along Lake Erie — signaled their intentions to proceed with plans that involve similar seizures.

“The Flats case is fundamentally different from the Norwood case and as such, we do not believe today’s ruling will impact the outcome of our legal actions,” the Port Authority and The Wolstein Group said in a joint statement.

Ms. Berliner called Norwood emblematic of development trends across the country.

“This was a perfect example of what is going on all over the country: a perfectly nice, working class neighborhood with no tax delinquencies, no falling down buildings, a nice neighborhood of homes and businesses, that a developer thought could be much more profitable as an upscale shopping and high-end housing center,” she said.

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By Janet Morrissey
From The Wall Street Journal Online

As the nation’s home builders struggle with big inventories, a surge in cancellations and a pullback in demand, many are aggressively offering discounts in high-profile promotion campaigns aimed at getting a dwindling number of home buyers into their sales centers.

How far will they go? Lennar Corp. placed a two-page advertisement in Florida’s Orlando Sentinel earlier this month, announcing it would be giving away a home in the Orlando area next month to one home buyer who visits its sales community and enters the drawing.

“Turn the key, and the home is free,” the ad read. Javier Santana, a Lennar salesman at one of the Orlando sales centers, said a drawing will take place Aug. 5, where 110 visitors will be given keys, and one will open the door to the free house.

Lennar isn’t alone. Creative and even high-risk incentives have become the norm, not the exception, for many builders, especially in Florida. Part of the problem is that builders continue to put new homes into an oversupplied market, says JMP Securities analyst Alex Barron.

Mr. Barron predicts fundamentals will get worse before they get better, as the “flippers” — or speculative investors — will eventually be forced to slash prices below home builders’ to sell their homes. “Six months ago, I thought this might last only two or three quarters, but now I think sales will continue to go down in 2007,” Mr. Barron says.

In the same Orlando newspaper in which Lennar ran its advertisement, a slew of other home builders placed ads, each trying to outbid the other. Meritage Homes Corp. offered home buyers the chance to purchase a home with no money down with its ad: “Zero, Zip, Nada. No matter how you say it, it still means no money down.” Levitt Corp., meanwhile, offered to help buyers who need to sell their existing home before purchasing a new one. Its ad promised a “guaranteed buyout program for your present home.”

Several builders, including Technical Olympic USA Inc.’s Engle Homes and Lennar, offered “guaranteed pricing,” where a home’s price would be reduced if pricing has changed by the time the home closes. This incentive is aimed at jittery buyers who are reluctant to sign a contract while pricing is so volatile.

Lennar offered to pay a buyer’s mortgage for the first six months, while closely held Prestige Builders Partners of Miami Lakes, Fla., raised the ante by promising, “Your first-year mortgage is on us.”

Mr. Barron, who recently returned from a tour of the Florida housing market, says certain builders are slashing prices so much that it is making it difficult for rival builders to compete. He cites the South Fork community near Tampa, where Hovnanian Enterprises Inc. was selling homes in the low-$300,000 range while Lennar, 500 feet away, had slashed its prices for homes of a similar size to about $230,000.

Mr. Barron says he was particularly surprised by Lennar’s steep cuts, given that the South Fork subdivision is currently under construction. In the past, many builders said that they were offering incentives only on select homes to finish off the sale of a particular subdivision and that they weren’t building speculative homes. In South Fork, however, Lennar is just starting to build out the community. And many of the homes are being built on spec — without a buyer. “They shouldn’t be putting up supply when demand is going down,” Mr. Barron says.

Hovnanian Treasurer Kevin Hake says the company’s sales managers are always monitoring the competition and making adjustments depending on market conditions. While he said he couldn’t comment on South Fork in particular, he says the company has been under competitive pressure to offer incentives in Florida. Executives from Lennar declined to comment.

The price cuts and incentives aren’t unique to Florida. There are signs and ads for significant discounts in other previously hot markets such as Phoenix; Washington, D.C., and California. Some builders, such as Centex Corp., had been offering 12-hour sales at some of its sales centers in California, where buyers would be offered as much as $100,000 off the price of a multimillion-dollar home if they purchase a home during the sale hours.

There are also signs that home builders continue to sell homes to speculative investors, even though many say they aren’t.

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By Christine Haughney
From The Wall Street Journal Online

Two years ago, mortgage companies were rushing to restructure themselves to become real estate investment trusts, hoping to benefit from investors’ strong appetite for anything related to the housing market. But now, some REIT executives — and investors — are having second thoughts.

“Being a mortgage REIT isn’t as great as it seemed at first,” says Tara Innes, a managing director at credit-rating company Fitch Ratings Ltd. “Over the last year, the promise of being a residential-mortgage REIT evaporated.”

REITs are securities that allow investors to own shares in companies that manage different aspects of the real-estate market and pay out 90% of their earnings to investors as dividends. According to the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts, overall total returns for REITs peaked at 38.5% in 2003 and eased to 8.29% in 2005. As of May 31, REIT returns were 7.42%.

Returns for equity REITs — companies that own office buildings and shopping malls — were similar to the overall averages. But total returns on residential-mortgage REITs have been more volatile: They were up 42.73% in 2003 and posted a negative 25.95% in 2005. As of May 31, they were up 9.23%.

Last year’s dismal performance partly explains the recent flurry of companies announcing changes. Last month, Accredited Home Lenders agreed to acquire Los Angeles-based REIT Aames Investment for $340 million. Aames, a subprime lender, has been in red ink for the past two quarters, with a first-quarter loss of $13.5 million, or 22 cents a share. In April, Irvine, Calif.-based ECC Capital Corp. said it was advised by its bankers to consider, among other things, converting away from its REIT status so it can retain more of its earnings to turn around the company. ECC specializes in “nonconforming” borrowers who have weak credit or don’t have the collateral or documentation required by conventional mortgage lenders. ECC Capital reported a net loss of $6.4 million, or six cents per diluted share, for the three months ended March 31.

Mortgage companies began converting to REITs in 2004, hoping to follow in the footsteps of equity REITs, which at the time were Wall Street darlings. Mortgage-bank earnings were high and stock prices were surging. By converting to REITs, the mortgage banks expected their stock prices to rise further, in part because REITs are taxed at a much lower level — as much as 35% less — than corporations. That meant more money could go back to investors.

Initially, the conversions seemed to work. “You have residential-mortgage real estate becoming a favored asset class,” says Brian Harris, a senior credit officer for Moody’s Investor Service. “All of that contributed to good performance for the sector.” Total returns for residential-mortgage REITs were 24.91% in 2004, the year that most of the conversions took place.

By 2005, conditions quickly turned. First, the housing market started to slow and the volume of new mortgage-loan originations weakened. At the same time, the Federal Reserve pushed short-term interest rates higher, prompting mortgage companies to pay more to borrow money to make new mortgages. Moreover, concerns about a housing slowdown reduced investor appetite for mortgage securities. That meant mortgage companies weren’t able to make as much money for their mortgages when they tried to package them and sell them off as securities on Wall Street. For example, revenue margins on subprime loans have narrowed to about 2.5 percentage points from about 3.5 to 4 percentage points a year ago, says Edwin Groshans, a senior mortgage analyst with equity research and investment-banking firm Fox-Pitt, Kelton. Margins on prime mortgages grew even thinner.

Some analysts believe conditions in the industry will worsen before they improve. The Mortgage Bankers Association predicts that mortgage originations will drop 14% this year. “There’s so much competition out there and the volumes have shrunk. So it’s becoming very price competitive. That’s reducing profitability,” says Mr. Groshans. “As your business becomes less profitable, your weaker players fall out of bed.”

While slowing home sales are hurting all types of mortgage companies, residential-mortgage REITs find that their tax status limits how quickly they can respond to changing market conditions because REITs can’t preserve much of their income. If they give up their REIT status, the companies can retain more of their earnings and experiment with additional methods of raising revenue beyond originating mortgages, says Mike Fratantoni, a senior economist with the Mortgage Bankers Association.

“There are some companies that decided that ‘Yes, the REIT structure is not working for us,’ ” says Mr. Fratantoni. “If you become a thrift or a bank, you have greater flexibility, more opportunities and greater liquidity.”

To be sure, analysts say that some mortgage REITs will be able to weather a rocky market and perform well over time. Followers of mortgage REITs say their success depends on keeping down the costs of creating mortgages. That means curbing expenses like technology, compensation for sales representatives and running retail operations. “Depending on their business models, for some companies, it’s working very well and they’re happy with it,” says Fitch’s Ms. Innes.

Accredited Home Lenders Chief Executive Jim Konrath says he considered converting to a REIT in 2004, but had some concerns. Among them: how the structure would help him achieve the value he wanted for the company’s stock price, how exactly the REIT would be taxed for originating loans and how willing Wall Street would be over time to provide his company more capital to grow. “There were a lot of unanswered questions,” says Mr. Konrath.


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By James R. Hagerty
From The Wall Street Journal Online

In the fight between traditional real-estate brokers and their discount rivals, some consumers are getting caught in the crossfire.

With house prices surging in recent years, a number of people are seeking ways to cut commission costs, which are based on a percentage of a home’s selling price. More home buyers are turning to discount brokers that offer to rebate a portion of the commission if you are willing to do much of the work in finding a home. And sellers are hiring discounters who, for a flat fee of a few hundred dollars, will include your home in a multiple-listing service, a database on houses for sale used by agents.

About 11% of home sellers last year used “alternative” brokers (ones offering flat fees or other forms of discounting), up from less than 2% in 2002, according to surveys by Real Trends, a publishing and consulting firm.

The competition from discounters has prompted some traditional brokers to use a variety of tactics to fight back, and this can end up hurting consumers. The controversy will get a public airing Monday when the Consumer Federation of America, a nonprofit research and advocacy group, releases a report on “how the real estate brokerage industry functions as a price-setting cartel.”

The stakes are high. People selling homes typically pay commissions of 4% to 6% of the price, which is split between brokers representing the buyer and seller. Residential real-estate sales generate more than $60 billion a year in commissions. Full-service brokers say that in exchange for the commissions they provide expertise and an array of services that help consumers navigate the housing market.

For consumers, the clash among brokers underlines a need to be wary. Buyers hoping to get a cash rebate from the commission earned by their agent need to be aware that they might meet resistance from agents representing sellers. They should check whether there are any conditions attached to the rebate offer and make clear when viewing homes that they are represented by an agent. And sellers using flat-fee listing services sometimes find that agents for buyers shun their homes.

Most real-estate agents are ethical, says Albert Hepp, the owner of BuySelf Realty, Bloomington, Minn., who helped create a new national association of brokers that charge home sellers a flat fee for a limited range of services. But some full-service brokers step out of line, putting their interests ahead of consumers, he says, adding: “The best analogy I can use is a high-school classroom when the teacher walks out of the room.”

One area likely to stir up more disputes involves the discount firms that offer rebates to buyers. The practice got a boost this year with the launch of two ambitious companies, BuySide Realty Inc. and Redfin Corp., which are promoting this concept heavily as they try to build national brands. Both encourage buyers to do part of the work in finding a home; they don’t offer the free car rides from house to house provided by most traditional agents.

Andrew Calloway, a financial analyst in St. Louis, decided to use BuySide because that firm rebates 75% of the commissions it receives to the buyer. He recently agreed to pay $200,000 for a three-bedroom home in Glen Carbon, Ill. He expected a rebate of $4,500.

But Mr. Calloway says Karen Malench, an agent for Coldwell Banker Brown who represents the sellers, tried to dissuade him from using BuySide. He says she offered a rebate of $2,000 to him if he dropped BuySide and used her firm instead. He declined and went ahead last month with his offer through BuySide. Then he learned that Coldwell plans to refuse to give BuySide a share of the commission on the ground that Coldwell, not BuySide, showed Mr. Calloway and his fiancee, Rebecca Collins, the house and made the deal happen. If BuySide doesn’t get a slice of the commission, it isn’t obligated to pay a rebate to Mr. Calloway.

“The thing that really upsets me is that the listing agent smiles to your face and puts a knife in your back,” says Mr. Calloway.

Ms. Malench, the listing agent, declined to comment. Gerry Schuetzenhofer, president of Coldwell Banker Brown, a franchisee of the national Coldwell brand, says that Ms. Malench denies having offered him $2,000 to drop BuySide. Mr. Schuetzenhofer says Mr. Calloway and his fiancee didn’t make clear that they were working with another broker when they first viewed the home. Mr. Calloway says he did make that clear.

Joseph Fox, BuySide’s chief executive, says this is the first time his young company has encountered such a commission dispute. He says he is trying to work out a solution with Mr. Schuetzenhofer. The latter says Mr. Fox tried “to intimidate me into accepting his demands. I don’t believe he would have done that if he was on sound footing.” Mr. Fox retorts: “He’d rather think about his pocketbook and not the best interests of the client.” One option for the parties is to seek mediation or arbitration through a local arm of the National Association of Realtors, a trade group.

BuySide currently has operations in California, Florida, Illinois and Georgia. The company plans to cover 39 states by the end of 2008.

Cem Sibay, a business-development manager at an Internet company in Seattle, sought a rebate through Redfin. Mr. Sibay says he and his fiancee, Tam Pham, arranged to see a condo about six months ago. The agent representing the seller, Ron Waxman of Coldwell Banker Bain, was initially friendly and helpful, Mr. Sibay says. But Mr. Sibay says Mr. Waxman’s attitude changed when Mr. Sibay mentioned that he planned to use Redfin as his agent. Mr. Sibay says Mr. Waxman then refused to show the condo to the couple again and said he would advise his client not to consider any offer they made.

Mr. Sibay and Ms. Pham gave up on the idea of bidding for the condo.

When reached for comment Wednesday, Mr. Waxman said, “I don’t remember that at all.” He said he stopped working as an agent last year; then, a few minutes later, Mr. Waxman acknowledged that he was still working as an agent and declined to comment further.

Bill Riss, the owner of Coldwell Banker Bain, says his agents sometimes “push back” against discounters like Redfin because they believe such firms don’t do their share of the work. But he adds that his firm’s policy is to work with any member of the local multiple-listing service, including Redfin.

Mr. Sibay kept working with Redfin and last month agreed to buy a different home in Seattle. He expects to receive a rebate of about $10,000 when the transaction is completed.

Glenn Kelman, chief executive officer of Redfin, says resistance from traditional agents will abate as his company completes more deals and becomes more established in the market. The company began operating in Seattle in February, recently opened up offices in the San Francisco Bay Area, and plans to expand to San Diego and Los Angeles and perhaps Washington and Boston by year end. In what Mr. Kelman calls a “charm offensive,” Redfin recently began sending $100 gift cards to the listing agents when a Redfin buyer completes a purchase. “We need to turn these agents around one at a time,” he says.

Discounters representing sellers also are meeting resistance. Jeff Kermath, who owns Amerisell Realty, a flat-fee broker in Saline, Mich., says one of the multiple-listing services he works with, Realcomp II Ltd., in the Detroit area, discriminates against firms offering discounts for limited service. For instance, Realcomp, owned by local Realtor groups, doesn’t send limited-service listings to popular home-search sites like Realtor.com. And the default search setting for agents using Realcomp excludes limited-service listings, meaning fewer potential buyers hear of them.


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By Amy Hoak
From Marketwatch

The recent housing boom is the biggest the United States has ever seen, but its underlying reasons may have been psychological, economist Robert J. Shiller said on Friday. New data also suggest the market might be at the end of a cycle, he added.

The only time since 1890 that compares to the recent residential real estate market is just after World War II, the Yale University professor said during a presentation on U.S. home prices, held at Standard & Poor’s in New York and broadcast to journalists on the Web.

“After World War II, the soldiers came back and they wanted houses and started the baby boom. And when you had babies, you wanted houses with at least two bedrooms — and that wasn’t so common back then. They went on a buying spree and it pushed home prices up,” he said.

The recent boom, however, doesn’t have the same fundamental variables causing prices to soar, he said, adding that variation in such things as building costs, population and interest rates doesn’t adequately explain the reason for the housing boom.

“I don’t see why home prices should be shooting up that strongly,” Shiller said, adding that speculation may have played a role. “It’s a sign of concern.”

Shiller was co-author of “Irrational Exuberance,” a book that chronicled the stock-market bubble of the late 1990s. He also co-developed the S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Indices, designed to measure the average change in U.S. home prices. The indexes are based on 10 cities — Boston, Miami, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas and Los Angeles — and are now the basis of new futures and options trading at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Within that index, Shiller has noticed a short-term trend of cooling home prices that could signal an end to the cycle of steep appreciation increases. Investing in the index could help homeowners hedge against price fluctuations in their homes, he said.

Shiller said he is not allowed to invest in home price index futures.

During a question-and-answer session, he said that the stabilization of home prices could also have some effect on consumers’ means of gaining equity. Low interest rates inspired people to refinance their homes, and the increasing value of their houses allowed them to pad their pockets with spending money; consumers will now have to turn to other means for financing, including credit, he said.

In the future, insurance companies may offer policies to shield consumers from lowering home prices, thanks to the futures now available, said David Blitzer, managing director and chairman of the Index Committee at Standard & Poor’s, who also participated in the presentation. He identified the housing market as a continued stable investment.

“If you want volatility, go to the stock market,” he said. “If you have any doubts of that, take a look at it over the past six weeks.”

http://www.realestatejournal.com/

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Your Real Estate Marketing Plan

by Jim Bruce

A real estate marketing plan needs to take all facets of the realty business into account. This means marketing to real estate sellers as well as buyers. The real estate strategy also needs to utilize both online and offline methods of advertising.

Realtor advertising needs to show a good return on your advertising investment. It should be tracked to see if you are gaining positive results for each dollar spent. By researching your advertising methods and tracking the results, you can find the best methods that work in your local real estate market.

The main thrust of your marketing endeavors should be to gain leads, follow them up quickly, and turn your prospects into clients by meeting with them face-to-face. All along this marketing process, you should be aiming to gain the trust and loyalty of the real estate lead. Thus turning them into your client and making them a loyal, lifetime customer.

Your realtor marketing plan should be an offensive game plan. Direct response marketing is best for this type of endeavor. Direct response marketing is meant to illicit a yes or no response from your potential lead. It then gives them a means to contact you if the answer is yes, giving you the opportunity to supply them with the information they desire and capture the lead’s contact information for further follow-up.

Both online and offline techniques can be used to accomplish this objective. An integration of online and offline rounds out your marketing offensive. In this modern day, both are equally important and give the lead their choice of means to contact you.

Key to the success of your marketing strategy is “baiting” the potential client with pertinent information that they are seeking. Online you can capture your leads by supplying them with information on buying or selling their house, finding the value of their property, or giving them a report on what to do to prepare their property for sale. This is supplied in downloadable form after they give you their contact information.

Offline, the same information can be supplied or information on a house they have seen in an ad or after driving by and obtaining a phone number from you house sign. Through a realtor hotline number they can access the desired information after calling and giving a special phone extension number that is specific to their request. You phone hotline should have the ability to capture the lead’s phone number and name so that you can do an immediate follow-up call to sell the lead on your abilities and tell them what you can do for their real estate quest.

Prompt follow-up is one of the most important keys to your real estate success. Most people don’t expect prompt, personal service and this sets the mood for developing a relationship with the lead. Developing a personal relationship with your prospects brings confidence in your abilities to help them and a lifetime commitment to you as their realtor.

You should develop scripts that bring confidence to you as a real estate agent. These should be aimed at the prospect’s desires and needs and how you can help them obtain their desires, whether selling or buying housing. Communication is key and should always answer that big Homer Simpson question that he asks in every episode that the lead is also asking: “What’s in it for Me?”

Your advertising should not be the traditional “here I am” and “I’m such a great real estate agent” ads that so many realtors use. If the ads are of this type, you prospects will be asking the two other Homer Simpson questions: “So What?” and “Who Cares?” before they turn to another realtor that can focus on their needs.

Everything in your real estate marketing plan should be centered around the prospect. You must build confidence that you can aid them with their wants and desires. You have to show them that you can do this quickly and with the least amount of hassle on their part. The process has to be simple and easy for them to accomplish.

Show the lead that you are the real estate agent to allow them their dream by being the go-between that can same them time and money while getting the job done. Keep communications open at all steps along the real estate process, from meeting the client to closing the deal, and inform them of the progress towards their goal continuously.

The biggest complaint clients have with realtors is that they get the client to sign an agreement and then are not heard of until a deal is in the making. You want to keep in touch no matter what the progress is and inform your client that progress IS being made and this is what YOU ARE DOING FOR THEM.

A well thought out real estate marketing plan should take into account this and much more. It takes effort on your part but this effort will pay dividends. The real estate agent should continually brainstorm new means of advancing their business and bring these into their strategy if they prove themselves to work.

In the end, you will find that your business expands, profits go up, and your customers will remain loyal for a lifetime.
About the Author

Jim Bruce is a direct response marketer that helps real estate agents and brokers make the best of their marketing efforts to gain more leads and expand their real estate business. More information on real estate marketing can be found at: http://www.realtormarketinginfo.com

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By Janet Morrissey
From Dow Jones Newswires

Investor concerns about a possible crash in the homebuilding sector have been escalating in the past couple of months as industry fundamentals have been deteriorating at a faster clip than expected. However, the investor jitters have not shut down interest in the group as fund flows into the sector remained positive in May, although investors favored some homebuilding names over others.

A Birinyi Associates Inc. report, commissioned by UBS Associates, found general investor sentiment toward builders cooled in May from April, with investors carefully cherry-picking the homebuilding stocks they wanted to build positions in at this point in the cycle.

Fund flows increased into five homebuilding names -Centex Corp. (CTX), Meritage Homes Corp. (MTH), Standard Pacific Corp. (SPF), Pulte Homes Inc. (PHM), and WCI Communities (WCI) - in May. However, money flows significantly slowed in others, with the biggest drops appearing in D.R. Horton Inc. (DHI), Ryland Group Inc. (RYL) and KB Home (KBH). Despite the slowdown, fund flows didn’t turn negative, indicating investors were not pulling out of the stocks.

“Of the 15 homebuilders we monitor, Birinyi found that money flows were positive into five in April and neutral among the remaining 10,” said UBS analyst Margaret Whelan. “None of the companies had negative flows,” she emphasized.

Whelan said the fund flow data is a good barometer for gauging near-term investor sentiment and psychology toward the group.

“Homebuilder investors know that the cycle in psychology has as big an influence on the stocks as that of any economic cycle,” said Whelan.

Although there has been much talk of a housing bubble and homebuilders have been reporting a sharp drop in orders in the last two quarters, investors don’t believe the sector is heading for a crash - at least not yet.

“Otherwise, they’d be selling” and fund flows would be negative, said Whelan. “The reality is that actions speak louder than words.”

The fact that many of the fund flows were neutral - meaning there were as many buyers as sellers in the stock - indicates much of the institutional money is sitting on the sidelines waiting. “When institutional money is coming into the group, then the flows are positive,” Whelan said.

Homebuilding stocks fell about 32% in the first five months of the year, marking the steepest drop in five years, the report said. The last time the group saw a sharper falloff was in 1999, when homebuilding stocks declined 45% over 292 days.

“I think that overall the valuations are so low that it’s making people more interested,” Whelan said.

Homebuilding stocks were off across the board Monday, with shares of Beazer Homes USA Inc. (BZH) off 3.4% to $45.72, KB Home off 3.2% to $43.32, Lennar Corp. (LEN) down 3% to $43.77, M.D.C. Holdings Inc. (MDC) down 3.6% to $50.97 and M/I Homes Inc. (MHO) down 3.6% to $31.36.

Meritage stock was off 4.5% to $47.90, Pulte Homes was down 3.1% to $27.38, Ryland was down 3.9% to $41.64, Standard Pacific was lower by 4.5% to $24.85, Levitt Corp. (LEV) was down 4.2% to $14.53 and Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL) was down 3.6% to $26.16.

http://www.realestatejournal.com/commercial/

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If you would like to buy a house/home we are your source of thousands of available listings of real estate. As a native Licensed New Jersey Real Estate Broker we have many agents in our realty who are very familiar with the needs of New Jersey Real Estate buyers. If you are interested in selling your house, or any other NJ real estate, we are here to help you sell. Our experience real estate office staff will walk you through the whole house selling process. Get in touch with us and we will show you how we can help your sell your home in New Jersey.

By James R. Hagerty

From The Wall Street Journal Online

POMONA, N.Y. — The cooling market for real estate brought Michael Termine and Uso Mbanefo together.

Mr. Mbanefo, a 43-year-old entrepreneur struggling to launch a clothing-design company, had fallen behind on his mortgage payments. He needed to sell his four-bedroom house here quickly to avoid losing it in a foreclosure. That’s when Mr. Termine, a 32-year-old novice real-estate investor, stepped in.

One afternoon in early April, Mr. Termine visited Mr. Mbanefo’s office in a strip mall and offered to pay $400,000 for his house. Mr. Mbanefo showed Mr. Termine fliers for nearby homes offered at $600,000 or more. Mr. Termine pointed out that the inventory of unsold homes here, as in many parts of the country, has nearly doubled over the past year. Even so, Mr. Mbanefo said that he might be able to refinance his home, spruce it up and sell it for $500,000.

“I don’t see it at 500,” said Mr. Termine. “I think the magic number to move that house fast is 475.” Before leaving, he reiterated his offer. “I have $400,000 waiting for you, in cash.”

The slowdown in housing sales, after five years of frantic buying, has ended the party for many real-estate investors. But the cooler market is welcome news for a subset of investors — those who target homeowners facing foreclosure.

Most foreclosure investors run small, local operations, buying and reselling a handful of properties a year. Some are self-taught; others take courses touted on Web sites or in late-night TV ads. Invariably, they draw criticism from advocates for the poor, who accuse them of preying on the vulnerable.

“Our time has finally come!” proclaims a recent email advertisement from ForeclosureS.com, a Fair Oaks, Calif.-based company that markets training materials for would-be investors. A 90-minute telephone program promises to teach foreclosure specialists how to be a “white knight” and not “feel like a shark.”

More people are falling behind on their mortgages, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The percentage of loans on which payments are at least 30 days overdue rose to 4.7% in the fourth quarter of 2005 from 4.4% a year earlier. With interest rates rising, it’s harder for homeowners to refinance or sell quickly.

Such conditions are attractive to investors like Mr. Termine, who previously has owned a bar, worked in construction and tried acting. “I’ve always wanted to do the real-estate thing,” says the father of two young children. “I just didn’t know how.”

Last year, Mr. Termine bought home-study materials from ForeclosureS.com, including six compact discs, for about $400. Then he flew to California in November to take an intensive three-day course. Mr. Termine says the lessons taught him to deal honestly and ethically with people facing foreclosure — and make a good return for himself. “If I can create some kind of win-win, then it’s worth it,” he says.

So far, he says, he has used home-equity lines of credit to purchase four homes in foreclosure. He has sold two of them, he says, clearing about $160,000 in profits. Though he expects some transactions to be less lucrative, Mr. Termine predicts he can easily earn a six-figure annual income. One sign of his confidence: he bought himself an $82,000 red Porsche Carrera late last year.

Investors find prospects by scanning court filings for notices of defaults on loans. Sometimes, they advertise in poor neighborhoods by tacking up signs on telephone poles. Most ads have a quick-cash pitch, and some hold out the promise of advice for people in distress.

A common practice is to find people whose homes are worth much more than the mortgage-loan balance but who have fallen behind on payments. Some investors then persuade the owner to sell the home for a negligible sum above the balance due — with the promise that the former owner can stay on as a tenant and have an option to later repurchase the home.

Sour Deals

Once the investor acquires the house for a bargain-basement price, some deals go sour. Some investors, for example, evict the former owner if he or she is unable to pay the rent. In other cases, an investor refinances the house, extracts tens of thousands in cash, and then fails to make payments on the new loan.

Annie Stephens, a 68-year-old receptionist in Atlanta, says she fell behind on payments on her mortgage in 2003 after suffering a stroke. Nathan Mack, a real-estate investor, offered to help her avert foreclosure, according to a Fulton County, Ga., court filing. Ms. Stephens says she agreed to transfer the title to her house to an associate of Mr. Mack, Gaytonya Jones, with the understanding that Ms. Jones would refinance the house and Ms. Stephens could stay put, paying rent, for a year. After that, she says, she was to regain the title to her home.

As the new owner of the home, Ms. Jones obtained a new mortgage of $110,700 and used part of the proceeds to pay off Ms. Stephens’s old $80,000 note, according to Michael P. Froman, an Atlanta lawyer who represents Ms. Stephens. Ms. Stephens received about $3,000 from the transaction, even though she was giving up title to a home in which she had built up about $40,000 of equity, Mr. Froman says.

Ms. Stephens says she paid rent to Ms. Jones, initially $700 a month and later $900 a month. Nevertheless, says Mr. Froman, Ms. Jones failed to make payments on the new mortgage loan, prompting the lender to initiate foreclosure proceedings in 2005. Now Mr. Froman is seeking a court order to return the title to his client, who still lives in the home pending resolution of the dispute.

Mr. Mack says there was nothing improper about the agreement with Ms. Stephens. “We thought we were helping her,” he says. Ms. Jones couldn’t be reached for comment.

The foreclosure process usually begins when people fall three months behind on their payments. If the borrower fails to catch up or work out a deal with the lender, it can take as little as a few months or as long as a few years before the lender meets various state and local requirements for selling the home at auction.

Lenders often lose money when they foreclose on homes since renovation and marketing costs can be high. And because many homeowners have saddled their properties with debt, houses often are worth less than the amount owed. This lopsided equation makes most lenders eager to work out arrangements with delinquent borrowers, giving them time to catch up on payments.

Once an auction is scheduled, though, it may be too late to work out an arrangement with the lender. At that point, the homeowner can be an easy mark for those touting rescue plans.

Advocates for the poor, as well as some politicians, warn that deals with foreclosure specialists are rarely good for strapped homeowners. Elizabeth Renuart, a lawyer at the National Consumer Law Center in Boston and the co-author of a 2005 report on foreclosure scams, says it is “theoretically possible to make a fair deal if the investor makes only a modest profit and the sale returns a reasonable amount of equity to the homeowner.” But she believes consumers would be better off trying to work out a deal with their lenders or seeking help from a financial counselor.

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan likens some foreclosure investors to “piranhas.” She recently has filed three lawsuits against companies she alleges have misled homeowners into selling their houses for paltry sums.

Illinois is among several states that have passed, or are considering, measures to bolster protections for homeowners considering foreclosure deals. New legislation in Illinois will require investors to provide a clear, written contract and give sellers the right to cancel within five business days after it is signed. The new Illinois rules also will limit the profit investors can make when they buy a home and allow the occupants to remain as renters with an option to repurchase the property.

Some investors are pushing back. Last year, a group of them formed the National Association of Responsible Home Rebuilders and Investors to lobby against what they see as overly restrictive state legislation.

“Let’s create a regulatory framework that takes the bad people out of the industry” but doesn’t block all transactions, says John Grant, executive director of the association. He says legitimate investors have been unfairly tarred by politicians aiming to crack down on scams.

One of the best-known buyers of homes from distressed owners is HomeVestors of America Inc., a franchising company based in Dallas that helped found the trade group headed by Mr. Grant. After paying an upfront fee of $49,000, franchisees receive two weeks of training, and can tap into leads generated by the company’s ads. HomeVestors, known for big yellow billboards proclaiming “We Buy Ugly Houses,” has 250 franchisees in 31 states and the District of Columbia, up from 43 at the end of 2000.

The company says its franchisees typically offer about 65% of the estimated market value of homes, minus renovation costs. Such a deal, it says, can benefit people who lack the time or inclination to fix up and sell a home themselves.

“We never want to look like we’re taking advantage of people down on their luck,” says John Hayes, the company’s chief executive.

ForeclosureS.com, the firm that provided training to Mr. Termine, also says that its methods are fair.

During a recent $19.99 seminar provided via a telephone conference call, company president Alexis McGee said investors should be honest in describing borrowers’ options — including how they might get a higher selling price by listing with a real-estate agent. Rather than scare owners about the prospect of losing their homes, she suggested a softer approach: “Hi, my name is Alexis. I understand you are in a difficult situation with your house, and I wondered how I could help.”

‘A Ton of Dough’

Using such techniques, investors still “can make a ton of dough,” Ms. McGee told the conference-call participants.

Mr. Termine hopes to do just that. One recent day, he started work at 7:30 a.m. in a cubicle at the office of a friend. Wearing blue jeans and a crisp white shirt, he switched on his computer, bringing up an image of his pet pit bull. Then he called up the Web site of New York’s Rockland County Clerk, and began searching through legal notices of foreclosures.

He jotted down notes about people to call. “Every week that I do this more and more people are in trouble,” he said. “It’s slowly, like, on an incline.”

When records show that people have loans and overdue taxes that total more than the value of their homes, Mr. Termine doesn’t bother to make contact. He can make a profit only if there is equity remaining in the home after he buys it and pays off all the obligations.

After about an hour of computer research, Mr. Termine got back in the blue Ford Taurus he uses for work and set out to look at prospects. One stop: a two-story house in Stony Point, N.Y., with moldy white siding. From court filings, Mr. Termine knew the name of the home’s owner and that a foreclosure auction was pending. A neighbor who was watering the lawn said the owners had two children, drove a new Lincoln Navigator and now live in Florida.

Mr. Termine made a note to track down the owners’ current phone number. He then did some quick calculations. If the owner would sell him the home for around $230,000, “I’ll probably make $100,000,” said Mr. Termine — even after spending about $30,000 on renovations and paying broker fees.

Later in the day, Mr. Termine arranged his meeting with Mr. Mbanefo. Mr. Termine first contacted Mr. Mbanefo early this year after finding court records showing that he faced foreclosure. The two had discussed Mr. Mbanefo’s options and dickered over the value of his house for weeks.

Mr. Mbanefo bought the house in 1994 for about $175,000. Though the value has more than doubled, so has his mortgage debt because he has borrowed against the house to finance businesses, including a line of denim clothing branded Abani. Sitting across a table from Mr. Termine, Mr. Mbanefo tapped some numbers into his calculator. After buying, renovating and reselling the house, “you’ll come up with 100 grand (in profit) at the end of the day,” Mr. Mbanefo said.

“I don’t know how much I’ll make,” Mr. Termine said.

A few weeks later, Mr. Termine reached a tentative agreement to buy Mr. Mbanefo’s house, at a price the latter doesn’t wish to disclose. At the time, Mr. Termine said in an interview that he might make a profit of around $85,000 after paying $20,000 for minor renovations and reselling the house.

But the deal fell apart in May when Mr. Mbanefo decided to sell to another investor instead. He declines to discuss that transaction.

Though the outcome was disappointing to Mr. Termine, he presses on. “I can’t help everybody,” he says. “But I try.”

Newark NJ Real Estate, Spring Lake NJ Real Estate, Marlboro NJ Real Estate, Jackson NJ Real Estate are all popular destinations. Spring Lake NJ is the premium shore location with it’s exclusive homes for sale. Newark NJ is a popular city location for it’s proximity to NYC and it’s large business population. Marlboro NJ is known for it’s excellent school district, it’s exclusive homes for sale, the vicinity to NYC and it’s a beautiful area. Jackson NJ is a very popular residential area in Central New Jersey with many different classes of homes. If you are interested in “,0] ); D([”ce”]); //–> real estate in any area of New Jersey please let ERA Othello Realty help you.

By Joel Teo

There are two traditional ways to make money from property investment. The first being capital appreciation and the second being rental returns. Good rental returns incidentally affect capital appreciation to some extent it would be hard to segregate the two. Thus, this article will identify three indicators of a good rental property investment so as to help one that can form the basis of your next real estate property investment.

Firstly, good human traffic would be key if the investment property category that you are interested in involves shopping malls, strips and shop houses. Spend some time thinking about what type of crowd a rental property seeks to attract and then go down during the period in which you think the human traffic is at its maximum to have a gauge of the ground conditions.

For instance some rental property attracts the office crowd, then you want to analyze when the office crowd might appear like during lunch time and you can then go down during lunch time to estimate the crowd size and figure out whether your investment property investment will give you good rental yields.

Secondly, pay some attention to future developments in your area to figure out where the large shopping malls might develop and then purchase your property in the direction of progress as some real estate writers like to put it. The reason for this is that where there is development, there would be an increase in crowds and this would be in addition to any crowds that you might have noticed in the first point above and therefore increase you rental from your investment property.

One good way to stay abreast of such developments is to network with property developers, architects and real estate agents who come across such information. Such a team can form part of your Master Mind Team as Napoleon Hill suggested to accelerate your property investment progress. Another way is to spend some money in a real estate investing magazine in your country or area and be updated on property investment trends.

Thirdly accessibility to transport is very important for rentals. When accessing an investment property for rental purposes, if your property is far out from the city but is readily accessible from the subway, bus routes or walking or the freeway, the rental of your property might be a lot higher than a property that is nearer the city but is very inaccessible. When determining accessibility, check if its connected to the freeway or whether public transport is readily accessible.

In addition, if your investment property involves industrial property, you want areas where your tenants can move their manufactured goods easily to the port. Spend some time talking to your real estate agent about this and they can advice you on this.

In conclusion, do spend some time thinking about what your tenant might want in a rental property of that particular class and you will be able to choose a property that can help you achieve good rental yields that is critical for cash flow purposes.

If you are looking for homes for sale in Spring Lake NJ, Newark NJ, Marlboro NJ or any other area in New Jersey ERA Othello Realty are the real estate agents that you are looking for. Whether you are looking to buy or sell your New Jersey real estate they can help you. Search through thousands of houses for sale in New Jersey.




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ERA Othello Realty is your source for your real estate needs throughout New Jersey. From the shores of Spring Lake NJ to Newark NJ they can handle all your real estate buying and selling needs. For homes for sale in Monmouth, Ocean, Mercer, Burlington, Camden, Middlesex, Passaic and all the other counties in NJ. From Central NJ to Northern NJ to Southern NJ you can count on ERA Othello Realty for New Jersey Real Estate.







Author: Julie Jalone Buying a home is a major decision. For most of us it is the largest financial transaction we have in our lifetime. Based on those comments it is easy to see why some potential buyers have a hard time pulling the trigger. Some questions they may be asking themselves include, can I afford this, what if I lose my job and can’t make the payments and do I want this responsibility? After writing that, I feel like I should sell my house! But let take a look at the situation because I really don’t think buying a home is risky. Rather than address some of the many benefits of home ownership such as the potential appreciation, tax benefits and the ability to customize and make it “your place,” I want to address the reasons some individuals do not buy. Can I afford to buy a home is not a fear it is a question that can be answered very easily at most banks and for sure by mortgage brokers and lenders. Most first time home buyers are pleasantly surprised to learn they can qualify and even more astonished by what price of home they can shop for. What if I lose my job and can’t make a payment? Why is that so different from, what if I can’t pay my rent? The renter who can’t pay the rent is out on the street looking for another place to live long before homeowner is forced to move. Evicting a delinquent renter can happen in days depending on where you live. Ever try finding another place to rent after you have been evicted for not paying rent? Would you want to rent to that person, especially if they don’t have a job? If you do find a new rental it will require a significant dollar deposit that if you had you would have used to pay the rent at the last place. As you can see this is not a very pretty scenario. Homeowners have some advantages when it comes to capacity to make payments. Landlords want to evict and get a new renter; lenders do not want to foreclose unless they have no other alternative. Lenders are more apt to work with a borrower who is having temporary financial problems because the foreclosure process is expensive and generally end up with some dollar amount being exposed to loss. Most lenders will not even start the foreclosure process until you are 60 to 90 days delinquent in your payments. In many places around the country and particularly in California where we have experienced rapid appreciation over the past five years, this time given by the lender allows the homeowner to find solutions including selling the home. Often the sale even results in the homeowner making a profit. Just because I have said the mortgage lenders are willing to work with delinquent borrowers, don’t misread that as it will be a delightful experience and they are happy to “roll over.” It is not a fun experience and is generally a very expensive process but it does protect homeowners by providing time to seek solutions that renters don’t have. So if buying a house can provide security why don’t we all want to own a house? Do I want the responsibility of being a homeowner? There are some responsibilities and clearly expenses associated with homeownership that renters do not have. As long as individuals understand the risk factors this decision comes down to determining if the extra security and other benefits of owning your own home is worth the added responsibility. In California over the past few months there is another growing group of individuals who are not buying homes even though they have made decisions they want to be homeowners. The media “Bubble” proponents have many people wondering when the right time to buy is. After five years of record appreciation, will prices fall like some think? If you are buying a home for speculation reasons I think this is a good question and deserves some careful thought. On the other hand if you want to own a home for the security and other benefits this is the time to buy. Julie Jalone is an experienced professional Realtor serving buyers and sellers of residential real estate in the Greater Sacramento area including Placer, El Dorado, Yolo and Yuba counties. Some of the communities served by Julie include Sacramento, Roseville, Rocklin, Lincoln and Granite Bay. She has been working with a wonderful couple from Iowa who are having a hard time with California prices and are worried about the “bubble.” They really want a home but you can see them struggling with making the decision. It is just going to take more time! To learn more about Julie, take a look at her website, jalone.com, where you will find additional articles, monthly market analysis and her daily blog, ”Keep it Real in Sacramento.” We have many listings of homes for sale. There are townhomes for sale, homes for sale, condos for sale, lots for sale and real estate for sale, residential and commercial. So, come inside and search through thousands of listings of homes for sale in New Jersey and all other NJ real estate.

Author: Steve Gillman These moving tips may include a few things you hadn’t thought of, or things you just need to be reminded of. Forget that safe deposit box, for example, and you may have to drive a long way to get at it. Ten more moving tips follow. 1. Get rid of things. Consider carefully what you need to keep. People spend hundreds of dollars to move things that will undoubtedly be thrown away some day. It’s not just a matter of the expense, but the hassle too. Moving time is the best time to get rid of the things you really don’t need. 2. Have a yard sale. It’s a good way to get rid of those things, and you might even raise enough money to pay for the move. 3. Use lists. You will forget things, especially if you don’t have a list or two. Start with a list of things to do before the move. It may include getting school documents transferred, filling out change of address forms, returning borrowed books and movies, transferring prescriptions, getting maps, and arranging utility shut offs and start ups. 4. Make the the moving company reservation a month ahead. You wouldn’t want to find out they are booked up on the date you need them. 5. Pack early. It’s hard to say how long it will take until you are doing it. Start early to avoid running around looking for boxes at the last moment. 6. Have an “essentials” box. This will have things to make your arrival easier, like toilet paper, paper plates, soap and such. Pack the box where it is easily accessible. 7. Check weather reports. It’s no fun arriving in a snowstorm with your coat packed away somewhere. Allow for extra moving time if the weather is going to slow down traffic. 8. Notify family and friends of your new address and phone number(s). Do this before you have the phone shut off. 9. Save your receipts. Save receipts for moving expenses, like gas, hotel rooms, and anything else related to the move. Then ask your accountant or tax preparer if you are eligible for a tax deduction for moving expenses. 10. try to re-establish your routines quickly. It helps to quickly re-establish routines in your new home, so if Friday night is movie night, don’t break with tradition. Moving is less traumatic if you have some consistency in daily life. If you are moving with children, this may be one of the more important moving tips. Author: Steve Gillman has invested in real estate for years. To learn more, get a free real estate investing course, and see a photo of a beautiful house he and his wife bought for $17,500, visit http://www.HousesUnderFiftyThousand.com We have hundreds of listings of homes for sale in your area. If you are interested in buying a house feel free to search through our database. This is a free service and we have a low pressure policy. There is a lot of property for sale in New Jersey.

Author: Roselind Hejl Several months before you begin to look for a home, you should take steps to get “credit approved” for your loan. Start by making a list of all your existing loans and credit cards, with the company names, account numbers and monthly payment amounts. This will help you to analyze the information shown on your credit report. Include all closed loans and credit cards if these records are available. 1) Get a Financial Check-Up Make an appointment with a good mortgage lender, and request a full credit approval. As a part of the approval process, your credit report will be ordered. It will include data from the three main credit reporting agencies - Equifax, Experian, and Trans Union. The report will show three credit scores - one from each agency. The interest rate and type of loan available to you is related to your credit score. The assistance of a mortgage professional to help you to understand your credit report and offer suggestions on how to improve your score is invaluable. For the average person, interpreting a credit report and dealing with errors is a daunting task. Credit reports are filled with frustrating jargon and codes. They are not written for the general public to read. Even more intimidating is the task of communicating with credit agencies to dispute or correct information. 2) Correct Mistakes Credit reporting agencies often have mistakes in their data. The information in your credit file is input by computers. A computer weighs your data using complicated mathematical formulas to arrive at a credit score. Nearly everyone has paid bills late for one reason or another. Perhaps a bill was sent to a wrong address, or you have had a dispute with a vendor. It is likely that you have some issues on your report that should be disputed or corrected. Each of the websites of the three main agencies has a dispute resolution page. Feel free to use it. 3) Deal With Real Credit Issues You may have had serious credit problems at some point in the past. Reviewing this may be emotionally draining, and will bring up the underlying situation that caused the credit problems. Get advice on how long the issues will remain on your report, and how to re- build your credit worthiness. Or, you may have a persistent habit of overspending. In this case, you should talk with a financial advisor or personal counselor to help you work out of debt, and establish better habits. The National Foundation for Credit Counseling offers low cost assistance for serious credit problems. If you place yourself under their supervision to handle your debts, you will not be able to obtain new credit during the work-out period - which may be years. Before doing that, ask a mortgage lender or financial advisor if there is a way to redeem your credit without their supervision. 4) Check Your Credit File A law, passed in 2005, requires the three main credit agencies to provide a free credit file disclosure each year. It has been suggested that you could order a file from the first agency in January, one from the second in May and one from the third in September. The central site where your file can be ordered is annual credit report dot com. The purpose of this law seems to be to help people find out if they are a victim of identity theft. This enables you to monitor your file for any new credit that did not come from you. If you take advantage of the free credit file reports, you should check them for mistakes. Use the credit report that you reviewed with your mortgage lender to compare with the data in your credit file. Keep in mind that the free credit file disclosure is not a credit report. It does not include a credit score. 5) Understand Credit Scores Less than 620 - Poor 620-680 - Average - You may need to put more cash down on your loan. 680-720 - Good 720 - 800 - Excellent 800-850 - Seldom seen 6) Play by the Rules The information in your credit file is scored by these factors: 35% - Payment history - Paying bills on time is very important. Today many people use auto draft or pre-written checks through online banking to pay bills. These help to prevent late payments. If you want a good credit score, do not pay late! 30% - The relationship between your available credit versus how much you have used is an important factor in your score. If you are over 50% drawn against your available credit, this will count against you. For this reason, it helps to keep old credit card accounts open, even though you do not use them. They build up the total amount of credit available to you, relative to what you have charged. 15% - The length of credit history on each loan has an effect on your score. A more seasoned loan is scored higher. For this reason it is not a good idea to open credit cards offering low initial rates, then close them after a few months and open new credit cards. 10% - The number of inquiries made on your credit report affects your score. Each time you open a credit card or new loan, your credit information is pulled. Keep these to a minimum. A recent law has made it possible for people shopping for homes or autos to have multiple inquiries, from the same industry (mortgage or auto), done over a 30 day period without penalty. However, to be on the safe side, do not allow your credit report to be pulled unless absolutely necessary. 10% - The types of credit used may hurt your score. Loans from finance companies, signature loans, furniture loans and some retail store loans are considered a poor judgment because of their high rates, and may count against you. 7) Improve Your Credit Score It is easy and necessary to borrow money. We customarily make everyday purchases using credit cards, and set up loans for homes, cars and other purchases. Your credit score is especially important in the purchase of your home. It will affect the type of loan available, down payment required, and interest rate charged. A low score can cost you thousands of dollars in additional interest over the years. Even insurance companies factor your credit score into their decisions. More than ever, you need a good credit score, or you will pay the price. Finance providers, rental agencies, car dealers, insurance companies and credit card companies are not going to help you improve your credit score. In fact, they have an economic interest in charging you a higher rate. It is up to you to be proactive about understanding and improving your own credit score. A good time to start is when you begin the mortgage approval process for a home purchase. It is a good habit to have. Please call us at 732-364-2015 and see what ERA Othello Realty can do for you and your real estate needs. We specialize in handling all aspects of real estate transactions throughout the New Jersey.  Whether you wish to buy a home or sell a home we will be there every step of the way.  From searching for your dream house, finding the home, negotiating the price, assisting with financing, inspection and at the closing ERA Othello Realty can help you buy your home.

First time homebuyers need to know what type of properties might speak to them but not to the majority of homebuyers when they need to sell. According to industry sources the average homebuyer stays in their first home just shy of six years. Buying a white elephant can be a costly mistake, both in selling price and long market times to find the buyer willing to take a chance on a home that doesn’t fit the market.

Features, location and style can create a white elephant property. Mark Nash author of 1001 Tips for Buying and Selling a Home updates homebuyers on what to stay away from when looking for a home. Understanding that all homes are not created equal, Nash outlines what the top elephants are in today’s market.

-Homes that back up or look onto cemeteries. Many homebuyers are very cautious about purchasing a home that features a view of a cemetery. Cultural customs and plain old creepiness keep buyers away from homes that overlook headstones and spooky mausoleums.

-Off-beat locations such as busy streets, corner lots, noisy trains and jets will be more difficult to sell to choosy buyers. Buyers want quiet, middle of the block locations away from busy intersections and train tracks, both commuter and freight lines. You might get a discount when you buy for a second rate location, but it’s one thing you’ll never be able to improve.

-Buy properties that stay in demand. Many smaller homes will fit your budget, but determine if they are in demand by buyers. One bedrooms have a limited audience. Buying a contemporary ( even if it’s a steal) in a neighborhood of colonials will be a tough sell.

-Basement bathrooms and bedrooms don’t have the same appeal as if they are above grade. Some buyers have security issues as well for garden level condos.

-Tuck under garages. Even though news reports on fires originating in automobiles are low, many homebuyers don’t like the idea of sleeping over garages filled with gasoline.

-Mansard roofs. Popular in the the 1970’s this roof style is a hard sell with buyers today. Often seen on a second floor of a two story home, the dormer windows protruding from a sloped roof say ugly to homebuyers.

-In-ground swimming pools in northern climates. With the limited season, the amount of space a pool requires in a back yard and the built in maintenance, many buyers won’t even look at a home with pool.

-Homes on a crawl space when full basements are the norm. Each area of the country has foundation styles that are the custom. Steer clear of crawl spaces when full stand-up height basements are in over two-thirds of homes. In areas where crawl spaces are the norm, steer clear of slab foundations, many buyers find rooms on slabs are cold in winter months.

-Homes that lack central heating systems. Mortgage lenders and buyers appreciate the utility of central heating. If a home you are interested has a wood or other alternative heat source, factor in adding a central system before you resell.

-Earth-sheltered homes. Popular in the 1980’s and very energy efficient, earth homes are not the rage with most home buyers and can be difficult to finance. If you plan to stay a long time, potential resale issues might not be your main concern.

-Homes with knob and tube wiring. Very old homes from the early 1900’s had knob and tube electrical wiring. If a home you are interested is entirely or partially wired with knob and tube, check with your homeowners insurance company before you sign on the line.

AUTHOR: Mark Nash’s fourth real estate book, “1001 Tips for Buying and Selling a Home” (2005), and working as a real estate broker in Chicago are the foundation for his consumer-centric real estate perspective which has been featured on ABC-TV, CBS The Early Show, Bloomberg TV, CNN-TV, Chicago Sun Times & Tribune, Fidelity Investor’s Weekly, Dow Jones Market Watch, MSNBC.com, The New York Times, Realty Times, Universal Press Syndicate and USA Today.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_Nash

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by Gurubhakt

Now, let’s suppose you are planning to invest in real estate … you might want to ask yourself two questions -

Where will you invest? And

What sort of property will you buy?

Why ask questions like these? Well, like some wise person said, money is made when buying. It’s very important that the buying decision is a very good one … that decision alone might greatly increase the possibility and amount of profits made.

Also, buying real estate properties at relatively low prices in areas that have very good fundamentals and future prospects is one way to almost guarantee profits.

One way to answer the first question might be to see which are the fastest growing communities … and then determine why they are the fastest growing communities.

For instance, according to a recent article on netscape.com, Greeley, Colo. is one of the fastest growing communities … and the possible reason stated for it being one of the fastest? Its relatively inexpensive homes and its proximity to a major metropolitan center.

If Greeley remains at the head of the list of fastest growing communities for another year or two, its “relatively inexpensive homes” might become fairly expensive … and by that time the people who saw this trend first and bought homes there would have made many a pretty penny

Communities with the fastest rate of population growth can also see very high real estate value appreciations.

And coming to our second question, what sort of property will you buy?

Well, the answer to the first question might determine the possible choices for this … for the type of property to buy might well depend on where you buy property …

Location might determine the best type of property to buy …

For instance, luxury property has a been one of the best performing segments of real estate, but you may not want to buy luxury property as an investment option just about anywhere - maybe if you chose to buy property in Beverly Hills, then luxury real estate would be a great option.

And what if you are buying property in a fast growing community where a large percentage of the new population is single families? Then maybe buying single-family homes would be a good option…

And if a large percentage of the population is retirees, then you might want to determine what types of property people in their golden years prefer.

AUTHOR: Gurubhakt is a writer and web content developer who has written content for several niche sites, and one of the latest is http://www.abeachfronthouse.com that discusses a wide variety of real estate like golfcourse condos, Baja real estate, cottage in PEI, Canada and more.

If you need assistance selling your house ERA Othello Realty can share their expertise and experience with you in a friendly and professional manner. From all aspects of selling your house: from getting a qualified CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) to advising you on the presentation of your house, marketing your home online and in print, conducting an open house, showing your house within your guidelines and discretion, constant communication, negotiating the best price for your home and being with you until closing and beyond. We can also assist you in your search for a new home. Please call us at 732-364-2015.

by Terry McDermott

I am living in living in the fourth house I have purchased during my 23 years of home ownership. To some that may seem like a lot of houses, to others it may seem like I’ve just started. The simple fact is we Americans move a lot… 11 or 12 times in a lifetime depending on whom you consult. Chances are you are going to purchase a house during quite a few of those moves and somewhere along the line you may have the opportunity to build a new home.

Should you?

Everyone has fantasized at some point about his or her dream house. You may want closets big enough to live in; a bathroom that doubles as a spa; a kitchen in which you could produce programs for the Food Network But, as in most fantasies, there is usually some epic journey required to achieve the goal. And building your dream house follows that plot line all too closely.

But isn’t it the dream that makes the quest worthwhile? Yes, if you can weather the storms and battles along the way. And the determination to keep moving forward is usually a function of a strong will and a big heart. But it helps to use your head before you set off on your personal version of “The Lord of the Rings.”

It is likely that you have options when you begin the process of buying a home. There may be existing homes in the area that are affordable and that meet your needs. But there are always things about any property or house that don’t exactly meet with your approval. The basement may not be finished or the yard may be too small or the interior décor may have to be entirely redone. It is virtually impossible to buy an existing home without making compromises.

Building new allows you to imagine, design and build the home that accommodates needs and amenities that are important to you… within a budget of course. And that is one thing that must be considered. A new home will be more expensive, on a cost per foot basis, than an existing one. That is due to the cost of land, the price of building materials and labor expense. You might also find that taxes are high as a new area is developed and the municipal authorities factor in the required infrastructure for a growing population and the need for services like education, law enforcement and recreation. You may find yourself subsidizing some of these costs as an area develops.

The ongoing costs associated with an existing house are more predictable. However, there will likely be more maintenance expense than for a new house and energy costs tend to be higher with older properties because newer homes are more energy efficient.

Commuting costs may be an issue. Developers must go further and further out to find enough land to accommodate a new subdivision. That may mean higher costs for commuting to work and to access other businesses and venues that may be closer to the nearest major population center. You should consider this from both a monetary perspective and to determine if you are comfortable with an additional investment of time.

If your new house is built in a subdivision there may be ongoing fees required. In addition, there may be covenants that are designed to protect property values that may apply serious restrictions on your ability to enhance your home and/or your property down the road.

A new home needs new landscaping. This may be included in the price of the home but there will likely be a limit to what is covered under the agreement. To landscape the property in a way that is truly satisfying may require an additional outlay.

Beware of construction delays! Building contractors are notorious for setting deadlines they miss and making promises they can’t keep. Make sure you do some thorough research about the builder and his track record before you commit. Weather is always unpredictable and may have an effect but that should be factored in from the start.

A new subdivision can be a hornet’s nest of building activity. If you move into your home early in the process be prepared for hammering, sawing, trucks, mud and general chaos for quite a while as the subdivision progresses. This is a lifestyle issue and is a temporary inconvenience. But some have found this level of activity disconcerting and disruptive especially when they are settling into their “dream home” and trying to savor the experience.

If you build new be prepared to stay for a while. With new construction all around you it would be difficult to compete with the rest of the properties available for others who want to build a house from the ground up. You would have to make it worth their while and that usually means a compromise in price.

All this being said (and trust me there is more that could be said) there is nothing quite as satisfying as showcasing the house to family and friends that you designed and built and that reflects your unique vision and personality. If you survive the journey, you will likely have turned your fantasy into reality.

J. Terrence McDermott is administrator and webmaster for House Plans Central at http://www.house-plans-central.com, a site featuring recommendations and resources for those seeking information about house plans and home designs.

Please call us at 732-364-2015 and see what ERA Othello Realty can do for you and your real estate needs. We specialize in handling all aspects of real estate transactions throughout the New Jersey. Whether you wish to buy a home or sell a home we will be there every step of the way. From searching for your dream house, finding the home, negotiating the price, assisting with financing, inspection and at the closing ERA Othello Realty can help you buy your home.

by Edward K. Blinn, P.A.

Over the years, you have probably heard the saying, “Location, Location, Location”.

It is true that location is a key element in selecting real estate. It is important to the resale value of a property to be in a desirable location. But there is a lot that goes into making “Location” that desirable entity that it has become.

Let’s take a look at a few factors that not only make up a desirable location but will help you to select a location that is right for you?

First off, I suggest having your Exclusive Buyers Broker compile reports for closed sales in any area you are currently considering. This will be very helpful in determining a trend in resale values and determining desirable locations. These reports help give you an idea of what you may expect several years up the road as far as the potential appreciation of the property you are considering. An area that shows a steady increase in sales prices for properties sold over the last 3-5 years would be a good area to delve into.

When looking for a home, it is preferable to locate a property not only in a nice residential area, but one that is also close to commercial and business districts as well. Having a nice balance of residential, commercial, and business not only provides potential jobs for the residents but income to the city as well which could be used for added services or maintenance and upgrades of the area roadways.

Deciding on which community you want to live in is your next step.

Let’s check out the curb appeal.

First and foremost, take a drive through a community that interests you. Look at the homes around you. Is there a sense of pride of ownership among the residents? Are the lawns neatly mowed and trimmed or are some unkempt? Is there a continuity of architecture among the homes? Are some properties in disrepair? What about the neighborhood streets? Are they well lit, nicely maintained? Potholes or poor drainage are signs that the community does not get the attention it needs. Any of these findings could adversely affect property values. What amenities does the community offer for you or your family? For example, having a community pool, golf course, clubhouse, or tennis courts would be nice if you enjoy participating in any of these on a social basis. However, these amenities come at a price and are usually paid for in an annual fee. Check to see if there is a homeowners association and if it is mandatory for all residents.

Okay, so far let’s say you like what you have seen. Let’s talk safety.

Where is the nearest fire station? What type of rating does it have? How far from the property is the closest fire hydrant? Knowing the location of and distance to both fire stations and hydrants is important as it will affect the rating you get and how much you pay for your homeowners insurance. Also, note locations of other fire stations. Are they located strategically enough to provide additional response if an emergency arose? What is the crime rate? Check with the local sheriff’s office or police station and see what the statistics are for the community and city you are considering. This will also affect your potential resale values.

Schools are another important factor. The better the rating, the better property values will tend to be. If you have children, there are a number of things that will affect where you buy. Will your children be able to attend the school closest to the prospective home? If not, why. Are the schools in that area over crowded? Are there plans to build additional schools to support the growing population?

Many areas now allow school choice. However, you must sign up for the school of choice ahead of the coming school year. If you are relocating during the school term, check to see if there are waiting lists. It is possible that a student will move out of the area and a slot become available for your child. Check to see how the local students have scored on the standardized tests? You want your children to get the best education possible. You may obtain free testing results for schools in your area by looking on the internet. Simply search for “standardized test results city state” and replace the words city and state with the one you are concerned with.

Does the community have activities such as youth sponsored sports? Are there facilities such as a park or gym nearby that you or your family could benefit from? A community that has a nice blend parks and activities for young children, teenagers, adults and seniors is a community worth looking into.

So, next let’s take a look at the property taxes. Not every area is taxed the same. One county could pay much higher property taxes compared to another. This may affect the way you view a potential property and its desirability. After all, taxes generally tend to increase as time goes by. Know your budget and take the area property taxes into consideration. Remember, the property taxes reported on the house you are considering are based on the present value of the property. Unless the owner is selling at a great loss, you can be assured that the property taxes will increase after closing due to the properties increased value resulting from the sale.

Another factor to consider is the price per square foot. How are various properties in different communities comparing to one another in their price per square foot? I would not base my decision to purchase on this fact alone, but it is one you may wish to consider. Many times, properties that are located in areas of higher taxes actually have lower price per square foot ratios.

When you take all these items into consideration (closed sales in the area, pride of ownership, location of emergency personnel, community activities and resources, rating of area schools) you come to understand just how important location can be.

Taking the time to do a little research will can make the difference between simply buying a property or making a wise real estate investment.

Next we will look more closely at the property itself and discover how different features can affect property values. However, that will have to wait until my next article.

Best of luck in all your real estate endeavors.

©2006. Edward K. Blinn, P. A. is an Exclusive Buyers Broker at RE/MAX Sundance Realty in Bonita Springs, Florida who knows the value of SW Florida real estate, area communities, and their amenities. http://www.FloridaBuyersBroker.com

We have hundreds of listings of homes for sale in your area. If you are interested in buying a house feel free to search through our database. This is a free service and we have a low pressure policy. There is a lot of property for sale in New Jersey.

by Mary Garland

What is the first thing you remember when you walk into a room for the first time? That is the question you must have on your mind when you are preparing your home for sale. It doesn’t matter if your home in a condo, a luxury home, historic home, an estate or if you have the best Realtor in the area. Appearance is everything when selling your home. A drop of vanilla on a light bulb may temporarily create a fragrance that most people like. However, it will not create a sense of pleasant calm inviting people to come in and stay awhile.

Don’t think for a second that you can just give the Buyer some money to do repairs and they will be happy. You bet they will be happy. They will take your to-do money and offer you a dramatically lower price. Is that what you really want? I don’t think so. Meanwhile, the longer your home is on the market, the more people want to know what’s wrong with it. Is there some expensive flaw hiding behind those needed repairs, clutter or shoddy work? They don’t want to take a chance to buy your home unless the price is very low…just in case that imaginary flaw surfaces right after they have purchased the home. Why should a buyer take that chance? The next house they look at can be more attractively presented and appear as a safer investment.

Your Realtor can usually recommend a contractor to do the work. However, it is not the Realtor’s job to watch the contractor do the work. It is not your contractor’s job to select the colors and materials. It is the responsibility of the owner to locate a design consultant to coordinate colors, styles and materials. Most large home supply companies offer free consultant advice. Use their services. Nothing looks worse than the wrong colors, materials in the wrong place. Powder blue walls in the kitchen may be your favorite but it not the color of choice for most Buyer’s.

The Buyer’s eye first sees the general impression of the room. Does the room feel inviting, warm friendly and neat? The Buyer’s eye then drops along the edges of the floor and ceiling looking for defects. Is the paint cracked or smeared on fixtures? How does the details of the room appear? Is there a tight neat bead of caulking and the baseboards, in the bathrooms? Have the fixtures been tastefully updated? Even historic homes need fixtures that are in good condition and fitting with the era of the home. The style and colors of your choice make the difference. Ask your Realtor and your designer what colors are current. The colors will very according what type of home you have. For example, a Historic home with larger rooms and wood floors can be embellished with darker more dramatic colors and crown molding. Most luxury homes can use bolder or pastel colors. A contemporary home could support more unusual color combinations such as a lime green with dark brown. The furniture needs to work with the colors of the walls. All look great if used properly.

Recently, I sold two luxury condos with the same floor plan and a similar location within the same complex and each with a terrific lake view. They sold for dramatically different prices. One sold for $318,000.00 the other sold for $350,000. The best looking home sold for more. New kitchen appliances $3,000.00 a frame around each of the3 bath room mirrors, a new front door handle, repainted the front door and touch up paint/patch throughout the home $1,500.00.The work was professionally done with careful detail. A total of $4,500.00 invested; yielded $27,500.00 more in profit. And the first Buyer that saw the home bought it. Which Seller made the wiser choice?

Attention to detail is what it is all about. Use the best quality materials that your budget can afford. Have the best quality workmanship you can afford. Now is not the time to be cheap. Do less if you must but do everything well.

Most Buyers’ want to see themselves moving into your home and doing nothing except enjoying it. After all, it is their new home.

Visit Mary at http://www.marygarlandrealtor.com
Mary, over many Real Estate Agents, has consistently earned a reputation among her clients and colleagues as a complete professional who exemplifies conscientious, competent and knowledgeable service. She is a patient realtor, responsive, calm with a personable approach which are the reasons so many of her clients and colleagues consistently repeat referral business. Almost ten years as Realtor has earned Mary many achievement awards.

We have many listings of homes for sale. There are townhomes for sale, homes for sale, condos for sale, lots for sale and real estate for sale, residential and commercial. So, come inside and search through thousands of listings of homes for sale in New Jersey and all other NJ real estate.

by: David Schneider

What has happened to all the renters? Well, Let’s examine what has happen in the last few years in the housing markets.

First of all, interest rates have dropped to all time historical lows. This means that many renters have taken advantage of this and went out and bought a house. The second thing that has happened is that most real estate values throughout the country have gone up a lot in a short period of time. Because of this, many more people have decided to start to invest in rental real estate. More landlords, fewer renters equal a soft rental market.

When the market is soft, you have to be better at finding renters.

It’s the mission of all business to get and keep customers. Well, the business of owning and managing investment real estate isn’t any different. You must have a system and plan in place to find new tenants and keep you old tenants.

Typically owners of small rental property only do one or two things to find tenants. They may run an advertisement in their local newspaper or they may put a sign on the property that says “FOR RENT”. This is fine in a good rental market, but if you want avoid vacancy you have to do more.

Here are five simple ideas to help keep those vacancies filled:

>1. Put together a property feature sheet explaining the features and benefits of your property and distribute it to local real estate offices.

>2. Offer bonuses and incentives to your other residents if the refer anyone to you that rents. As an example: gift certificates for dinner out, tank of gas, microwave, etc.

>3. Use the apartment rental services in your area. They can be found in your phone book and will list your property in their “properties for rent list” that they give to residents.

>4. Make up some cards that say “Properties For Rent – Houses, Duplexes and Apartments. Call Me” and leave them all over. Put them in the envelope when you pay your bills, leave them at restaurants or post them on bulletin boards at stores. Leave them anywhere, be creative and get the word out.

>5. Create a waiting list. Keep a list of all callers on any rental that you ever had available. When a new unit comes up for rent, notify the people on your list and see if they might have an interest. If you ever get calls from someone looking for a rental and you don’t have any available now, put them on you waiting list.

Even though the above list is short, it should give you the idea that you need to have many ways to find renters. I’m sure that if you sat down and thought about it you could create a list of 50 –100 ideas. Once you have your list created, you should now test the ideas and see which ones gave you the best results. By doing this process you will fill your vacancies fast and have a constant stream of new tenants wanting to rent from you.

About The Author
Dave Schneider has been investing in real estate for over 25 years and is devoting to helping landlords make more money!. For free audio seminars, tools and information on real estate investing and being a landlord, visit this site now: http://landlordtools.com.

We have hundreds of listings of homes for sale in your area. If you are interested in buying a house feel free to search through our database. This is a free service and we have a low pressure policy. There is a lot of property for sale in New Jersey.

by: David Schneider

Many real estate investors become frustrated with the tenants and the toilets. And when you look at the way they manage, it’s no surprise.

The most important part of investing in rental real estate is to have a good property management system. In any successful management system there are the five P’s. They are Property, People, Paperwork, Policies and Procedures. Lets look at each of these P’s individually.

• The Property must be managed. You need to have a plan to make repairs and do maintenance. This should be something that is automatically done throughout the year and include such things as checking for leaky pipes, checking smoke and fire detectors, caulking and painting or any other maintenance items.

• The People. This is the most difficult part of the management process. You need to put in place specific systems to deal with all the people that effect your rental business. This not only includes your customers (tenants), it also includes all the other people that help you in your business including caretakers, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, handyman or anyone else you have involved in running your rental business.

• The Paperwork. This part involves all the record keeping, tax issues, bank issues, leases, tenants letters and legal issues. You also need to consider how to set up your business. This should be discussed with an attorney. You should sit down with a good tax accountant and address the tax issues and what records should be kept. Using simple programs like Microsoft Money or Quicken can be set-up to run the financial part of your business. These simple programs can track your income, expenses, who has paid rent and who hasn’t. With programs like this, you can create and print reports for individual properties and know exactly which properties are performing the way you want them to.

• Policies- In order to control the first three P’s you should have a specific policy regarding everything. For example: You should have a policy regarding what to say and do if a tenant calls and requests a repair. You should have a policy of what is a violation of the rental agreement. By having a policy for everything it makes it easy to determine what has to be done.

• Procedures – This goes right along with your policies. You should put in place automatic procedures for everything. For example: If a tenant doesn’t pay rent by the 5th of the month (your policy) you will automatically start the eviction procedure. Your procedure might be, you send them a written notice on the 6th, if no response your start the court process on the 10th (if law allows). You then continue with the entire process that you set-up until the tenant moves out. Then you start a new procedure to rent the property. Every policy should have a procedure.

Taking the time up front to plan the five P’s is the key to a successful management systems.

Remember that the name of the game is to create more cash flow and work less. Having a system that deal with the 5 P’s will do that for you.

Copyright 2006 David Schneider

About The Author

Dave Schneider has been investing in real estate for over 25 years and is devoting to helping landlords make more money!. For free audio seminars, tools and information on real estate investing and being a landlord, visit this site now: http://landlordtools.com.

by: Bob Waun

Can these high rates of appreciation in second home markets really continue? Many experts believe, “Yes!”, it can sustain for a long run (not months, but years). The fundamentals of rapid appreciation equate to supply growing slower than demand. Supply in areas such as South Florida have been rapid (78,000 new or planned condo units entering the Broward/Dade county market by 2007), but material shortages and hurricanes have slowed the ramp-up and created a large amount of pent up demand chasing reduced supply. Also, the foreign buyer demand in the Miami area is extremely high, this means these buyers are using currency that is 20-30% strong than last year. A 30% rise in property values is easily absorbed in this environment.)

In areas such as Arizona and Las Vegas, water concerns and lack of infrastructure and skilled laborers have slowed the rapid pace, but the grow rate is still staggering. Other scenic second home destinations, like the mountain states, Pacific Northwest and Florida Keys have environmental hurdles which raise the barriers to entry for developers and restrict supply. A restricted supply in the face of demographically empowered demand is always a formula for rapid price appreciation (CA in 1970’s).

What goes up must come down? Yes. But a 20% per annuim rise for 5 years, followed by 5 years of stagnation or a 10% loss, is still 5%+ annual growth rate (worse case). If leveraged at 90%, the return on initial investment is still 44% per year. The hard part is making sure the best years are in the beginning… even hard is selling at a peak.

How Important Are Interest Rates, Loan Program Flexibility and Affordability?

Interest rates (the cost of money) has been a driving force in the rate of appreciation and the lure of real estate as an investment. Low rates make marginal real estate deals look attractive. Low rates help marginal home buyers buy larger homes or enter the market, increasing demand. There is a direct correlation between the cost of money and the value of highly leverage real estate. Many second homes are being purchased with cheap and easy money from lenders. But many cottages are being purchased with windfalls from inheritance in our history’s largest generational wealth transfer, and I believe this will reduce the effect of higher rates on the second and retirement home markets. Another key factor is the lack of leverage in the second home/cottage market. Data proves Loan to value ratios are much lower than the highly leveraged primary home market.

But there is no reliable data to help us know if refinancing and leveraged primary homes are allowing for these under-leverage second home purchases. I suspect if given the choice, many cottage owners, if forced to choose, would keep the cottage and give the bank the city dwelling. Home is where the heart is, not the largest mortgage payment.

I am much more concerned about the first home and the ‘move-up’ buyer’s distaste for higher payments caused by higher interest rates. The traditional real estate market will feel a greater effect if there is a sharp spike in the cost of funds. If rates rise moderately, and incomes increase in proportion, there is a good case to be made that prices may narrowly be affected. But if income stagnate, and rates/inflation rise rapidly, the second home market will continue, while the primary housing market will stumble. So the case for risk has shifted, traditionally lenders considered cottage loans more risky. I argue, they are inherently less risky and growing more secure with every fed move.

Immigration policy and the dollar’s real value may turn out to be more important to general home values than interest rates. If foreign investors feel at home again in America, they will likely take up more permanent residence here in larger numbers. If the dollar continues to devalue, our real estate is a bargain that cannot be passed up by the world’s boomers.

Loan flexibility/availability may also be a damper on real estate values, as the age of derivative finance comes to light in institutions like FNMA, FHLMC, GNMA and large mortgage banks; we will see less aggressive lending in many markets (especially first time home buying). Since the second home is where the homeowners “heart is”, I believe the risk of default may shift to be greater in primary homes vs second residences, especially if the borrower is nearing retirement. Risk aversion will be a primary trend in the next few years among lenders, but without making loans, bankers do not get bonuses. So more liquidity will be directed at the second home market. Even as rates generally trend up, second home buyers will find more opportunities to lever vacation property with higher LTV’s and lower rates and fees.

Data proves, second home loan terms in the last 3 years have become dramatically more accepting of these purchases, as down payment requirements have fallen from 20%+ to as low as 5% and new products have already been offered to this affluent market.

About The Author

Bob Waun is CEO of Vacation Finance, www.vacation-finance.com America’s First Second-Home Lender. As a VP at Paramount Bank, and while at Wells Fargo, Bob innovated lending for Condo Hotel projects. He holds a Master’s degree in finance/economics and BBA in finance from Walsh College and a MI Real Estate Broker’s License. He has personally lent over $600+ million in residential loans, and over seen operations lending $1+billion. He has been a professional guest speaker and taught numerous courses/seminars on real estate finance.

He managed controlled business relationships for a national real estate brokerage in MI and OH, held top sales honors for Wells Fargo in 7 states. Bob has a 17 year track record of cutting-edge innovation in the mortgage finance.

bwaun@vacation-finance.com

by: Charles Essmeier

While most people are accustomed to shopping for homes between Memorial Day and Labor day, that may actually be the worst time of the year to buy a house. The best time of year to go house hunting may be the dead of winter, rather than the summertime.

Most houses are bought and sold in the summer for a good reason. That’s when children are out of school. Parents understandably want to avoid disrupting their children’s’ lives if they can possibly help it and moving when school is out of session is a big help towards avoiding some trauma.

Granted, one doesn’t always have the opportunity to shop for houses at one’s leisure; many people move because of job transfers or job changes, and with those, you pretty much have to move when the even occurs. But if you have control over when you start house hunting, you might do better to wait until the snow comes. Why is that?

The summer creates a seller’s market. Buyers are working on tight schedules; they want to get settled into their new houses before school starts again. That being the case, sellers have an advantage, because most of the people who are shopping in the summertime want to get settled quickly. The opposite is true in the winter, when there are fewer homes for sale and far fewer buyers. Most people who have houses for sale in the winter months do so out of necessity. At this time of the year, the buyer has an edge, as sellers are more likely to be looking to sell their home quickly from a much smaller pool of potential buyers.

As such, buyers who shop in the winter may find sellers to be more flexible. They may be willing to haggle a bit more on the price, they may be more willing to allow concessions for paint or carpeting, and they may be more flexible on a closing date. All of these things work to the advantage of the savvy home shopper.

If it suits you to do so, the winter is a great time to buy a house.

About The Author

©Copyright 2006 by Retro Marketing. Charles Essmeier is the owner of Retro Marketing, a firm devoted to informational Websites, including http://www.homeequityhelp.net, a site devoted to information regarding home equity lending.

BY: Chris Anderson, Ph.D

Are you confused about where the real estate investment market is going and what you will do in 2006? Well join the club since many, many people are in your situation. I will tell you that many savvy investors are getting very excited BECAUSE the market is changing.

In this week’s article, we are going to conduct a little exercise to clarify what is really meant by The Real Estate Investment Market. Suppose that you read the below article in the New York Times. How do you react? As we go forward, let’s compare your reaction to this information with the reaction of savvy, real estate investors who have been there, done that.

Beach Front Condo Project Bankrupts Local Investors January 11, 2006, Pogomo Beach, FL (APE News)

The struggles of a new, 220 condo unit show the continuation of the real estate bubble. When local real estate agent Daffy Duck was interviewed, he said that some condo values have dropped over 40% in the period since July 2005. The last sale we had was at a high value of $850,000 but now you would be lucky to get $600,000.

APE News has learned that one investor is now having to make mortgage payments of up to $5,000/mo on each of their 3 units. In turn, this is forcing them into bankruptcy. Upon further analysis.

Before you read the rest of this article, I encourage to step back and jot down your knee jerk reaction to this news. Why? Because you will undoubtedly see such real estate investment headlines in the future. If you can sort of your feelings about these types of stories, then you will be miles ahead of most investors and determine how to best profit. People typically have two reactions to this article:

Reaction 1: Articles like this indicate that the overall real estate market is getting soft.

Reaction 2: In flat, soft, or declining real estate markets, it is very risky to invest.

Unfortunately both reactions will limit their ability to produce creative, profitable, real estate investments.

Let’s see how a more experienced investor might think. First, this article would tell the investor that the real estate investment market for $850,000 condos in Pogomo Beach Florida has probably dried up. On the surface, it would appear that both the rental and sales demand are low for THAT particular product in THAT particular area. We will use this knowledge to our advantage in a minute.

Second, the investor knows that this news tells them nothing about OTHER real estate products in Pogomo Beach. For example, the demand for affordable, $250,000, off beach townhomes could be blistering hot in Pogomo Beach. For that matter, who knows what is happening in the single family home market. THESE REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT SUBMARKETS CAN ACT COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THAN THE $850,000 CONDO MARKET.

Let me illustrate this point in real life. While writing this article, I am flying to Las Vegas to look at a development that is a condo conversion. Before I left, I have seen several news pieces about high end, on the strip condo developments terminating in Vegas; clearly not great news for high end condo, real estate investments.

On the other hand, we know that Las Vegas area still faces an issue with an ever increasing population, is land locked, and has a shortage of affordable housing. I also know that because of our group size at GetPreConstructionDeals.com, we are getting offered an interesting opportunity to get in first. Time will tell if this development is appropriate for our web site, but we know without seeing it that this submarket of Las Vegas has considerable potential; all the while the popular press has a dim view of the Vegas real estate investment market.

Another insight that the sophisticated investor knows is that huge returns can be made in soft or down real estate investment markets; i.e., they understand that all markets do not always go up but there is money to be made regardless of what the markets are doing. To understand this concept, let’s go back to Pogomo Beach and see what we can do.

Suppose your believe as an investor is demand for beach front condo’s will be extremely strong. Yes, there may be a hiccup for 12-24 months but the fact remains there is little beach front left and a lot of baby boomers who want to own it —– someday. When looking at the above news article, maybe the investor decides that if purchased for $485,000, then the Pogomo Beach condo would be quite attractive and likely to generate a nice return in time. But even at that price, maybe they are not ready to rush out and acquire a unit.

Next, maybe the investor understands that some people bought into this project very cheap at preconstruction prices and might be quite happy to get out with some profits rather than having to make mortgage payments month after month, deal with tenants, have to furnish the unit, etc. Quite possibly the investor might be interested in purchasing a unit if they can get the right price let’s say maybe $395,000. If somebody excepts that offer, then great, they have just bought themselves a great investment for a real estate product in a soft market. Yes, they are going to have to rent this out for a while to let the market catch back up to them but they know they have just purchased a great asset for a tremendous price.

Hopefully by using this fictitious article as a training example, you have gotten a better understanding of your believes about how to handle 2006. In addition, with this background, maybe the next time somebody asks you what the real estate market will be for [fill in the blank], you can give them a highly accurate answer: some people will make a boatload of money and some people will lose money. While this will not satisfy them, you know that it will be true in almost every active real estate market in the country.

Copyright 2006 Chris Anderson

Dr. Chris Anderson is the founder of http://www.GetPreconstructionDeals.com and is referenced in many venues including the New York Times and USA Today. Get his weekly, thought provoking articles by signing up today!

Unless you’re buying a custom home on a rural lot, you’re not just buying a house but the neighborhood that surrounds it. In many respects, the identity of a neighborhood is as important to the value of a property as individual properties themselves.

In a planned community, strictly controlled architecture governs a carefully crafted identity block after block. In a rural town, tree-lined streets and an old-fashioned town square preserves a disappearing way of life. In a large city, an older neighborhood’s ethnic history has shaped its character and is driving its rejuvenation.

It’s important to know where a neighborhood has been –and where it is going–before you decide to buy there.

Here are some places to start:

Head for the statistics:

Between FBI crime statistics, school scores now available from several national companies and demographic information culled from U.S. Bureau of the Census and other sources, it’s now possible to break out a lot of valuable numbers about a community, much of it on line. This means that you as a buyer are no longer dependent on anecdotal information only about school quality or crime levels. You can see for yourself.

Go to city hall or planning & zoning:

The last thing you want to find out about the neighborhood of your dreams is that there is a huge discount-tire store due to be built on the big empty lot right across the street from your quaint Craftsman bungalow. Your town or county’s zoning and/or planning authorities are good sources for any kind of planning document for the town. If you want to be sure that the rural hideaway you just bought stays that way, check with these officials. Large projects like major road construction is planned years out from the actual start date.

Check out community:

Want to know what’s really happening in a neighborhood? Ask the local barber. It may sound like a cliché, but nobody knows a neighborhood like the people who work there day in and day out. For your part, visit the neighborhood on your own at different times of day and night. Talk to neighbors. Visit nearby schools and shops. Subscribe to the local paper. Small local papers can be chockfull of information you can use in scoping out a neighborhood or community. If you depend on public transportation, find out what is available and how accessible it is. Drive to and from the house from several different directions, not just the most scenic route that your agent used when showing you the home.

Think ‘resale’:

It’s difficult to think about reselling the dream house you’re about to buy, but the quality of a neighborhood will play a big role, whether you are living in least or most expensive house on the block. Get a list of homes for sale in the neighborhood from your agent to determine how many days they’ve been on the market. If properties haven’t been selling quickly, you’ll want to find out whether it’s just the market (slow) or whether there are any neighborhood issues that may make resale difficult.

Find the “hot” spots:

A good place to start looking for tomorrow’s hot neighborhoods is right on the edge of the most desirable, well-established neighborhoods. These tangential neighborhoods frequently are next in line to experience a run-up in prices. Other signs of a neighborhood heating up in popularity:

· Multiple-offer home sales

· An increase in the number of out-of-area buyers moving in

· An increase in local residents trading up within the neighborhood

· A decrease in the percentage of renters

· Signs of remodeling

A desirable neighborhood may have more than one of these elements:

· Close proximity to a thriving economic center

· Good public schools

· Nearby shopping, check out the stores! The type of retail and stores are good indication of the economic development in the area. ex: too many $1 stores/discount stores are a good sign of BAD economic development.

· Good public facilities

· Convenient commute options to a major metropolitan area

· Well-maintained homes

· Low crime

· High percentage of owner-occupants

Before you buy:

If you haven’t had time to thoroughly check out a neighborhood, always ask your agent to do some research for you, most agents should offer this service without asking! Before you make an offer to buy there, include a broadly written inspection contingency in your purchase contract that includes the neighborhood and the house. Such a contingency might state that the offer is dependent upon the satisfactory inspection of both the property and neighborhood by the buyers. If you only want to buy the house if you can answer a very specific question about the neighborhood, then write this in as a specific contingency of the contract. For example, the contract might be contingent upon the buyer confirming that a deli cannot be built next door.

Written By: Ann Marie Rubertone is a Treasure Coast Florida Realtor working with investors nationally and internationally specializing in 1031 tax deferred exchanges and commercial and industrial devlopment. She also assists FSBOs in the marketing and selling process.

Ann Marie Rubertone
Treasure Coast Realtor
(772) 323-9628
http://www.AnnyIsMyAgent.com
cio@adelphia.net

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ann_Marie_Rubertone

BY: Lee Dobbins

One of the most daunting tasks any “for sale by owner” home seller is faced with is the showings. When you don’t have a realtor to insulate you (the seller) from the potential buyer, things can get a bit sticky.

Of course, before any of that comes about, you must do your research and price your home appropriately as well as advertise it in the right places to attract potential buyers. One thing you must do is come up with a data sheet of sorts on the house, one that lists the particulars such as number of bedrooms, type of house etc.. You should also make sure you list any flaws or problems that you are required by law to reveal.

Once that is all done you are ready to show that house, or are you?

The first part to showing the house, of course is getting a call from a prospective buyer. If you only have one line then sign up for the call waiting feature from your telephone company. Instruct everyone in the household to take calls that come through and pass on to you any calls for inquiries on the house.

Once you get a call, try to take it in a quiet area of the home an have all your information in front of you. Have your feature list handy to answer any of their questions and have a list of your own. Make sure you put a calendar in a handy spot to book appointments. If you do make an appointment for a showing, be sure to get their name and number in case something comes up and you have to cancel.

If your home has been viewed before, you might want to let them know there are other parties interested to create a sense of urgency. Also mention if you are having an open house since the added traffic will make your home more desirable.

Before each showing, you will have to get your house into tip top shape. That means it should be spotlessly clean and all clutter put away. No kids toys in the yard and the kids and pets should be sent somewhere else for the duration of the showing. For this reason, it is most convenient to book appointments on the same day and in 15 to 20 minute intervals. One potential buyer will be walking in the door just as another is leaving. This will create a feeling of urgency in your prospects. They won’t want to loose the home to the nice couple that came out ahead of them or those that came in after them. Remember, you have to work the angles if you want to compete with the realtor selling down the street.

Also, it‘s not in your best interest to waste time showing the house to people whose needs it really doesn‘t serve. Try to get as much information from the caller as possible and try not to be too put off by the caller’s phone manner, they may be nervous or hate talking on the phone. Ask them what exactly they are looking for and the price range. If you know they wouldn’t be interested or can’t afford it (perhaps they are downsizing and you’re selling a three bedroom home) you shouldn’t bother booking an appointment.

Find out if they are currently selling a home or renting. When do they need to move in and have they already been approved for a mortgage? If they haven’t been pre-qualified you might ask questions about where they work, how long they’ve been looking for a place, etc. Be very tactful and conversational. You don’t want to interrogate them, but you don’t want to waste your time if they have no way to afford buying the home.

In some cases you will find that these few comments may weed out some who are not reasonably able to work with you. This will avoid the exasperation and disappointment of showing your home too many times to unlikely buyers. However, in most cases you will want to encourage a viewing so keep their answers for referral later.

Remember, the appearance of your home will leave a lasting impression on potential buyers so it is vital to have it in pristine condition when they arrive. It doesn’t hurt to have a nice batch of cookies baking or some aromatic coffee brewing. Turn on some ambient lighting, light the fireplace and make sure the house looks it’s best for a sure sale!

Lee Dobbins writes for Moving and More where you can find out more about selling your house, buying a new house and finding a new job.

This article is free for republishing

Real estate is one of the most valuable investments you can make. Real estate in New Jersey is especially valuable. There are many reasons why real estate can be valuable, but the age-old adage is usually right: Location, location location. At ERA Othello Realty we look at all the criteria that make up real estate value.

Real estate can have value because it’s valuable to a specific individual, but overall the value of real estate is what the general public (in the market) will pay for it. A residential home’s value can have many pluses and minuses, but if all other things remain the same then the location determines the price.

There are different criteria with different types of real estate that determine what location is valuable for a specific piece of real estate. For a commercial property it might be important to be on a main road with a lot of traffic. For industrial real estate it might be important to be near railway lines or away from high traffic areas.

For residential real estate it becomes more complicated. "Residential real estate" means someone’s home. A home is the most personal piece of real estate and, usually, the most important real estate that s/he will ever own. There are many reasons why one location will be more valuable than another.

Schools very often are the driving force behind a person’s determination to stay in a specific place or to move to a specific place. In this case "real estate location" is something that isn’t a specific "vicinity" issue but rather a municipality issue. So this piece of real estate will have a different value for someone with children than for someone without children. So a good school system will only drive up the price for certain people, as such it only has a partial affect.

Transportation is a huge factor for people who need to travel to work. In Central New Jersey, which includes Middlesex County, Monmouth County, Mercer County and parts of Ocean County and Burlington County, people very often need to travel to Northern New Jersey or New York City. If the home is close to a major thoroughfare, such as the Garden State Parkway, The New Jersey Turnpike, Route 1 or 9, it can have a very positive affect on desirability for long-commuting buyers.

Mass transit is also an important factor to commuters who use it. The New Jersey mass transit system brings millions of commuters north every day and certain people will pay more to be close to it.

Some people like their homes very secluded, surrounded by a lot of land and some people like their homes in a cozy development. As a general rule, though, the more land, the more someone will pay for that piece of real estate.

The size of the house has one of the strongest impacts on the value. A small house on a small piece of land has a much lower real estate value than a medium house on a small piece of land. This is obvious. There is a time, though, that a house too large for the land can reach a peak with it’s real estate value.

A combination of land and home size is second to location in real estate value. Let us not forget about the condition of the total piece of real estate. The real estate condition is usually on the home itself but it can also be on the land. A nice manicured lawn with a lot of nice trees can be a boon to the property’s worth.

The condition of the house itself is very important. A house that needs some "TLC" (or tender loving care) has amuch lower value than a house that is "as new." While this might be obvious, it should also be obvious to a home seller that they should fix up their house as much as possible. The same idea of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Making sure the paint is perfect, the carpet nice, no cosmetic flaws can have a much larger value -add than the cost of fixing it up. It’s not always the case, but it usually is.

New Jersey is called The Garden State for a reason. It used to be much more rural. Parts of it, mainly in Southern New Jersey, are still much more rural. As the New York Metro area grew, though, it transformed Northern NJ, and now Central NJ into a more suburban locale. This, in turn, has driven up real estate values. The NJ Real Estate Market has surged incredibly these past 10 years.

As NYC real estate prices have climbed people have started to move out of NY and into, relatively, cheaper New Jersey. These cheaper suburban real estate prices, in turn, have attracted more people, which drives up real estate demand and real estate prices. When the prices in Northern Jersey go up people look further south into Central Jersey and then the cycle repeats itself. But, in general, the prices of central and south New Jersey are cheaper than northern. Central NJ is cheaper than South NJ.

So, in review, here are the important criteria for real estate value:

* Real Estate Location * Real Estate Condition * Real Estate Size * Real Estate Vicinity * School Districts * Transportation (Roads) * Mass Transportation

I hope this real estate tutorial is a help in your next real estate purchase or sale. Copyright 2005 Cy Yablonsky. Cy Yablonsky is an Associate Realtor with Othello Realty, you can visit Othello Realty at http://www.OthelloRealty.com. Feel free to reprint this article but you must include this paragraph and all links must be live and working, no changes can be made.

About the Author

Copyright 2005 Cy Yablonsky. Cy Yablonsky is an Associate Realtor with Othello Realty, you can visit Othello Realty at http://OthelloRealty.com. Feel free to reprint this article but you must include this paragraph and all links must be live and working, no changes can be made.

Prepare Your Home For Sale: Kitchen Makeover Ideas
by: Jeanette Joy Fisher

Money spent updating your kitchen rewards you better than money spent on any other upgrades to your home. When it comes to kitchens, buyers continue to demand improvement in efficiency and style, and they love remodeled kitchens and new appliances.

Even if you home costs less than the newer homes in your area, buyers view the model homes and hold the ideal in mind while home shopping.

Newer homes place kitchens open to the family room and often have wide views of the outside. Newer homes also boast larger kitchens with more than one preparation area because cooking has become a social activity, and new homes often include a bar or buffet for entertaining. Cooks want to be in the middle of family activities so they can enjoy companionship.

Buyers look for a kitchen with large open areas that allow guests enough room to mingle, along with workspace for kids doing homework or even a small kitchen workspace for paying bills or making phone calls.

Present your kitchen as an organized, clutter-free, versatile space that will help your buyers feel they could be productive and happy working and interacting in the heart of their new home.

You don’t need to completely makeover your kitchen to sell your home. Packing and storing extra kitchen pots, pans, and utensils generates a more spacious presentation. You may also wish to invest in an attractive portable kitchen island to use as a prop for a kitchen with an open center and insufficient counter space.

Consider easy, low-cost changes that instantly upgrade a kitchen without major remodeling. These include the following ideas:

1.) Replace your faucet with a fancier model.

2.) Change your cabinet hardware.

3.) Paint cabinet faces.

4.) Replace or paint ugly laminate countertops. (Use Marine-grade paint.)

5.) Add warmth during cold seasons with a gorgeous rug next to the sink counter.

No matter your makeover budget, prepare your home for sale with little changes like clearing the countertops and adding new dish towels and a bowl of fruit can make your kitchen entice a buyer to say, "This is my new home."

Copyright © 2006 Jeanette J. Fisher. All rights reserved.