First-time home-buyers face an unfamiliar road and risk purchasing the wrong place at the wrong time. Here’s a guide to the potholes.
Buying your first home is an exercise in faith. You don’t really know what you’re getting into, you’re awash in unfamiliar terminology and everyone you meet seems to have strong (and utterly contradictory) ideas [...]
As foreclosures rise, so do opportunities.
In the midst of housing market slump “foreclosure” is becoming more common word in our vocabulary. For some people, foreclosure means misfortune and for others, it can mean opportunity.
While the crisis continues, real estate brokers and mortgage lenders see the problem as potential opportunity for buyers. Of course, the draw [...]
Homeownership, the bedrock of the American Dream, is a bit of a nightmare these days for many first-time home buyers.
Lenders are demanding higher credit scores, mandating private-mortgage insurance on many more loans, and requiring larger down payments. Fewer first-timers qualify for the house they want, or they’re paying a larger monthly amount to own it.
There [...]
A real estate riddle for our times: What do a 5,500-square-foot, five-bedroom McMansion in Las Vegas and a cramped one-bedroom condo on E. 29th Street in Manhattan have in common?
The answer: Both sport a $1 million sales tag.
The dichotomy showcases how much - or how little - bang for the housing buck home buyers [...]
Real estate is often a long-term investment. But 10,000 years?
Lo’ihi Development Co. will soon start offering oceanview lots speculators won’t even be able to stand on for many millennia. That’s because they’re currently submerged more than 3,000 feet below sea level _ on an underwater volcano called Lo’ihi, located about 20 miles southeast of the [...]
Selling your home in today’s depressed market might be as ambitious as drumming up positive PR for Britney Spears. With thousands of properties for sale, buyers know they have leverage, and they’re using it. They search a multitude of homes in a quest for the best combination of amenities and price.
The National Association of Realtors [...]
When Kelly Andrews, 28 and just married, decided to sell her one-bedroom Atlanta condo in February, hers was one of about a dozen on sale in a 936-unit complex. Being in public relations, though, Andrews knew to play up the condo’s one unique feature: its former owners.
So she called up a reporter for the Atlanta [...]
These sellers used unconventional means to reel in would-be buyers.
Strategy: Put it on eBay
When Jim and Jennifer Yeckering of Owensboro, Kentucky listed their stately 1850s home last summer, they also posted it on eBay.com. They figured: Why not? “The more hooks you have in the water, the better,” says Jennifer, who with husband Jim runs [...]
Are you really serious about selling your home in this market? Then be prepared to try anything - and everything.
For nearly two years, Adriel and Lance Bush tried unsuccessfully to sell their 1925 home in West Palm Beach, Fla. First the couple went the traditional route: They hired a realtor (three of them, in fact) [...]
Assuming your home is presentable, spotless from top to bottom, priced correctly and located in a high traffic area, here are tips to improve the odds your house will sell at an open:
* Map Your Open House Signs.
1. Attach strings of balloons to each open house sign.
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