The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), recently set up a Web site to keep consumers, drywall manufacturers, builders and other apprised of its investigation into the latest problematic Chinese import, drywall used to build homes.
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CPSC Opens Drywall Information Center
What’s the fastest growing niche in real estate, one that’s seen an increase in residential sales volume of 48 percent in the past 60 months?
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Investor Report: Auctions a Growing Niche
When you put your home on the market, you want buyers strolling in but sometimes, during the hot weather, you find the ants come marching in too and that certainly doesn’t help a potential sale. It may not seem like much of a problem but if you’ve had ants then you know what a headache this can be especially if you have buyers coming into your home daily.
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Trying to Sell Your Home but Have an Ant Problem?
If you re wondering why Texas is doing so well in job growth during these hard times, look no further than some of the country s leading money magazines. Fortune Magazine reports Texas has the most Fortune 500 companies located in its borders, meanwhile Forbes reports nine of the nation s top job growth markets are in Texas.
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Hot Market: Odessa, TX, Prepares for Surge With Job Growth
Drywall imported from China, blamed for rotten egg odors, fast metal corrosion and health problems for some homeowners, contains sulfur and other materials not found in U.S. made drywall, according to preliminary federal tests.
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Chinese Drywall Latest Problematic Import
Last week I wrote about the U.S. government’s program for assisting first-time home buyers: As part of the federal government’s economic stimulus package, first-time buyers can get a tax credit of 10 percent of the purchase price of a home, up to $8,000. That alone may be incentive for home buyers riding the fence to take action; however, there’s more.
State governments from around the nation are offering their own financial incentives to first-time home buyers – specifically, help with a downpayment. The assistance may come in the form of a low- to zero-interest rate loan or a cash grant. Some states have programs that provide a large percentage of the downpayment, while others offer total downpayment assistance.
For more information, go to First-Time Home Buyer Down Payment Assistance. Here you will find resources regarding programs for each state, grants, loans, etc.
TALK BACK: Have you benefited from a local, state or federal first-time buyer program? Post your comments below.
Posted by Sharon Walker
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State assistance for first-time home buyers
An amendment asking for the immediate investigation into the relationship between Chinese drywall and our nation’s foreclosure rate has been passed in the U.S. House of Representatives. The drywall investigative provision was offered as an amendment to the Mortgage Reform and Anti-Predatory Lending Act.
This act is intended to tighten regulations on mortgage lenders and originators. The provision was written by Florida Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart and Robert Wexler. The bill now moves on to the Senate.
This amendment calls for an investigation into the ramifications of Chinese drywall on foreclosures. The United States Department of Housing and Ubran Development (HUD) and the United States Treasury Department will be required to study the problem and report back to Congress within 120 days. This investigation is slated to center on discovering how many home foreclosures were a direct result of the presence of Chinese drywall. The legislation also requires federal agencies to study whether homeowners insurance was available to owners of homes in which Chinese drywall was found.
TALK BACK: Do you believe the Chinese drywall problem has affected our nation’s foreclosure rates? Post your comments below.
Posted by Sharon Walker
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The U.S. Congress chimes in on Chinese drywall
Amazon kicked open the door this afternoon to bloggers of all stripes to get their work on the book seller’s breakout e-reader device; the Kindle.
Previously you could subscribe to a handful of pre-selected blogs on the Kindle, but Amazon now lets all publishers submit their feed for sale in the Kindle marketplace. Prices range from $0.99 – $1.99 a month for a subscription; and Amazon shares this revenue with you, the blog owner.
Creating an account and submitting your blog is pretty straight-forward. I had this blog up and running in a couple of minutes (though it takes Amazon 24-48 hours to review and accept your blog).
Right now there’s a mad land rush to corner the blossoming market for e-readers (witness the Kindle DX’s launch only 3 months after the Kindle 2). New devices from makers like Plastic Logic and a long-rumored Apple tablet stand only to accelerate the changes in the way we consume the written word in the coming months.
This move has a fundamental impact on the way organizations, brands and professionals (Realtors indeed) communicate with customers. Delivered electronically to a Kindle, your local newspaper comes stripped of advertising, thus eliminating one traditional touch point for marketers.
But imagine instead a monthly real estate market report delivered wirelessly to a widely distributed network of opt-in (paying, even!) wired consumers via Whispernet. Much more valuable than any ad could ever be.
I truly believe these devices are game changing and will be speaking on the subject at this summer’s Real Estate Connect conference in a panel titled “How the Amazon Kindle Will Change Your Business” (natch). Make sure you register and snag a pass quickly!
In the meantime, if you have already Kindle, head out and subscribe and read FOREM on the go. Let me know what you think.
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FOREM now on Kindle
If imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then the founder of the Clozing definitely has no qualms calling his new site the “Techmeme for Real Estate”.
Launched today by Sellsius blog head Joe Ferrara and his partner Anthony Barba, The Clozing is meant to be “your real estate water cooler”. It aggregates and displays real estate headlines from across the Net. Feeds from various sources are mixed together and displayed as stories break. The site hopes to make money through sponsored posts from advertisers that are highlighted on the right of the mix.
I love the idea personally. Techmeme remains one of the few sites I make a habit of monitoring throughout the day. Having a source of great real estate related links could be a really useful outpost to head to daily.
Nevertheless I have a few minor quibbles and suggestions for the Clozing on launch day.
The related stories algorithm seems to need some tweaking, as many of the headlines seemed to draw in random discussions. A story on IDX on Agentgenius.com was somehow linked to an announcement on Rismedia about a Green Resource website, for example.
For the Clozing to be truly useful, the relevance of the supporting discussions must remain high, at the risk of alienating the users. Given a generous allowance for launch day bugs, the Clozing ought to fix this quickly – else run the risk of going the way of RealEstateVoices.com – a much ballyhoo’d Digg clone that launched in 2006 and fizzled quickly.
Also – I wonder how truly safe it is to rely on a single source of authority (blog links) these days, given that much of the online discussion has moved quickly onto new platforms. News is increasingly shared and disseminated via social networks like Twitter so finding the fast moving conversations and links that are shared via those tools (like http://tweetmeme.com/) will be a must-have feature for the Clozing.
All in all though – it’s a great start and a nice addition to my daily bookmarks.
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The Clozing Seeks to Aggregate Real Estate News
Over the last few years many of the major real estate search sites have moved over to Google Maps from Microsoft’s Virtual Earth as their mapping API of choice (Redfin being the most recent notable defector). HomeGain, Trulia, Homefinder, Estately and others all use Google Maps. But, interestingly, both the #1 and #2 sites; Realtor.com and Zillow, are still Microsoft clients.
Given that, they will likely be interested to hear that Microsoft has announced that they are now rolling in Photosynth technology into the Virtual Earth platform.
Photosynth is a platform that grew out of Microsoft Live Labs (see Next Generation Virtual Tours) and allows for amazing 3D environments (”Synths”) to be stitched together out of 2D photographs.
From the press release:
Photosynth software analyzes digital photographs and generates a 3-D model by “stitching” the photos together. These models, or “synths,” can now be viewed using Silverlight technology across multiple platforms. Virtual Earth brings together features, functionality and content that help consumers, businesses, citizens and governments bring location to life. It helps businesses and governments share location-based information, build better connections with consumers or citizens, and helps organizations make better operational decisions. With the integration of Photosynth into Virtual Earth customers will be able to create detailed 3-D views of anything from places to products and from hotels to homes.
Most recently, it was used to create an immersive view of President Obama’s inauguration on CNN.com called The Moment. (If you haven’t seen it, go check it out – it really is pretty amazing)
Rolling Photosynth in Virtual Earth has some pretty big implications for real estate as one could imagine a developer could take widely available assets (listing photos) and roll them into a pretty nifty 3D representation of a property that’s for sale.
You can see a sample “house Synth” on the Microsoft Virtual Earth site. (Click on the sales sheet for a really slick representation of what’s possible)
Cool factor aside. Whether or not this is a big enough feature to get some of these other sites to switch to VE, that’s another question all together.
Update: Here’s Microsoft’s video on the integration.
Click here to view the embedded video.
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Photosynth Could Spark Virtual Earth Comeback
Last week Zillow laid the smack down on the developer of the iZillow iphone-optimized webpage (see Zillow for iPhone), demanding that he pull down the site.
Sellsius blog has the low down.
A statement received by this blog this afternoon reads:
We reached an amicable agreement to purchase the URL. I don’t want to discuss the agreed price but it’s more than the $250 he 1st requested.
He can continue to run the site with different branding. Pity this got unnecessarily heated; other than this, Auston seems like a good guy.
Kudos to both parties for being able to come to a friendly agreement.
Now back to zestimating your neighbor’s house.
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Zillow Spikes #Zillowfail, Settles with iZillow Developer
Congrats to Trulia for winning the 2009 Webby award in the real estate category. This is nice recognition for the Bay-Area company, but they still have a ways to go to catch up its nearest competitors.
Traffic to all the major portals seems to be ticking up after a pretty miserable 4th Quarter all around. Trulia sits third, while Zillow looks to taking a remarkable run at knocking Realtor.com off the top spot.
Congrats also to the folks at Hotpads who won the <a href=”http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current.php?season=13#webby_entry_real_estate
“>People’s Choice Webby this year.
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Trulia wins Webby Award
Click here to view the embedded video.
Ever since Zillow evolved into.. well, whatever it is now (some sort of real estate search, AVM, mortgage rate and discussion forum Frankenstein, as far as I can tell), the controversy over Zestimates seems to have quieted down.
Maybe it’s that the novelty of seeing what your home is worth has worn off as housing prices crash.
Perhaps it’s that the PR pros at Zillow have done a phenomenal job positioning the company in the media as a legitimate data source so the Zestimate has become an accepted statistic.
Or more likely, maybe it’s that the industry has been successfully wooed with the promises of easy, cheap marketing online tools (which are especially seductive in a down market) and any remaining resistance has slipped by the wayside.
In either case, Zestimates just don’t seem to be the point of contention they once were.
But today Zillow launched an iPhone app. One that promises to bring the debate over Zestimates (and their accuracy) back to the forefront.
Upfront – it’s a very slick app. The app’s location awareness (as demonstrated on the video embedded above) is
I want to be very clear that in many ways, Craigslist provides a great free service for people across the nation and in 50 countries around the world. As an online network of classified ads – covering everything from employment opportunities to personal ads – there have been billions of visits to this site during the last 10 years. And while for the most part, much of what I’ve heard or read about Craigslist has been regarding its popularity and ease of use, recently the headlines have been dedicated to its alleged use for criminal activity.
During the course of the last 18 months or perhaps longer, there have been a number of blogs written regarding scam artists using Craigslist to advertise real estate to either rent or purchase. Although these situations may be isolated, I think it’s important for potential home buyers and renters to be aware of them and to take precautions so as not to be bilked out of their hard-earned money.
I encourage you to read the following articles, which detail how these scams may be presented. There is certainly much more written about this subject. I leave it to you to do your own perusing on the Web.
As the saying goes, “forewarned is forearmed.” Before you enter into any agreement or supply anyone with personal information and/or money, check on the validity of the real estate being offered. Contact your local city government to verify rental properties and call a real estate office where any agent should be able to verify properties for sale through the Multiple Listing Service (MLS).
TALK BACK: Have you ever heard of this type of scam on Craigslist? Are you aware of anything like this in your area? Post your comments below.
Posted by Sharon Walker
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Home buyer and renter scams on Craigslist
Click here to view the embedded video.
Mobile real estate poised to take off? Palm seems to think so.
On a side note, I’m kind of digging the Pre… but doubt I’m ready to give up the iPhone. Yet.
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