From the Times Herald in Newnan, GA today comes a story of an unfortunate house fire that can simply be summed up by its last line:
“Gantt advised against using a blow torch to rid a home of cobwebs.”
Thanks for the tip, Gantt. 
(and thank you Perez Hilton for the story. How do you find this stuff??)
Home Maintenance Tip of the Day
It’s Halloween and the time of year when everyone loves a good scare. Whether it’s a death-defying roller coaster ride (I never understood this) or sitting through a spine-tingling horror movie (never understood this, either), we as humans are suckers for hair-raising situations. That’s why stories about JonBenet Ramsey and the home where she was murdered (looks like it’s for sale) give us the creeps, but we keep coming back for more.
A recent article in the Dallas Morning News reported on homes where murders occurred. Do people have a hard time purchasing and living in them? Sometimes, sometimes not. One famous death was the ax murder of Betty Gore on Friday, the 13th, 1980 in Wylie, TX. Talk about creepy. Evidently, Gore’s friend, Candy Montgomery, was having an affair with Betty’s husband, Allan. Accusations flew, tempers rose, an ax appeared, and Betty died from 41 whacks in the home’s laundry room. Lizzie Borden would be proud. (Photo of ax murder re-enactment courtesy truTV)
We have run a few blog posts on creepy deaths and creepy homes that seem to attract lots ‘o clicks once Halloween rolls around. So, without further adieu, here are the posts and some highlights within:
If These Walls Could Talk, Part I
If These Walls Could Talk, Part III
Some more haunted home posts:
And if that’s not enough for you, please visit our collection of Famous Scary Homes.
Happy Halloween!
Read the rest here:
Homes with a Scary History
As I mentioned in an earlier post, a few weeks ago we fielded Zillow’s Q3 Homeowner Confidence Survey in the midst of Wall Street’s most turbulent week – asking homeowners what they think has happened to the value of their own homes over the past year, and what they think will happen in the coming 6 months.
We were surprised to learn that a sizeable number of homeowners still think their own homes are isolated from home value declines – with 49% believing their own home’s value either increased or stayed the same over the past year (and thus 51% thinking their home’s value declined), despite actual year-over-year declines on three-quarters of U.S. homes.
Along with these questions, we also asked homeowners who they plan to vote for in the coming presidential election, and were able to analyze the results according to planned McCain voters and planned Obama voters. Here’s what we found:
With 74% of U.S. homes showing year-over-year declines in Q3, McCain voters as a group appear to be slightly more optimistic (or less realistic) about their own homes in the current market. When we asked the question about the future, we found a similar difference:
Not sure what to m ake of this, but based on the conversation around my last post, I’m sure this community has some opinions…
See the original post here:
My Vote and the Value of My Home
Our blog friend, Matthew W. Heafey, who is a real estate agent in the Piedmont, CA area, just rolled out a new edition of unusual homes, titled “Aren’t You Glad These Aren’t Your Neighbors?“ The answer is “YES!”
Here’s another set of Matt’s work, titled, “Real Estate Gone Wild.” Thanks for the laughs, Matt!
Homeowner Charlie Kratzer of Lexington, Kentucky thought the “classic cream” walls in his basement could use a little something. So what did he do? He took $10 worth of Sharpie markers and transformed his basement into this:
(Wait a few seconds and you’ll get a 360-degree view of the room.)
Look closely and you may spot some familiar faces. Kratzer included many famous characters — both real and fictional — in his drawings, including Sherlock Holmes, Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw, Claude Monet, and a gathering of artistic greats in Picasso’s Paris salon. He even threw in Rocky and Bullwinkle. Talk about creative!
You can read more about the Sharpie basement in this Lexington Herald-Leader article.
360-degree view courtesy Lexington Herald-Leader
Original post:
$10 Basement Makeover, Using a Sharpie
It’s been a long week, with banks continuing to collapse (my WaMu is now JP Morgan and I’m told everything’s cool), the $700 billion bank bailout wearing everyone down and one of the presidential nominees threatening to suspend campaigning and skip the debate over the economic crisis. But then, we looked out our windows and suddenly, smiles returned to our faces. There it was, the biggest smiley face attached to new construction in downtown Seattle. Thanks, Harvey Ball, for making us smile once again.
(Special thanks for Randy James, Director of Test, who took time out from testing stuff to take the photo.)
Originally posted here:
Smiley Face Friday
Swimmer Natalie Coughlin from Vallejo, California (Photo courtesy Al Bello/Getty Images)
Many of us here at Zillow have been cheering on the U.S. team in the Beijing Olympics this week. Which got us thinking, which state do you think has the highest number of Olympians? If you guessed California, you’re right. In fact, California wins by a mile — of the nearly 600 athletes that make up Team USA, 166 have hometowns in California. (The second-highest state, Texas, trails with 43 athletes.) Holy moly, there must be something in the water!
Of course, California also has the highest population of any state, so maybe that’s the difference. But that doesn’t explain why California has almost 4 times the number of athletes as Texas, which has nearly two-thirds the population of California.
Which city has Olympic bragging rights? According to this U.S. Olympians hometown list, that would be sunny San Diego. Seven Olympians call San Diego their hometown, closely followed by Irvine, California, with 6 athletes.
Go here to read the rest:
California Takes the Gold for Most Olympians
Home in Cincinnati, Ohio
If it’s bizarre, we love it. And, if it’s Friday, we feature it. Make way for a fun lineup of unusual homes we found on Matthew W. Heafey’s site, “Real Estate Gone Wild.” Some of these homes have been featured on our Famous Unique Homes lineup, so you might recognize them.
Don’t forget about our other Famous Homes:
TGIF.
More:
Weird, Wild, and Unusual Homes
It’s amazing that real estate agents and home owners allow really, really bad photos to be published as part of the real estate listing. I suppose a bad photo is better than nothing. Or, is it? You make the call:
Maybe a class by Larry Lohrman will save all of us from sabotaging our real estate listings.
Here is the original post:
Bad and Really Bad Real Estate Photos
After last year’s holiday falling on a Wednesday, we’re all pretty excited around here that this year the 4th is on a Friday, giving us all a much needed 3-day weekend. The only downside? Fourth of July parties this year could get out a little more out of hand than usual. With this in mind, we wanted to flag a Real Estate Guide article on Homeowners Insurance- What Are Your Choices? It’s always important to be prepared, as you just never know when a rouge firework may target your garage!
Wishing everyone a safe and happy holiday from your friends at Zillow. We’ll see you on Monday!
The rest is here:
Have an Explosive 4th of July!
We can’t ignore it any longer: celebrities are taking the foreclosure hit, too. The latest celebrity is former heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield. A legal notice that appeared in a local newspaper shows his Fayette County, GA estate is under foreclosure. The 104-room, 54,000-square-foot home worth an estimated $10 million and is to be auctioned by a bank on July 1.
Luxist has even created a celebrity foreclosure list with a great little foreclosure slideshow of the affected celebs, which includes Jose Canseco, Aretha Franklin, Latrell Sprewell, Michael Jackson, and others. L.A. Land has their own list of celebrity foreclosures, too. Earlier this week, Johnny Carson’s sidekick, Ed McMahon commanded the headlines. Who’s next?
Read more here:
Celebrity Foreclosures
Girls just wanna have fun, especially during the (paid) workday. When the women of the Zillow marketing team started dreaming about attending the Sex and the City movie premiere as a “team morale” outing, I eagerly volunteered to pre-purchase the tickets. It was the least I could do, considering the premiere has been on the PR calendar for months, next to official product launches and actual work deadlines. Little did I know this would be one of the most insane female experiences of my life.
Picture this: Over 150 crazy women, wrapped around the outside of Seattle’s Big Picture movie theater. No Pacific northwest polar fleece in this crowd, the unofficial dress code was strictly stilettos and a shirt dresses. In true Sex and the City style, I noted an abundance of Mirandas present, professional power women rapidly dictating orders on their Blackberries. In contract, there were some Bugaboo pushing Charlottes in Lululemon sweat suits, trying to snag tickets for the entire PEP’s group. Finally, there were the Carries: cool, calm, and collected while patiently reading the New York Times Style section. No Samanthas were present, as I figured she has the hook-up already from one of her big-wig “friends.”
After two hours of intense girl time, I scored the very LAST tickets for premier day! I quickly darted out the door, for fear that the woman behind me may attack me with her Birkin bag. Seriously.
Now that the big day is finally here, the Zillow girls are ready for an afternoon of fun. If you’d like to join us for the next big chick flick premier, check out our job postings, along with some photos of other team morale activitieson our Flikr page. Cheers!
View original here:
Stilettos, Style, and Office-Sponsored Fun
