Real Estate Blog

Mortgage rates for a 30-year fixed loan are below 6% in Zillow Mortgage Marketplace for the first time in two weeks. The average national rate for a 30-year fixed loan (with < 80% LTV and good credit) is around 5.8% right now, down from 6.4% a week ago. Get ‘em while they’re hot!

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For the real estate professionals and web publishers out there — we now have another widget that you can utilize to quickly and easily add great functionality for consumers to your Web sites. Our latest addition being a mortgage calculator widget (seen on the right sidebar of this blog). When we released our mortgage rate widgets back in early July, we enabled other Web sites to publish live mortgage rates and charts by simply copying and pasting some HTML code. However, we know consumers sometimes want more than just raw rates — they want something interactive to help them figure out what they can afford at the current mortgage rate. As a result, we built a mortgage calculator widget.

What differentiates Zillow’s calculator widget from the others out on the Web? Answer: our widget auto-fills the “Interest rate” field with the most up-to-date mortgage rate. This means the consumer doesn’t have to look elsewhere for the most current rate to plug in. Most mortgage calculators list 6% as the default interest rate, but mortgage rates can and do change frequently. There’s no reason to expect home buyers to know what the current rate is, so we took care of that with the auto-fill feature.

Another great reason to use Zillow widgets: our co-branding technology is built into all of our widgets, which means you’ll always be top-of-mind. Visitors on your site who click through to Zillow from the widget will see your photo or logo, contact information, and a link back to your Web site for the duration of their session on Zillow. It’s a great solution for everybody: you give consumers free, valuable tools to use and in return, you get free co-branding on the Zillow site. Pretty sweet!

Remember that if you are a software developer (or know one who can help you), you can also use our API program to access mortgage rates and develop your own calculator.

Originally posted here:
A Brand New Mortgage Calculator Widget

Once upon a time, in a land of hard work and thoughtful financial planning, a mature, adult couple dreamed of selling their humble abode and relocating to the Promised Land of Retirement (ka-ching). Everything was going as planned until the unpredictable Mt. Mortgage erupted, burning up rates and loan applications for miles and miles. It was a dark, dark time for many.

Suddenly, without warning or fanfare, a visitor from the land of Sketchy Seller Financing appeared on their doorstep, bearing forth a piddly down payment and shady contingency offer. “Sell us your home!” they demanded “but… you keep the mortgage, we’ll pay you back in time. Patience, desperate seller. Patience.”

The mature couple, anxious to flee from this dark, despairing land, began to fret. Unsure of where to turn, they sought refuge in a real estate community called Zillow Discussions. “Help us, we are lost and confused” they cried. This community of lenders and concerned citizens embraced them, offering up practical advice and referrals aplenty. “Don’t do it” some said, while others were in favor of the risky transaction.

Where will the mature couple go? What what will they do? Tune in to see new questions and answers in the turbulent land of mortgages, located in the world of Zillow Discussions.

*Image courtesy of deesillustration.com

Credit:
Once Upon a Mortgage: Tales of Scary Seller Financing

Move over, Donald, there’s another bidder for Ed McMahon’s home that was about to be foreclosed on. While Donald Trump came to McMahon’s rescue last week, there seems to be a mystery bidder who also wants McMahon’s home. Not sure who will eventually get it — Trump or the secret bidder, but with Trump, Ed was allowed to lease it back. Not sure if the mystery bidder will do the same. Stay tuned!

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When asked by The Politico yesterday about how many homes he owns, Republican presidential candidate John McCain was unable to answer decisively. It was like Monty Python’s Bridge of Death scene from the movie “Monty Python & the Holy Grail — answer incorrectly and you will be cast into the “gorge of eternal peril.”

Q. How many houses do you and Mrs. McCain have?

A. “I think — I’ll have my staff get to you. It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”

According to Luxist, the McCains were purchasing two condo units at 2211 Camelback, Phoenix, AZ, while downsizing from their larger, North Central Phoenix property, which was on the market. Not sure if it’s still on the market or was sold — anyone know?

This isn’t the first time a real estate issue has flared up for this presidential race. Barack Obama is fielding his own set of questions.

By the way, this got me to wondering how Christie Brinkley keeps track of her 18 homes. I mean, 18 homes? How does she keep track?

John McCain Losing Track of Homes he Owns

Another one bites the dust. Record producer, actor, writer and founder of Roc-A-Fella Records, Damon Dash, is facing foreclosure, according to the NY Daily News. Allegedly, Dash and his wife, fashion designer Rachel Roy (no - not Rachael Ray), allegedly owe $7.3 million on two Tribeca real estate addresses. If the addresses are correct, the first property at 25 N Moore St., NY, NY, looks to be for sale for $4,795,000 with a “contract signed,” according to the listing description. Dash’s other property at 79 Laight St., NY, NY, doesn’t appear to be on the market.

Just one more celeb to add to the celebrity foreclosure list…

More:
Another Celebrity Foreclosure: Record Producer Damon Dash

Season four of the The Hills premiered last night, and for all of us closet Hills fans, it didn’t disappoint.

This season opened with a pool party at LC’s house for Audrina. As I’ve blogged about in the past, this house has been the source of much friendship melodrama. While I didn’t get an invite to the shindig, using Zillow’s Bird’s Eye View functionality, I can at least see the pool where the action went down.

Another Hills party that I didn’t to attend, but can stalk online, went down earlier this week when the crew headed over to the Project Beach House (a sponsored beach house for celebs to hang out at during the summer) for an exclusive party and taping session. You can read about the filming of this “reality” show by this lucky blogger that did get to attend. The home sits on 5 acres of land and overlooks the Pacific Ocean and El Matador State Beach in Malibu. Oh the glamour life those Hills girls lead!

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Reality TV update: Million Dollar Listing, Season 2, Episode 1 “Sellers From Hell”

Madison, the self-proclaimed “King of Malibu,” used Zillow to prepare for his listing presentation and secure one of the biggest listings of his career during the season premier of his reality TV show Million Dollar Listing, which appears on Bravo.

Madison is a high-end real estate agent in Malibu, CA and has sold more than $80 million in celebrity real estate (and he’s not even 30!). His most recent celebrity listing: Karen Pankow’s Malibu mansion (ex-wife of James Pankow, trombonist from Chicago).

Pankow’s pad is located at 3874 Puerco Canyon, Malibu, CA 90265 and is listed at a cool $4,385,000. (See more Malibu, CA real estate).

Much to our delight, Madison is an active contributor on Zillow (agent screen name “900624lead100457964”) with 6 listings for sale. Hey Madison, thanks for the shout out and for using Zillow!

Million Dollar Listing airs Tuesdays at 10/9C on Bravo.

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Vanity Fair, which likes to tweak U.S. President George W. Bush any way it can, has started a “George W. Bush Crawford Ranch Sale Countdown.” In doing some quick office math (thanks, Mary!), it looks like this VF countdown will put Bush’s Crawford, TX, home on the market in the middle of June, 2009.

Rumors have been heating up that the prez — love him or hate him — will sell the ranch because his wife,

Laura, wants to live in a town that has more than one traffic light and a public

library. Evidently, reports have placed Laura’s top choice to be Highland Park, which is a suburb of Dallas and about a two-hour drive north of their Crawford ranch. Laura, if you’re interested in Highland Park, TX real estate, you’ll see it’s quite affordable with a Zindex of $90K (at this writing).

Check out some interesting satellite imagery of Bush’s Crawford ranch. Evidently, he did a lot of work to the property, known as the Prairie Creek Ranch, after buying it for $1.3 million from the Engelbrecht family in 1999.

Even Dallas Dirt is speculating that W is looking into a Dallas office. Oh, where will they land?

Read more here:
Bush Countdown: Sale of Crawford Ranch

The 104th edition of the Carnival of Real Estate is posted at Altos Research. In honor of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Mike Simonsen put together a fantastic carnival with an Olympic theme by highlighting 7 posts — head on over and take a look!

The carnival will make its next appearance on Monday, Aug. 25 on ValleyMarket.com. Please submit your best post by Sunday, Aug. 24, to be considered. Are you a real estate blogger and would you like to host a future edition? If so, get instructions on how to do so here. Please check the complete FAQ list if you have other questions as to how to participate.

Credit:
Carnival of Real Estate #104

Zillow is a media site, or a marketing platform for real estate professionals to utilize to connect with buyers, sellers, and each other.  Each month, more than 5 million people come to Zillow with one common interest — real estate. If you are a real estate agent, take a look at my post on Active Rain explaining 10 ways you can use Zillow to connect with these people!

Go here to see the original:
10 Ways Real Estate Agents Can Use Zillow

Last week, a few of us attended the Inman Connect Conference in San Francisco. It was a fantastic conference with great networking opportunities. RE Bar Camp helped set the stage for a great week — a group of about 100 or 150 bloggers and techies gathered to chat about the latest and greatest products and ideas relating to real estate technology. It was great to meet some of those who I chat with regularly, but have never met in person. It’s no secret I’ve been a fan of MyBlogLog for a long time, so it was great to meet their Product Manager, Ian Kennedy, and Community Manager, Tilly McLain. They even added a feature to MBL just in time for the conference that pulls in any new listings you add on Zillow into your New with Me feed, which can then be seen by all your friends on MyBlogLog.

As I already mentioned here on Zillow Blog, Beer with Bloggers was a blast.

I was in and out of meetings for much of the conference, but the sessions I attended did not disappoint. I won’t go into too much detail, but one major theme to the conference that we noted was the notion of a “nomad lifestyle” — your phone is now your email, your laptop, your stereo, your camera, your camcorder, etc. It’s imperative for real estate agents to be reachable and have all their information with them at all times. The new “office cube” is anywhere, and the notion of a virtual workplace is becoming more and more mainstream as people live increasingly mobile lives. For those that want to read more insights from the conference, head over to the Connect SF 2008 group on Inman.

I almost left San Francisco without getting on video to embarrass myself, but no such luck — Christian Schweiger and Jay Thompson nabbed me just before I headed to the airport for a short re-cap.

All in all, I and the rest of the Zillow team had a blast and we’re looking forward to connecting again with everyone in New York next January!

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Inman Connect Recap

Yes, I think we might be just a wee bit obsessed with celebrity real estate here on the Zillow Blog. But we can’t help it! If you’re as hooked on celebrity gossip as we are, you’ll want to check out our new Famous Celebrity Neighborhoods page, which rounds up the top areas stars call home.

Of course, there are the usual suspects — Hollywood, Beverly Hills — but there are also some lesser known celebrity enclaves, such as Buckhead in Atlanta (part-time home of Elton John). Want to know who rests their head in Malibu, or who hits the slopes in Aspen? How about who summers in the Hamptons? We’ve got the scoop. Plus, you can see homes for sale in the area, learn more about the neighborhoods, and check out the Zillow Home Value Index, in case you’re thinking about moving in.

See all of the Famous Celebrity Neighborhoods. Have fun!

Originally posted here:
Famous Celebrity Neighborhoods

Remember those Extreme Makeover homes that had been listed for sale? Well, now comes word that not one, but two of the Extreme Makeover homes are now in foreclosure. Sad, but true.

The most recent Extreme Makeover home in foreclosure is an Atlanta-area residence that was featured on the show in February 2005 (pictured above). The family reportedly used the home as collateral for a $450,000 loan to start a construction business. Some reports say that the house will now be going up for auction, while another story says that the owners may have struck a deal to rescue the home from foreclosure.

Sadly, the second of the show’s homes in foreclosure is the result of a death. In October, the show featured an Oregon woman, Janessa “Boey” Byers, who was fighting cancer. The team demolished the family’s old home and built them a brand-new modern home. (Tour the home here.) Byers lost her fight with cancer in December, and the family is now unable to pay the $250,000 they have left on the mortgage of their old home, plus the high property taxes and utility bills for the new property.

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Extreme Makeover Foreclosures

I’ve always wanted to be a homeowner, however with all the doom and gloom these days about the current housing market,  I’ve found myself much less inclined to purchase a home than I had been previously.  At least that’s what I thought until I spent the weekend spiffing up my sister’s recently purchased home– talk about sibling rivalry!

The 900 square feet that my husband and I live in was dwarfed by the almost 2,000 my sister now has at her feet.  We spent the weekend painting walls whatever color we wanted (no need to get approval from the landlord!), playing fetch with her dog in her private, extensive backyard and playing music while we worked without a second thought of what those sharing a wall with us might think.

And thus, on my drive home, I started rethinking this whole ownership thing.

I quickly realized, however, that if I ever want this dream to come true, I better start saving now.  I happened upon a Real Estate Guide article that walked though the 10 Tips on Saving for Your Ideal Home (Thanks Home Loan Guru!).  And while everyone has their own savings mantra, I thought this was a pretty helpful way to look at things.  Here are a few of my favorite tips:

Define the Big Picture– how much can you afford, realistically, to spend on a home, based on your current income?  Check out some of our mortgage calculators if you aren’t sure– or contact a professional within Zillow Mortgage Marketplace to get a professionals advice from the very beginning.

Determine Your Necessities- I personally know that I will need my Starbucks fix at least twice a week– so I have budgeted this expense in, guilt free.  There are other things, however, that I know I can cut out without too much effort– like avoiding the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale.  Keeping a realistic budget, and sticking to it, is key in saving for a new home.

Be Patient– Realize you aren’t going to be able to make all these changes overnight, and thus be ready to purchase that home in just a few months.  Things will come up you aren’t anticpating– perhaps your car needs new brakes, or you can’t bring yourself to say no to a girls spa day.  Just keep the faith– and know that the end result is worth it!

Check out the rest of these 10 tips on saving for your ideal home– happy saving!

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10 Tips on Saving for Your Ideal Home