Real Estate News

Election Day is tomorrow, but here at Zillow, our own Vice President of Communications, Amy Bohutinsky, received the “Speaker of the House Award,” for her post “Not My House.” The award was bestowed by Minnesota Investment Property who hosted the 115th edition of the Carnival of Real Estate.  Amy’s post dealt with the Q3 Homeowner Confidence Survey that determined that 49% of the people surveyed still believed their home’s value increased or stayed the same over the past 12 months!  Head on over to the carnival and take a look at the other winners.

The carnival will make its next appearance on Monday, Nov. 10 at The Seattle Specialist. Please submit your best post by Sunday, Nov. 9, 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.

Read the rest here:
Carnival of Real Estate #115

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Howdy, Houston!

Zillow is thrilled to welcome the Houston Association of REALTORS® (HAR), into the Zillow Listings Feed program. This new partnership with HAR enables the Houston MLS to automatically feed all for-sale listings to Zillow.com. It also gives buyers looking for homes in the Houston area a more complete search experience and provides HAR members and sellers with additional free marketing for their listings. A search for Houston homes for sale now shows over 70,000 listings in the greater Houston area.

Each of HAR’s listings will include a description of the property with photos, contact information, and links to HAR.com. With 26,000 members, HAR is the second largest local association/board of REALTORS® in the United States and an innovative thought leader within the real estate industry.

The Listings Feed program launched in November 2007 and has grown to more than three million listings today. For more information, check out this morning’s press release and visit the Listings Feed landing page.

If your MLS or brokerage wants to send listings to Zillow, please contact me or learn more here.

More:
Welcome, Houston Association of Realtors!

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If you buy a home right next to a golf course, chances are you or your house will be in danger of getting hit by a golf ball, right? Right. But, in our madness to sue and litigate over obvious afronts, Westchester resident Anthony Pecora is suing the venerable Winged Foot Golf Club “claiming that it has caused a ‘life-threatening condition’ to him and his family because golf balls are so often hit onto his property.” As a result, a state supreme court judge has stopped play on the 6th hole until further notice. Wow.

Obviously, Pecora lives in the slice zone and didn’t really heed any warnings about the pros and cons of living on a fairway. But, for a judge to stop play on the 6th hole of Winged Foot? That’s pretty severe. It will be interesting to watch the outcome of this case and see if a precedent is set for other homeowners who don’t like living next to a golf course.

Here’s more on the story from the NY Times.

Play Banned on 6th Hole Due to Homeowner Lawsuit

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Spencer Rascoff, CFO and VP of Marketing at Zillow, chatted this afternoon with Blog Talk Radio host Alan Levy about Zillow, the foreclosure mess, and more. Check out the interview on your own time by clicking on the media player below.

Thanks, Alan!

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Missed it the first time? Listen to Zillow on Blog Talk Radio

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Spencer Rascoff, CFO and VP Marketing at Zillow, will be the guest of Alan Levy’s on Blog Talk Radio today at 12 PM Pacific time (3 PM Eastern). Tune in to blogtalkradio.com and hear Alan and Spencer chat about the mortgage crisis, negative equity, and the state of home values across the country.

The rest is here:
Noon Tune-in: Zillow CFO Spencer Rascoff on Blogtalkradio

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Aviator Amelia Earhart has been missing and presumed dead for 71 years, but that doesn’t stop the intrigue into her life and times. Earhart’s former home at 76 Brooks St., Medford, MA, is one of several famous homes the Boston Globe featured in an article last week investigating whether a home’s value rises if a famous person lived there. Jim and Betty Owens purchased the Earhart home in 1970 and have been unofficial stewards of keeping Amelia’s spirit alive.

“I’m thinking, If Amelia’s spirit is in this house, she must be happy here and we’ll leave her alone, undisturbed,” says Betty. “I don’t go messing with the other side.” Asked what she would do if Earhart’s ghost were to reveal itself, Betty laughs and says: “That’s fine. We’ll welcome her with open arms. And once we clear out her room, we’ll let her have her bed back.”

Supermarket tabloid National Enquirer even wanted to do a seance in the house. Even though Jim is director of the National Archives Northeast regional office and Betty is a librarian, they did not buy this house because Earhart lived there — they purchased it for their family’s need at the time.

For many small cities (Medford, MA, has a population of approximately 56,000, according to the 2000 U.S. Census), Earhart alone would’ve made the city of Medford notable. But, get a load of several other incidents and residents in Medford…

• was a stop on the midnight ride of Paul Revere
• was home of the notorious “Black Dahlia,” Elizabeth Short
• is where “Jingle Bells” was written by Reverend James Pierpont
• was the home of cook and author Fannie Farmer
• is where George Washington met to discuss Revolutionary War strategy
• was the home to Lydia Maria Child, an abolitionist and author of the Thanksgiving poem “Over the River and Through the Woods to Grandfather’s House We Go.”

The rest is here:

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It’s easy to dismiss the foreclosure crisis as one big, sad mess that you can’t do much about. But instead of pooh-poohing the crisis, one Flint, Michigan woman is turning to Winnie the Pooh. (No, she’s not hitting the honey barrel.) Since August, 20-year-old Kristina Pringle has been painting Winnie the Pooh characters on the boarded-up windows of a vacant foreclosed home on her street. She hopes the characters — first came Eeyore, now she’s working on Tigger — will help brighten her struggling neighborhood.

Pringle was encouraged to start the murals by Art Wenzlaff, community relations director of a nearby school. Wenzlaff has set out to beautify local neighborhoods by cleaning them up and creating murals (with permission by the city), outfitting Pringle and other volunteers with art supplies. In the spring, Pringle has plans to recruit local children to add their own artwork to her murals. She’s also hoping that once the foreclosed home is torn down or sold, the boards will be put to use on another home.

Photo courtesy The Flint Journal

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Michigan Woman Brightens Foreclosure With Her Paintbrush

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If you think that Fannie and Freddie are the mortgage story of the week, I hope that you’re sitting down. OK, maybe Fannie & Freddie are the big news of the week but while the long-term impact of the fed’s takeover is up for debate, I have no doubt that Mortgages Unzipped, a new blog about mortgages, will assist borrowers.

As home home owners, we have got to get smarter about our mortgages. Yes, I mean you – and me – for many of us, our mortgage is the single largest line item on our monthly budget. And I, for one, have personally come to realize that I knew almost nothing about my mortgage when I bought my first home. I think that applies to most borrowers. Mortgages Unzipped is hosted by ZIllow but the blog is authored by mortgage professionals – people we can learn from!

We’ve asked 14 mortgage pro’s to write Mortgages Unzipped. It’s a very smart and experienced group. And as you read the blog, you’ll learn that our authors each have something unique and important to say. Andy Jolls, for example, has a lot to say about your credit score – and he does it on video. Brian Brady, Todd Carpenter, Dan Melson and Rhonda Porter are trailblazers; some of the first mortgage professionals to start blogging and using social media (you can catch Brian’s mortgage rate updates on twitter, for example.) We’re very fortunate to have their support.

Zillow’s mortgage discussions have been on fire since the mortgage marketplace launched. If you ever need a second opinion on a mortgage quote, I recommend asking the lenders in Zillow Discussions. I’ve cajoled a handful of them into taking their advice to the blog. Jennifer Monastero , Rob Cochems and Martin Wareing are faces I look forward to seeing on Zillow – and who I know will thrive as writers on Mortgages Unzipped.

Mortgages have presented a new learning curve for Zillow and I would personally have been lost without the help of my mortgage mentor, Joe Dahleen. Joe can teach! While Zillow has been learning the mortgage game, mortgage brokers have been learning how to blog. I’ve learned so much from mortgage bloggers these past 6 months that selecting the dream team for Mortgages Unzipped was easy. I guarantee your that you will also learn something from Matthew Kelly, Justin McHood, Mike Mueller, Michael Taylor, Tom Vanderwall.

We will be highlighting great content from Mortgages Unzipped on this blog and throughout Zillow.com- but the best way to stay in the loop is to subscribe to the blog (via feed or e-mail.)

Now – go and get smarter about mortgages!

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Get smarter about Mortgages with Mortgages Unzipped

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