Entries from November 2006 ↓

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Thursday is busy but here are a couple of interesting real estate blog posts to spark the brain.

• Deadbeat Tenants Slide Over One – An interesting persepective on tenant issues from the Landlord Blog.
• What is A Bubble?  – SoCal Real Estate Bubble has a very interesting perspective on What is a Bubble. SoCal is one of the first, and in my opinion, best bubble bloggers. He is very well measured, avoiding the histrionics that some of the other bubbly folks engage in.
• Your photos are staid because you do not obey the peekaboo law and Photos that tell you something from Rain City. Bingo. I always hate when viewing real estate the generic photo. Give me something to love.

Enjoy!

In an interesting confluence of events, the hottest tech and business story (YouTube),  top athletes (Agassi and Steffi Graf), and the biggest story in real estate (the housing bubble) have all come together in one neat package.

A top investor in YouTube, Bill Bullock,  made a bundle with the sale for 1.65 billion to Google last week and decided to buy the 20 million dollar Tiburon home of Andre and Steffi Graf that overlooks San Francisco Bay. The sale was for 3 million dollars less than the couple had paid for the home 5 years ago, giving ammunition that the housing bubble has to be in full force to those who wish to believe such things.

The 13,000-square-foot estate is being sold to Stuart Peterson, the chief of a hedge fund that invested early in the YouTube video-sharing Web site, according to Bill Bullock, whose real estate firm represents the couple. YouTube agreed last month to be acquired by Google for $1.65 billion.
Agassi and Graf, who live most of the year in Las Vegas, had been asking $24.5 million for the property, which features 11 bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, a home theater, two pools, a tennis court and helicopter landing pad.
The cost of upkeep was a factor in the sale, Bullock said. via The Seattle Times

Wednesdays Blog Roundup – today we are going to focus more on the business side of real estate. While I am not a real estate pro, I did stay at a Holiday Inn recently so I think these ideas I have found should be beneficial.

• Ask not for whom the MLS toils . . . Greg at Bloodhound discusses how the Pittsburgh MLS works for the brokers not the agents.
• SEO AUTOPSY: see your site through Google’s eyes  – Mary McKnight has an interesting post on how to get more Google love for your websites.
• How to get referrals and This must be hard – Seth Godin on how to get referrals and how really to get referrals.

Enjoy!

If you were looking to borrow more than 417,000 in 2007 for your home, expect to pay the premium for a jumbo mortgage instead of a conventional mortgage. For the past few years, the amount you could borrow on a conventional mortgage has been rising rapidly.

Now with housing prices essentially unchanged, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have left the loan limit for a conventional mortgage unchanged from 2006 to 2007.

Fannie and Freddie announced plans yesterday to keep conforming loans’ cutoff at $417,000 for 2007, unchanged from 2006. That means home buyers who borrow more than $417,000 next year will need costlier “jumbo” loans.

Generally, jumbo-mortgage interest runs about 0.25 percentage points higher than conforming-loan rates. Borrow $417,001 at today’s jumbo rates and you’d pay $22,500 more interest over 30 years than you would if you could get the money at conforming rates.

“In years past, as the conforming-loan limit increased, borrowers had a cheaper mortgage alternative,” said Greg McBride, senior financial analyst with mortgage tracker Bank-Rate.com. “But next year, that alternative will be harder to grab a hold of.” By law, Fannie and Freddie adjust the conforming-loan limit each November based on how much average U.S. home prices changed in the preceding 12 months.

This year, prices rose just 0.16 percent, so Fannie and Freddie left the limit unchanged for 2007. via the BostonHerald.com

If you are selling homes in Seminole County, Florida, keep an eye out for these two women. They are pulling a scam by claiming to be homebuyers but instead are stealing credit cards from the wallets of the real estate office employees.

And if this scam is being committed in one place and highlighted in the media, there is a good chance it could be happening in your neck of the woods. So find a safe place for those pocketbooks. I know the market is slow and every potential sale should get the royal treatment, but the scam artist know how hungry you are. Don’t let them take advantage of you.

Investigators said Denise Fuller and Winshenia Lamarr and possibly a third person are meeting with real estate employees in Central Florida and then taking credit cards from their wallets.

“Police say the suspects pretended to be potential house buyers at KB Homes in Sanford,” Local 6’s Charnel Wright said. “They distracted the employees. When Realtors showed them a home, a third person went in and stole one credit card from each employee’s purse.”

Local 6 showed video of the women at a Target store in Seminole County purchasing items with stolen credit cards. Authorities were quickly able to identify the woman suspected of stealing the credit cards. via  WKMG.

I would have to give this some special consideration.

Some interesting reads for Tuesday, November 28th, 2006.

• The New York Times and real estate porn – Business 2.0’s Real Estate Blog shows what a $4,385 square foot house looks like. (what a headline!)
• Owners Using Blogs To Market Their Homes – Sellsius has a post on home blogs… it is an interesting idea.
• For Sale By Owner  – The Rain City Guide’s Ardell tackles the tricks to a successful FSBO. Talk about a well rounded agent!
• Blogging? You’ll Benefit from the New New Media – TransparentRE’s Pat Kitano talks about blogging and getting ahead in the world of New Media. Very interesting read.

Enjoy!

We all tend to look for the bigger trends in real estate and typically succeed. However, the macro trends tend to fall flat when looking at a specific location. To hear the pundits (myself included) talk, California is an overpriced wasteland where properties are not moving and prices are too high.

But an interesting article in the Tribune out of St. Luis Obispo talks about some communities that are still very, very strong in sales and demand. So when you hear me pontificating about this trend or that trend, do not let it keep you from going out and doing your homework on your own local market. You may be surprised that you do not fit the national trends and may be pleasantly surprised.

Things have come full circle. Location counts again. That’s why the hot East Bay towns – along with a handful of other places around California, including neighborhoods in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Pasadena and Silicon Valley – is still reasonably hot. There are simply more people who want to live in these areas than there are available houses.

Not every East Bay house inspires a bidding war. Those that buyers collectively deem flawed or overpriced can sit for weeks. And the bidding never matches the truly wild excesses of 2004, when prices could shoot up 50 percent above asking.

But it’s still wild enough to first perplex and then disappoint many would-be buyers in these towns, which include middle-class El Cerrito, family-oriented Albany, woodsy Kensington, university-dominated Berkeley and a few neighborhoods in north Oakland.

Julianna and Penn Phillips, both architectural designers, want to stay in the Berkeley area but are seeking something bigger in a better neighborhood. ”We kept reading about how the real estate market is slowing down,” Julianna said. “Family members back in Pennsylvania were saying people couldn’t sell and were lowering their price.”

The Phillipses bid on two houses in the last six months. Both times, Julianna said, the process was the same: “You stretch your budget to a very uncomfortable place, and then someone comes in with a bid that sails way over your head.” via the Tribune

If have tried to e-mail me something since last night, hold off on it. Our e-mail server is having technical difficulties and rejecting all incoming emails.

If you need me leave a comment on this message as I will be checking them throughout the day.

I used to do this in the past, but things get busy and ideas get lost in the mix. There are a great deal of blogs out there doing an outstanding job of covering real estate. I tend to look for new news and do a horrible job of linking to the bloggers that I enjoy. So instead of a long winded mea culpa, let me get back on the horse and try to do a blogger roundup every couple of days.

Wish me luck, kids, and if you have a post that you are really proud, shoot me an email at tom@therealestatebloggers.com and if I like it I will include it in the roundups.

• Chambers Street Suddenly Too Cool for You – The bonus babies of Wall Street are getting their checks and NYC real estate is gearing up.
• A Thanksgiving Real Estate Rant –  Wells Fargo has pushed this real estate blogger over the edge with their failure to perform.
• New tricks: Just how much noise can a pack of big dogs can make . . . ? – bloodhound is expanding. Fun to watch this group come together with some quality posts.
• Holiday-Neutral Houses ‘Tis the season when some folks… – Glenn Roberts talks about why not decorating a home you are selling for the holidays is the best bet.

Enjoy!