I’d like to highlight a great new tool introduced to us by one of my fellow Money Writers called PopTop Ranks! The folks behind My Dollar Plan, Madison and Scott, have put together this great web tool that allows you to see dynamic rankings for blogs and web sites based on their subscriber numbers. […]
How much will your home makeover cost and is it worth it?
With the debate between renting vs owning a home continually raging on, I’d like to chime in with a few advantages to owning a home. Here are some things I particularly like about home ownership:
You have the freedom to do whatever you […]
Winners of The Million Visitors Giveaway
Earlier, I was thinking of giving away $5,000 to the actual millionth visitor on my site, but since I had no way to accurately track down the specific individual, the thought fizzled .
At any rate, I have tried to approximate the event by holding last week’s giveaway where I […]
Many home buyers look at dozens of houses in their search for the perfect home. How can you make yours stand out from the rest, make it appealing and memorable?
One of the marketing methods you can use to sell people on the value & benefits of your home is to create a custom local area […]
Preparing your home for sale is kind of like getting ready for a date. You spend a lot of time getting ready but when those first suitors walk through the door you’re really glad you put in the time.
Preparing the HouseOur neighbors spent several weekends organizing, repairing, and cleaning to get their house ready to […]
If you were a home buyer and the property owner told you all about how wonderful the house was and all the reasons it was a great place to live, would you believe them?
Homeowners Are BiasedAfter all, they’re just trying to sell their home and might say anything to close the deal. Not that most people […]
A home for sale by owner can save you thousands of dollars in real estate commissions but it also gives you the job of unofficial realtor and requires you to learn many different selling skills if you want your house to sell for what it’s worth.
Our neighbors recently put their home up for sale by […]
There’s a lot you can do to get your home into shape so that it can command a niftier price tag once you decide to put it in the market. In the past, I was quite stingy about maintaining my house, not really appreciating my role as a homeowner. I used to think […]
Selling a home in the current market conditions can be a daunting task. Since it is a buyer’s market, you need to make sure that your home is priced right and do whatever you can in order to make prospective buyers attracted to your house over the others they are looking at.
It may not seem […]
Cut your yard costs with these creative yard ideas, visuals included.
There are very few things I enjoy more than my garden, but one thing that I do not enjoy too much is the need to spend quite a bit of money, time or effort in maintaining it to keep it in tip-top shape, […]
Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
Investing in global real estate just got a little easier.
Early last month, State Street Global Advisors launched yet another global real estate ETF. The SPDR DJ Wilshire Global Real Estate ETF (RWO) is the third REIT exchange-traded fund introduced by SSgA (the other two are DJ Wilshire REIT ETF […]
Last weekend, we got a chance to catch up with some family friends (Mr. and Mrs. B.) during a nice sit down dinner with our family. We got to swapping stories on real estate and business for a little bit, and it was as invigorating as we always expect it to be. The […]
Original post on The Sun’s Financial Diary
and home buyers could save hundreds or thousands of dollars on commissions as online real estate brokers can compete with their local counterparts more effectively.
The Justice Department yesterday announced that it has reached a tentative settlement with the National Association of Realtors on an antitrust lawsuit that accused NAR […]
One of my older posts regarding the Manulife One Mortgage is still generating a lot of discussion. Basically it’s a battle between the convenience of having all your banking and debt under one account vs. the extra premium that you pay for the privilege.
To quickly summarize the Manulife One mortgage, it’s a giant HELOC […]
Want to be a landlord? Here are some points to consider.
While many people may understand one side of the rental property business because they have been tenants, there is another perspective that may be of interest to those who have a little extra cash that they’d like to use to turn into a profit. […]
I’ve been reading a lot about anguished homeowners recently, who’ve been whipsawed by the subprime crisis and are now mulling their future. In some spots in California, things haven’t been too pretty with the real estate market, thus leading to a rise in foreclosures. And just as easy credit flowed easily not too […]
Before you can consider purchasing your dream home, or any house for that matter, you’ll need to take the all-important step of learning to save for the requisite down payment, unless of course you are just rolling in spare cash. You’ll need to consider this step as your highest priority, or you may find yourself […]
Home buying: when should we step into the market? Too many are still wary.
Shouldn’t we be thinking about buying when everything is tanking? Unfortunately, the uncertain economic climate isn’t encouraging too many people to play contrarian right now. Many people aren’t quite ready to step up and buy just yet because […]
The real estate bubble was several years in the making and has been deflating for a year or two now. It’s hard to say exactly when it popped because the real estate market is so regional but it’s pretty evident that billions of dollars of bubble money have evaporated from bank balance sheets and home owner’s […]
The San Francisco Gate writes that more and more divorced couples are forced to live together while trying to sell their home. People can’t sell their homes, leading to a real-life version of the Jennifer Anison/Vince Vaughn movie, The Break-Up.
It’s not just that there are too many sellers and few buyers, it’s that people have bought more home than they could afford. As housing values dropped, they have found that they owe the bank more than the home is worth. In order to leave they are going to have to dip into their savings to pay the […]
I don’t usually pay much attention to the junk mail that I regularly get, but I received an email from Yahoo! Real Estate that had the subject: Use Home Equity to Finance Your Next Big Dream. With a subject like that, I just had to take a look. Clearly, we are all aware of the […]
You finally found the perfect house and you’re close to realizing the dream of owning your own home…so close that you can taste it. It’s a great time in your life but are you really financially ready to achieve these goals?
Before mortgage lenders can grant you a loan, they of course would like to make […]
Melanie and Robert McLister, mortgage planners and editors of Canadian Mortgage Trends have taken the time to write about obtaining financing for real estate investors. This is a must read for Canadians considering getting into the rental market.
Aspiring real estate investors seem to ask one question more than any other: “How […]
I came across an interesting article from ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) that discusses the current housing crisis and breaks down what type of person or family is affected the most. Their focus is more on the affordability of housing and rent and not so much on the declining real estate prices here […]
“I’ve seen the enemy and the enemy is us.”
I’ve been following the subprime mortgage debacle for a while now, giving it a lot of coverage. This bust has left us with some tragic results, as homeowners far and wide are left holding the bag and in ruins, after losing their homes and whatever else they’ve […]
