Does a desire for two-person showers, travertine floors and granite countertops push home prices up? Housing economist Tom Lawler, a Vienna, Va., consultant, argues that it does — and says these cravings are partly responsible for ballooning home prices throughout much of this decade. In a subscription-only report, he notes that household spending for improvements for single-family homes increased to $1,900 last year from $1,100 in 1997, and that such spending will likely continue to rise, despite the slowdown in home sales and prices reported earlier this week by the National Association of Realtors.

Although the impact of these spruce ups is hard to gauge statistically — improvements often aren’t noted in public records — he estimates that overall, remodeling is responsible for 1% to 1.5% of home-price appreciation each year. So, while prices overall may continue to decline due to overbuilding, speculation and risky mortgages, remodeling will continue to add real value to many homes. (more…)

search for : ballooning home prices, National Association of Realtors, remodeling

Last year, the corn fed stove replaced pellet stoves as the hot new home heating appliance on the block. This year, with higher fossil fuel costs driving home heating concerns and global warming spreading environmental woes, the biomass burning appliance market is heating up with multi-fuel stoves that let you toss in everything from cherry pits to wheat. “What makes these stoves so appealing across the country is the fact that they are true biomass appliances. Depending on your geographical region, certain renewable fuels are in more abundant supply than others. Corn is readily available in the Midwest. Wood pellets are popular in the northeast.

The Magnum brand includes models that burn corn, wood pellets, wheat, barley, oats, durum, cherry pits and olive pits, as well as more traditional wood, pellet and corn burners, Haefner says. Sales of all their biomass fueled appliances has soared 500 percent over the past five years, driven by conscientious consumers who want to heat their homes with less pollution and reliance upon fossil fuels. With customers on a six-month waiting list, the firm is expanding facilities to crank out 75,000 biomass burners a year by 2007, doubling it’s current output. (more…)

search for : corn fed stove, pellet stoves, heating appliance, fossil fuel, home heating, multi-fuel stove

They represent the future of real estate in this time of uncertainty — 17 bright-eyed and eager students, median age 40, sitting for three hours in a classroom while I click slowly through a 50-slide Power Point presentation with embedded video and audio. These are small investors, a mixed group of young and old, Realtors and nonRealtors, and all ethnicities — a true mix of the modern-day urban market.

They want to know what I can tell them about renovating one-to-four unit properties cost-effectively, whether or not to hire an architect, what to look for in a contractor, what will put their rentals a cut above the others without breaking their budgets. These are not flippers. These folks are in for the long haul, agreeing with some expert who told me this week that this isn’t the time to experiment with real estate but to get serious about it. One of the experts whose video was embedded in the Power Point was Carl Dranoff, a developer who was one of the pioneers of the warehouse to loft conversion boom on the late ’70s to mid-’80s in many of our older cities. (more…)

search for : real estate, architect, contractor, , flippers

With a minimum of 500 to 600 full-time employees, Laurelmor, a Ginn Clubs & Resorts mountain-top project under way in Wilkes and Watauga counties, is expected to add more than $2 billion in property values if it is built out according to a 10-year plan. One selling point is that the property is close to the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Laurelmor will be built in phases, with a master plan calling for about 1,500 homes, 1,000 condominium units or hotel rooms, two 18-hole golf courses, 50 miles of roads, a spa, water park, equestrian center, observatory and other amenities. Ginn plans to hold a sale of lots in October and to open in 2009. Ginn expects to have a sales day in October for a first phase. A spokesperson said that the company hasn’t made completed lot prices for Laurelmor, but that the most inexpensive lot would likely be around $500,000. Developers have told local officials that the minimum home size would be about 3,000 square feet, and some could be twice that big. (more…)

search for : Laurelmor, Ginn Clubs & Resorts, mountain-top, Wilkes, Watauga, property value, Blue Ridge Parkway, 8-hole golf course, spa, water park, equestrian center, observatory, minimum home size

When I first picked up “Confessions of a Real Estate Entrepreneur” by James A. Randel, I wasn’t enthused by its bland, noncreative cover, which makes the book look dull and boring. Wrong. Instead, it is one of the best real estate books of 2006 so far because it tells how a super-successful investor evaluates real estate opportunities. What makes this new book so unusual is the self-deprecating author emphasizes his real estate mistakes as much as the highlights of his successes. The book’s title could have been “Real Estate Mistakes I Made But How I Succeeded Anyway.”

James A. Randel started with an excellent educational background from Columbia University where he obtained his law degree. Then he wisely became a real estate broker so he could participate in real estate commissions as well as practice law. When briefly mentioning his New York City residency during college years, Randel admits he didn’t spot the opportunities to buy run-down buildings near Columbia for upgrade profits by adding value. The book’s theme is “add value” whether you invest in raw land, houses, a fixer-upper factory building with potential for rezoning profits, or a run-down office building. What makes this book so special are the personal stories the author shares, emphasizing how he profited when he (and his investor partners) added value and how they lost money when their planning was faulty. (more…)

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He shuffles around the corner clutching a typed notice in his hand, making his way past the Guilford County Clerk of Court’s administrative suite and down the long hallway where a continuous bulletin board stretches the length of the wall, subdivided into columns headed with numbers for the day of the month, each one containing a headache-inducing array of sale notices.

The special proceedings room at the Guilford County Courthouse is a modest-sized room with plate-glass windows facing Eugene Street. With waist-high cubicles arranged to fit three deputy clerks, it accommodates members of the public with a counter running most of the length of the room. The deputy clerks make easy small talk with the stream of buyers who come in to scour the “upset bid” pail, which holds foreclosure case files for 10 days after sale, and with the substitute trustees, who come in periodically to check on the progress of paperwork. Occasionally respondents, such as a distraught widow unclear about whether her house will be padlocked before the foreclosure sale, come in to ask for an explanation of procedural details. (more…)

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Just in case you haven’t been paying attention, most cities are now in a “buyer’s market” for home sales. That means there are more houses and condos listed for sale than there are qualified home buyers actively in the market. Nationally, home sales volume is down about 10 percent compared to 2005.

The best way to tell if your area is in a buyer’s or seller’s market is to check the average number of days homes are on the market before selling. When this number rises above 60 days, it’s definitely a buyer’s market. That means it’s a great time to be a buyer, but not such a great time to be a home seller. Another method is to look at the number of months’ supply of homes for sale at the current sales pace. Just divide the number of local homes sold during the last 30 days into the number of homes listed for sale. If the result is more than a six-month supply of homes, the oversupply of listed homes shows it’s a buyer’s market. Fall is usually the second-best season to sell a home (spring is the best because that is when the largest number of prospective home buyers are in the market). But 2006 is proving to be unusual. (more…)

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Freddie Mac today released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMSSM) in which the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 6.40 percent with an average 0.5 point for the week ending September 21, 2006, down from last week when it averaged 6.43 percent. Last year at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 5.80 percent.

The 15-year FRM this week averaged 6.06 percent with an average 0.5 point, down from last week when it averaged 6.11 percent. A year ago, the 15-year FRM averaged 5.37 percent.Five-year Treasury-indexed hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) averaged 6.08 percent this week, with an average 0.5 point, down from last week when it averaged 6.10 percent. A year ago, the five-year ARM averaged 5.31 percent.One-year Treasury-indexed ARMs averaged 5.54 percent this week with an average 0.8 point, down from last week when it averaged 5.60 percent. At this time last year, the one-year ARM averaged 4.48 percent. (more…)

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When it comes to eventually moving into that dream home you’ve always wanted, keep in mind that many of the choices we make on a house are really driven by lifestyle desires, rather than lifestyle needs. More bedrooms means more time to clean, more expensive to repaint and carpet/floor in the future. The bigger the house and the larger the lot, the more you’re going to pay for it both in time and financial resources. The main three decision factors are larger lot, more space and more stuff. Each of these come with a price tag.

Depending on the acreage, the lot is going to cost the owner in regards to acquisition, monthly payment, and upkeep. First is the acquisition. Larger lot means larger price, thus larger down payment and monthly payment. In metropolitan areas, the closer in to the epicenter of town, the more the extra space is going to cost you. If you decide to get it cheaper by moving out of town, then you’ll be paying more for gas and be losing the ever elusive minutes of your life. (more…)

search for : dream home, bedrooms, down payment

The once-sizzling housing market may be rapidly cooling, but not all residential property owners are worried — especially if they happen to own apartment buildings. Landlords are enjoying booming times these days as more people are choosing to rent. Apartment vacancy rates are at five-year lows, averaging 5.6 percent nationwide and only 2.9 percent in the New York metropolitan area, according to the latest data from Reis Inc., a research company. Meanwhile, rents are up nearly 4 percent, on average, over last year, the biggest rise in six years, the company said.

Fewer people have been eager to buy homes lately, in light of lofty prices and higher mortgage rates. What is more, industry analysts say, the supply of rental units is tighter, partly as the result of the conversion of rental apartments to condominiums at the height of the housing surge. And demand is intense as the children of the baby boomers, sometimes called the “echo boomers,” move out on their own. “The apartment landlords have a lot of room to raise rents even more,” said Louis W. Taylor, a senior real estate analyst at Deutsche Bank Securities, who predicts the industry will continue to thrive in the next 9 to 12 months. (Rents, averaging $1,143 a month for a two-bedroom nationwide, according to Reis, could jump 5 to 9 percent next year, Mr. Taylor said.)
(more…)

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Many headlines and cable news programs are touting a pending real estate bubble. Sure this helps increase their ratings, but there are too many factors in favor of real estate to worry about the naysayers. All you have to do is look back to the early `90s. In the early part of the decade, prospects for real estate investments were looking about as good as they are today. After Japanese investors paid extravagant prices for Hawaiian hotels and Los Angeles office properties sent the real estate market climbing, the `80s real estate boom was topped off when a Japanese consortium purchased the iconic Pebble Beach golf course for $500 million.

The examples above are just a few of the national real estate players. On the local level, I know there are thousands of individual investors and real estate speculators that have been piling up cash while waiting for housing prices to begin to fall. Once they start falling, these investors are going to have to outbid each other to get their hands on these depressed properties. One final point is that houses have utility value. That’s economic parlance for a tangible use. After all, you can live in a house. Other examples of items with utility value are a hammer (because it can hammer nails) and a washing machine (because it washes clothes). These items have value as tools to make your life easier. (more…)

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Creating an outdoor oasis is touted as the second most popular home remodel behind a kitchen makeover. “We’re bringing the inside out because island barbecues come with refrigerators, storage drawers, side burners. Our islands are [designed] so you can put CD stereos in them, televisions, mood lighting,” says Frank Camarena, Cal Spas. But with summer winding down and the seasons turning colder, is it too late to put this remodel in the works? Not if you plan to make your outdoor oasis useable 365 days a year by creating a sunroom.

Today, many homeowners are turning sunrooms into home offices, second bedrooms, and extra sitting rooms. Inside sunrooms homeowners are building pools, spas and other relaxing amenities. A sunroom is different from a standard room addition “because of the panoramic view that you can achieve with a sunroom, you get the real feeling of having an outdoor feeling but being protected from the [weather] elements, the temperature, the bugs,” explains Chavez. Whether you’re considering an outdoor oasis or a sunroom, the most important things to consider are the size of space you want to dedicate to the addition, the glass technology that you’ll use (if you’re building a sunroom), and, as with any remodel, do your homework to find a reputable, trustworthy contractor to do the work. (more…)

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Remember the days when a home would go up for sale and within hours the homeowner would be popping open a bottle of champagne, dancing on the front lawn, and celebrating the substantially-over-the-asking-price offer they received? Then, they are gone so quick you only learn of their exit when you notice a new family working in the yard. Then, they put the very same home on market a year later, get a substantially-over-the-asking-price offer, and they disappear like smoke in a high wind. Remember those days?

It is important to note that the final listing price is always your call. But as real estate agents, it is our duty to advise you on a realistic price range based on the most current market data. However, an agent who comes in with a market value that is so much higher than anything else you have seen could push those emotional buttons and makes you forget this is a business decision and should be treated as such! Be aware because this is a tactic. It’s called “buying the listing” and it can be a very frustrating experience. You see, that agent has no intention of trying to get that price for your home. He just wants to get your signature on a contract and then beat you down—or let the market do it for him—and get a price reduction. Many times, you will have to reduce your price even lower than you would have in the beginning to just to catch up with competition. (more…)

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Everything looks better from above. Especially when you’re looking at autumn’s burnt ambers, scorching reds and brilliant oranges aboard a lollipop-colored hot air balloon, floating a mile over the mountains. Leaf peeping aboard a hot air balloon can be an experience of a lifetime in Western North Carolina, one full of magical views, calm winds and quiet admiration for the wondrous change of seasons.

“It’s just spectacular,” said Asheville Hot Air Balloons co-owner Rick Bowers, who helps run the business with Candler native Danny Smith. “It’s like a painter’s palette. When we have a good fall, it’s very vibrant, and you can see for miles.” Through the 25-year-old balloon company – the only one in Asheville – the owners have seen each autumn from above, watching the leaves change as the temperatures drop. “Every day is different,” Bowers said. “It’s so clear, you can see forever.” (more…)

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Reserve studies are one of the most powerful planning tools in an HOA board’s arsenal. It provides a 30 year schedule for major repairs and replacements and a funding plan so the board can gather the gold it needs to get projects done as they come due. It’s a wonderful thing.

No one has control over these elements and those triggered by the Three Ws: Weather, War and Weality (a bit of alliterative license with “reality”). Life in various forms simply happens and can have a dramatic impact on financial forecasts like reserve studies. So, all reserve studies need to be reviewed and revised each and every year to remain accurate. Not all reserve study update factors carry the same financial weight and impact. The skewing of inflation rate and investment yields alone can swing a medium sized reserve fund hundreds of thousands of dollars over a thirty year period. For the most current inflation rate, go to www.inflationdata.com. (more…)

search for : HOA, inflation rate, investment yields

Gearing up for what could be a tough year-end season, the vacation home travel industry didn’t wait for summer to end when it released tips to help property owners tune up marketing efforts to keep properties full this fall and winter. Total domestic travel expenditures by U.S. tourists is expected to rise at a rate of only 4.1 percent this year, compared to nearly twice that much, 7.5 percent last year, according to the Travel Industry Association of America.. TIA reported expenditures for domestic tourism by U.S. travelers dropped by 1.1 percent in 2002, the year after the day of infamy when terrorists turned commercial jetliners into missiles used in three U.S. cities.

While the vacation rental sector says it’s weathering the slowed growth better than the overall industry, vacation home rentals are not immune to economic conditions. The industry also faces increased competition as record numbers of Americans purchased second homes in recent years. Many purchased them as investment properties, including vacation rental. “For many second home owners, vacation rental income is crucial for paying the mortgage. But with interest rates and other costs rising, it is difficult to boost rental prices since there are so many properties now on the market. It’s brutal out there,” said Yardley, PA-based Alfred Glossbrenner, who along with his wife, Emily, self-published “How To Make Your Vacation Property Work For You”, a guide book and CD-ROM for vacation home landlords. (more…)

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A lot of baby boomers are now in their 50s and in mid-life many are enjoying new-found and improved finances: The generation before is dying off, in many instances leaving behind substantial wealth, assets and ongoing income. But such munificence does not touch all households. It presumes that in an earlier time all could acquire a home with some ease, that loans were equally available on the basis of credit alone, and that we could each work for the education we wanted and in the profession we preferred and thus have equal access to income.

It wasn’t long ago that segregation was the law in many states and “gentlemen’s agreements” elsewhere prevented integrated housing. Quotas were used to keep African-Americans, Jews, Catholics, Asians and women out of colleges, banks, stock brokerages and various businesses — thus limiting incomes and opportunities. Deeds were written with specific prohibitions against possession by or resale to blacks, Jews, and Assyrians. Neighborhoods were “redlined” to reduce or eliminate mortgage options (and thus ownership opportunities) for minorities. Country clubs were notoriously restricted regardless of financial success. It wasn’t until 1960 that we had our first Catholic president, John Kennedy. (more…)

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I am selling my home myself. Am I required to disclose to the buyer that our new neighbors are considering adding an addition to their home and are relocating their driveway closer to our property line? The neighbors recently moved in and we only have spoken with them once about their plans. They have not begun any building, nor should there be any boundary dispute because they recently had a survey completed on the property.

The first is the seller’s legal obligation to disclose any known defects. Requirements vary from state to state, but in general, laws no longer uphold the “buyer beware” standard that prevailed a generation ago. Rather, the burden is on sellers to convey a property that isn’t necessarily perfect, but which has, as the old Holiday Inn commercial put it, “no surprises.”

In Ohio, the Real Estate and Licensing Division of the state’s Department of Commerce provides a four-page disclosure form on its Web site. It’s pretty straightforward and spells out the condition of all the systems that are likely to concern a buyer, from the roof to the lawn sprinklers, as well as the presence of mold and hazardous materials like asbestos and radon. It also details whether the property is in a flood plain or has historic status. By filling out the form, you’re not warranting the condition of your home; you are simply letting the buyer know what’s wrong with it and what you have repaired.

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For cash-strapped homeowners, it was a pitch they couldn’t refuse: Refinance your mortgage at a bargain rate and cut your payments in half. New home buyers, stretching to afford something in a super-heated market, didn’t even need to produce documentation, much less a downpayment. Those who took the bait are in for a nasty surprise. While many Americans have started to worry about falling home prices, borrowers who jumped into so-called option ARM loans have another, more urgent problem: payments that are about to skyrocket.

The option adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) might be the riskiest and most complicated home loan product ever created. With its temptingly low minimum payments, the option ARM brought a whole new group of buyers into the housing market, extending the boom longer than it could have otherwise lasted, especially in the hottest markets. Suddenly, almost anyone could afford a home — or so they thought. The option ARM’s low payments are only temporary. And the less a borrower chooses to pay now, the more is tacked onto the balance. The bill is coming due. Many of the option ARMs taken out in 2004 and 2005 are resetting at much higher payment schedules — often to the astonishment of people who thought the low installments were fixed for at least five years. And because home prices have leveled off, borrowers can’t count on rising equity to bail them out. (more…)

search for : Refinance your mortgage, option ARM loans, option adjustable rate mortgage, ARM

The high price of copper is hitting home — literally. The metal’s skyrocketing scrap value is inspiring criminals to hit houses, making off with copper coils in air-conditioning units, copper wires, even the copper pipes used for plumbing, leaving some perplexed residents without running water. In the past several months, police departments across the country have reported a surge in the number of copper-related thefts at homes, businesses and elsewhere.

Driven by increased world demand for commodities, prices of steel, copper, aluminum and other metals are at historic highs. The price of copper has more than doubled in the past year, closing yesterday at $3.65 a pound on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. The price of copper scrap — which is processed and sold to metal-making firms — has also doubled, with high-grade scrap now fetching around $3 or more per pound at scrapyards, and lower-grade scrap less, depending on quality, according to scrap-metal dealers. Copper isn’t the only metal sought by thieves. Products made from aluminum and steel are also being targeted — everything from beer kegs to aluminum luggage carts. But thefts of copper — which commands a higher price — are especially onerous for homeowners and builders, as the metal is used throughout modern homes, including the inner coil of central air-conditioning units, electrical systems, gutters and water pipes. (more…)

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New evidence of a housing market slowdown emerged Tuesday – growth in the price of a single family home was just 1.17 percent in the second quarter, a decline of more than one percentage point from the prior quarter when prices grew 2.20 percent. The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), which released the report, said it was the slowest quarterly increase since the fourth quarter of 1999 and was the sharpest quarter-to-quarter pullback since OFHEO began the index in 1975.

OFHEO’s numbers are generally regarded as the most accurate gauge of housing prices. Instead of measuring the average sale prices of homes, it compares repeat sale prices of the same single family homes. Even so, according to Jonathan Miller of Miller Samuel, an appraiser in New York, the slowdown may be even more pronounced than the numbers are showing. “The index may not reflect what’s really happening out there,” he said. Miller thinks that many sellers are holding out for unrealistically high asking prices, and the buyers actually purchasing homes are only the ones willing to pay those higher prices. “That’s why there’s been such a drop-off in volume,” says Miller. In a normal market those sellers would more readily accept lower bids but, conditioned to oversized price increases, they are reluctant to abandon their asking prices. (more…)

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The Great Smoky Mountains National Park’s role as a benefactor for local communities on its periphery is starkly revealed in a new study commissioned by the National Park Service. Its economic impact on several counties in Tennessee and North Carolina amounts to several hundred million dollars and provides work for upwards of 14,000 people, the study says.

By contrast, the park draws more than twice as many people as the second-ranked national park and generates half again as much in revenue and jobs in the local economies. Results of the study were released Tuesday by Bob Miller, management assistant at the Smokies park. James Gramann, a social scientist at Texas A&M University, who also is affiliated with the park service, conducted the study. Miller’s statement, says Fran Mainella, director of the park service, asked in 2004 for an annual study on parks’ economic impact on surrounding communities beginning with 2005. It is those results that were made public Tuesday. They provide a state-by-state breakdown of how the 388 parks’ visitor spending be (more…)

search for : Great Smoky Mountains National Park, National Park Service, Tennessee, North Carolina

In a slow real estate market, sellers, potential buyers and real estate agents begin to think about creative financing. Last week, we explored installment sales. Another approach is known as a “wrap-around” (wrap) mortgage. Here is how it works. You want to sell your house for $500,000 and have an existing mortgage loan in the amount of $200,000, with an interest rate of 5 percent. You have found a buyer, who has sufficient income but may have difficulty obtaining a mortgage loan.

The Seller must have an assumable mortgage on the property. While these are not common in today’s economy, there are still many Veteran’s Administration or FHA assumable loans on the books. And some adjustable rate mortgages are also assumable. Otherwise, if and when the seller’s lender learns that the property has been sold to a third party, that lender may decide to foreclose on the property, using the so-called “due on sales” clause. There are, of course, people who will take a chance that the lender will either not learn of the sale, or will allow the assumption to go forward. But sellers must fully disclose the risks to their prospective purchasers. (more…)

search for : real estate market, creative financing, installment sales, mortgage loan

Cars can’t help but affect architecture, as they constrain so much of what we design and build. We devote a big chunk of our homes to them, and build shopping centers in which a quarter of the space is for people, and the rest is for parked cars. Add up all this area given over to cars, whether moving or standing still, and you’ll find that around 40 percent of our cities belong to our four-wheeled friends.

For more than 100 years after U.S. railroad service began in 1831, steam locomotives ruled the American rails. What’s more, by the 1920s, only three companies were building all of the nation’s locomotives. Sound familiar? The largest of these was the mighty Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia, whose vast Eddystone Works once ranked among the world’s largest industrial complexes. Baldwin was, in many ways, the General Motors of its field. During the 1930s, a seemingly puny threat to this dynasty appeared. It was the diesel-electric locomotive, an innovative product built by a complete outsider to the world of steam. The sleek, clean-running diesel-electrics cost a lot more than steam locomotives, but they were also about three times as efficient. (more…)

search for : steam locomotives, Baldwin Locomotive Works, diesel-electrics

Whether there is global warming is debatable, but the excessive heat wave of 2006 and the thousands of families left without power for as many as eight days left many Americans wondering if the current structures for generating electricity — coal, natural gas and nuclear power — are enough to meet the demands of the growing number of homes and businesses in need of power.

The record growth in wind power is driven by demand for the popular energy source and concerns over fuel price volatility and supply. It was also made possible by a timely renewal of the production tax credit (PTC), a federal incentive extended in the Energy Policy Act signed a year ago by President Bush. Previously, the credit had been allowed to expire three times in seven years, and this uncertainty discouraged investment in wind turbine manufacturing in the country. AWEA is calling for a long-term extension of the PTC before its scheduled expiration at the end of 2007 to avoid further on-again-off-again cycles and encourage long-term investment. (more…)

search for : global warming, generating electricity, nuclear power, wind power, production tax credit

Many sellers have come to realize they’re better off with the services of agents armed with the best possible marketing schemes they can find, either online or off. Sellers also benefit from neighborhood expertise agents bring when pricing their homes. Buyers use the local expertise to find the right home, and they depend on an expert’s skills at the negotiation table.

When the Internet came into households across the land, it revolutionized the way people bought plane tickets, stealing business from bookers. It gave investors the power to trade stocks without stock brokers. As more and more real estate information came online, professionals in the field feared they’d share the same fate. ut after a while, recognizing the complexities of the home-purchase process, the profession took comfort in knowing that consumers wouldn’t be able to take real estate as lightly as purchasing an airline ticket or booking a hotel room, said Marnie Blanco, a technology-services executive with Re/Max International. “A home purchase can be an emotional purchase for you,” she said. Selling a home on your own can also be emotional and time consuming. What the Internet does is educate consumers about what’s out there, preparing them for the real estate road ahead of them. he National Association of Realtors, the industry’s trade group, estimates 77% of home buyers used the Internet to search for a home in 2005. A decade ago, only 2% did so. (more…)

search for : real estate, National Association of Realtors