Treehouse Homes

Yahoo has published a blog post with amazing treehouses and it's amazing. http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/amazing-treehouse-homes.html  The other day a friend asked, "What happened to your treehouse?" And I had to say I found out if we built a treehouse on our property and put in electricity and water and a bathroom the bank would consider it to be improved property and it would be hard for us to get a construction loan. That and we never had time to build anything, much less anything nice.

I am, however, a great lover of tree houses, and I love to look at them. These Yahoo's put together are some of the best, I'm convinced, in the world.

Market Watch Reports

Market Watch reports that some 60,000 real estate practitioners, Market Leader customers, got good news. Market Leader has acquired RealEstate.com http://www.marketwatch.com/story/market-leader-acquires-realestatecom-2011-09-21 RealEstate.com has become an increasingly popular domain as more clients turn to the Internet for real estate information. This acquisition will bring in more than 250 brokerage firms and hundreds of domains.

In another unrelated post MarketWtch reports Real Estate Video On Demand Network has begun testing.
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/real-estate-video-on-demand-network-begins-testing-to-go-live-2011-09-19 RealBiz Media is testing in the Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. markets expecting to go live in early October. They intend to  run about a thousand residential listings in each city, charging about $35.00 per month (this will depend on the supply and demand) to run Home Tours in 15 - 20 second videos on the cable platform.

"This technology allows automatic distribution to Franchise Corporations, MLS Associations and Search Engines like You Tube, Social Networks and TV." realbiz360.com Taking visual tours to what may soon become, the next level.

Foreclosures Now Take 20 Months | RISMedia

Remember North Carolina is a non-judicial state Foreclosures Now Take 20 Months RISMedia

While it does take longer to foreclose in NC than it used to, it's still not taking 20 months. Non-judicial foreclosures don't have to go through the court. Rather a Notice of Default can be recorded and a Notice of Sale mailed to the homeowner and an eviction notice posted. The property then proceeds to be sold on the courthouse steps, and the highest bidder becomes the new owner. Usually banks buy back their foreclosures, so they can sell them and recover their investments. This keeps the titles clear and gives others an opportunity to purchase the property. If the bank acquires the property they'll soon list it for sale with a real esate firm. These firms may be said to handle REO or Real Estate Owned properties. Different states have different procedures and different lenders manage things differently, too.

If you want to find out about foreclosures in your county, you can go to the courthouse to the local clerk of court's office and ask where the foreclosure notices are kept. These are public record.

The New Search Happens Everywhere | The Real Estate Book Blog

See what's new with the Real Estate Book. The New Search Happens Everywhere The Real Estate Book Blog

Hey - You Called Me

6 Reasons The Guy Who's Fixing Your Computer Hates You Cracked.com I have become one of those people who comes over and fixes your computer for free, but I really try not to be. That's because when I log into your system and see a Windows update waiting to install and start to install it and you yell - "No, I don't want to update!" I want to pull out a hank of my hair. I should pull out a hank of your hair, or just go home. But, no, I try to explain. Updates are necessary to the operating health of your system and that NOT UPDATING will cause your machine to run slow because the "install updates" program is running continually. Not Updating is NOT AN OPTION. If you don't want to update and you don't want any changes to your system then let it run slow and deal with that. It's your choice. Don't tell me something's wrong with the machine, cause it's not the machine. The machine is fine.

It also really gripes me when I hear that you've told your other friend who is good with computers that I installed the 4 toolbars that are running in your browser. These are the free toolbars you got when you did the Express rather than the Advanced install on your free downloads. I swear, it wasn't me.

All this and more you'll find in the aforementioned article, 6 reasons....

Yes, Hackers got into your system and downloaded the toolbars - or - maybe it was that other friend, the other friend who is good with computers, yeah that's it, has to be.

If you're the friend who is good with computers, you'll love this. If not... not so much.

Real Estate Investing - What's a Good Deal?

Investing in Real Estate - What is a "Good Deal?" Zillow Blog - Real Estate Market Stats, Celebrity Real Estate, and Zillow News

This Blog Post by Internet Giant Zillow takes a look at real estate investing. A chart included in the article discusses Cash on Cash Returns.

Run the numbers, do the math, is it a good deal? You tell me.

Message from Karen

The Humorist Ogden Nash penned, “You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone,” and it comes to mind this morning as I’m trying to think of a way to tell you what you already know.

Steve Crowley, owner of The Real Estate Book and I have come to a mutual decision. It’s time for us to part company. We work together just swell, it’s nothing like that; it’s just this sluggish economy. It’s not that we wouldn’t like to continue our work together; it’s that the time has come to face facts. Things aren’t going to turn around suddenly this winter. Therefore we have to do what we have to do.

Steve will take over the book and I’ll throw myself fully into real estate and we’ll move forward together. I’ll introduce him to the few of you he doesn’t already know. He’ll take over The Real Estate Book accounts and I’ll come around in a week or two with my new business cards. With Steve at the helm it’ll be smooth sailing. And as always, if I may be of service, you just let me know. I’ve enjoyed working with you. I’ll miss bringing your books around, and I’ll miss you.

But let’s dig in and hang on. Just this week Robert Kiyosaki of “Rich Dad Poor Dad” held a live seminar on Facebook and his advice is: Invest your money in real estate – right now – right now! He says, You can’t afford to wait. Millions will be made by savvy investors. Take your money out of the systems that are not paying you and invest in property that will pay you There has NEVER been a better time to buy.

Robert Kiyosaki leads the field and I’m betting things are going to turn around. Hang in there. Make the tough decisions, do what you have to do. We’ll pull through this and pull through it better together than apart.

Shooting the Moon

Night Photography Lesson - Shooting the Moon I stumbled upon this fantastic website when I googled night photography. The other night I drove up Biggerstaff Mountain in the boo dark, dodging deer and unidentified green and yellow eyes on the road-side. I had a carload of revelers with me, coming home from Tracy's birthday party dinner at Tuscany, she, Mary, Angela and I were full of pasta and I had to be careful on the curves.

When we got to the top and parked the car in the middle of the road on Mountain Lookout, I fetched my Sony Cybershot from the back of the Explorer, set up and took a few pictures. Man it was beautiful, the valley was filled with soft moonlight, a few sparse lights twinkled in the valley, Lissenberry Mountain looked purplish and ethereal against the skyline. I shot several pictures and saw clouds scuttling across the sky, I waited, with the valley in the foreground, the mountain in the background, the full moon glowing in the night sky and clouds! It was the shot of a lifetime. Too bad I hadn't set my camera properly.

Next time I'll be prepared.

Organizing, Editing, Sharing Photos

One of the many challenges today's real estate practitioner faces is how to organize, manage and share all of those pictures da-da-dah-dah enter Zoner.com Zoner Photo Studio PRO This presents some serious options for the serious amateur photographer. Not quite up to Photoshop, but need some of the features? For less than $100.00, Zoner may have the fixes and shareware you need.

Geo-tagging support for mapping, also supports GPS map data.