Home Buying and Home Selling News Archive of November 2007

US House Prices Decline for First Time Since 1994 (Update1)
Bloomberg - USA
Fewer mortgages and falling prices have made it harder to refinance or sell. A report from S&P/Case-Shiller on Nov. 27 showed third- quarter home prices ...

Decorations can ruin chances to sell
GoErie.com - Erie,PA,USA
The general rule for selling your house during the holidays has been: Don't decorate too much because it could be a turnoff to buyers who don't share your ...

Selling Your Home In A Down Market
Forbes - NY,USA
"However, agents offer valuable advice and insight as well as marketing savvy that will serve you well in selling your home." Charney adds that prospective ...

How do you determine how much a home is worth?
RisMedia.com (press release) - Norwalk,CT,USA
The short answer: a home is ultimately worth what is paid for it. Everything else is really an estimate of value. Take, for example, a hot seller's market ...

Citigroup to Sell $7.5 Billion Stake to Abu Dhabi Fund
New York Times - United States
A spokesman for Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said in an e-mail message that the ...

These days, some home sellers will try just about anything
Arizona Republic - Phoenix,AZ,USA
"Any edge that we can have to sell the house is great. "We're not gonna be living in Phoenix anyway, so what do I need those tickets for? ...

Buyers outnumber sellers in religious real-estate market
Arizona Republic - Phoenix,AZ,USA
Marketing churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious properties is so tricky and sensitive that few real-estate agents handle these types of ...

housing market still solid in noblesville
Indianapolis Star - United States
"i didn't have a lot of confidence in selling the house," said fogle, who was asking for $115900. he thought he'd be competing with new-home construction ...

doing it yourself not always the least expensive method
CNNMoney.com - USA
what's a home buyer to do? hire a top-notch home inspector and ask your real estate agent to pull all the permits from the city and county on a piece of ...

To buy or rent? Market favorable for both
Bradenton Herald - FL, United States
"We specialize in $300000 to $600000 homes and the property taxes on a $300000 house are not unrealistic to what you find in the rest of the country, ...

Check those commission lines on your realty contract
MarketWatch - USA
I just assumed late pays because, otherwise, why would you sell your house to pay off credit-card debt and improve your credit rating? ...

Home sales in the Houston area stumble again
Houston Chronicle - United States
It's also taking longer to sell a house — an average of 81 days last month, up from 75 days in October 2006. But real estate agents noted that the slowdown ...

Midwest homes sales down 11% in 3Q
Bizjournals.com - Charlotte,NC,USA
The Youngstown area posted the lowest median home selling price nationwide at $81600, while the Akron area saw the second-largest sales price gain in the ...

As Owners Feel Mortgage Pain, So Do Renters
New York Times - United States
Foreclosing lenders typically evict tenants in order to sell the property, said Vicki Vidal, senior director of loan administration and government affairs ...

quick sell, spend on what buyers want
Atlanta Journal Constitution - GA, USA
Here are three ways to help you make a good first impression: Think about what the style of your front door says about your house, said Warner McConaughey, ...

Should you rent or buy?
Naples Daily News - Naples,FL,USA
But if you're looking at a home solely as an investment, or if you view home buying as rite of passage that doesn't really interest you, then renting can ...

Commercial real estate the flip side of residential - for now
Dallas Morning News - Dallas,TX,USA
A report released Wednesday by the MIT Center for Real Estate suggests that the commercial property market may already be in transition. ...

Home sales mired in jumbo loan slowdown
Orange County Register - Costa Mesa,CA,USA
The median selling price of an Orange County home was $573750 last month, DataQuick said. That's down 8.2 percent from a year ago, effectively erasing 2 ½ ...

Some homebuilders could end up bankrupt
BusinessWeek - USA
By ALAN ZIBEL Homebuilders such as Centex Corp. and Pulte Homes Inc. aim to survive an industrywide unraveling by selling houses at bargain prices, ...

Some Real Estate Agents Suffering in Mortgage Meltdown
KPBS - San Diego,CA,USA
Namovi: Yeah, anything I could get I could sell. If someone said I'll take your car, I say take it. I'll take your watch, take it. ...

Giving to Charity, Through Real Estate
New York Times - United States
From town houses to warehouses, just about any type of real estate asset can be donated to a qualified charitable organization, and estate planners say the ...

College town real estate remains robust
BloggingStocks - USA
From a New York Times piece discussing this trend: "We're like what middle-class America used to be," said Barbara Alexander, a real estate agent in ...

Home sellers turning to higher power to sell home
WATE.com - Knoxville,TN,USA
His statues have been selling quickly off the shelves at The Paraclete. "The realtors are coming buying it for their sellers. It's quite interesting having ...

Home sales plunge again
Baltimore Sun - United States
Housing inventory has remained bloated - with more than 20000 active listings in the region last month - as the average time to sell a house has gotten ...

Is buying home today a good investment?
Boston Globe - United States
Now there are millions of homeowners around the country who can't sell their home for enough to pay off the loans secured against the property. ...

Sprucing Up Your Home to Get It Ready to Sell
American Chronicle - Beverly Hills,CA,USA
Don't underestimate the importance of curb appeal when selling a home. Most Buyers will drive by and check out a list of homes. You want your home to make ...

Home sales hit a year-to-year decline for a second month
Seattle Post Intelligencer - USA
The fact that condominiums are making up an increasing percentage of sales is partly responsible for the declines because condos typically sell for less ...

Buying a Home in a Buyer's Market
Imperial Valley News - Holtville,CA,USA
From researching homes to sales price negotiation, nine out of 10 buyers use a real estate agent to make the home buying process easier and less stressful. ...

Buying when most aren't
Orange County Register - Costa Mesa,CA,USA
But the seller kept dropping the price, so the Whittier couple ended up buying the well-landscaped hillside home on a secluded lot. ...

Selling a house? What to do now
HeraldNet - Everett,WA,USA
Pat Deptuch, a top-selling agent for Re/Max Metro Properties, is using every marketing technique she can, including posting home listings on Web sites such ...

Employer-assisted plan helps family get new home
Newsday - Long Island,NY,USA
With guidance on home-buying and construction from the partnership's Lynn Law and Carol Woods, she shopped and obtained a mortgage from Bethpage Federal ...

Cuomo: Appraisers Inflated Home Values
The Associated Press -
"It runs through the entire mortgage spectrum," he said. "Everyone is relying on the appraisal ... The appraisal is really the linchpin of the home buying ...

Tips on selling your home when it's a buyer's market
The Courier News - Elgin,IL,USA
If you're trying to sell a home in the current overstocked real-estate market, you already know that the days of white-hot bidding wars and quick-flipped ...

Investors Find Silver Lining in Real Estate Market
ABC News - USA
"When we get this wave of foreclosures due to the collapse of the subprime, more consumers start looking at foreclosed real estate auction markets as an ...

Real estate prices higher in some places
Pittsburgh Post Gazette - Pittsburgh,PA,USA
Meanwhile, Butler County appears to be the home of the next real estate gold rush, but there too the market is localized. "Butler has gone up, ...

Home sales slow again in October
Rockford Register Star - Rockford,IL,USA
But both declined from one year ago; Average new-home selling price was $205783 in October 2006, and existing homes sold for an average of $128177.

Finding a home – Now is the time
Dos Mundos - Kansas City,MO,USA
On a weekly basis, Booker fields between 300 and 500 phone calls in Spanish from people requesting information about the home buying process. ...

Is it a good time to buy my first house?
The Southern - Carbondale,IL,USA
How can I know that I am ready to buy a house? Answer: It is true that housing prices are dropping in some markets, but just because an item is on sale ...