You don’t need to be in the market to buy or sell a home to be affected by the cooling housing market. Economists, investors and the Federal Reserve are watching home building and home sales carefully because the sector has reached so far throughout the economy in recent years, lifting all manner of consumer spending and economic activity.

Even if prices don’t fall, even if there is no housing bubble about to pop, the cooling real estate market will be felt by many of those who may not be thinking about real estate prices. “It’s going to be very similar to the stock bubble, but even more so. Many who didn’t own stock lost their job when the market plummeted,” said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and one of those who believes housing prices have resulted in an asset bubble ripe for a correction. (more…)

search for : housing market, Federal Reserve, home building, home sales, housing bubble

High gas prices, traffic tie-ups, expensive housing - who needs it? Most Americans, if they want a good paying job. But an increasing number of people are opting out by telecommuting, giving them access to companies in high-paycheck areas while at the same time being able to live in areas with more reasonably priced real estate.

Rural communities are especially interested in promoting telecommuting. These areas have hemorrhaged population in the past few decades as agricultural jobs dried up and the best and the brightest of the young pursued opportunities elsewhere. Some of those migrants eventually return when they get older and begin to raise families. But often they can’t find suitable work. (more…)

search for : High gas prices, expensive housing, real estate, telecommuting

The worst mistake a seller can make in a softening market is to overprice a home. Even putting a high price on your home to “test the market” for a few weeks (with the notion that you can always lower it later) is a bad idea. Your goal should be to seal a deal during “the first two or three weeks your house is new to the market,” says Lyle Martin, co-founder of Assist-2-Sell, a discount realty firm. That’s when your home generates interest from serious buyers who have their radar up for fresh properties.

Hire an agent

You may hate the idea of parting with 6 percent of your home’s value, especially when you’re facing the prospect of getting less than you dreamed of. And with the Internet making do-it-yourself sales easier than ever, you may be tempted to dispense with an agent.

But in a tougher environment, marketing is everything, and an experienced agent–that is, one who didn’t recently jump into the real estate gold rush - can be invaluable in helping you price your home correctly and in getting it noticed by prospective buyers. An agent can also steer you through the tortuous sales process and keep a deal on track when the inevitable glitches crop up. (more…)

search for : seller, Assist-2-Sell, Hire an agent

Who could blame people for losing hope that they’ll ever be able to afford a Bay Area home when ever-creeping interest rates are compounding the pain of sky-high home prices? Don’t sell those mad scientists of the mortgage industry so short, however. In an effort to squeeze monthly payments into stretched-tight budgets, more lenders are peddling mortgages with the security of fixed rates, the flexibility of interest-only payments and a chance to spread out payments 10 to 20 years longer than usual.

The need for such loans is driven by the fact that local home prices continue to rise at a double-digit pace that has far outpaced the rise in average incomes. For example, the median-price home in Santa Clara County cost $735,000 in March, up 11 percent from the previous year. What these loans have in common is they can shrink monthly payments on pricey homes, at least at first. They also are designed to satisfy the growing appetite for fixed-rate loans at a time when interest rates have climbed to their highest level in years and borrowers get an unusually slim benefit from choosing a short-term adjustable-rate loan. (more…)

search for : interest rates, monthly payments, interest-only payments

The dot-com boom has reached the real estate world. Finally. Just as the Web changed how consumers listened to music, dated, shared photos and (at least temporarily) ordered groceries, a crowd of new companies, including RealEstateABC.com and Zillow.com, hopes to change the way people purchase, research, gossip about and value real estate.

Zillow says its site is still in beta form, and the company expects most people eventually to turn to a real estate agent. Still, Zillow’s instant popularity illustrates that home shoppers want more comprehensive information faster and cheaper. RealEstateABC.com offers a similar way to view real estate property online. In certain circles, Zillow is even used as a verb, as in “Have you Zillowed your house yet?” “The zestimate is not the end all, be all answer to the question of how much your home is worth,” said Zillow Chief Financial Officer Spencer Rascoff. “But it’s a first step. It makes for a more educated buyer or seller, but more often than not, they’ll seek the advice of an agent.” (more…)

search for : dot-com boom, RealEstateABC.com, Zillow.com, real estate, Zillow

Stretching 469.1 miles from the Shenandoah mountains of Virginia to the Smokies of North Carolina, the Blue Ridge Parkway provided jobs not only for skilled engineers but for hungry men with haunted eyes, calloused hands and families to feed. For many young men, a Civilian Conservation Corps job in the high country was a prelude to the rigors and regimen of World War II.

The Parkway is America’s most popular national park. It draws more visitors than the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite, combined. Yet its budget is inadequate to cover even basic needs. Maintenance is lagging, rest rooms are not being cleaned and grass is not mowed. The problem is money. The National Park Service does not have the budget necessary to protect and repair the parks its has, much less to expand. (more…)