- Best 'green' materials for your home
- From the floor to the roof and the material in between, MSN tells you how to make your home green:
When building or remodeling, you're always making trade-offs, balancing one environmental benefit against another -- and against your budget. Ann Edminster, a Pacifica, Calif., green building consultant and architect, suggests concentrating on greening your biggest purchases, the ones that consume the most material. These are where you'll have the greatest effect -- for good or bad -- on the environment.
- 2007-05-03
- America's Most Overpriced Real Estate Markets
- Forbes.com lists the ten most overpriced and the 10 least overpriced places to live:
No matter the locale, its denizens almost always gripe about the stiff cost of living, housing and doing business. But in some places the financial pain is clearly more acute than others.
Pictures of the 10 most overpriced real estate markets
Pictures of the 10 least overpriced real estate markets
- 2007-05-05
- Home-price forecast: First ever decline
- From CNNMoney.com, home prices are expected to be down for the year:
NAR projects a 1 percent decline in the median price of an existing single-family home, to $219,800. The group, in a forecast made a month ago, had previously been expecting a 0.7 percent decline. Prior to that, it had expected a gain of 1.2 percent.
- 2007-05-08
- The ugly face of foreclosure
- From CNNMoney, foreclosures are bad news for more than just the owners:
Foreclosures are devastating communities across the United States, and the impact may only worsen as more subprime adjustable mortgages reset during the next few months.
- 2007-05-08
- 10 things to do before listing your home
- From Blunt Money, ideas to get more for your home:
Every time I’ve gone house hunting, either for myself or for someone else, I’ve been struck by just how many people neglect several basic things that could help them get top dollar with only a week or two’s worth of effort.
- 2007-05-08
- Want a green house? Prepare to be confused
- From MSNBC, green is what's going to sell, but how do you know:
By 2010, half of new homes built are expected to be classified as “green” as more builders try to appeal to consumers worried about global warming, the environment and rising energy costs.
- 2007-05-08
- Spring home-buying guide: 6 ways to do it right
- CNNMoney.com steers you towards a successful home purchase:
When you go to an open house and meet a real estate agent showing the property, that agent represents the seller's interests. So you might be better off using a buyer's agent whose job is to represent your interests.
- 2007-05-10
- Buying a New House Checklist
- FSBO blog has some ideas to keep in mind when scoping out your next home:
...take note of the time of day when the garden receives direct or full sunlight or if the place is often a site for flooding. Make it your business to learn the geographical location of the house you plan to buy.
- 2007-05-11
- Buy a house and save for retirement
- Money Magazine has some ideas for getting a down payment and keeping the 401(k):
I think you still ought to try to contribute at least enough to your 401(k) to get the employer match, since not doing so is giving up free money. You could then sock away every other cent you can manage for the home down payment.
- 2007-05-14
- Smallest Coolest Apartments
- See how these two arranged a 426 Sq/ft Loft into a nice livable space. Lot's of cool pictures too!
- 2007-05-14
- Housing Starts Unexpectedly Rise,
Housing Starts Unexpectedly Rise, But Building Permits Fall 8.9%
- From the Wall Street Journal, builders are reluctant with the low demand for new homes:
Home construction unexpectedly rose during April, making a surprise increase despite bloated inventories and tighter credit for subprime borrowers, but building permits took their sharpest fall in 17 years.
- 2007-05-16
- Take your home outside
- Money Magazine has an article on living outside your home with an outdoor kitchen:
For many what was once a place for casual barbecues with friends has now become a full-fledged room with all the amenities of the indoors: gourmet appliances, light fixtures, cushioned furniture and even flat-screen televisions.
- 2007-05-18
- First-Floor Grandparent's Suite: A Draw or a Turnoff for Buyers?
- The Real Estate Journal answers a reader's question on remodeling before selling:
While it's true that house hunters have many more choices than they did a couple of years ago, real-estate agents say the main attractions are still location and school district -- both factors a seller can't change. While it pays off to fix obvious flaws like a poor floor plan or deteriorating siding, or to add an extra bath if you only have one, it doesn't make sense to go beyond what's standard in your neighborhood. You'll only get a fraction of the money back when you sell.
- 2007-05-22
- Mortgage apps keep climbing
- From CNNMoney.com, there was a small increase in mortgage applications last week:
The industry group's seasonally adjusted index of mortgage applications climbed 1.6 percent to 686.2 in the week ended May 18, from 675.5 one week earlier.
- 2007-05-23
- U.S: Are house prices bound to adjust further?
- FXStreet.com looks at different regions of the country and has a detailed analysis on what affects housing prices:
The existing conditions for housing finance have also been an important driver for housing prices, affecting not only demand but also supply. Availability of financial resources, maturity term of the loans and interest rates are the three main aspects of financial conditions. However, the relationship between financial conditions and housing prices has been not so clear throughout time.
- 2007-05-23
- When it comes to houses, more are living large
- From the Associated Press, Utah leads the way with the largest percentage of large homes:
One in five American houses had at least four bedrooms in 2005. That's up from one in six in 1990, despite shrinking families and increasing costs for construction and energy.
- 2007-05-24
- New home prices plunge, sales soar
- CNNMoney.com reports on the April sales of new homes:
A big drop in the price of the typical new home sold in April spurred much better-than-expected sales, according to the latest government reading on the battered real estate and home building market released Thursday.
- 2007-05-24
- Prospects dim for quick home-price recovery
- From CNNMoney.com, home prices are down 1.4 percent from last year:
Investors seem to believe the downturn will continue. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange trades contracts based on the Case-Shiller indexes that enable investors to bet on future housing price trends.
- 2007-05-29
- Wall Street fuels Hamptons real estate mark
- From the Associated Press, the real estate is doing well in the Hamptons:
If you really want to know how the housing market in the Hamptons is faring as summer beckons, Steven Gaines suggests an unusual yardstick.
He says the best barometer of how people in the Hamptons are doing is the price of the lobster salad at the local gourmet shop in nearby Sagaponack. Right now, it’s selling for $100 a pound.
- 2007-05-29
- Be your own power company
- From MSN, have your home earn you money using solar and wind power:
As fuel prices rise and the necessary equipment inches toward affordability, small solar and wind generators are entering the mainstream. By 2005, at least 21,146 utility customers (most of them in California) around the country were selling electricity they had produced back to their utilities, according to government figures.
- 2007-05-29
- Website to Sell Nonexistent Real Estate
- From the Associated Press, get your waterfront property in Hawaii while it's still hot:
Lo'ihi Development Co. will soon start offering oceanview lots speculators won't even be able to stand on for many millennia. That's because they're currently submerged more than 3,000 feet below sea level—on an underwater volcano called Lo'ihi, located about 20 miles southeast of the Big Island.
- 2007-05-29
- Add curb appeal to your home
- From This Old House, a series of before and after pictures of house modifications:
Shifting the opening towards the center and adding a wider door with sidelights make the front door more proportional and inviting.
- 2007-05-30
- City, state provide $600,000 to build eco-friendly houses in Cleveland
- From the Cleveland.com blog, the new homes will be easy on the wallet and on the environment:
The two- and three-bedroom houses, which will be priced from $105,000 to $125,000, are designed to cost less than $400 a year to heat and about $250 a year to light, according to Meghan Kleon, who administers the Emerging Green Designers group for the coalition.
- 2007-05-31
- Mortgage rates rise to an eight-month high
- From the Associated Press, experts say the rate hike is due to economic strength outside of housing:
Mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday that 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages averaged 6.42 percent in its nationwide survey this week.
- 2007-05-31
- Study says home prices not falling
- From CNNMoney.com, compared to last year home prices are up:
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), which has tracked prices for more than 30 years, said Thursday its housing price index grew 4.3 percent in the first quarter compared with a year ago. It was the slowest rate of growth in 10 years, however.
- 2007-05-31