The real estate blog.

As some of you may know, I’ve been submitting articles to various real estate and financial related blog carnivals around the web. A few weeks ago, I hosted the Carnival of Real Estate Investing and had a lot of fun with it. The purpose of these carnivals is to promote other blogs and obtain related inbound links for SEO reasons. Usually there is a judging component where the blog host selects the post or posts they like the best. Sometimes there are rankings all the way down. Sometimes only the top posts are mentioned. Sometimes all of them are.

Last week, I won a blog carnival for the first time. The COREI was hosted at the Bloodhound blog and their panel of judges bestowed the honor for my post on refinancing creative financing. With this win came a new level of exposure I was previously unaware of. The Real Estate Guide produces a list of all the Carnival winners. The nicest part was finding additional Carnivals I can submit to.
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Here’s part 2 of real estate questions I haven’t had time to address yet, but the search engines provide this site as a result for them.

In the last week questions about real estate offerings in Salt Lake and Utah. The best resource for finding a house for sale is to search the consumer version of the MLS. So, for these questions:

salt lake city lofts for sale
salt lake city gateway condos for sale

The answer is utahrealestate.com.

One question that stood out to me was: can banks attach your paycheck if foreclosure is imminent? The answer is no. A garnishment can only be enforced with a court order. If the foreclosure goes through, then you may face garnishment. But it won’t happen before then.

Also on the foreclosure topic was this
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When I last left you I had threatened to head out for a fishing weekend. Well, my good friend fell ill on Friday night and canceled on me. He is going to be alright and there will be other weekends to snag a few fish so no worries.

With my fishing trip canceled it offered me the opportunity to head on down to Lake Havasu City on Saturday for the grand opening of a new facility to enjoy the recreation of hockey. The photos below are of the new digs. Some work still needs to be done but I am a mere few weeks away from returning to play the game that I love so dearly.

You won’t find me in any of the pic’s, but I did suit up as a goaltender (I was the only such person geared up for the job) and managed a few spurts of effort. I have not played since the last facility was closed down in May of 2005. Since then I’ve packed on about 20 pounds and barely fit into my equipment.
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By CHRISTINA E. SANCHEZ
Herald Tribune

PALMETTO — Agencies that assist the poor do not routinely return millions of dollars they got in a federal grant. Yet the Manatee County Housing Authority says it has no choice.

The authority manages a south Manatee County apartment complex for low-income families and a countywide rental assistance program. In September 2003, it secured a $3 million federal grant to expand its mission and build affordable, quality homes for farmworkers.

By now, the new housing was supposed to bring relief to farmworkers who live in deteriorated, cockroach- and rat-infested units at rents of up to $1,000 a month.

Click here to read the entire story.

Here are a few photo’s from my visit to Phoenix yesterday for REALTOR Day at the Capitol.

Random photo of the setting

by M. Anthony Carr
Realty Times

You’ve heard the phrase, “The devil’s in the details,” and that is ever so true in the statistical analysis of real estate. Real estate definitely moves on the level of supply and demand. The more houses on the market coupled with the less demand interprets into dropping prices. As houses sell (because the prices finally realign) and the inventory shrinks coupled with growing demand, prices start edging up.

In the market overall listings are down — some because they sold and others because they were withdrawn and still others because the sellers were distressed and went into bankruptcy or short sales. However, the effect on the overall market will be the same, shrinking inventory means buyers won’t have as much leverage as they did just a few months ago.
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By Leslie McFadden
Bankrate.com

They’re so easy and habit-forming you’ll want to share them with your friends, family and neighbors.

Of course, we’re talking about stay-safe security tips that will help protect you — and your computer — from thieves hunting your money and personal information.

Luckily, you don’t have to be an IT professional to follow these guidelines.

I’ve taken a few questions recently about the numbers behind my theory that population is driving house prices more than low interest rates or excess speculation. Readers are questioning the numbers I used. So I did a little research and found some charts on another site that corroborate my data. Funny enough, the charts mirror each other quite well.

Median House Prices

Today we have a special guest blogger to tackle the topic of getting into real estate investing. Byron Goates is the licensed Principal Lending Manager (PLM) and owner of Integrity First Financial. He has worked on hundreds of loans for investors and home buyers alike as well as being an avid investor himself. This is the first in a series on how to get into real estate investing.

I recently got a call from “Bill.” He was out in the snowy weather installing a fire sprinkling system on a million dollar house. He said he was cold and wet and he had to get out of his business. He really wanted to get into real estate.

This is not the first time I had heard from Bill. Bill was in my office last summer after being referred to me by a person I know at a title company. At the time, Bill was working with a realtor and looking to buy an investment property in his neighborhood.
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