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Jun

15
2008

Name your price

By Matt Carter, Sunday, June 15, 2008.

The band Radiohead made history last year (or got lots of attention, anyway) by offering their album, "In Rainbows," for download over the Internet -- and letting the buyer name the price. About a third reportedly paid nothing, but the average price paid was £4, or about $8 today.  more...

Terabitz retools

By Inman News, Sunday, June 15, 2008.

The following is a roundup of real estate technology news:

Terabitz announces upgraded tools
Real estate tech company Terabitz has rolled out a new property-search platform for brokers that allows users to plan a driving route to view multiple for-sale homes and to sort through a virtual "Rolodex" of property photos. Ashfaq Munshi, Terabitz CEO, said that the new Terabitz platform is based on the concept of "micro-sites" for each for-sale property that provide rich data about each home and the surrounding neighborhood areas.  more...

Selling subdivided land? Keep eye on taxes

By Benny Kass, Sunday, June 15, 2008.

DEAR BENNY: I purchased 30 acres for $600,000 in 2004. This part of the county is zoned to a minimum parcel size of 10 acres. We recently built a home on one part of the property and reside there. At some future point 10-15 years from now, we may decide to sell off one or two 10-acre lots.

If I subdivided the property and sold off a 10-acre lot, what would be the tax consequences? Assume a sales price of $500,000 for a 10-acre lot. --Bill  more...

Gauging market value best left to locals

By Dian Hymer, Sunday, June 15, 2008.

Getting an accurate sense of the current market value of your home is more of an art than a science. If you live in a housing development where all the homes are similar to one another, it's easier to establish value than it is if you live in an area with extreme variability in home size, style, quality, amenities and condition.

To add to the mix, the real estate and finance markets are continually changing. As these markets change, so does the value of your home.  more...

Transparency is king in U.K. mortgage system

By Jack Guttentag, Sunday, June 15, 2008.

(This is Part 1 of a two-part series.)

To gain perspective on institutional practices, nothing beats seeing how the practices differ somewhere else. Recently I looked at how mortgage brokers and the lenders they deal with operate in the United Kingdom. I have had invaluable help from Richard Hobson, a broker in the U.K. for many years who is now a broker in the United States.

The basic economics of the industry are essentially the same on both sides of the Atlantic. Assuming that the lender is satisfied that the broker is properly licensed or certified, the arrangement between them is very simple.  more...

Finding lemonade in sour market

By Alison Rogers, Sunday, June 15, 2008.

What did I do this week? I pounded on my computer until it produced the perfect property for one buyer, who loved it but announced that his job situation is still too iffy for him to want to buy anything right now. But I loved the apartment -- expensive kitchen, outdoor space, and the kind of cute little building where a celebrity cook with a name that rhymes with Machael May might hang out. So I dangled it in front of another client, who it would be perfect for. She didn't e-mail me back.  more...