Link Dump: Weekend Real Estate News
Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, and their four - soon to be six - children will be moving into a home located on 1,000 acres in the south of France. In addition to 35 bedrooms and a forest surrounding the estate for privacy, the home has some mighty fine neighbors including Bono and Johnny Depp. The rest of the story.
I’m not kidding when I tell sellers that the return isn’t as great when placing ads in magazines and newspapers rather than investing in some online promotions. I use Visual Tour software and Animoto (we talked about that earlier this week). But another company offers “short documentaries” about high-end homes which I find fascinating.
In today’s residential real estate market, off by as much as 20- to-30 percent on a year-over-year basis in some regions of the country, brokers and home sellers have been forced to find ways to get biggest bang for their marketing bucks. And it’s no surprise that most of their budgets are being spent on the Internet.
According to the National Association of Realtors, between 85 percent and 90 percent of today’s buyers depend on the Internet for links to individual real estate agent home pages, ColoradoRealtor.com, Realtor.com, Zillow.com and corporate real estate Web sites.
The rest of the techno story here.
I still believe we are near the bottom of the market, though this writer disagrees.
Can we expect a lone realtor to determine the exact bottom of the market for a potential buyer? NO! Not even the most esteemed experts know exactly when the real estate market is at bottom. What the realtor must do is give the best assessment possible and the best advice they can muster, and let the buyer decide - without hype.
And even if we haven’t reached the bottom … who cares? If you are ABLE to buy a home at a GREAT INTEREST RATE and you NEED to buy a home, then by all means: Buy a Home. The thing is, it’s not just about your “investment” - rather it’s about having a place to live. If you’re qualified and find a place you love, it may or may not be there in a month or two or five when the real estate market “hits bottom.” If you feel like it’s home, then make it your home without being distracted by the yaysayers and naysayers.
If you’re waiting to see what the future holds, remember the future never comes.
Unless you live on Mars, then the future could be coming. And it could look like this.
