January 14th, 2008 categories: Finances, For Fun, Home Buying, Home Ownership, Home Selling, Investments, Real Estate
According to the folks over at Springwise, consumers who want the luxury of having a second home at the beach or in the mountains, but don’t have the money to plunk down on the choicest properties, now have an appealing alternative: half ownership. Like other shared ownership ventures, Halfshare.com gives customers the chance to get a piece of the good life, but at a much lower cost. Unlike traditional timeshares, which pioneered the concept of fractional ownership, Halfshare.com buyers aren’t purchasing time in a hotel or resort, but an actual home—and all the benefits that go with owning it. Along with sharing costs, buyers share profits if the value goes up. And depending on the terms both owners agree to, the property may generate rental income, too.
Getting started is as easy as logging onto Halfshare.com, where members can browse listings of available properties throughout North America. Halfshare.com can match them with other prospective buyers based on tastes, backgrounds, interests, hobbies and lifestyles through the Buyer Match Plan. Potential co-owners can arrange to meet one another online, by phone or in person to determine if they’d make a good match. Once buyers select a property, Halfshare.com’s Tenants-in-Common Agreement takes care of all the details, formalizing legal concerns and each owner’s rights. “It spells out what is expected in terms of financial arrangements, seasonal time sharing, rental revenues, re-sale, property maintenance and repair, among other pertinent details.”
Although the real estate market is currently in a bit of a slump, demand for sandy beaches, mountain air, cultural attractions and picturesque scenery isn’t likely to wane any time soon. Which means that making vacation homes affordable, fraction by fraction, could be a worthwhile start-up in almost any region frequented by tourists looking to make themselves at home.
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January 11th, 2008 categories: For Fun, Home Selling
Want to sell your home in 2008 — or simply want to keep its décor fresh so that it doesn’t begin the slow slide toward avocado-toilet and lava-lamp oblivion? You’re in luck: MSN Real Estate asked several top experts who keep tabs on trends in home design, furnishings and remodeling to weigh in on what’s hot — and what’s decidedly not — in 2008.
Their opinion: The American house of 2008 will be smarter, greener and sleeker than before. But here’s the trick: Homeowners want a home that will work now — and 10 years from now.
Here’s an abbreviated rundown of what’s hot — and what’s not — for your home in 2008.WHAT’S IN
WHAT’S OUT
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January 9th, 2008 categories: Home Selling
Think you might try to sell your house in a few years? Then now’s the time to do what you can to make your house market ready, says Bill LaHay in a Universal Press Syndicate story published by the Orlando Sentinel.
While most people have heard of readying one’s house just before putting it up for sale, keeping one’s home maintained during your entire ownership is both a time saver and a money saver, he says.
Among his tips:
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January 9th, 2008 categories: Home Buying, Home Ownership, Home Selling, Real Estate
According to RISMedia, a recently released report compiled from analytics and user statistics for the real estate industry reinforces the fact that the real estate consumer is moving increasingly toward real estate Web sites as their source for listings and industry information. The report was released by VisiStat, a provider of real-time Web site visitor statistics.
Supporting indicators include:
– Overall traffic growth for 2007 (over 2006) was 36.8%
– Return visitors made up 47% of all Web site visits
– The average visitor clicked through 14 site pages during each visit
– Monday and Tuesday were the most trafficked days of the week, with the
highest activity in the 9 p.m. hour
– March received the most visitor traffic of any month of the year
“We provide data for thousands of brokerages and agents across the country, and because of this, I have been working closely with brokers and agents for some time. It’s no surprise that the figures in this report coincide exactly with what I have been hearing from them, and that is, home buyers are using the Internet to educate themselves and find properties, often long before they engage an agent,” said Tina Bean, director of Sales and Marketing for VisiStat.
For more information, visit The VisiStat Real Estate Trends report.
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