TheREALTYgram Blogger

Worldwide Property Search

World Properties helps consumers locate properties, real estate practitioners, and real estate business practice information in the international market through the International Consortium of Real Estate Assn. (ICREA). National Assn. of REALTORS^® is a founding member and co-chair of the group.

New York Times Real Estate OnlineOffers Multimedia Viewing Experience

The New York Times digital real estate news offers narrated slide shows. (Thanks to Inman Blog for the heads up.) The Inman blog selected the story of an architect on Park Avenue. It's some good food for thought; I'll have to start offering a voice narration on my visual tours. I'll keep you posted.

Quarterly Probe For Illegal Drugs AddedTo Landlords' 'Things To Do' List In British Columbia

Richmond, British Columbia, Council has approved a new bylaw that requires property owners and management companies to inspect rental properties for marijuana grow operations and other illegal drug activities. As of July 1, 2005, the Property Maintenance & Repair Bylaw requires inspections at least once every 3 months and stipulates that controlled substance operations must be reported within 48 hours. If inspections are not carried out and, for example, a grow op or methamphetamine lab is found, or if such a find is not reported, the property owner or management company will be liable for associated costs. Costs include the investigation, dismantling, permits, utility services, inspections and cleaning of the property. (Thanks to Mervin Burgard, Q.C., who shared this on RealTalk list serv.)

Morale of the story: Drug growers and manufacturers should buy their own properties. Owner occupied homes are not subject to search.

Technical Woes Plague REALTOR. COM;Will The Listings Giant Ever Get It Right?

"Programming and technical difficulties" have been bywords at REALTOR. COM for years. Real estate agents, brokers, and MLS staff have bemoaned a long history of timeouts when listings are not uploaded, failure to record updated price and status information, inability to load photos, incorrect photos attached to listings. Consumers, for the most part, are unaware, save the frustrated seller, whose recent price reduction is not reflected on the site.

The following report came through the e-PRO list serv last night:

"It has come to our attention this morning that REALTOR. COM is having a universal problem downloading new listings inputted by various MLS systems throughout the United States. According to REALTOR. COM, they have NOT downloaded any new listings since July 15th. This would include new listings and refreshed listings. Therefore, if you have a seller who is inquiring as to why their property is not appearing on REALTOR. COM, this is the reason. They also do not have any idea how quickly this problem will be solved."

I ran searches of several new listings in the Lehigh Valley (PA) market area; the listings did not appear on REALTOR. COM.  However, a price reduction that I submitted on July 20 DOES appear on REALTOR.COM.

Consumer tip: Try a direct link with the MLS. In most cases this is real-time information. Here's a good link for a national MLS search.

Whoremaster Lesson Plan 103:Establish Guiding Principle for Reform Bill

The Senate Health Education Labor Pension (HELP) Committee released a set of guiding principles for legislation on health insurance "reform."  The Senate HELP committee has jurisdiction over legislation to create Small Business Health Plans. The guiding principles do not include provisions for protecting state rights or limitations in coverage.

Previous posts here addressed issues of pre-empting state rights, CBO facts and opposition to the bill, and the real truth about AHPs. 

Rich, Handsome Blogger Seeks Mate

Popular REALTOR^®//Blogger Hanan Levin from the Grow-A-Brain Blog says, "I am still looking (Actually, I’m not “looking” at all, rather just “sitting and waiting”) for a gorgeous, eligible female of child-bearing age to join me on  trips [Thailand, San Francisco, New Zealand, Vancouver, New England, and Galapagos] and beyond. If you or someone you know would like to hook up with a rich, intelligent blogger, please call or refer any such candidates to me." Grow-A-Brain is one of the most interesting, eclectic, "good read" sites in the Blogosphere. Don't miss it.

 

I Found A Golden Nugget In An E-Mail Signature Line

I found this book in an e-mail signature line from John Reilly, my e-PRO cyber professor. After clicking the link and reading the description I ordered it immediately. It looks like a winner and I can hardly wait for delivery. Check out the review on Amazon.com: 

From Library Journal "Sophisticated real estate players will appreciate the revisions made to this highly comprehensive dictionary of terms. All of the entries are brought into conformity with the 1986 Tax Reform Act. Controversial topics that have resulted from this legislation, such as the IRS definition of a dealer in real estate, are treated well. ... a section containing over 300 abbreviations is a helpful touch."

"From abandonment to zoning, and over 2,800 terms in between, The Language of Real Estate has every term that real estate professionals need. this industry best seller is a must have for all students, practitioners, and educators. Highlights include:
* Appendix boasts over 350 commonly used abbreviations.
* Subject classification index lists terms by topic.
* Spanish key terms help both ESL students and those who will be working with ESL customers."

Financial Thrill Seekers EyeReal Estate Derivatives Market

This may be the finance junkie/couch potato's version of virtual bungee jumping. The National Assn. of REALTORS^®  reports that there is a new derivatives market in the offing:

"The National Council of Real Estate Investment Funds has teamed up with Credit Suisse First Boston LLC to establish a real estate derivatives market, providing new opportunities to institutional investors interested in real estate investments.

" 'This could be an effective way of investing in different sectors of real estate in the private marketplace as an alternative to owning the underlying real estate, and also providing some degree of liquidity,' says Gumbiner Savett Inc. managing principal Scott Farb. 'This could be an effective way to hedge long positions in the ownership of properties.'

"Among the institutional investors keeping an eye on developments are the California State Teachers' Retirement System, the Public School Employees Retirement System of Pennsylvania, and the Los Angeles City Employees' Retirement System."

Pension plan administrators may want to read a New York University Study of Derivatives and Risk Management Practices by Institutional Investors.

The Good The Bad And The Ugly:Real Estate Gurus And Scam Artists Revealed

Thinking about plunking down hundreds of dollars for a get-rich-quick plan you saw on that last infomercial? Signed up for an all-day seminar that promises to be the first stop on that road to riches? Think again. John T. Reed, real estate investor and author,  rates more than 100 purported real estate investment gurus and seminar organizations and offers a Real Estate B.S. Artist Detection Checklist. Here's a sample:

Carleton Sheets (Not Recommended) "Carleton Sheets’ books generally have directories of stuff like HUD regional offices, repeated blank forms, pages for “notes.” His books, other than the one on nothing-down, are double spaced, have large type and huge margins, skip lines between paragraphs, and have lots of blank pages and pages with just four or five words on them...Creative Tax Strategies is a slop job of a book on real estate tax law. If Sheets turned this in as part of a university course or real estate or tax law, the professor would give him an F and chew him out."

"Robert Allen (Not Recommended), author of the book Nothing Down, also says what Sheets says. When I dug up the documents on one of the deals where he actually used this 'technique,' the lender was Bank of America. Their written policy at the time, which I have a copy of, said they would make no mortgage loans where there was any secondary financing, let alone nothing-down financing. In that deal, Allen had the second that was taken back by the seller recorded one day after the closing on the sale and the first mortgage. This is called a 'silent second' and is done to reduce the chances that the first mortgage lender will find out about it. In other words, the bank making the first mortgage loan did not agree to the nothing-down second, rather they were apparently told there was none."

Investment Mortgages Skyrocket In First Quarter

Mortgage bankers originated $31.3 billion in commercial and multifamily loans in this year's first quarter, an increase of 39.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Multifamily lending powered demand, soaring 62 percent from the same three months of 2004. Office property loans, meanwhile, increased 29 percent as hotel and motel loans skyrocketed 96 percent. Analysts now forecast that apartment demand will climb as the single-family home market decelerates, according to a report by Investor's Business Daily.