I was looking at pretty houses on line and thinking about all the add ons that come with a house. One in particular that caught my eye was right by a river. Now, I know the river is almost always dry except for about every 100 years when the reservoirs up stream get full and water has to be released so that the dams don’t break. That of course means that the pretty house I was looking at would flood which means I’d have to buy flood insurance (the disability insurance of the real estate world). And that would be on top of the mortgage insurance (because even though I’ve never made a late payment on anything I also can’t seem to save huge chunks of money and therefore have to have mortgage insurance) and home owners’s insurance and who even know what other kind of junk I’d have to put on top of that.

Suddenly that pretty house is looking like a HUGE money pit.

If you, like us, are looking around for homes for sale, then the internet has become an indispensable tool for your search. Whether you’re looking for a mortgage, a new house, information on your new neighborhood, information on new schools, or movers to help lug all your stuff across country, the web is the first place to look for all of these things, and in many cases will be your last stop in finding what you need.

Insane weather in this neck of the woods.  I took pictures of the street/river out front and let the kids play in the lake – I mean front yard.  I wouldn’t let them get very close to the raging gorge that has started eroding the street out front.  Parental instinct kicking in.  Watch out for tornadoes out there!

We all know that things are tough all over, but people are having an especially hard time in Detroit. Auto plants are shutting down, people are getting laid off and moving away, and no one wants to move to the southeastern Michigan area. One neighborhood in particular is under hard times. This article features a home that recently sold for $1.

It had been the nicest house in the neighborhood, but after the bank foreclosed, vandals stole the copper plumbing, wiring, siding, fixtures, even the kitchen sink. After the bank boarded up the house, thieves stole the plywood boards.

Desperate, the bank placed the home in MLS for $1. 19 days later it finally sold. After paying for the buyer’s closing costs, back water bills, and other costs, the bank payed over $10,000 to sell the house.

Note to self: don’t buy real estate in Michigan anytime soon.

Well the offer came in last week, but it was too low for us to accept.

Better luck next time for us I guess. Things in this market have been really har, a lot harder than we really expected when we started. However, things could always get worse. (Don’t bother asking how. That’s almost a dare for someone to show you.)

We have had a lot of showings recently, and the spring is typically a good time for selling a house, so we are still optimistic about our odds in this market.

Everyone else out there trying to sell a house, we feel your pain.

This site offers information on new homes Greenville SC. It allows you to access to floor plans for homes offered throughout their communities and gives you other details for each option such as square footage and pricing. Although the web site is easy to use, some of the options told me I had compatibility problems with my version of Windows and said I had to upgrade but later they worked fine, so watch out for that issue. I always love looking at floor plans and elevation drawings so I can think about that dream house I’ll own one day. Pretty much all the floor plans on this site look like dream homes to me.

The real estate market around here stinks.  I should know, I’m trying to sell my house.  Mind you it’s not because I can’t afford it; it’s because we got a job in another city.  Murphy’s Law dictates that we get a new job that fits all our needs just as the housing market goes bust.  Now I wasn’t in on that .com stuff when it went south and I’m happy about that, but does that mean I was due for an investment arena to go kaput on me?  Does this mean I’m less likely to get burned in the future?  Of course this time of year is pretty bad for the housing market anyway, but I’ve heard those in the know about this stuff aren’t expecting a real recovery until 2010.  I’d kinda like to sell my house before that, ya know?

While perusing the enormity that is the internet, I came across an interesting article about the current mortgage crisis. The homeowners in the article seem to be almost identical to many that bought homes with cheap money and are now struggling to pay their debt. Seriously, did they expect interest rates to stay that low? Maybe they expected a negative interest rate like Japan saw a few years back.

In any case, it seams that the average home buyer’s knowledge of how to buy a home is at an all-time low. Gone are the days when a family could expect to stay in the same house for 10, 20, or 30 years building equity and maybe even paying off the mortgage completely. People tend to want to move up to a bigger home as soon as they get a raise or the rates drop. Refinancing has pushed countless homeowners way past the 30 year mortgage. As another article states, people’s mortgage intelligence has fallen dramatically and the blame may lie with the mortgage industry.

Hopefully company’s like the one mentioned in that article, Red Clay Media, can start to turn the trend around and begin a new trend at responsible lending. They seem to offer marketing intelligence and a direct marketing mailing list with a goal of turning the corner in this market.

I’m in the process of trying to sell a house, but I’d rather sell it to a family that can afford to make it a home for the next 30 years than a family that will be forced into bankruptcy because they couldn’t afford their mortgage payments after a rate increase.