Insurance, Kentucky Insurance

Home Equity Hits New Low

“The Federal Reserve on Thursday announced that, in 2007, American ownership in their homes as measured by equity fell below 50 percent for the first time since records were first kept in 1945.

During the 2nd quarter of 2007 the central bank reported that homeowners’ equity slipped to a downwardly revised 49.6 percent and slipped further to 47.9 percent in the fourth quarter. This was the third straight quarter that equity was under 50 percent.”… Home equity

Call Dick Watts Insurance 502-245-3625 for a free homeowners insurance quote

“RE/MAX Real Estate’s remax.com Web site hopped into second place among the most popular real estate industry Web sites in February, up from its fourth-place ranking in January, Web metrics company Hitwise reported Friday, and real estate marketing company HomeGain bumped from second place in January to fifth place in February…..” Real Estate

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Apparently Zillow offers fairly accurate estimates on the market value of your home.

In the year since its launch, Zillow Inc. has made millions of Americans familiar with computer-generated estimates of home values, created a new online addiction and become a staple of dinner-party chatter.

But just how accurate is it? A Wall Street Journal analysis of 1,000 recent home sales shows that Zillow’s “Zestimates” often are very good, frequently within a few percentage points of the actual price paid. But when Zillow is bad, it can be terrible — off the mark by more than 25% on one in 10 homes. In one case it was off by $2 million.

Zillow, based in Seattle, operates a Web site that offers free estimates and other online tools for real-estate buyers and sellers. It draws revenue from online advertising. from:

Real Estate Journal

Technorati Tags: real estate, homeowners insurance, mortgage, zillow, kentucky

Real Estate News- web 2.0 technology, You vote on the value of the home…from Techcrunch...”My Currency derives its housing valuations from the marketplace of user opinions by having them assess properties as over or undervalued along with the strength of their conviction. For instance, if I feel a house in San Francisco for 11 million dollars is overpriced, I vote for what lower price I think is right as well as how strongly I feel that on a 1-10 scale. The conviction of my choice and the accuracy of my past votes play into how much I can affect the valuation and price trend of the home. Home listings are a bit sparse at the moment, and rely on self listing…….Home Valuation

Technorati Tags: insurance, real estate

“……When you sell your primary residence, you can make up to $250,000 in profit if you’re a single owner, twice that if you’re married, and not owe any capital gains taxes…..

When the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 became law, the home-sale tax burden eased for millions of residential taxpayers. The rollover or once-in-a-lifetime options were replaced with the current per-sale exclusion amounts…. Capital Gains Taxes on home sales”

disclaimer: We are not tax experts, this is not tax advice, call your CPA or tax attorney first

Call Dick Watts Insurance today for a rental property insurance or Kentucky homeowners insurance quote 502-245-3625
Investment Property Like Kind Exchanges

Real estate fraud has now firmly emerged on the FBI’s radar as the country’s fastest-growing white collar crime - all, in essence, polite forms of bank robbery. Industry losses ran to at least $606 million last year, it says. And the Treasury Department’s suspicious-activity reports are up 35 percent this year. The Internal Revenue Service’s criminal case numbers in mortgage fraud have been doubling every two years through the first half of this decade….. Real Estate