Virginia R Hoato's Blog – Topics That Matter: Real Estate news as well as information pertinent to your everyday life.

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Hello,

It is late again.

Tonight I want to bring into the picture one more time the tax credits.  Here we go:

$8,000 First-time Home Buyer Tax Credit

* The $8,000 tax credit is for first-time home buyers only. For the tax credit program, the IRS defines a first-time home buyer as someone who has not owned a principal residence during the three-year period prior to the purchase.
* The tax credit does not have to be repaid unless the home is sold or ceases to be used as the buyer’s principal residence within three years after the initial purchase.
* The tax credit is equal to 10 percent of the home’s purchase price up to a maximum of $8,000.
* The tax credit applies only to homes priced at $800,000 or less.
* The tax credit now applies to sales occurring on or after January 1, 2009 and on or before April 30, 2010. However, in cases where a binding sales contract is signed by April 30, 2010, a home purchase completed by June 30, 2010 will qualify.
* For homes purchased on or after January 1, 2009 and on or before November 6, 2009, the income limits are $75,000 for single taxpayers and $150,000 for married couples filing jointly.
* For homes purchased after November 6, 2009 and on or before April 30, 2010, single taxpayers with incomes up to $125,000 and married couples with incomes up to $225,000 qualify for the full tax credit.

The $6,500 Move-Up / Repeat Home Buyer Tax Credit

* To be eligible to claim the tax credit, buyers must have owned and lived in their previous home for five consecutive years out of the last eight years.
* The tax credit does not have to be repaid unless the home is sold or ceases to be used as the buyer’s principal residence within three years after the initial purchase.
* The tax credit is equal to 10 percent of the home’s purchase price up to a maximum of $6,500.
* The tax credit applies only to homes priced at $800,000 or less.
* The credit is available for homes purchased after November 6, 2009 and on or before April 30, 2010. However, in cases where a binding sales contract is signed by April 30, 2010, the home purchase qualifies provided it is completed by June 30, 2010.
* Single taxpayers with incomes up to $125,000 and married couples with incomes up to $225,000 qualify for the full tax credit.

For Frequently Asked Questions Click HERE

(Source:  Federal Housing Tax Credit)

Well, that’s it for now.

Don’t forget to return tomorrow for more!

Remember:  If you are planning to sell your house or if you are looking to buy a house: Call me!!

I am only a phone call away!

Have a good night!!!

Your #1 Realtor®

Sharing some useful information with you!

Virginia R. Hoato
Realty World – Blue Property Group, Inc
DRE LIC# 01781539
Direct:  510-305-3254
Fax:  209-234-2750

Email: virginiarh@rightchoicehomes4u.com
TAMBIEN HABLO ESPAÑOL
Web Links:    http://www.rwblue-virginiahoato.com
http://www.virginiahoato.topseller.net
http://www.virginiahoato.com
http://www.rightchoicehomes4u.com
Skype Member: virginiarh1961

“FOR RESULTS OF EXCELLENCE: EXPERTISE AND INTEGRITY MUST EMBRACE YOUR NEEDS”.
(VRH 8-13-08)

Share the memorable experience of buying a home with others. Your personal referrals are my greatest compliment.

Hello,

Wow it is late tonight, but I want to share this story with you.  I think it will give plenty of people in the industry something to think about and it will help many Realtors sit back and try to assess the way listings are taken care of.  It is a true story and it happened to me.  Here we go:

Everything started when I sat down to make phone calls to listing agents to find out if the actual printouts from the MLS had been updated correctly.  Out of the 15 listings I had I was only able to talk to 2 listing agents.  Then I talked to 2 other listings agents that were nice enough to call me back right away.  As for the rest I never heard from them at all.  Not a good way to start but hopeful enough I decided to make the itinerary with all the listings.  My viewing was taking place a day later so I still had time to get in touch with the listing agents.

11:00 AM on the dot and my buyers were parked outside the first house.  Great, I was right on time.  Being punctual is a must for me and if I can be there at least 10 minutes early it is even better.  On my way to the appointment and since I got up that day I called the agents that were missing in action.  Still no answer, could not talk to any of them.   Usually if the buyer wants to se a house and it happens to be empty, if the agent can not get in touch with the listing agent and there is an electronic lock there is no problem accessing the property.  I was lucky enough that the first house I showed was indeed one of the houses the listing agent answered her cellular.    1 down, 14 to go but then again it could be just 4 because if you remember I was only able to talk to 4 listing agents.

As we arrived to the 2nd house on the itinerary and since all of us already knew the listing agent was no where to be found my buyers sat in the car and I started looking for the lock.  Not good.  The door had a combination lock and the listing didn’t have the code.  I told my buyers to wait until I called the listing agent, her office and her additional numbers.  No luck.  How can this be happening?  As I am driving to the third home I keep asking myself the same question.

The next 3 houses were easy to show but then we arrived at the next house on the itinerary.  Once again we didn’t know what to expect but what I found out blew my mind.  As my buyers sat in their car I walked up to the front door because there was an electronic lock.  I knew the house was empty but what I didn’t know was that the lock didn’t have a key.  WOW I thought.  OK, may be the agent in the prior showing didn’t realize it and he took the key with him.  It happens, we are all human aren’t we?  I told my buyers about it and then I called the listing agent.  Somebody at the office answered the phone.  I explained to her the situation and she told me:  Oh, the key is no longer there!  The house is pending.  The negotiator already selected an offer and the key hasn’t been there for a while.  I asked her why hadn’t they marked the listing pending and her voice trembled.  I was definitely annoyed.  I left it at that.  How can this be happening?

My buyers were very understanding and we continued to view what we could.  More than a hand full of houses we couldn’t view.  Everyone of the listing was active in the system.    A couple of listings agents called me a few days later to tell me the listings were pending and one of them called me to let me know the property was still available.  Why did they take so long to call?

So here is the deal.  If a Realtor takes a listing why is it that such is disregarded?  Why don’t they return calls?  Why don’t they let us know a listing is pending?  How can a buyer’s agent do the right thing if the listing agent does not cooperate?   How do buyers see the lack of interest, from the listing agents side, to communicate the availability of a listing?

Listing agents and buyer’s agents are all the same and we should all work together to make this a better place. If we stopped to acknowledge messages, phone calls, texts & emails we would have a better place.  But the thing is that it only takes a few seconds!

What are your thoughts?

Well, that’s it for now.

Don’t forget to return tomorrow for more!

And remember if you are planning to sell your house or if you are looking to buy a house: Call me!!

I am only a phone call away!

Have a good night!!!

Your #1 Realtor®

Sharing a tip to save with you!

Virginia R. Hoato
Realty World – Blue Property Group, Inc
DRE LIC# 01781539
Direct:  510-305-3254
Fax:  209-234-2750

Email: virginiarh@rightchoicehomes4u.com
TAMBIEN HABLO ESPAÑOL
Web Links:    http://www.rwblue-virginiahoato.com
http://www.virginiahoato.topseller.net
http://www.virginiahoato.com
http://www.rightchoicehomes4u.com
Skype Member: virginiarh1961

“FOR RESULTS OF EXCELLENCE: EXPERTISE AND INTEGRITY MUST EMBRACE YOUR NEEDS”.
(VRH 8-13-08)

Share the memorable experience of buying a home with others. Your personal referrals are my greatest compliment.

Technology is rapidly taking us by the hand through a road of new applications definitely needed to succeed in this new age of Real Estate that is dominated by the “World Wide Web”.  And I say rapidly because, while there are a lot of Realtors® having a hard time adjusting their ways to focus on Social Networking, Facebook, Twitter and computer related tasks that involve the Internet itself, developers are constantly working on fitting the MLS listings on the small screen.   Which brings up the question.  Do we get a break?  We are just beginning to get used to good old Social Networking.  Where did the small screen come from?

I am very happy with the new things technology brings, thus I embrace it and welcome the necessary adjustments I must make to merge my know how with the tools provided by it.   Unfortunately the road is not as easy for some.   With that being said:

Here is an article I found that talks about “the small screen” which is where we are headed.

I had to share this with you.  Working together makes the road a lot simpler.  Please take a moment to read it.  There are plenty of comments.   I would love to know what you think.  Send me a comment.

Here we go:

Real estate technology is headed straight to the small screen

By Brian Boero | Jun 11th, 2009 | 22 Comments Categories: Mobile, Real estate search, iPhone

The announcement of the iPhone 3G S this week adds confidence to my belief that real estate websites as we know them are a legacy platform.

The handheld device will be the locus of real estate technology innovation in the coming years.

The inherent “limitations” of the small screen are in fact liberating for the people who count: End users. These are the folks too often forced to slog through a chopped salad of links, footers and gratuitous content served up by SEO-obsessed product teams. The small screen concentrates the developer mind and compels a better experience.

And, for now, the mobile platform is relatively free from ads. This is changing fast, but even when mobile advertising matures it is likely to be less disruptive than what users have come to expect on the big screen. Early data suggest they may even be more effective.

Most importantly, the experience is portable, which is perfectly suited to real estate.

This is why I think the Zillow iPhone app is better than Zillow.com. It’s why I am so excited about the numerous IDX-based native iPhone apps in development as I type.

But you may ask: “What about virtual tours, or big hi-res photos – won’t the small screen limit my ability to merchandize listings?”

Here’s a secret: Price a listing right. Take a dozen well-composed photos. Put it in the MLS. It will sell. No need to go nuts with Photosynth or lay down a John Tesh track behind your slideshow.

The small screen is enough screen.

The details

Consider these features of the 3G S:

1.    Location awareness in the Safari browser. This means you don’t even have to be using an iPhone app to have content – perhaps listings – served up to you based on your location. Right now, many real estate sites serve you listings based on your IP address, which is a notoriously imprecise way of determining location. A location aware browser improves location targeting dramatically.

2.    Video capture, editing and publishing. A year ago, everyone was raving about Flip cameras. Trouble was they kind of sucked. And they were yet another device that needed to be schlepped around, then plugged in to some other web-connected device for publishing. Now, users can take hi-quality video, edit it and email or text it with the click of a button. Or the video can be sent to YouTube directly from the device. Forget for a moment how Realtors might use this; think about how buyers will be able to document and share their home search.

3.    Speed. Mobile browsing – even on “high-speed” 3G networks — is still relatively slow. Mobile apps also hang more than those running on the desktop. But the claimed speed increase in the 3G S is an indication that the same leapfrogging advances in memory and processing power we’ve seen on desktops and notebooks over the past decade is coming to the handset. The user experience will only get richer as a result.

Of course, even with nearly 40 million iPhone and iPod touches sold to date, the mobile story hardly begins and ends with Apple. But I think it is safe to assume that many of the features in this new iPhone will appear in some manner across the mobile platform in the next year or two.

Do we need more real estate websites? Maybe not.

Do we still need a better way to find place to live? Definitely.

The small screen is where that better way lies.

—

To read the comments click HERE

That’s it for now.  Don’t forget to return tomorrow for more!

Have a good night!!!

Your #1 Realtor®

Sharing some useful information with you!
Virginia R. Hoato
Realty World – Blue Property Group, Inc
DRE LIC# 01781539
Direct:  510-305-3254
Fax:  209-234-2750

Email: virginiarh@rightchoicehomes4u.com
TAMBIEN HABLO ESPAÑOL
Web Links:    http://www.rwblue-virginiahoato.com
http://www.virginiahoato.topseller.net
http://www.virginiahoato.com
http://www.rightchoicehomes4u.com
Skype Member: virginiarh1961

“FOR RESULTS OF EXCELLENCE: EXPERTISE AND INTEGRITY MUST EMBRACE YOUR NEEDS”.
(VRH 8-13-08)

Share the memorable experience of buying a home with others. Your personal referrals are my greatest compliment.

For the longest I have been coming across directions that are in Google Maps yet they are not in my Tahoe’s GPS.  Usually when I prepare for a viewing session I start with the itinerary.   I go to Google Maps and set up the route so I don’t have to drive back and forth or zigzag through town.  Once I finish just in case the addresses are not in my GPS.  Most of the times I find at least 3 addresses that my Tahoe’s GPS does not recognize.  A while back it was annoying because if I was not familiar with the streets in a particular part of town then I would to look at the print out.

Well, I have owned an Iphone since it first came out and having Google’s application helps me have turn-by-turn directions.  At home we love the one and only IPHONE.  Therefore we are always checking the applications it offers.  My partner found for me 2 GPS applications for Iphone that have Detailed Text to Speech turn by turn voice directions and it can set up to 1o addresses.  The application costs $ 24.99.  The one I like is:  CoPilot Live North America.   Now that it gets dark early it is a good thing to have.

Also if you invest in a Bluetooth that has voice control and it will pick up the voice from the GPS directions it is even better.  I use the Blue Ant Bluetooth, which once activated links the GPS to it.    It also allows you to upgrade the software via email.  After we bought ours my partner found a website where you can find it for 1/3 of the price: N1 Wireless.

I can definitely assure you this is an investment that will save you time and slight headaches.  If you are thinking about making life easier for you while taking care of business I highly recommend these two items.

Well, that’s it for today.

Have a good night!

Virginia R. Hoato – Realtor
Realty World – Blue Property Group, Inc
DRE LIC# 01781539
Direct:  510-305-3254
Fax:  209-234-2750

Email: virginiarh@rightchoicehomes4u.com
TAMBIEN HABLO ESPAÑOL
Web Links:    http://www.rwblue-virginiahoato.com
http://www.virginiahoato.topseller.net
http://www.virginiahoato.com
http://www.rightchoicehomes4u.com
Skype Member: virginiarh1961

“FOR RESULTS OF EXCELLENCE: EXPERTISE AND INTEGRITY MUST EMBRACE YOUR NEEDS”.
(VRH 8-13-08)

Share the memorable experience of buying a home with others. Your personal referrals are my greatest compliment.