Spoken Gently's Blog: All Categories

25 Signals of Crap ~ Do you have a crappy website? I got this from a thread in Webmasterworld and thought I'd post it. Some of these points apply to real estate sites, some do not. Credit goes to a member over at Webmasterworld using the moniker of "Fribble" Thanks Fribble!

When a West Richland Wa home buyer gets involved with buying a home, thoughts usually tend to center on staying in that home for a lengthy period of time, building both a family and equity. However, as we all know, your life can change in an instant and you never know when the next great job offer or life change will be presented, prompting you to leave town and seek a new beginning. It is those opportunities that prepayment penalties prey on and you should be well aware of what you’re getting in to if they are a feature of your mortgage.

Prepayment penalties typically state that if you decide to pay off the balance of your mortgage within a period of time (generally a few years from the start of the mortgage), you agree to pay a sort of penalty that is…

Information about the real estate industry is all around us. Between local newspaper real estate sections and the thousands of real estate-related web sites on the Internet, there are more resources for real estate information now than ever before. However, as these sources grow, the time spent by some prospective buyers and sellers with actual people decreases. Never forget that doing some ground-level fact finding can do wonders for you, especially as you endeavor to buy a home.

Face-to-face information will serve you well as you research a particular property. The neighbors, for example, will have great information on the property, including how it was treated by the previous owner, perhaps the owner’s motivations for selling and other information that…

So you have got your new Pasco home picked out and you are ready to embark upon the long process of securing a home loan and ultimately taking ownership of your dream home. Armed with that excitement, you take to the Internet in hopes of uncovering a hidden interest rate nugget, that low rate that other people have overlooked and that you have found through persistence and effort. Well, as you embark on that trip, there are some things to keep in mind during the pursuit for the lowest interest rate possible.

There are probably thousands of web sites offering Washington financial data that can be pertinent to your search, so it is important to quickly cut through them all and pick one that seems to be at least somewhat reputable and has easy-to-access…

Habitat for Humanity Tri-Cities announces the Annual Benefit Breakfast is coming up. 7:30am, Thursday February 22, 2007, at the Three Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick, WA. Please call the Habitat for Humanity office if you're interested in attending, being a table captain, or a corporate sponsor of this wonderful event.  509.783.2221

Work Schedule:
Work days are Mondays, Fridays and Saturdays. Habitat for Humanity is currently working on the Tierra Vida development in Pasco, WA. Click on the following link for a map to the worksite. Map to Tierra Vida.  Please call the Habitat for Humanity office if you have any questions.  509.783.2221

A public service announcement brought to you by the Lane Real Estate team.  Joe and Colleen Lane service…

The simple fact is that the Multiple Listing Service, otherwise known as the MLS, is one of the most effective home selling tools at the fingertips of real estate agents and for sale by owner sellers alike. As far as a resource compiling the homes for sale in a particular area, no service has yet matched the utilization and breadth of the MLS service, making it a staple of marketing efforts for all those looking to buy or sell a home.

The prominent standing can sometimes come in between a seller and his or her desire to go through the selling process alone without a real estate agent. Certainly, the MLS is a great marketing tool for real estate agent, but it has become accessible to for sale by owner sellers as well. That accessibility means that the…

Everyone loves a deal that will save them money on their income taxes, whether it is a credit of some kind, rebate to turn in or other incentive that will cut money off of the cash they have to pay the government. Refund checks are almost revered in this country because of the impression that they are almost like free money that was never expected to come back.

With that kind of environment in this country, it’s a wonder why ways to cut down on property taxes aren’t as widely published or commonly available as income tax techniques. The fact is, there are many ways the government has offered to cut you a break on your property taxes and going through a few of the methods might leave you surprised at some of the mechanisms out there to save money.

So,… Read Full Post

As EBay and any slew of online auction houses have taught most of America, prices skyrocket when two people bid against each other. Indeed, this has been one of the core tenets of selling probably since the beginning of time and the real estate industry has made significant work of that trait in trying to squeeze as much as possible out of a home.

There are two different situations when getting two people to bid against each other might help a real estate home’s value. One entails fielding similar offers and making counteroffers to both (though this can be sticky if both accept) or simply telling both sellers that there are two offers out there and whoever steps up with a better offer will secure the home.

The other situation involves intimating to one…