True Filipinos love to be home, close to family. They may have made their own family elsewhere but deep in her (it’s usually the woman being able to find foreign husbands) heart, she wants to be home.

Since she has gotten the financial status she wants in America, for example, she now can afford to buy the luxury in the Philippines that’s close to America. So she gets the best of both worlds.

If you are Filipino who got American citizenship, the Philippine law allows you to have dual citizenship.

Your husband may not be able to buy the wonderful home in the Philippines but you with a Filipino blood running in your veins, can….at a fraction of a cost.

What will you choose?

That actually depends on your needs and financial capacity.

Go short term if:
- you have enough to feed your family and do your everyday necessities after you have paid off your amortization for the month.
Advantages: lower interest, ownership immediate.
Disadvantage: initial cash outlay is abruptly bigger.

Go long term if:
- you want to invest but you are financially limited but still would be capable if you choose the long term scheme.
Advantages: monthly investment not heavy on the pocket; when you die earlier than the house is paid for, it is considered paid as long as you have morgage redemption insurance (MRI).
Disadvantage: Higher interest rate.

Large national brokerage companies have taken anywhere from a decade to a century to build a national brand. On average, many of the current real estate leaders appear to have invested approximately three decades in creating and building national recognition.
Therefore last week’s announcement by Realogy of its licensing the Better Homes and Gardens (BH&G) brand for 50 years from Meredith Corporation, a publishing company that owns about 25 subscription magazines including Better Homes and Gardens, comes as a big surprise to the industry.

There are numerous parties questioning the transaction; whether the deal has merit or whether it will cannibalize the existing Realogy brands. I think these pundits, like before (when RE/MAX launched in 73, when HFS bought Century 21 in 1995, when EXIT launched 1996, etc.), are underestimating the power of innovation and change. There is a lot that can be done with the BH&G brand and it is way too early to speculate its potential place in or impact on the industry – be as it a replacement brand for some existing “worn” Realogy real brand, a new real estate brand targeted towards women or a new online real estate brand.

Betting odds should give determined men with lots of money the benefit of the doubt and Realogy surely has ample amounts of both.

Continue reading from: retrends.com

BEVERLY HILLS, CA-Kennedy Wilson’s Multifamily Management Group has sold four properties throughout California totaling 992 units in 30 days for an aggregate of $147 million. The sales follow the company’s repositioning of the assets under Kennedy Wilson’s ownership, according to Bob Hart, president and CEO of KW Multifamily, which is a subsidiary of Kennedy Wilson.

Hart says that the locally based company will reinvest the proceeds of the sales into other multifamily properties that meet the firm’s criteria of under-performing assets in urban markets. He adds that Kennedy Wilson sees continued opportunities in the multifamily arena in light of the changes occurring in the housing and capital markets.

“Given the current disruptions in the availability of capital for home ownership and mounting defaults and foreclosures, we seek continued opportunity for increasing rents in well-positioned properties,” Hart says. Specifically, Hart says that KW Multifamily sees opportunities in multifamily properties in major urban West Coast markets, including California and the Pacific Northwest.

The four properties that KW Multifamily sold include the 328-unit Windscape Village Apartments on North L Street in Lompoc, the 208-unit Country Oaks Apartments on East Enos Drive in Santa Maria, the 256-unit Somerset on Garfield complex on North Garfield Avenue in Montebello and the 200-unit Creekside Apartments at 1800 Stokes St. in San Jose.

The Windscape sold for $42.3 million, the County Oaks for $30.3 million, the Somerset on Garfield for $39.3 million and the Creekside for $35.6 million. LeFever Mattson Inc. bought the Windscape and the County Oaks, Advanced Real Estate Services Inc. bought the Somerset on Garfield and Klingbeil Capital Management acquired the Creekside.

Including the recent transactions, KW Multifamily has purchased more than 12,000 apartments in California, Oregon and Washington in deals totaling $1.4 billion.

Source

Brad Inman invited Jamie Glenn of Trulia.com to present the top 50 online ways to market real estate. We shot some video of the presentation and have it posted here along with a list of the web services mentioned in the video. We’ll critique our section (Multimedia) later. Not surprisingly, we have a lot to say about the subject.

Listing Sites
Craigslist – Great way to get local information
Google Base – Post it on Base. Find it on Google
Homegain – Expose your listing and profile to buyers and seller
Trulia – Get in front of serious home buyers
Zillow – Post your property for free
HomeScout – Get exposure for your listings
Oodle – Post your free classified listings
Edgeio – Post your listing, be viewed by the world
Live Deal – Get in front of your local community
SecondSpace – Lifestyle network of sites such as Landwatch.com that you can submit to
Postlets – Submit your listings and get on several classified sites
vFlyer – Sell things easier and faster; create only one ad and submit to multiple sites

Social Media
Facebook – Create a profile and connect with people around you
LinkedIn – Relationships matter – join online network of over 12 million
Yelp – Review local businesses. Become a local expert
Trulia Voices – Create a profile and answer local real estate questions from potential clients
Home Thinking – Create a profile and be found by customers looking for an agent
Bebo – Online social network, create a profile, explore, and be discovered
fatdoor – Get to know your neighbors
The Flipping Pad – Share and discuss real estate investing
Tagged – Social networking destination where people showcase their talents and connect with others

Learn more: realestatevideo.wellcomemat.com

Yes, if you know how — literally — to play the game. But, as in real life, only a few are really good at it.
By Christopher Solomon

* The most resilient U.S. markets
* What your real-estate agent can’t tell you
* Not-so-real estate: Is it ethical to alter photos?

Perhaps you’ve heard of the land baroness named Anshe Chung. No? Maybe that’s because Chung only exists in the virtual reality game Second Life. Chung, or rather, her real-life counterpart, Ailin Graef, has gained attention — and a BusinessWeek cover — as the first person to reportedly become a real-world millionaire from her virtual-world business.

How’d she do it? By buying, developing and selling virtual real estate. While much of her wealth is still tied up in Second Life’s currency, Linden dollars, those can be sold for genuine U.S. dollars. Graef reportedly makes upward of $150,000 annually.

Second Life is one of several massively multiplayer online role-playing games that are, literally, their own worlds. Julian Dibbell, author of “Play Money: Or How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot,” estimates the market for virtual items across games such as Second Life and Ultima Online has hit the $1 billion mark. “I think it’s safe to say that it’s at least $1 billion now,” he says.

Such numbers — along with success stories like Graef’s — show there’s real scratch to be made from online dirt. But just how much depends on a number of factors, of which only a handful are under your control. Here’s how the virtual real estate game is played.

Learn more: realestate.msn.com

I have become a huge fan of Barbara Corcoran over the past several months. I love her vibe and advise. I have seen her speak in a number of places from the Today Show on Home Staging and a Millionaire maker show with The Rich Dad Author Robert Kiyosaki, Loral Langemeier, David Bach and more. Anyway, she has a terrific methodology to find great up and coming neighborhoods for investment

I first saw it on the “Millionaire” show and she just posted her process at her Barbara Corcoran blog. Check it out for yourself, but let me give you a couple of her clues that an area is up and coming:

1. If a little old lady is sitting on a bus bench at night, it is safe.
2. Is there nightlife? Are people out freely shopping?
3. Are there any new cars?
4. What are the SAT scores?
5. Buy the lower end house, it has the most room to go up.
6. Are rents going up?

She says the time to buy is now if it is in the right area.

Her top up and coming areas? Go to her site to get reasons why:

* Austin, Texas
* West Midtown, Atlanta, Georgia
* Biddleville, Charlotte, N.C.
* Seward Park Seattle, WA
* Reading, PA
* Farmington, NM

By: Tim O’Keefe
Learn more: houseblogger.com

It’s always good to take your realtor’s advice on how to go about selling your property, but don’t let that be the be-all and end-all of your decisions. In the end, you’re the one making the decisions. Always remain alert and critical of the advice given to you by your real estate agent.

Worldwide ERC, based in Washington, D.C., and Primacy Relocation, based in Memphis, Tennessee, worked with survey company Sperling’s BestPlaces to survey the statistical profiles of the 100 largest U.S. metro areas to weigh criteria including male to female ratios, clubs and restaurants, job growth, higher education costs and the prevalence of nightlife. Austin landed eighth out of the 100 surveyed cities.

According to Cris Collie, CEO of Worldwide ERC, “We know that successfully assimilating into a new community facilitates a transferees productivity, and as the labor market continues to tighten, opportunities for talented and mobile employees expand, and companies seek more ways to successfully compete for talent, the focus on elements that make relocation more attractive to job candidates becomes more significant.”

You closed the sale and paid for the property. So, what’s next? Celebrate and plan your housewarming! But before doing so you should know that a “Sale” is considered closed once the deed of sale has been signed by both the seller and the buyer. But, you have to wait for a few days (more or less 3 days) before the seller can turn over the keys to you and you can start occupying the house. Once you have the keys, you can now start remodeling it or hire for a paint job if you wanted it to get a new look. You can also bring in all your belongings and occupy what you rightfully bought. And, now is the time to go ahead with your plans!