At 1:59 am tonight (tomorrow? 1:59am — what was I thinking???) I’ll hop on a plane and be whisked away to The Big Apple — NYC — Manhattan baby.

I have the honor and pleasure of taking the stage with the amiable Teresa Boardman where we’ll be speaking and moderating a forum titled, “Brush Up Your Netiquette: Blogosphere’s Best Practices”, at the Inman Bloggers Connect Conference.

The fine print for our session reads:

Blogging is a fun and engaging way to market to potential clients. But how do bloggers balance a down-to-earth personal writing style while maintaining a professional presence? How can eager agents engage in other social media without coming off as too salesy? Bring your questions to this open-forum-style discussion on the unwritten rules of social media netiquette.

This implies that I have both a “writing style” and “professional presence”. Hmmm, some would probably debate that.

Regardless, it should be fun and educational. An experience not to be missed (though if you aren’t signed up by now, it’s likely too late unless you live in the area).

If you’ll be at Connect, we must connect. I’ll be at “Beer with Bloggers” on Tuesday evening (I hear Zillow is buying). If we miss each other there, give me a call or text at 480.235.4447 and we’ll get together.

I am also actively and shamelessly seeking corporate sponsorships for lunch, dinner and cocktails throughout the conference.

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Technorati Tags: Inman Connect, Bloggers Connect, freezing in the Big Apple

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I’m a little late with this because well, a couple of the parties involved were just a little late with “the payoff”.

As we all know, The University Of Texas crushed Arizona State University in this year’s Holiday bowl. Some local fellas, no doubt disappointed their mighty Sun Devils were “robbed” by not getting a BCS berth and were forced to play “the Big 12’s fourth best team”, took on a wager. The losers of the bet had to write “I ♥ UT” on their foreheads, with a Sharpie.

Jonathan Dalton, Damon Pace and Steve Belt were all great sports and paid up. Interestingly, they all look significantly better with I ♥ UT scrawled across their foreheads. For going the extra mile (despite corrupting his children) Steve Belt gets the nod for Video of the Week (don’t miss the bloopers at the end).

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Curious about how many homes are sold in Gilbert every month? (Sure you are!) Here are a few different ways to look at the data:

Table showing Gilbert, AZ home sales by month for 2000 through 2007:

Here is each year plotted by month. Note that home sales in any given year typically peak in June and are lowest in Dec – Jan. The “shape” of each year’s curve is similar, though the absolute value obviously varies.

And here is a chart showing monthly home sales in Gilbert from Jan 2000 through Dec 2007. There is an obvious shift that occurred in Jan 2006. Gilbert’s 2007 home sales total of 3,143 was the lowest since 2000 (when the population of Gilbert was significantly less than it is today).

Data represents all “dwelling types” (single family homes, condo/town homes, mobile/mfg homes) and signifies homes closed in a calendar month. All data is pulled from the Arizona Regional Multiple Listing Service (ARMLS) and is deemed reliable but is not guaranteed.

It should be noted that many new home sales are not tracked through the MLS. Nor are FSBO homes (For Sale By Owner).

If you are looking for more Phoenix real estate stats, both John Wake and Jonathan Dalton are excellent resources.

Technorati Tags: Gilbert real estate stats, Gilbert home sales, Phoenix real estate stats

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Todd Kaufman, Assessor for Loudoun County Virgina, received a letter from Val H. Starr, National Chairman for The Western States Constitutionalist Alliance.

In the letter to Todd Kaufman Assessor, Starr states:

To the matter at issue, our Constitutional Watch Dog Committee, has examined the blog publications of Mr. Danilo Bogdanovic, a realtor in Loudoun County regarding the assessment of taxes on “real property” in your county. His assertions appear to be a point of view, and a request to your office to “address a grievance”. We have also reviewed your response to Mr. Bogdanovic, which can only be read as “threatening”, “harassment”, and sophomoric, totally unbecoming a public official.

Sound familiar? It’s pretty much the same thing we (and others) have said.

Kudos to The Western States Constitutionalist Alliance!

You can see the entire letter at Danilo’s blog. The WSCA also issued a press release, which you can read in Danilo’s blog as well.

It shouldn’t be too much longer before Todd Kaufman’s own Loudoun County Assessor’s website is relegated to page 2 on Google for search terms like Todd Kaufman Assessor. (It was at #10 before this post.)

Others opine:

Can Todd Kaufman Tell Me What to Say and Not Say?

Attempted Censorship of a real estate blogger in Virginia

Todd Kaufman Assessor Loudoun County, VA and Tylene Gamble, Chief Appraiser, Wharton County kindred spirits

Real Estate Bloggers are not citizens

Local Tax Assessor gets hammered…

Attempted Censorship or misguided public official?

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Technorati Tags: Todd Kaufman, bureaucrats gone bad

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A couple of days ago, someone found this blog using the search term “do it yourself help +short sale“.

Yikes.

Here’s the deal. If you want to “go FSBO” — ie: sell your home “For Sale By Owner” — more power to you. As a real estate agent, of course I’d prefer for you not to go that route. I don’t think selling your single largest asset on your own is a good idea, but that is a whole ‘nuther post.

But doing a short sale on your own?!? That’s a really scary proposition. Short sales (where a home is sold for less than what is owed on it) are jammed packed with potential pitfalls, and really need to be handled by someone with experience doing them. Even many agents out there have never done a short sale. They are painful to the point that every time I do one I swear it will be my last.

And for the life of me, I can’t understand why someone would even consider a “FSBO short sale”. When homeowners FSBO, invariably they do so because they think they will save on real estate commissions, thereby putting more money in their pocket.

But a short sale is a zero-sum game for the seller. In a short sale situation, the seller isn’t going to walk away with a dime. They can’t pocket a plug nickel. Think about it, the lender is taking a loss of thousands (often tens of thousands) of dollars. Do you think they are going to let the seller take away any money?

Reducing (or eliminating) the commission on a short sale only puts that money in the lender’s pocket, not yours. (Hence the reason many lenders whack the commissions on short sales from the get go.)

So why in the world would anyone even think about doing a short sale on their own? Maybe I can see trying to offset some of the forgiven debt with a commission savings, but with the recent passage of the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act, that doesn’t make sense — the potential tax liability is gone. I don’t think getting the bank a few extra grand is going to salvage your credit score — it’s going to get hammered regardless.

A do-it-yourself short sale just makes no sense, unless I’m missing something completely.

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Technorati Tags: short sales, FSBO, things that don’t make sense

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Update Jan 3: When I looked at 7:30am this morning, the MagazineLife.net was off-line. Kudos to Dreamhost (and all those that notified them) for taking swift action!! I will freely admit to taking a significant amount of pleasure from seeing these sites shut down.

Sigh… splogger’s suck. What is a “splog”? Why it’s a “spam blog” — a blog that shamelessly steals content and reposts it as their own. Typically these sites are chocked full of AdSense adds, affiliate links, or some other way to generate revenue for the thief.

In other words, these lowlifes use content written by others for their own financial gain.

One called MagazineLife.net popped up yesterday, swiping dozens of posts from here and many others across the real estate blogiverse. I must say that they chose some excellent blogs to steal from — Kris Berg, Rain City Guide, Bloodhound, Jim Duncan, Jonathan Miller, Condo Blog — to name a few.

These asshats take a URL like “PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com/Amazing-Post” and rename it to “MagazineLife.net/Amazing-Post”. Of course they are too stupid to change internal links — which result in pingbacks to the real author’s blog — thereby alerting them to the theft and leaving a wide open bread crumb trail right back to the violator’s abode. How idiotic is that?

So steal this post oh great twerps running MagazineLife.net. In the mean time, emails have already been sent to your host and Google (the host may actually do something. Sadly, Google doesn’t ever seem to care), and I’ll be working on a formal DMCA notice. Fortunately I have a good DMCA template from the last time we shut one of these numbskulls down.

By the way, if anyone is ever looking for information on how to stop Internet plagiarism, you must stop by Plagiarism Today — it is jammed full of incredibly helpful information and Johnathan Bailey is a Prince among men.

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Technorati Tags: Splogs, sploggers suck, DMCA, Plagiarism Today

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Greetings oh avid reader!

Here we are, starting yet another new year. Often this is a time to reflect back on the previous year and look ahead to the coming months.

Seems to me that looking back is a bit of a waste of time — it’s hard to surge ahead when you’re gazing upon and basking in the past.

But a little reflection isn’t a bad thing, and it helps set the direction going forward.

Last January 2, I penned a post titled “2007 Blogolutions”. I had three things I listed that I wanted to do with the Phoenix Real Estate Guy blog:

1) Provide more local content. I think that could be labeled “done”. This blog will never be a “hyper-local” Phoenix area real estate blog — a blog consisting of nothing but Phoenix and Phoenix real estate information. Some argue that is the only way to a “successful” blog. Whatever. Phoenix Real Estate Guy has always been — and will always be — a somewhat eclectic mix of local, regional and national real estate things along with completely off-topic, sometimes seemingly random musings.

You see, I tend to write about whatever is on my mind. As a real estate professional, often real estate is on my mind. But as a father, husband and human being I do have other things clogging my brain. For me, the best way to empty my head is to let it spill out onto the keyboard. You’ve read (or at least had the opportunity to read) about my kids, my wife, even my $600 cat. I’ve written posts that made me (and at least some of you) laugh, and posts that made me cry.

These posts had little to do with real estate, but they have a lot to do with life. I pour my heart and soul into this silly blog sometimes. I won’t sugar coat anything, ever. What you see here is me — like it, love it or leave it. I’ve made lots a friends here (too many to list), and pissed a few people off too.

I think the mix here is pretty good. Others will no-doubt disagree. Will it change in 2008? Not drastically. This thing is constantly evolving, so who really knows what the next year holds. Guess you’ll just have to keep reading…

2) Post more frequently. Also done. 359 posts in calendar 2007, call it once a day. That’s about twice the 2006 posting rate. I thought some were good. Maybe even brilliant . Some were awful. I guess the best plan for 2008 would be to increase the brilliance and decrease the awful. Grand idea, execution of that idea remains to be seen.

3) Keep my blog roll updated. Not even close. I’ve been intending to update the blog roll for almost two and a half years. Maybe 2008 is the year (don’t hold your breath). My feed reader has grown from 60ish blogs at the beginning of the year to 338 as of today. My “Site of the Week” series swiftly turned into the “Site of the Whenever I Happen to Remember” series. I love highlighting new bloggers and will attempt to do better at that this year.

Overall, 2007 was a great year here at the Phoenix Real Estate Guy. Over 110,000 folks stopped by from all 50 states and 119 different countries (thanks to many of you for improving my geography!). These aren’t huge numbers. I read some blog today (a tech blog I believe) that had 8 million visits last year. But it’s not about the traffic. I blog to learn (mission definitely accomplished) and to share (mission hopefully accomplished).

We’ll take our 110K friends. 8% of you were nice enough (or sick enough) to visit more than 51 times. The 54% of you that found us via a search engine used 36,684 different search terms. That is one Long Tail of search. (Look for a post soon on search terms used here. It’s really quite fascinating to examine. Well, fascinating if you’re on the geekish side…)

Francy and I appreciate each and every person that stops by here, regardless of who, when and why. We hope you find what you’re looking for (let me know if you don’t!) and we hope you keep visiting. The “door” is always open.

We wish every one of our readers, their families and friends a happy, healthy, safe and prosperous new year. Thank you all so much for stopping by and sharing a little slice of our world.

Technorati Tags: 2008, reflections

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The Boys at Sellsius posted a nifty little video of their time at Inman Connect in San Francisco. I hope Connect NYC is half as fun. Looking forward to seeing those that will be there!

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Todd Kaufman, the County Assessor in Loudoun County Virginia may have started something he’ll regret.

Seems that Danilo Bogdanovic wrote a post in his blog that Mr. Todd Kaufman Assessor feels contained “inappropriate and misleading information” and he’s requested the removal of said post/info.

In a blistering email to Danilo (posted here) Todd Kaufman the Loudoun County Assessor stated:

The Office of the County Attorney, the management team of your office, the Chairman of the NVAR, and the Chairman and CEO of the Dulles Area Association of Realtors are copied in this correspondence.

Sounds like nothing more than a threat to me. Playing the lawyer card doesn’t sit well with me. Or apparently many others judging by these posts (and their comments) popping up over the real estate net:

Can Todd Kaufman Tell Me What to Say and Not Say?

Attempted Censorship of a real estate blogger in Virginia

Todd Kaufman Assessor Loudoun County, VA and Tylene Gamble, Chief Appraiser, Wharton County kindred spirits

Real Estate Bloggers are not citizens

Local Tax Assessor gets hammered…

Attempted Censorship or misguided public official?

Heck, even a local paper has joined in…

More of Mr. Todd Kaufman’s inept tact and style can be seen in the email exchange between Danilo’s broker and Kaufman (posted here). It includes such gems from Kaufman as:

Since you feel that this is a Constitutional issue, I suggest that you read the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment so you have an accurate understanding of both.

His approach is unprofessional, negative, and adversarial. (Ahem. WHO is approaching this in such a manner?)

Since you have declined my invitation to adhere to your professional code and standards, you have left me no alternative but to pursue this by filing a complaint with the National Association of Realtors as an ethics violation. My position will be clearly stated and documented in that complaint.

Knock yourself out Todd Kaufman, Loudoun County Assessor. In my opinion, your claims are baseless and you are nothing more than a pompous, arrogant ass. From what I’ve seen, you have yet to say exactly what was “inappropriate and misleading information”. Is a retraction warranted? I don’t know. And like Russell, I don’t really care.

Want to see what Google sees when you step in it Mr. Kaufman? Go here.

There is a right way and a wrong way to approach something you feel is incorrect. Why not reach out to the person in a civil manner, rather than being a complete and total jerk about it — throwing around your perceived power and generally acting like a crybaby?

Ask me to remove this post Todd Kaufman. Please ask me.

This little brouhaha does bring up some very interesting subjects. Does the Realtor’s Code of Ethics trump the Constitution? (I think the answer to that is a resounding no). Does a real estate broker have the right to oversee and even dictate what can and can not be on one of their agents blogs (Yep, like it or not — and kudos to Danilo’s broker for supporting him). Is a blogger responsible for “reporting” accurate information? (Sure, but being human, mistakes will be made. How many retractions and corrections do you see in the mainstream media every day?) These subjects and more will become topics of discussion as real estate blogging matures.

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Technorati Tags: Todd Kaufman, Blogging, First Amendment, power-crazed bureaucrats

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A new “blog” has been birthed - The Real Estate FAQ.

For roughly the past 18 months, unbeknown to millions, I’ve had a real estate FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) site running on phpMyFAQ, a decent, open source “FAQ System”. The problem with it is it was overrun by spammers, and I had to take it off line.

The thought of having a site that is pretty much nothing but a real estate FAQ repository has intrigued me for a long time. Combine that with some freakish innate desire to poke around with different web software, and you now have the newly revamped Real Estate FAQ.

The FAQ site is running on Drupal, an Open Source CMS platform (CMS = Content Management System). I don’t know if it’s a blog, a standard website, or what. It’s kind of a hybrid cross between the two. Drupal is really cool software, and very powerful. Likely more powerful than I’ll ever know.

Currently the site contains 32 FAQs, a very weak glossary and even weaker forum section. More FAQs and glossary terms will be added. I have no idea if the forums will stay or go.

You do not have to register, but registration allows one to add FAQs (including links, but if it’s abused, shutting that off consists of two keystrokes), as well as add forum topics. More user “perks” will come as I learn more about the capabilities and power of Drupal.

So if you have a moment, take a peek. I’m interested in any feedback — good, bad or indifferent — that anyone might have.

Stay tuned!

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Technorati Tags: Real Estate FAQ, Drupal

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Looking to ring in 2008 in style?

I was going to post a list of thing to do, places to go and people to see on New Years Eve in Phoenix.

But the Phoenix New Times has a very comprehensive list — 6 pages long — so it would seem prudent to just link to that…

Phoenix New Years Eve Guide 2007

If what you’re looking for isn’t there, it probably doesn’t exist. It’s broken down into three sections — Special Events, Restaurants, and Bars & Clubs. I count 90 different things to do. Your count may vary.

Technorati Tags: Phoenix New Years, things to do in Phoenix

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52 - 34. That would be the score of this year’s Holiday Bowl.

THE University of Texas 52

Arizona State University 34

And the game was never as close (?) as the score reflects.

ASU held the lead for a for a total time of 00:00.

UT gained 306 yards rushing vs. ASU’s . . . . 22

Dalton and Belt and Pace are going to look mighty special when they sport their new forehead “tattoos”. (See The Bet for details. No Photoshop boys, we’re talking Sharpie!)

And as for all you other knuckleheads (including my wife), about all I can say is….

HOOK ‘EM HORNS!!

This tune is for you.

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Technorati Tags: UT, Horns, Holiday Bowl, The Bet

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Earlier this month, several top level executives at Point2 Agent — a leading provider of real estate web solutions — left the company.

The Point2 press release on this states:

Point2 Technologies Inc. (“Point2”) today announced the resignation of members of its team last week…

Blanche Evans, the Editor of RealtyTimes, has this to say in a December 20 article about Saul Klein taking over as CEO of Point2 Technologies:

So the five investors at Point2 cleaned house of about 10 percent of its workforce, including upper management, and is starting over with a veteran of the real estate industry at the helm.

(My emphasis in both snips)

So, this begs the question….

Did these executives quit by their own volition, or were they fired by the “investors” in Point2? (Point2 is a privately held company — hence they have investors, not shareholders or a formal Board of Directors who answer to shareholders).

Given Ms. Evan’s reporting, I can only see three possible scenarios:

1) The Point2 executives quit of their own free will, and Blanche Evans misreported.

2) Ms. Evans is correct, the execs were “fired” by the Point2 investors. If this scenario is correct, given the Point2 verbiage in their press release, then it would appear that the executives in question were, “asked to resign” — as often happens when an executives employment is terminated.

3) I am completely misinterpreting the term “cleaned house” and Ms. Evans simply means they resigned. To me, this seems the least likely of these three scenarios. Ms. Evans is a highly regarded journalist and I just can’t see her choosing a term like “cleaned house” when “resigned” would be more accurate.

Does it really matter? I don’t know. In the grand scheme of things, the bottom line is the seven executives who left, for whatever reason and by whatever avenue, are gone.

However, when the Editor of RealtyTimes, the “Internet’s largest independent real estate news service” strongly implies they were terminated, it is an interesting little tidbit and it definitely makes one sit back and say, “Hmmmm”…

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Technorati Tags: Point2, Blanche Evans, RealtyTimes, Things that make you say hmmm

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From our house to yours, we wish you the most joyous holiday season. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or chose to spend the holiday season in any other way, we wish all our readers and their friends and family well.

I thought I’d share my two favorite Christmas songs — one traditional, and one “non-traditional”.

The first is O Holy Night, with Placido Domingo and Charlotte Church — two unbelievable vocalists. The second is Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake and Palmer performing his “I Believe in Father Christmas”. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Warmest Regards,
Jay and Francy

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Technorati Tags: Merry Christmas, Favorite Christmas Songs

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The Arizona Republic ran a story yesterday about Gilbert based RE/MAX 2000 closing its 13 offices across the Valley. (Thanks to Cash at REIPipeline.com for the tipoff. He’s got a great new Phoenix based real estate investing blog BTW.)

According to the Republic, these closings affect 350 agents and 15 - 20 salaried employees. The agents can hang their license in all of 15 minutes at another brokerage — many real estate brokerages will let any warm body hang a license with them, no experience or ability required. (note, I am NOT saying these 350 agents have no ability. I’m sure many are outstanding. Fact is though, anyone with a license can find a broker willing to take them at a moment’s notice.)

Unfortunately for the 20ish salaried employees, it’s not going to be that easy. Merry Christmas. I wish them all the best of luck.

Jonathan Dalton reports these RE/MAX 2000 offices had about 1700 residential sales in 2007.

Officials are saying, “any sales or purchases already under way through RE/MAX 2000 will not be affected, and agents’ listings will follow them”.

The bubbleheads and agent haters are having a field day in the comments of the Republic article. ‘Tis the Season.

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Technorati Tags: Phoenix real estate, RE/MAX, another brokerage bites the dust

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First, I apologize to those reading here that don’t regularly read real estate blogs (more on that in an upcoming post). You may just want to skip over this, though if you have any interest in human nature/interaction, it could be of some interest.

Earlier this week, Daniel Rothamel, a bright young real estate agent in Charlottesville, VA (the city of my birth incidentally — and that matters not one iota) posted a video on his blog titled, “How to Sell Your Home in Black and White“.

This video swiftly caught the attention of numerous real estate bloggers, with reactions ranging from “brilliant” and “genius” to “terrible” and “pandering and condescending, insulting to consumers” - and everything in between. Hey, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. For the record (and I left this in a comment on some blog somewhere), my initial reaction to the video was “Eh”. I didn’t think it was either good nor bad. The production was of good quality, the message (price your home properly) was spot on, but the video — to me — was just what it was. I didn’t find it funny, nor did I find it offending. I can see valid points in both sides opinions.

A veritable shitstorm was let loose as verbal thrashings began primarily between Greg Swann at BloodhoundBlog and a few contributors at AgentGenius. I won’t rehash any of it here, because to be blunt, I’m tired of it. If you’re really curious, go to either of those blogs — there are several recent posts on both as well as volumes of comments and ping backs to other blogs reactions.

Now given the brouhaha over Daniel’s video, you may be thinking that is my choice for Video of the Week. (Yeah, I know, I’ve already posted this weeks Video of the Week. Well, this week you get two — blogger’s prerogative!)

But no! Here is the video of the week….

Mariana Wagner just released her own video about an hour ago in response to the “debacle” (her word, and a good one - probably better than my more colorful choice).

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Disclaimer: I am by no means an attorney, a tax professional, nor a politician. What follows is my interpretation of the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007. As always, consult your attorney and tax professional for specific questions! And if you think it will help to consult your politician, well… knock yourself out!

My recent post on the Mortgage Cancellation Relief Act generated several questions asking for clarification. Questions fell into two primary areas: 1) which of the two acts will be sent to the President for signing; and 2) what is the definition of “primary residence” and will this act cover my personal situation.

Question #1 is the easiest to answer. The House version of the bill (H.R. 3648), titled the Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007 was amended by the Senate and as of yesterday (Dec 19) was sent to President Bush for signing into law.

Here is the entire text of the bill as sent to the President.

Everything I’ve read indicates the President will sign this bill into law. UPDATE: President Bush signed the bill into law as I was writing this post. Here are his remarks.

Question #2 requires some interpretation and again, I’m no lawyer or politician. Bills and IRS Codes contain language that only graduates of Politi-speak 401 and those fluent in IRSeese can fully comprehend.

Here is an example from the bill:

Paragraph (1)(B) shall not apply to a discharge to which paragraph (1)(E) applies unless the taxpayer elects to apply paragraph (1)(B) in lieu of paragraph (1)(E).’.

And I’m not even going to quote from the two sections of applicable IRS Code (sections 108 and 121). Read them at your own risk.

I have read the bill in its entirety and cross-referenced the IRS Codes, well past the point of getting a massive headache, and here’s what I think in highly condensed normal people English.

The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act removes the potential tax liability associated with a “short sale”. To borrow the example from my previous post, that tax liability plays out like this:

Say Joe Homeowner owes $300,000 on his mortgage. His lender approves a “short sale” that will net the lender $250,000. But Joe owes $300,000. The lender “forgives” this $50,000, but is required to report that to the IRS. Our buddies at the IRS then say, “Hey Joe, you owe taxes on that $50K, pay up!”.

Depending on Joe’s tax bracket, the taxes owed on that $50,000 in forgiven debt could run into the thousands (potentially many thousands).

There are, of course, some limits and restrictions….

The maximum amount of “forgiven debt” is $2,000,000. I *think* this is for a married couple filing jointly and the limit for a single person is $1,000,000. Regardless, I doubt these limits will impact many.

The bill only applies to a “principal residence”. So investment properties and second homes in a short sale situation are not eligible. This leads to the obvious question of “what is a principal residence?”

From the bill:

`(5) PRINCIPAL RESIDENCE- For purposes of this subsection, the term `principal residence’ has the same meaning as when used in section 121.’.

When I first read the bill, I thought this was referencing “section 121″ of the bill itself. But there is no section 121 in the bill. So it appears to be referencing Section 121 of the IRS Code, which actually makes sense because IRS 121 defines “principal residence” as:

“. . . during the 5-year period ending on the date of the sale or exchange, such property has been owned and used by the taxpayer as the taxpayer’s principal residence for periods aggregating 2 years or more. “

In short, if you lived in a home you own for 2 of the past 5 years (from the date of sale), it is considered a principle residence. Note the word “aggregating”. That means you don’t have to have lived in the home for two consecutive years in the past 5. Simply go back 5 years from the date of the sale and if you lived in the home for a total of 2 years, it qualifies as a primary residence.

Now someone who owns two homes may be thinking, “Hey, I’ve lived in one house for 2 of the last 5 years and in the other one for 3 of the last 5 years. They are BOTH primary residences!”

Trust me, the IRS has thought of that. My understanding is you have to declare one or the other as your primary residence. They aren’t going to let you have two eligible primary residences.

Important note: The bill clearly states, ” (d) Effective Date- The amendments made by this section shall apply to discharges of indebtedness on or after January 1, 2007.”

So if you had a short sale prior to January 1, 2007 you are apparently out of luck with regard to tax relief from this act.

There is much more gobbledygook in both the bill and the IRS codes. But the gist of it is this:

If you were in a short sale situation after January 1, 2007, and it involved your primary residence, then you will not be liable for taxes on the amount of the forgiven debt as long as it is less then $2 million dollars.

Also included in this bill is an extension of the mortgage insurance premium deduction through 2010 (was slated to end this year). There are also changes to things like S Corp filing penalties, tax benefits for volunteer firefighters and emergency medical responders and more, but my head hurts far too much to even attempt to decipher those sections. If you think they may apply to you, you know the drill about who to consult.

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The folks at IntoTheBox.TV just get it. I think they are simply the best at local real estate “videoblogging”. Edgy, sometimes irreverent, funny, always enlightening and entertaining — their work sets the standard in this growing medium.

Rachel Natalie Klein, the “star” of IntoTheBox.TV will be speaking at Inman’s Blogger Connect panel on Beyond the Written Word: Videoblogging and Podcasting. I’ll be co-moderating a forum later that day on “Brush Up Your Netiquette: Blogosphere’s Best Practices” and I’m really looking forward to meeting Natalie and Steph Lang from IntoTheBox! Hope you all can attend the “Beer with Bloggers” event that Tuesday evening. I hear Zillow is buying…

Contains some innuendos, but completely safe for work (not that anyone actually at work would be reading this, now would they? )

Here is the direct link in case the embedded video gets goofy.
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Technorati Tags: IntoTheBox.TV, New York City, videoblogging, get back to work!

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There have been a couple of minor changes made to our humble abode over the last couple of days. I’m always toying around with this thing trying to make it better.

I came across a combination of plugins that do a pretty neat thing.

When people use search engines and find the blog, often they don’t land on exactly what they are looking for. A good example of this would be a Google search for “Phoenix real estate stats”. This search currently returns an entry in the number 7 position of page 1. Not a bad result, but the problem is, if the search result is clicked on, the searcher is sent to the blog home page, which may or may not have a post currently displayed that pertains to Phoenix real estate stats.  Mr. Visitor likely quickly scans the page, and if they don’t see what they are looking for they are apt to leave — maybe to never return, which makes me sad.

Enter The Landing Sites plugin. This slick little gizmo will display a list of posts related to their specific search in a prominent place. And it will only display this list if the visitor is coming from a search engine referral. Visitors coming from a bookmark, clicking through from another blog’s link, or directly from entering a URL won’t see these results.

Here’s a screen shot showing the results from the above mentioned search referral:

Here is a close up of the Landing Sites results:

In theory, this plugin could result in visitors from search engines being able to quickly find posts that are more “dialed in” with what they are searching for — which is always a good thing to provide your visitors.

Landing Sites works in conjunction with the Related Entries plugin, which I’ve seen on many blogs but never been able to get properly implemented here until I tore into some theme specific PHP files. It’s functioning now and you will now see a list of potentially related posts linked at the bottom of every blog post.

Another addition is the list of monthly top commentators in the right side-bar. I had a similar plugin installed at one point but it counted pingback spam links as comments. The Show Top Commentators plugin seems to fix that nasty problem.

Here’s a shot of what this plugin looks like in action:

This plugin was installed to share a little link love with frequent commentators. It resets monthly (the time period is completely configurable).

And speaking of the pingback spams, I deactivated Spam Karma 2 and reactivated Askimet as the primary spam filter of Phoenix Real Estate Guy. Time will tell if Askimet better handles ping/trackback spam. In just over 18 months, Spam Karma blocked over 350,000 comment spams (how ridiculous is that?). It’s a great plugin, but the pingback spam was getting beyond tiresome. If Askimet doesn’t help, the next step is to install the version of SK that includes Askimet. We’re also running Bad Behavior as another weapon in the ongoing war against comment/ping spam.

As always, if you see anything acting goofy due to these changes, please let me know.

Technorati Tags: Wordpress plugins, Landing Sites, pingback spam sucks

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Point2 Technologies has just announced that Saul Klein will take over the helm as CEO on Jan 1, 2008.

Mr. Klein brings a wealth of experience and knowledge. Most know Saul as the head honcho of Internet Crusade / RealTown — a post he will retain. He is also the creator of the ePRO designation.

There has been quite a bit of turnover in the Point2 management ranks of late (much discussed on this very blog here, here, here and here.). I suspect Mr. Klein will bring much insight and vision, as well as needed stability.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Saul recently (at the Zillow reception at the Vegas NAR convention - he won’t remember me from Adam) and he’s a really sharp guy. Well respected in the real estate world too.

Nice move Point2!

UPDATE:
From the Saskatoon Star Phoenix (local paper)
Dustin opines.

.

Technorati Tags: Point2 Technologies, Point2 Agent, Saul Klein

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