February 2009

WXYZ anchorman Stephen Clark put this video up on YouTube today. Detroiters are resilient. Just watch. Written by Maureen FrancisSKBK Sotheby’s International Realty, 248.430.4450 Visit WebsiteSearch for homes in Oakland County

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Last week Oakland County introduced a plan to help get some of the vacant foreclosed homes off the market in select Oakland County communities.  Their press release follows. I need to call the county and ask some questions.  The program seems very generous and should help sell some foreclosed homes.  I am not sure why [...]

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Yep, you Metro Detroit first time home buyers who have been thinking about stopping renting and starting owning now have 8,000 new reasons to get hopping and start shopping.  Uncle Sam is giving you that much in good ol’ US dollars.  You’ll see it as a credit on your 2009 tax return, so it could [...]

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Congress finally came to terms on this stimulus bill that we’ve been hearing so much about. This thing is very far reaching and is going to cost a boat load of money, but I am just focusing on the items that will affect real estate sales and mortgage finance. Mortgage Rate Reduction – There has [...]

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Over the last few weeks I have had the pleasure of meeting with quite a few people who will be soon buying their first homes in Metro Detroit. They are excited about the opportunities they are seeing in places like Royal Oak, Birmingham, Beverly Hills, Huntington Woods and Troy. They should be excited. Today’s housing [...]

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Birmingham is certainly known for its upscale downtown, incredible restaurants and it’s wonderful neighborhoods.  We have pricey real estate here too, compared to much of the rest of the region. On Inauguration Day, I showed Birmingham’s only HUD home active in the MLS.  To date, there are have been few HUD homes in Birmingham, but [...]

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With the brief glimpse of spring that we experienced over the weekend, thoughts turn to buying and selling houses.  “The Real Estate Season” is fast approaching, although maybe not fast enough for some of us! Sellers?  Be prepared.  If your house has good curb appeal and is priced appropriately, your showings will increase.  Put your [...]

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Every year, Washington State real estate and mortgage blogger, Larry Cragun publishes The Magnificent Seven, an award he gives to some of the best real estate blog posts he has read over the previous year. Larry plows through thousands of posts over the course of a year to cull his list down. A daunting task, [...]

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The well known Detroit broadcaster, Larry Henry, and Dave Benjamin from The Sales Matrix have started a new series of podcasts about entrepreneurs leading the renaissance of Detroit. You can find their work on the recently launched VoicesOfDetroit.com I had the pleasure of sitting down with them last week and talking about the Metro Detroit [...]

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