Homeownership also provides attractive tax benefits. People who take out mortgage loans to buy homes can deduct the points paid to obtain a mortgage when they bought their home and they also may deduct mortgage interest payments and property taxes each year.

Despite the advantages, buying a home is a major financial decision that shouldn’t be taken lightly. If you are buying in a market where real estate prices run in cycles, the timing of your purchase will be very important. If you buy during a rising price bubble, the value of your home could plummet when that bubble bursts.

In the mid-to-late 2000s, tens of thousands of people lost their homes to foreclosure when overheated housing markets went through major corrections. People who sat on the sidelines and rented during the rising market were able to buy homes at much lower prices once the bubble burst.

If you become a homeowner, generally you will need to have deeper pockets than a renter. Renters typically spend less of their monthly income on housing costs. Some investors prefer to rent homes so they can use the money that otherwise would have been spent on down payments.

If you know your way around the stock market, it may be possible to earn more from investing than you would from home equity growth, particularly during a housing market downturn.

Don’t fence me in

Once you purchase a dwelling, your mobility is likely to be restricted. If home prices drop below the amount you owe on your mortgage, you won’t be able to sell at a profit until values rise. If you have to relocate during a market downturn, you will face selling at a loss or becoming a landlord and renting out the home.

There also are lifestyle issues to consider when your status changes from renter to owner. After you buy a home, much of your time will be taken up with maintenance. If the roof leaks or you need a new water heater, it’s up to you to take care of the problem.

Unlike a renter, you can’t pick up the phone and report the matter to your landlord. If you neglect the home, it will decline in value and your investment will be in jeopardy.

On the plus side, a homebuyer with a fixed-rate mortgage has relatively stable housing costs. Unless you enter into a long-term lease agreement, rental rates can go up at any time.

One way to measure the benefits of buying versus renting is to look at your price-to-rent ratio.

To get the ratio, divide the price of the home you are interested in buying by the estimated annual cost of renting a similar one.

If the cost of the home equals 15 times the annual cost of renting, the ratio will be 15. Many experts say you should consider renting instead of buying when the ratio is 20 or less. For a detailed comparison of buyer and renter costs, you can find many “buy vs. rent” calculators online.

Source: MortgageMatch.com (5/10/2011)

Many of these variables depend on your individual financial situtation and lifestyle.

Owning a home can offer financial advantages, dependent on your situtation.  Home owners may be able to deduct mortgage interest, points, and property tax if itemizing tax deductions.

Depending on when buyers purchase during the real estate cycle, home owners can expect an appreciation in price which has been a traditional way to accumulate wealth. In other words,ideally you buy when prices are low and hold on to your property until you see a profit. Taking associated costs into account, home ownership provides financial benefits at or about six years. Fixed mortgage costs may not vary as much as rent which can be expected to rise annually due to inflation.

If you buy a home, you will be able to make physical changes which you cannot make in a rental. You can customize your home’s colors, change the kitchen or bathroom, or remodel.

While a home can accrue value, affording home owners the opportunity to “trade up” or use equity for education or retirement, renting a home may be more financially advantageous to some. Renters generally pay less of a percentage of income for housing costs. Renters may pay renters’ insurance and security deposits which will total less than the associated costs of home ownership which include property taxes, buying and selling costs, mortgage interest, home owners’ and mortgage insurance, maintenance, and utilities. If a home is in good condition, annual maintenance costs can be expected to total approximately 1 % of the home’s value. Additional costs of home ownership may include Homeowners Association fees.

Renters will not need to invest the time, energy, or cash into maintaining a home. Renting can free up capital for other investments which is referred to as “opportunity costs.”  In other words, the savings put towards a down payment can be invested in the stock market or other investments. Renters can also be more mobile, moving to a new neighborhood or city for a job opportunity or other reasons.

Source: Move.com (5/10/2011)

One of the nation’s most famous celebrity renters has bought a home.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg reportedly paid $7 million for a 5,617-square-foot home in Palo Alto, Calif., an easy commute to the new Facebook offices in Menlo Park – though not quite as close his previous rental home was.

Zuckerberg’s new place has five bedrooms, five baths and two half-baths, a saltwater pool, a spa and a gazebo with a fireplace.

He paid considerably more than the $5.85 million asking price. Real estate is expensive in Palo Alto, the home of Stanford University. According to the real-estate website Trulia, the median sale price from January to March 2011 was $806,500 and the median asking price in the last week of April was $1.62 million.

The Facebook founder turns 27 this  month, an age at which many people still rent their domiciles. He lives with his girlfriend, Priscilla Chan.

According to Palo Alto Online, the house is the second-oldest house in Palo Alto, though it has been extensively remodeled and added on to over the years. The last renovation was in 2007.

The house was built in 1866 as a Victorian cottage for Palo Alto pioneer Dr. William A. Newell. The house sat empty for 15 years after the Newells died, and Dr. Alexander McIntyre rebuilt it, using some of the original materials in 1906. State Sen. Marshall Black bought the house in 1909, then spent three years in prison for embezzlement.

The house is on a 17,117-foot lot surrounded by a wall, set back from the street with lots of trees. The estate was advertised as “offering the ultimate in privacy.” Among the home’s features are a home office with dual work stations and floor-to-ceiling windows.

The Los Angeles Times interviewed one of Zuckerberg’s new neighbors, Kenneth Regenos, a retired aerospace engineer who has lived on the street for 45 years, who said, “We’ll be happy to have him here.” Neighbors are friendly, but not too friendly, he told the Times, saying the last block party was in 1976.

Source: LISTED (5/6/2011)

The 100 residents of Plato, Mo., celebrated a milestone today: They are living at the population center of the United States.

Or pretty close to it. The exact center of mean population, as declared by the Census Bureau based on the 2010 Census, is in a farmer’s field 2.9 miles mile east of Plato, which is in the Ozarks in south-central Missouri, about 150 miles due south of Columbia and 62 miles northeast of Springfield.

The Texas County town of Plato celebrated its newfound fame with a gala ceremony featuring music, speeches and visits from such dignitaries as Robert Groves, director of the U.S. Census Bureau, and Juliana Blackwell, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Geodetic Survey. A survey marker, set in Missouri red granite, was unveiled downtown to mark the occasion.

“We’re proud of our village,” Village Chairman Bob Biram told the crowd. “As one of our students said, ‘We’re in the middle of nowhere; now we are in the middle of everywhere.’”

The Census Bureau calculates the mean center of population as “the place where an imaginary, flat, weightless and rigid map of the United States would balance perfectly if all 308,745,538 residents counted in the 2010 Census were of identical weight.”

The weight has been shifting west since the first census in 1790 and began shifting south in 1920.

Plato took the title from Edgar Springs, Mo., about 23 miles northeast, which was declared the mean center of population for the 2000 census. Missouri has been the site of the population center since the 1980 census.

Biram was interviewed by The New York Times last week. He told The Times that the town had ordered 100 postcards made up to commemorate the honor and had immediately sold out, at 50 cents apiece, and ordered 200 more.

While much of Texas County is agricultural, Plato is about 40 miles from the Fort Leonard Wood Army base, which makes its population more diverse than a typical country town, Kristen Hare reports at the St. Louis Beacon.

Elizabeth Frisch, who has made Plato her home for 11 years, after living in New York and California, was happy to see her town get its 15 minutes of fame.

“It gives a little recognition to the Midwest as a whole,” Frisch, who is the loan officer and vice president of Legacy Bank and Trust, told Hare. “It just shows that, hey, there are people here, too. Having lived on both coasts, I think you forget about it.”

Source: LISTED (5/9/2011)

1. 14 bed, 27 bath Los Angeles, CA home listed for $150,000,000: The fountain and light show greet you at the front door. The grand, artistic staircase beckons you inside. And the architectural details of the lit crown molding and arched floor-to-ceiling windows in the sunroom invite you enjoy the lush, garden views.

2. 9 bed, 11.5 bath Stateline, NV home listed for $100,000,000: Stateline is home to five casinos, four of which qualify as resorts, but this 38,000-square foot, resort-style home comes with a game room, wine cellar and indoor pool for a getaway, every day.

3. 13 bed, 23 bath Windermere FL home listed for $100,000,000: Surrounded by sand bottom lakes, this French Provincial estate sits on 10 acres and has private lake frontage and its own boathouse. Not all of the 66,800 square feet is completely built out, but is yours to customize as you wish.

4. 12 bed, 17 bath Alpine, NJ home listed for $68,000,000: The U.S. Open-worthy tennis court, NBA indoor basketball court and Olympic-size pool provide plenty of exercise and entertainment for the lucky new homeowner and their guests.

5. 9 bed, 6 bath Del Mar, CA home listed for $61,000,000: With this lot it’s all about the views! Build your own vision of paradise atop 5.5 acres of bluffs and include plenty of floor-to-ceiling windows to capture the splendor and wonder of mother nature.

Source: Move.com (5/9/2011)

1. Cut your price by a lot. Buyers nowadays want to feel they are getting a “steal,” real estate experts say. But some sellers may be tempted to list a property above fair market value just to test out the market and see if they can get a taker. In the past year, about 25 percent of sellers who initially listed their homes too high ended up having to reduce the price, according to Trulia.com.

“The first 30 days on the market are the most important,” says Elizabeth Kamar, a real estate professional in Norwalk, Conn. That crucial time is when the home gets the most attention and showings. For sellers who aren’t realistic about the price from the get-go, they often end up with less than they would have if they priced it right initially, Kamar says.

Experts also note that if after 30 days on the market there are still no buyers, sellers may need to make a big move.

“When a property sits, people start thinking it must be listed too high,” says Ellen Klein, a real estate professional in Rockaway, N.J. She suggests making a giant price cut–as much as 10 percent of the asking price–which may be extra motivation for buyers to take a second look or attract a new pool of potential buyers seeking a lower price range.

2. Play hardball in negotiations. Sellers shouldn’t feel they have to accept any lowball offer that comes their way. However, if a buyer is willing to negotiate, that’s when sellers need to try to set aside feelings of anger or insult and start to counteroffer, says Mabel Guzman, president of the Chicago Association of REALTORS®. Guzman says the ideal is that you’ll be able to negotiate within $10,000 to $20,000 of an acceptable offer. Using incentives–such as agreeing to leave the appliances–may get buyers to budge in agreeing to a higher price.

3. Stage it. Staging is becoming popular in trying to sell mid-range homes. Professional stagers will help home owners highlight key areas of a home and often rearranges furniture or bring new furniture in, repaint, and get the home looking like it’s ripped from a catalog. Real estate brokers say that proper staging can actually speed up a sale and increase the final sales price too.

4. Get the home in front of as many buyers as possible. The real estate professional needs to get creative in the marketing to make sure the home gets a lot of attention from buyers. “The more eyeballs that get on the listing, the better,” says Katie Curnutte of the real estate information web site Zillow.com.

One key: Boosting the home’s online presence. Having 20 instead of five photos will nearly double the number of hits the property gets on the Web, according to Zillow.com. Incentives can also draw out buyers, such as with offers to cover a buyer’s closing costs, pay the first year’s property taxes, or even a $1,000 gift card (and maybe one for the buyer’s agent too). (Note: You must disclose any such gifts or payments when the offer is agreed on.)

Source: Realtor.org (5/3/2011)

Kardashian in-law and Los Angeles Laker 6th Man par excellence Lamar Odom has placed his 5 bedroom, 6 bath Manhattan Beach home on the rental market for $8,000 per month.

The home, which Odom purchased in 2006 for $2.7 million, had been on the sales market since being listed at $2.399 million in 2009. He lived in the home before  his marriage to reality TV starKhloe Kardashian, who co-stars with him in the E! series “Khloe & Lamar.”

Odom’s Los Angeles Lakers are currently up 3-2 on the New Orleans Hornets in the first round of the NBA playoffs.

This 2 story Mediterranean-style home, just a few minutes from the beach, has 5 bedrooms and 6 baths in a 4181 square feet floorplan. Amenities include a pool with waterfall, wet bar, 3 car garage, and sunken living room. The house also has three fireplaces, including one in the master bedroom, Travertine flooring, and Cathedral ceilings.

Source: Move.com (4/28/2011)

Robert Karlsson, 22nd in the latest world rankings, plays both the PGA and European Tours from his base at the Club at Longview.

Buddies Johnson Wagner and Brendon de Jonge, college teammates at Virginia Tech, have been anchored in Charlotte for a few years.

Webb Simpson moved here from Raleigh last summer to be in the same city as his wife Dowd’s family.

Mathew Goggin, who nearly won the 2009 British Open and is the leading money winner on the Nationwide Tour this year, has settled here. Jeff Curl, a former Charlotte 49ers golfer now on the Nationwide Tour, is also a Charlottean.

Peter Oosterhuis, one of the game’s best players back in the 1970s and now a familiar face on golf telecasts, can be spotted around south Charlotte when his television duties don’t have him on the road.

David Eger, a winner at the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf on the Champions Tour a week ago, splits his time between Charlotte and Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla.

Though he lived here for a time last year, Fred Couples still has a home, Bobcats season tickets and club memberships in Charlotte.

“It’s Charlotte. It’s the (Wells Fargo Championship) tournament.” Wagner said.

“Guys love to play here and they love the city. It’s a great place to travel from because there are so many nonstop flights. And, there’s a lot of good golf.”

De Jonge moved to Charlotte after finishing at Virginia Tech, knowing the city had a large alumni base and several friends had moved to Charlotte. It wasn’t long after that Wagner, who had family here, followed him.

Just because there’s a group of tour players based here doesn’t mean they’re always playing golf together.

“All of our schedules are different so it’s hard for all of us to be there at the same time,” de Jonge said.

They also play at different places. Wagner is a member at Quail Hollow while de Jonge plays at TPC Piper Glen and Carolina Golf Club, which has offered membership privileges to the area tour pros. Simpson practices at Carolina while Karlsson plays at Longview.

A native of Sweden, Karlsson and his family were looking for an American base last year after living in Monaco. He was familiar with the city from having played in the Quail Hollow tournament and, unable to return to Europe because air traffic was suspended because of a large volcanic ash cloud over the Atlantic, the Karlssons visited Charlotte.

“I had played in Hilton Head and a friend had brought the kids over,” Karlsson said. “I said maybe we should go have a look at Charlotte…It’s a very nice town.

“When I came up, we found a house and went for it. It was an empty house and the kids were running around in the rooms saying they wanted to live here.”

For Karlsson, Charlotte Douglas International Airport allows him to fly direct to European destinations, making it easier for him to play both tours. For all the Charlotte-based players, it’s easy to get home from tournaments without making connections.

“I just love (living in Charlotte),” Simpson said. “The airport is great and my wife’s family is there. In Charlotte, I can go a little incognito. Not that many people know me. In Raleigh (his hometown), it seems like everybody knows me.”

While Orlando and Scottsdale offer warm weather winter golf, that’s not guaranteed in Charlotte. And, at least in Wagner’s case, that’s another selling point.

“I like having winter,” Wagner said. “I lived in Florida for a while and missed it.

“When it’s perfect every day in the winter, you feel guilty if you don’t go out and play golf. It’s nice to have days when you can’t play golf.”

Source: CharlotteObserver.com (5/2/2011)

“This Old House” host and Tim Taylor’s DIY nemesis Bob Vila has listed his Manhattan penthouse for $5.7 million, reports Curbed NY.

The 2 bedroom, 3 bathroom condominium comes with 2,500-square-feet and features large windows for great views of Manhattan, an open floor plan, and a terrace. Vila bought the penthouse in 2009 for $6 million, so he’ll be taking at least a $300,000 loss on the property.

Vila became a household name in the 80’s and 90’s when he was a host on the home improvement shows ”This Old House” and “Bob Vila’s Home Again,” among others. He reportedly owns a 9,000+ square-foot home in Massachusetts.

Source: Move.com (5/2/2011)

Plug air leaks and check insulation: An easy way to ensure that you don’t need to keep your thermostat cranked all the way up in the winter is to make sure that you have proper insulation and that your windows aren’t causing air to leak out. This will help you conserve energy in those hot summer months as well when cool air remains inside your home.

Program your thermostat: Speaking of indoor temperature, a great way to save energy and money is programming your thermostat while you’re away or asleep. PATH recommends setting your thermostat to 78 or above in the summer and 62 or below in the winter and then program it to return to the temperature you want when you get back from work.

Lighting: If there as still incandescent lights in the house, get those bad boys replaced. Compact flourescent  light bulbs (CFLs) consume less energy and will save you a lot on your energy bill.

Plant a tree (or two): The greenest of green features is planting a tree! Having trees providing shade for your home will help keep your house cool during the summer, block cold winds during the winter, provide a home for birds, and give everyone a nice boost of oxygen when chlorophyll does its thing.

Low-flow water: Help save some water by making sure that you have low-flow shower heads and faucets installed in your home. Also look into having your toilets replaced with high efficiency ones that only use 1.6 gallons per flush.

Energy Star: If you haven’t already, check out Energy Star’s list of approved products for your home to help save energy and cut back on your bills.

Bamboo flooring: If you plan on putting in hardwood flooring, try using bamboo. It can reach full maturity in just 4 to 6 years, as oppossed to 50-100 years for other hardwood flooring trees.

Source: Move.com (4/28/2011)