Home shopping and selling can be an intense and difficult task. With a lot info obtainable online, many people think they'll be able to tackle the task on their own. With homes for sale increasing, the real estate market can be complicated if you do not have the skills and experience in real estate. The advantages of utilizing the service of a real estate agent are invaluable when selling or buying a house or property. The advantages of hiring a real estate agent are numerous. Buying a home is more than simply submitting an offer. A real estate agent will have such knowledge about homes for sale such as the neighborhoods, outline community area, locations of hospitals, police station, roads, shopping, grocery stores, etc. They'll also assist you in locating a home that you will be able to afford as well as offer some tips on where to seek a mortgage. They're knowledgeable about all that's involved when buying or selling a house, such as the documentation required and the steps that must be completed to close a deal. Real estate agents minimize the stress involved in buying and selling a home. If you're selling a home, a real estate agent can take over the duties of arranging for a showing of the house and property, take the calls for people interested in a home, and listing the home with the right description that attracts potential buyers. Agents will know if a home that is listed on the market is worth the asking price. They'll take a look at such aspects as demand, current market conditions, location and type of house, and note the main features of the house such as the number of bedrooms to make sure the asking price is acceptable. They can additionally negotiate the asking price of a home which might save you thousands of dollars. A real estate agent is able to recommend such professionals as a home inspector, mortgage firm, a very good lawyer, home appraiser …etc. They have great contacts with those in the real estate market. They know the reputations and can offer a variety of choices to help you select wisely. As well, the quantity of paperwork concerned with selling and buying a house can appear complicated and overwhelming to a newbie in the real estate market. Also, the purchase papers can be extensive and confusing. There are other important papers such as federal and state forms. A real estate agent has the knowledge about homes for sale and all of the documentation needed in order to ensure that everything will be written up correctly and legally. Due to the complicated nature of the real estate industry, you never know what questions you will have however one thing for certain is that you will have all your questions answered by a real estate agent. Real estate agents play a crucial rule within the home sale/purchase process. By hiring a real property agent, you will save time and expense. For anyone involved in a home selling or buying undertaking, a qualified real estate agent is important to a successful deal.

When it comes to improving your financial picture, small steps can yield big gains. Whether you’re saving for a down payment or dealing with increased expenses having just moved into a new home, the following tips from SWparents.com are great ways to save money in a variety of areas. Start today and you’ll quickly notice the positive impact on your bottom line:

1) You’ve probably heard this since you were a kid, but really…turn off all lights when you leave a room. Train your kids—usually the worst offenders—to do the same.

2 )Have an honest conversation with yourself: If you haven’t used your gym membership in more than six months, cancel it. You can always rejoin and probably take advantage of a better deal when you do. Some gyms will even offer to “freeze” your membership, allowing you to pick back up after a certain period of time.

3) Save Starbucks and the like for a special treat. If you buy a $4 coffee five days per week, that’s $80 per month. Record your coffee-buying expenses for a month and see what your own personal damage is…then adjust accordingly!

4) Ditto for lunch. Even grabbing a burger at a fast-food chain adds up. Start packing your lunch instead. An easy way to accomplish this is by cooking extra at dinner or on the weekends, then packing lunch-sized portions in advance. If you’re banking on making lunch during the morning rush, odds are you’ll run out of time and end up buying lunch instead.

5) Do everything you can to increase your credit score. You will save tens of thousands of dollars in interest from any loans you have simply by having a better credit score.

6)Call every company you have monthly bills with and ask exactly what you are paying for each month. You will be surprised how many hidden fees are mysteriously added to your bills. You will never know this unless you ask.

7) Consider paying interest-bearing loans twice a month instead of once a month. You might be able to knock thousands of dollars off your total bill. Arrange automatic payments with your bank on the first and the 15th of each month.

8) Don’t leave the water running while brushing your teeth or shaving in the shower.

9) Odds are you can reduce your cable bill. With the plethora of options for on-demand and online viewing, chances are you no longer need 200 channels and three DVR boxes.

10) Buy anything and everything you can from second-hand stores. Second-hand doesn’t have to mean poor quality. In fact, most people donate items to these outlets because they are unused or hardly used, making it wasteful for them to be disposed of. Utilize this strategy with kids, who grow out of clothing and shoes at a rapid rate. Many teens also love shopping at second-hand stores where they can get the most bang for their buck, along with vintage or retro items.

I have been waiting for more than five years to offer this advice. It is now time in most cities across the country to buy a new home or refinance your existing home with thirty-year fixed rate mortgage debt. And this from the author of The Coming Crash in the Housing Market published in 2003 and my 2006 book, Sell Now! The End of the Housing Bubble. Let me explain why. Home Prices Relative to Peak Prices During Bubble Home prices are off anywhere from 10% to more than 60% in cities across the country. There is no reason to believe that prices were "fair" during the bubble as we have seen they were largely caused by loose and aggressive lending by banks and non-banks. But, it is always better to buy at a discount rather than at a historical peak, and these seem like awfully big discounts. And by my calculations, in most cities across the country, real prices adjusted for inflation have just about come into line with where prices were in 1997, before all this crazy bank lending started, so there should be little additional downside risk by buying today. There are still some neighborhoods across the country that have not seen very dramatic declines in price, many of them very wealthy and expensive enclaves, but given the distribution of incomes lately heavily weighed toward the wealthy, these areas may never see a really large home price decline. Home Prices Relative to Construction Costs or Replacement Costs Homes in many cities across the country are now selling for as little as $60 to $70 a square foot. Depending on the quality of construction and the underlying land value, this represents a 50% to 65% discount to the costs you would incur if you tried to build a similar home today in these cities. While there is no guarantee that there will be a strong rental market in the short run, in the long run it just seems to make sense to buy if you can acquire assets at half or less of the cost of building them. Home Prices Relative to Incomes and Rents During the peak years of the housing bubble, entire cities like San Diego were seeing their homes priced on average at 11 times the area's median family income. Such prices financed primarily with debt are by definition unsustainable. Now, because banks have pulled back on their lending formulas, homes in many cities are changing hands at three to four times average family incomes. Similarly, at the peak, houses traded at such large multiples of possible rents that it made the projects uneconomic from the start. Now, with homes trading at more reasonable multiples of rents, houses and condos can be purchased that are immediately cash flow positive in year one and enjoy all the upside of any appreciation that will occur as inflation returns. Home Prices in Real Terms, Not US Dollar Terms We still talk about home prices in dollar terms, which is silly because the dollar has lost 98% of its purchasing power relative to a more stable asset like gold over the last fifty years. If instead of pricing houses in dollars, we look and see what a home would cost in ounces of gold, we see that houses today are a real bargain. As a matter of fact, this graph shows that average homes, measured in the number of gold ounces it would take to buy them are now trading at forty year historical lows. You might argue that this is because gold is priced highly today. I would argue that gold's purchasing power has changed very little over time, it is the dollar that is depreciating and thus giving the appearance that the price of gold is rising. Actually, gold is quite stable relative to other assets and commodities and it is the dollar that is highly volatile and declining in value due to the US funding its deficits by printing dollars. The Real Bubble - US Treasuries and Future Inflation The real bubble out there is longer US Treasuries and 30-year fixed rate mortgages for homebuyers. With US debt equal to its GDP and equal to more than four times our government's total tax revenues and with annual deficits of $1.3 trillion and growing, it is amazing to me that people will lend to the US for thirty years for less than 3.0% a year. Even more amazing is that individual homeowners can borrow at 4.0% (around 3% after tax) for thirty years on a fixed rate basis, some 300 basis points better than Italy which has a lot more people and makes much better shoes. Homes may not appreciate greatly in real terms over the next twenty years, but they don't have to if inflation comes back, which is the only way the US and Europe are going to get out from under the huge debts on their countries and their banks. You may not make a lot in real terms on the house, but if inflation returns, you could make a killing on your investment as your thirty year debt becomes worth less and less in real terms. Run the numbers, but if inflation and interest rates go back to say, 7% to 8%, you could easily make eight to ten times your equity investment on the house because you locked in your borrowing costs and home appreciations historically have always correlated well with unanticipated inflation. So, run, do not walk to your neighborhood banker and either finance a new home purchase or take out the maximum amount of money he or she will lend you on a home equity loan and buy hard assets, not financial securities, with the money. When inflation comes roaring back the only perfect hedge is to be a borrower, not a lender or investor. Shakespeare said "Neither a borrower nor a lender be," but they didn't have huge government deficits and the risk of future inflation back in the Bard's time.

John R. Talbott, previously a Goldman Sachs investment banker, is a best selling author and economic consultant to families. You can read more about his books, the accuracy of his predictions and his family consulting activities at www.stopthelying.com.

Home values - it's a topic we hear about a lot in the news, and one of great concern to home buyers and sellers, but one I feel many people gravely misunderstand. A survey released last week from Zillow underscores this misunderstanding.

The survey's headline reads: "42% of Home Buyers are Unrealistic About Home Value Appreciation," and goes on to explain that despite the recent economic downturn and volatility in the nation's housing markets, 42% of those surveyed said they believe home values typically appreciate by 7% per year.

On a national level, home values declined for five consecutive years during the downturn. Historically, in a "normal" market, home values tend to appreciate at an average 2-5% per year. What is it that creates such an unrealistic view on home values - even now as much of the economy is still suffering?

Psychology of ownership: I think part of the reason home buyers are so optimistic about values appreciating is because they truly believe in the value of home ownership. In their minds, owning a home is the ultimate economic security, and one that will return financial value to their lives in many ways. Because it is so valuable to them, they feel like the numbers on appreciation move faster than historically they have.

Leftover boom mentality: Many buyers today witnessed the insane appreciation seen during the 10-year housing boom. News headlines constantly read crazy stats like "California home values up 20% from a year ago." I think that collectively, we got used to this and quickly lost sight of history, which shows home values increasing at a much slower pace.

In a fast-moving society, home ownership is a slow means of financial gratification. However, even the stock market requires 10 years to truly profit for the average investor. But you'd never know that by the programs you see on TV and the offerings of being able to pick and trade stocks online while you eat lunch.

I think it's important as real estate service providers to give consumers the context around home values and what is so-called "normal." Home ownership is a long-term investment that should be made first and foremost as a way to provide a stable place to live, then secondly as a way to create financial security. We can't let consumers assume that buying a house is their ticket to retirement, just like we can't let them assume that values will continue to decline forever.

A house is a different kind of asset than other financial investments. You can't unload a house like you can with other investments. And home values only really matter when it's time to buy or sell anyway. I say we promote the true value of owning a home as what it was always meant to be: owning your own home, the place you live, the place where you build a family and create your life's memories. If its value appreciates in the process (which, historically, it normally does over the long-term), then that's great. But keep those expectations in line with reality and don't make any buying decisions based on what you think the resale value will be a year from now. That's just the kind of boom mentality that got us into this mess in the first place.

The buzz in housing economics this week is all about Obama's revamped home-loan refinancing program and the hope that it will help hundreds of thousands of underwater homeowners. The new program makes significant changes to the original HARP program - viewed as a total failure by most critics because it was supposed to help "millions" of borrowers, but only helped 894,000 to date.

HARP stands for the Home Affordable Refinance Program. It was rolled out in 2009 to help borrowers who owed more on their homes than their current value, enabling them to refinance and take advantage of lower interest rates, which would lower their housing costs and ease their financial burden.

First, let's look at the changes:

• Some fees will be reduced or eliminated
• No more 125% loan-to-value ratio cap
• Streamlines refinancing process by eliminating appraisals and extensive underwriting requirements for most borrowers, as long as they are current on their mortgage payments
• Encourages shorting the mortgage term
• Program now extended to December 31, 2013

What hasn't changed:

• The program is only open to borrowers whose mortgages are owned by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
• Borrowers must be current on their mortgage payments to be eligible. (So this program really is not for homeowners facing foreclosure, but rather aims to stop people from walking away from their underwater mortgages.)

Why refinancing?

Officials estimate that changes to the program will save the average eligible family about $2,500 every year - the equivalent of a substantial tax cut. They anticipate the number of people enrolled will double as a result of the revamp.

A lot of folks have criticized the administration's refinance efforts through HARP because the number of borrowers it has helped pales in comparison to those in need. Five million homes have been lost to foreclosure and another 3.5 million foreclosures are anticipated over the next two years, according to Moody's analyst Mark Zandi. And analysts peg the number of homeowners who owe more on their mortgages than the current market value at 15 million.

The reality, though, is that there's only so much the government can do to help the underwater situation without completely devaluing the mortgage securities market. A mortgage is a contract by which a borrower agrees to pay under specific terms. The government can't just rewrite all these contracts. This is why you see efforts that are met with little fanfare. But we have to remember that one program isn't going to completely fix all of housing's problems.

Will these changes make a difference? I say every home saved from foreclosure - whether it's an owner walking away or an owner who can't pay his mortgage anymore - will make a small difference in some way. That's one less foreclosure on the books and one more family that stays in their home, and there's something to be said for that.

For more information about how to enroll in HARP, visit www.MakingHomeAffordable.gov.  (Note: This page still displays the old requirements and details, not the latest changes.)

The rest of his presentation focused on the mobile apps you must explore and he recommends as tools for expanding your capabilities, your lead generation and customer service abilities. Here are a few he highlighted which we completely agree are must-haves:

• Localmind - Download this app, open it and ask a real-time question to anyone checked in at a location on the map.
• Qwiki - Chris described this app as Wikipedia and YouTube's love child. Qwiki pulls up visually appealing information, photos and videos for any key word.
• Houzz - We were first introduced to this home design app at Inman Real Estate Connect in San Francisco in July. We are obsessed with this for design and renovation inspiration.
• Prezi - This is a free, presentation building tool that Chris recommended for listing presentations. It has incredible movement capabilities as you transition from slide to slide.
• Realtor.com - The app for Realtor.com allows you to change home search criteria to a specific set of blocks. How cool is that? Perfect for the picky homebuyer.
• Quicklytics - On the train? Wondering how your website traffic is doing? Quicklytics will tell you.
• Evernote - Real estate professionals are always raving about Evernote. It's easy to use and it syncs to all your devices and platforms. Chris informed us that the CEO of Evernote will be speaking at the Inman Real Estate Connect conference in New York City in January. We'll be there, so we'll be sure to cover it for you!
• Magic Plan - This may be the coolest thing I've seen so far today. Point your phone at the corners of a room, tell it where the doors are and it draws up a floor plan for you! That is magic!
• Glympse - Want to give a buyer a glympse of their new neighborhood? Open up this app and let your mobile device give a tour!

What is radon?

A layman's description

Radon is a cancer-causing radioactive gas. You cannot see, smell or taste radon, but it may be a problem in your home. The Surgeon General has warned that radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer in the United States today. If you smoke and your home has high radon levels, you're at high risk for developing lung cancer. Some scientific studies of radon exposure indicate that children may be more sensitive to radon. This may be due to their higher respiration rate and their rapidly dividing cells, which may be more vulnerable to radiation damage.

* A family whose home has radon levels of 4 pCi/l is exposed to approximately 35 times as much radiation as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission would allow if that family was standing next to the fence of a radioactive waste site. (25 mrem limit, 800 mrem exposure)

*The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) and the Surgeon General's Office have estimated that as many as 20,000 lung cancer deaths are caused each year by radon. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer. Radon-induced lung cancer costs the United States over $2 billion dollars per year in both direct and indirect health care costs. (Based on National Cancer Institute statistics of 14,400 annual radon lung cancer deaths - Oster, Colditz & Kelley, 1984)

*The panel also encourages the EPA to consider lowering its current "action level" (the level at which remedial action is recommended) of 4 pCi/L for radon exposure, given that new radon risk data have emerged since the existing action level was set. In 2009, the World Health Organization set a new recommended radon reference level of 2.7 pCi/L for residential structures.(SOURCE: The University of Iowa College of Public Health Office of Communications and External Relations)

What many thought was inconceivable is starting to materialize. Bank of America (BofA) is taking large steps in moving away from the mortgage business. In 2010, it closed down its wholesale channel (where mortgage brokers originate loans to be sold directly to the bank). In early August, it sold a half billion-dollar portfolio of loans that it was servicing, which was one of its core competencies. Now, it is discontinuing its correspondent business. If those three steps don't indicate that the bank is seriously considering exiting the mortgage business, I don't know what will.

The correspondent business is a major channel of distribution for many money center banks. Often, we hear that a mortgage house has its own money to lend and is a "direct lender." While this is technically true, the majority of these "direct lenders" originate and fund loans with a warehouse line of credit, then they sell them to a BofA, J.P. Morgan Chase, US Bank, or a Wells Fargo and keep the spread. Therefore, when you see a sign on the wall stating ABC Mortgage Co. or XYZ Funding, chances are they are a correspondent lender with a variety of warehouse lines that they are using to originate, fund, and sell off loans to major money center banks. This is an example of the type of business that BofA is walking away from and it is a big chunk of business.

A lot of people may ask "just how much money does BofA generate from correspondents, and what portion of the bank's total revenue is it?" Point blank, loans purchased from correspondents were responsible for 47% of the bank's total mortgage volume in the first quarter of 2011. Dollar-wise this translates into $27.4 billion. So exiting the correspondent channel is no small thing for Bank of America to walk away from. This is a unit that produces over $100 Billion in revenue. Internally, it's devastating as well. BofA has already announced 3,500 in layoffs. An additional 1,000 people will lose their jobs due to the discontinuation of correspondent operations. So as you can very well imagine a lot of correspondent lenders are scrambling, just as mortgage brokers were scrambling last year when the wholesale channel was shut down.

A bank spokesperson has been quoted as stating that correspondent lending "no longer fits with the long-term strategy for its mortgage unit." I don't know how a $100 Billion revenue producer wouldn't fit into any company's long term strategy. BofA has had mortgage issues, but by and large, the mass majority of those issues involve loans that were a part of the Countrywide portfolio and not through traditional BofA lines of business. So as opposed to rooting out the main problem, they are shutting down a whole operation. It feels like a corporate version of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Love it or hate it, BofA has always maintained a tradition of being a stodgy capital source with reputation for being one of the most predictably conservative lenders on the block. These movements were unpredictable and down right out of the ordinary. However, with shareholders clamoring for answers from CEO Brian Moynihan after 50% drop in stock price, the predictable is probably the last thing that we can expect from the top brass when he is sitting on the hot seat. Accordingly, if the losses continue to mount, I can't see BofA being in the mortgage business much longer. If the bank does stay in the mortgage business, it will be a significantly scaled back operation that is only provided at the branch level by personal bankers who won't offer any expertise, but merely take an application, plug the data into a black box, and wait for an answer while they attempt to cross sell you on checking accounts, credit cards, CDs, and IRAs. Pardon the pun, but if this what happens, there will be no "thinking outside of the box," as people at the branch will probably shrug their shoulders when the black box says "decline" and won't be able to offer a creative solution to a borrower's problem.

BofA is currently in a "no-win" situation. For the sake of shareholder pacification it has to shut down a distribution channel that has consistently brought it billions of dollars in revenue for years. Accordingly, with the loss of correspondent lending, it will be forced to pull back its mortgage operations into a computerized format at the branches that won't offer unique solutions to deals that aren't cookie cutter transactions. When such a large player retrenches it is bound to have reverberating consequences in an industry. This is similar to Microsoft leaving the software industry. Whether you like MS or don't, they fill a need in the software industry as BofA does ours. Now the question will be which entity will fill the void? This may call for one of the remaining big players to step up to acquire market share. It may be an opportunity to bring in private funds looking to fill their portfolios with more predictable returns. This could also provide a means whereby credit unions, insurance companies, and regional banks broaden their scope of the market and enhance their product offerings. Whatever solution eventually falls out of the bottom of this situation, BofA will be a much smaller bank, a lesser force in the mortgage business, and an even less dominant figure in the world of banking and finance.

There is a huge push to educate consumers about whay home ownership matters.  Here are a few of the premises on which the argument is based.  What do you think?

1) Children who live in homes owned by their parents have higher acedemic acheivement.

2) Communities where people own their homes are more cohesive.

3) There is improved health and safety.

4) The families are stronger. 

5) The economy is Stronger.

Watch for more information about this and tell me what you think.