Mon, 29 May 2006 00:31:37 GMT

Free, Easy Home Valuation Tool Online

Ever wonder what that nice house down the street is worth? How about your co-workers place? Or, maybe you’d just like a quick 30-second estimate on the value of your own home.

Zillow.com, a new website, provides free instant valuations on 65 million homes in the United States. Using public records, tax assessments and comparables from recent sales, it comes up with a "zestimate." The site was originally designed to assist home buyers and sellers. However, more and more people are using it for kicks.

Using satellite imagery, visitors can get an up-close, birds-eye view of the house, block and neighborhood in which they are interested. Values for all houses are displayed on your monitor.

All you have to do is type-in the address and zip code of a particular property.

It’s as simple as that. In addition to the value of the house, other details are also available -- number of bedrooms & bathrooms, square footage, lot size, year built, heating & cooling, etc. The data even includes 1, 5 and 10-year appreciation graphs for the property.

Zillow is also handy for listing recent sales data ("comps") within the area, for comparison purposes.

Adding to the fun, a new element provides a birds-eye view and data on famous homes...such as the Beverly Hillbillies Mansion, the Playboy Mansion, Beverly Hills 90210 Home, Happy Days House and Friends Apartment Building.

Wed, 24 May 2006 02:32:11 GMT

Kailua: "A Lot Better Than Malibu"

Commenting on Oahu's quiet and beautiful beach town of Kailua, Coldwell Banker Pacific's Vice President Mary Beddow recently said:

"I think Kailua is a lot better than Malibu (CA)...they just have the movie stars."

Situated on the southeast shore of Oahu (Windward Oahu), Kailua's real estate market is one of the hottest in Hawaii. Median home prices have quickly skyrocked to $885,000. In addition to its beach proximity, the easy commute from Kailua to downtown Honolulu is a major selling point.

Indeed, several years ago, Malibu's Mayor Ken Kearsley predicted such a bright future for little Kailua. Beddow now praises him for his forward thinking.

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin recently published a letter from another astute thinker, real estate investor Gary Castner of Los Angeles, CA. In that correspondence, Gary discussed his strategy to buy Kailua real estate in 2000. That single-family home has now appreciated approximately 200%.

Spike in Hawaii housing prices was predictable, will continue

I bought my home in Kailua in 2000, anticipating that this was going to happen. It took four trips to find something reasonable.

Three major factors are all coming together at the same time here in Hawaii. First, interest rates dropped from 8.5 percent to a record low of 5 percent, and people ultimately buy on monthly payments, not on price. Two, the baby boomers are using this as an opportunity to get out of the rat race in mainland cites, either by refinancing or selling their homes that they live in. Three, the economy in Hawaii has corrected, and then some.

All three of these impending and foreseeable circumstances led me to fly to Hawaii four times from 1998 to 2000, to purchase a home on Oahu, and on the Big Island as my future retirement home. This is just the beginning. There are 75 million baby boomers ready to retire, and looking to leave places like Los Angeles and other cities that have demographic problems with infrastructure, housing costs, traffic, etc.

I love Hawaii and everything about it. The challenges are there, to be sure. We just have to remember who we are and help each other whenever possible.

The Legislature also has to perform and think "outside the box," and that is a really tough thing to do. I give them a lot of credit for their efforts so far! Aloha.

Gary Castner
Los Angeles

Cactus & Palms