About Knoxville's Gulf Park

Below is a chart prepared by the National Association of REALTORS ® comparing the new changes to the Homebuyer Tax Credit.

The biggest change is that current Homeowners are now eligible if they sell their current homes and then buy AFTER the date of enactment of this extension which is November 6th, 2009.

Because of widespread incidents of fraud, purchasers must now attach documentation proving they actually bought a qualifying home to qualify for the credit.

Additinally the income guidelines have been increased, now a single taxpayer can qualify if they earn up to $125,000 and up to $225,000 for married taxpayers.

The rationale for increasing the income limits and expanding the credit to existing homeowner is that it should encourage more higher priced home purchases. Currently the existing tax credit was driving mostly lower end purchases.

I have long thought that providing floor plans for your listings was a good idea but only two things kept me from it.

1. I can't draw worth a darn, and

2. It was expensive to have someone else draw them for me.

First I tried drawing my own with a ruler, compass, pencil, and several erasers. Never did get the professional look I was after. Then I bought a program to draw them for me. Never could make it draw a straight line either.

Finally I stumbled across a firm called Diakrit; here's some information about them: "Founded in 2001, Diakrit has grown from a purely IT company into one of Northern Europe’s leaders of visualizations and 3D modeling.

In July 2008, Diakrit AB merged with Matrix AB, triggering enormous growth. Today, Diakrit boasts over 110 employees throughout Scandinavia, the United States, China and Thailand, and provides its services in visualization and 3D modeling to more than 1300 clients in the real estate and retail sectors worldwide, with more clients signing up daily.

With its experienced architects and a deep understanding of the global markets, Diakrit offers solutions to real estate agents, brokers, and international franchises, as well as real estate portals, facility management companies, and developers."

Wow, I had no idea they were such a big deal international firm.

But they did what I wanted, that is, produced a nice, clean looking floor plan for my resale listings at a very reasonable price. Starting at only $19.95 they can provide both 2D and 3D floor plans with a "floorplanner" option that lets your customer place and move furniture in the plan.

To get started all you have to do is draw a crude sketch (and that perfectly describes my drawings), fax or email it to them, and they produce a nifty looking, professionally drawn floor plan of your listing and post it on their website for you to download.

Here's how my first effort turned out.

Diakrit took this:

and turned it into this:

In less then 48 hours and for around 25 bucks.

I'm sold; all of my future listings are getting floor plans to go with their virtual tours and MLS photos.

Even if buyers don't appreciate it just think what an awesome listing tool it could be. "Why yes Mr. & Mrs. Seller, if you list your home with me you not only get everything every other Realtor in town does you also get a custom yard sign, virtual tour, enhanced presence on Realtor.com and many other real estate websites, and a professionally drawn floor plan of your home for buyers to see."

Here's the 9709 Panama Drive virtual tour complete with floor plans.

What if evertime someone copied a snippet (or your whole blog posting) your blog platform automatically put a link back to your blog on the end of your material?

Think that would help your SEO? Get credit for your work? Increase your page views and traffic?

Now you can with Tynt. Tynt will create a little bit of javascript code you can paste into your blog platform (works with Blogger, Ning Network, Typepad, Wordpress, WebsiteWorks.com, and Register.com

If someone copies for example, the following from my blog: "The Second Quarter of 2009 real estate sales figures are out now along with the numbers from this past June; let’s take a look. Here’s what this past June looked like in numbers of closed sales in the greater Knoxville area."

What they actually get is this: "The Second Quarter of 2009 real estate sales figures are out now along with the numbers from this past June; let’s take a look. Here’s what this past June looked like in numbers of closed sales in the greater Knoxville area. Read more: http://knoxvilletennesseerealestateblog.com/#ixzz0LlQiWrP9 Under Creative Commons License: Attribution"

And when (if) the reader clicks on the embedded link it not only takes them back to your side but the copied portion is highlighted in yellow!

I copied the following information from Tynt's website describing one of the benefits.

The automatically added link back ensures you get credit for content that you have created. You can’t stop users from copying from your site but you can improve the chances of getting credit for your content. Read more: http://tracer.tynt.com/features-and-benefits-of-tracer#ixzz0LlUPX0cU Under Creative Commons License: Attribution No Derivatives

Give it a try and see who's passing your content around the www. This will not only give you credit but boost your SEO because of the link that goes with it.

January 2009 is now officially over. By about mid February we should have the sales figures for January. The reason for the delay is to allow everyone to get their closings turned in and closed out in our MLS.

But for now the Knox County Registrar of Deeds publishes a list of real estate transfers each week in the local newspaper; a very popular feature with most of my fellow Realtors.

Here's the past weeks figures in graph form.

Conspicuously absent during this past week were any recorded transfers over $500,000. I suppose this is a further testamonial to the softness that has hit our market as well as many others all over the country.

However if you're in the market for a new home or moving to the greater Knoxville area it's a great time to buy.

I've been fortunate enough to represent several buyers this just past January and I gotta tell you, those folks got some great buys on both new and resale homes.

Here are some examples of what your money can buy today in Knoxville.

This beautiful home in Farragut sold recently for $320,000.

In the very pleasant north Knoxville neighborhood of Fountain City this spanking new home sold for $239,900

Over in Hardin Valley, located between west Knoxville & Oak Ridge, this one sold for just $178,500

Just a few example of the wonderful homes your dollar will buy today in the Greater Knoxville, Tennessee area.

Visit KnoxvilleHomeCenter.com to see all the Knoxville area's Realtor listings for sale.

Please call or email when you find some you like and we'll go have a look at them.

A Certified Resdiential Specialist (CRS) is a Realtor who has earned the National Assocation of Realtor's highest designation for residential real estate.

As of September 30, 2008, NAR's membership is 1,251,826. Only about 37,000 of that number have earned the CRS designation.

Currently there are two options to qualify as a CRS designee.

1. Participate in 75 transaction sides during a 5 year period of 25 million dollars in volume over the same time period.

2. Complete 4 core units in Business Planning & Marketing, Listing, Sales, Wealth Building, Finance, Technology, and Referral and 1 unit of either Creating Value for Your Client or Putting Technology to Work For Your Clients.

3. And a total of 4 other electives from the CRS approved elective list.

Or, option 2

1. 25 transaction sides with no time limit OR 8 million dolalars with a minimum of 10 transactions in a 2 year period.

2. 2. Complete 6 core units in Business Planning & Marketing, Listing, Sales, Wealth Building, Finance, Technology, and Referral and 1 unit of either Creating Value for Your Client or Putting Technology to Work For Your Clients.

I've been a CRS designee for a number of year and found the courses to be a huge benefit in making me a better Realtor and real estate licensee.

One major benefit besides the training and education is being a part of the CRS roster and getting referrals from fellow CRS designess all over the country. Those referrals have paid for my courses and the annual licensing fee many times over.

If you're looking to improve your business or take it to the next level, becoming a CRS is one of the surest ways to make that happen I can thing of.