CBTG Homes + YouTube = excellent!

Have you heard of this new website called YouTube? Apparently it’s a popular place for people to be…a place where people share videos and other multimedia files with each other and then other people can watch the videos and comment on them. Sounds like a cool website!* Not ever wanting to not be in on [...]

To Photoshop or not to Photoshop…or, is your listing a dog squirrel?

I was reading a great blog over at ActiveRain earlier this morning, written by a Re/Max agent in Houston named Greg Nino. It’s not a long or elaborate blog, but it does bring up a hugely important and somewhat controversial topic in the real estate industry: Photoshopped pictures of real estate listings. Greg had the [...]

Idaho (and more specifically, Boise) is the place to be!

Recently, CNN Money released their list of the top 100 places to live in the United States, and while Meridian, Idaho reached #62 (go Meridian!), Boise, Eagle, Nampa and Caldwell were spared from the list. Well, here is Coldwell Banker Tomlinson Group’s official list of reasons why you should ignore CNN Money (who do they [...]

So you’re a Realtor…what next?

The first thing you’ll need to do is find a company to work with. New agents have a big decision to make the day they receive their license that will dictate their level of success for the critical first years of their career… The Question: Do you join a big, corporate company or a small, [...]

Relationships should define the company, internally and externally

In the real estate industry, it’s both perfectly true and perfectly cliche to say this is a relationships business. It’s true in every sense of the word, since real estate is uniquely personal and professional at the same time – even while contracts and documents are being signed in quantities that give even the best [...]

CNN Money: Boise an ideal place to buy or sell a home

Boise has always been a great place to buy or sell a home, though in the midst of the real estate bubble a few years back, prices were a bit inflated over fair market value estimates for the area.  This meant it was a great place to sell a home, but for buyers, it meant [...]

Rental prices are the silver lining for wannabe homebuyers

As the first-time homebuyer tax credit comes to a close this spring, many analysts are fearing, at best, a stagnation of the housing market while demand plummets and mortgage rates rise, and at worst a total relapse of the housing crisis – led by again rising mortgage rates, decreased incentives for homebuyers and a piling [...]

Get yourself a budget!

Okay, so we’ve all seen those TV shows where people who make terrible financial decisions hire a guy (or gal) to yell at them for half an hour on television in exchange for financial advice. Typically these people have sports cars, third cars, luxury SUVs, a $2,000/month bill from dining out and a house that [...]

Everything you need to know about the first-time homebuyer tax credit extension and expansion

Tax Credit for First-Time Homebuyers 1. The extension moves the original deadline of November 30, 2009 forward to June 30, 2010. However a sales contract must be signed by April 30, 2010, and that property must be closed on by or on June 30. 2. The $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers is unchanged other [...]