Tucson Real Estate Blog and Seattle Condo Blog entered the top 20, pushing San Diego Home Blog and Long Beach Real Estate out of the top 20.

Big movers included miOaklandCounty which jumped 19-spots into #25 and the Twin Cities Real Estate Blog jumped 11 spots to 34.

Here are the top 5:

Click on through to see the rest of the Top Real Estate Blogs

According to domaintools.com, it has been snatched up by a company called Next Angle. It looks like the domain was originally purchased for 4 years on 19-Apr-2004. I’ve seen that same splash page on a lot of typo names.

Until this is worked out (until the squatter is paid extortion money), no installing gems from rubyonrails.org, no documentation from rubyonrails.org, and no love from all the dhh / rails haters in the world.

Update: Apparently it was a hosting problem (that host sure has a spammy default page). From where I sit it’s back online as of today.

Here’s the deal: they break into the home, then they charge you monthly rent for the new locks they put on the doors. You, dear renter, are now technically a squatter too. You’re just a sucka-squatter who is paying for the privilege. You live in said home, paying rent, until the bank shows up and puts it on the market.

Seems like a nasty scam, but at least someone is home, right? A renter has to be no worse than a bank at doing upkeep on a foreclosure. Presumably they leave the pipes in place.

We’ve decided it’s time to hire someone who is dedicated to Estately’s AgentMatch program, the full job description can be found here:

http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/rej/554863288.html

There is a lot of flexibility in this position, we want to find someone who shares our vision for AgentMatch and let them carve out their own role at Estately and ultimately help steer the AgentMatch program as it continues to grow. If this sounds interesting to you or you know someone who might be interested drop us an email at jobs@estately.com

But we aren’t.

Due to a history riddled with earthquakes, fires and perverse pro-new housing tax incentives, Japan razes homes faster than casino developers in Vegas. After about 30 years, homes are replaced and because of the disposable mindset, new homes are built with cheap materials, prolonging the cycle. So few “used” homes are sold that there is little infrastructure, from surveyors to appraisers, for second-hand homes (sorry Eppraisal!).

Statistics from the Economist. The full story is behind a paywall at the Economist.

Update: Knot free and working thanks to the massage machine.

I have unfortunately been bogged down in non-development work, but it too should pay off in making the site better in the long (medium?) run. Oh, and we made the View It, Save It, Mail It buttons a little more obvious, so you can stop emailing us asking us how to send a property to a friend or family member. So I guess I have done something useful recently.

You’re in luck. Short sales are being advertised.
You only need to search for the code words. Here is what the code words for foreclosure are showing us today:

“Short Sale” – 18 homes and condos for sale in the greater Seattle area
“Motivated Seller” – 125 homes for sale in the greater Seattle area
“Foreclosure” - 11 homes and condos for sale in the greater Seattle area

If you want to see foreclosures as they come on the market, you can save a search with one of those keywords and subscribe to get emails every time a foreclosure comes on the market.

While doing this survey I spotted another example of mediocre representation. Directly from the description of one of the foreclosure homes: “All offers will be reviewed 07/31/2007 and may be subject to bank approval.” The home is still for sale. Oops! Maybe the agent should have included more than one photo. Or more than 2 sentences in the description. Seller, you need to ditch that loser and try out Estately Agent Match.

Have more words we should add to the list? Let me know if the comments and I’ll add ‘em.

Want to see how your own situation pans out? Check it out for yourself at housemath.us (check the monthly cost vs. Sell Time chart after you’ve put in your basic information).

But it’s always nice to hear the same advice from a professional minus the charts and graphs:

Some how people have gotten the idea that buying and selling real estate, frequently is a good idea, or even a way to get rich. It didn’t used to be that way. People looked at homes as a place to live.

I get phone calls from people who bought homes two years ago and are kind of thinking they might like to move. I hate to get all parental with them, but I do. Sometimes I even say no, you can’t move you have to stay where you are.

…

Don’t even think about buying a home if you can’t live in it for at least five years. I know you can move any time you want to and when you do I make some money. The truth is that it costs money to buy a home, and it costs money to sell a home and it may not be the best use of financial resources to move around for the heck of it. Again it is your money and your choice. I would choose differently.

Real estate agents aren’t a particularly well respected group of people, but a select group has the integrity and intelligence to really help their clients. We had a client ask us to recommend an agent to help him buy a Belltown condo last week and the agent we recommended showed him comps that indicated it was overpriced.

Was this good for the agent’s bottom line (or ours)?

Not in the short run, but by building trust – by letting people know that we are working on their behalf to provide knowledgeable, high quality agents and not mediocre salespeople – we can create better business in the long run.