Since many states and lenders handle the short sale process differently, it’s important to find a specialist in your area that knows the ins and outs of the entire process, as they can not only answer your questions about the process but also help determine if you qualify for a short sale in the first place. The TNFirm.com blog addresses all of this issues and more, putting years of experience at your fingertips.

For those looking to avoid foreclosure, the site also offers a wealth of information, including tactics that have helped countless other homeowners delay or stop the foreclosure process entirely. TNFirm.com’s free reports help illuminate all stages of the foreclosure and short sale processes, delivering the info you need without forcing you to wade through a lot of useless, extraneous information.

Last but not least, the site also has links to resources such as government programs designed to help homeowners modify their mortgages and avoid losing their home to foreclosure or being forced into a short sale.

If you’re looking to search Arkansas Property records, DataScoutPro.com may have just the ticket. The service lets you search over 2,000,000 residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural property records in Arkansas.

The database lets you search the properties by over 40 fields, including owner, address, last sale price, and last title transfer. DataScoutPro also includes tools for pulling sales comps and sales listing reports, all of which can be saved and printed in PDF format for later reference.

Other DataScoutPro offerings (click for features) and benefits (click here…) include an interactive mapping tool that lets you blend parcel boundaries with property records and the ability to build datasets for scouting out leads and building mailing lists. All searches and datasets created can be saved and refined, so you’ll be able to save valuable time by storing the common searches and lists that you build.

DataScoutPro is used by investors, home buyers, home sellers, brokers, agents, and lenders; basically anyone and everyone that finds themselves invoved in the purchase or sale of real estate. It covers nearly every county in Arkansas, so if you find yourself looking for any information related to property records in Arkansas, give DataScoutPro a whirl, as it could be a real time saver.

If you’re looking for Seattle short sales and foreclosure listings, Foreclosure Platform may be just what you’re after.

The service provides detailed information (including updated data on auction sale dates, opening bid amounts, postponements and cancellations) on all foreclosures in the Puget Sound metro area, as well as King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. Each report from Foreclosure Platform includes the following details:

• Property details (with data on the number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and lot size)
• Direct links to property tax status, payment history, lot maps, and property sales history.
• Exterior photographs when available
• A copy of the recorded Notice of Trustee Sale
• Zestimates® with a link to the zillow.com property page for each foreclosure listing

The site can also put users in touch with local real estate professionals and provide referrals to various lenders in the area who specialize in financing for foreclosure situations. Foreclosure Platform also provides resources such as articles that enable users to read why foreclosures are undervalued as well as a glossary of foreclosure terms (click here). Users can register for free and get immediate access to Seattle area foreclosures and short sales, as well as the ability to search the database and store lists.

As far as a little more about Bellevue Block, here’s what their website has to say:

The Bellevue Block is a real estate team led by experienced Realtor, Cherie Lang, with Windermere. Our focus is to provide detailed information on homes and condomimiums within walking distance to the downtown Bellevue corridor. 

The Birth of The Bellevue Block by Cherie Lang

When I decided to purchase in One Lincoln Tower in Bellevue, I did so primarily as an investment.  However as the time of completion drew near, I found myself filled with excitement to live there!

Clients, friends and family were eager to know more once they had seen my unit. As I began my search for condominium information, I realized there was no central site to compare and retrieve facts on all of the many projects  popping up in the Bellevue Condominium market.  Thus, the Bellevue Block was born.  I trust you’ll find all you need at TheBellevueBlock.com, and when you’re ready to buy or sell your unit, you’ll call on me and my staff to  help  you navigate through the process.

The site is clean and easy to navigate and the company isn’t some recent sketchy Web-based start-up, as they’ve been in the mortgage refinance business for 16 years:

“Refinance.com was previously known as Homebridge Mortgage Bankers which was founded in 1989. We have helped thousands of clients reach their home financing goals through its diverse range of mortgage and refinancing options. A privately held company, our officers and primary shareholders bring years of collective experience in a wide range of areas that help make them the best source for home financing needs. With backgrounds in mortgage banking, real estate, financing, capital markets and regulatory compliance and administration issues, the leaders at Refinance.com bring invaluable knowledge and expertise together to formulate the best financing options for our clients.”

The sites offers much of the standard fare you’d expect, including mortgage calculators, amortization calculators, and more tools, as well as listings for current mortgage rates for a variety of loan products such as 15 and 30 year fixed mortgages, 1, 3, and 5 year ARMS, etc.

Free online refinancing quotes are available directly through the site, as well as via phone if you’d prefer to speak to an actual live person to get a quote or apply for a loan via phone. Getting an online quote is pretty painless, although you do have to cough up some personal contact details such as a phone number and email address.

The Charlotte real estate market is an interesting one, as it’s managed to hold up fairly well in the last year while other regions of the country (I’m looking at you California and Florida) absolutely fell off a cliff, as far as real estate values go.

Relatively low taxes, a strong job market, and affordable housing has boosted the real estate market in Charlotte as well as Lake Norman real estate and other areas, with a wide variety of Charlotte homes available at both ends of the spectrum, from ritzy, custom-built homes on golf courses to affordable SFRs for the first-time home buyer.

It’s interesting to look at pockets that have held up relatively well in the last year in the real estate arena, such as the Charlotte NC, Dallas, Houston, Austin, Seattle, and Salt Lake City areas, and try to pick out common threads, as far as how they avoided much of the toil and trouble the rest of the country faces.

I’m most familiar with Austin, seeing as I live here and all, but the largest common thread seems to be a strong local job market, followed closely by a disinclination towards wild-eyed speculation in thepast and/or fairly low taxes. Most of Texas never saw a wild run-up in house valuations to begin with in recent years, so while things have slowed in the last year, it hasn’t involved screeching brakes.

It’s easy to make housing markets more difficult than they actually are. With the mobility of humanoids these days, an equilibrium usually tends to be found. If an area provides ample jobs, affordable housing, and good schools, it’s desirable to a large swath of the population, many of whom are more than willing to relocate.

They do so, the local housing market gets a shot in the arm until the area is no longer undervalued, the next hot “new” area is identified, and the circle of real estate life repeats itself.

The site offers labor in a variety of categories, including moving help, landscaping, cleaning and maid services, and general and day labor services. If you’re looking for moving helpers or someone to clean your home, search the site for help in your area and get an instant online quote for what it will cost.

The helper you have requested will be in contact with you within 24 hours; if for some reason they cannot help you, you can choose another helper or choose to cancel the job. Once you offer a job to a helper and they accept, payment will be made with your credit card and you will receive a authorization code.
After the worker has completed the work, you give them the authorization code you received from the site and HireAHelper will deposit the funds into their bank account when they claim it with the authorization code.

HireAHelper makes their money by charging transaction fees, so it’s a fairly efficient system. For people looking to offer their services to make a little extra money themselves, HireAHelper is a decent alternative, as you simply sign up, set your pay rate and the type of work you’re interested in offering, and they handle the rest, as far as advertising, payment processing, etc.

Like many new sites and services, the real test will be if they can acquire enough traction to make it a truly useful service, as they’ll need a certain amount of both customers and people offering services for hire to make it worthwhile for both groups. But it’s definitely an interesting concept, and there’s no reason to think that it won’t take off, as it does take a lot of the guesswork and hassle out of both sides of the equation.