From PRWEB:

Yahoo! Founding CEO Tim Koogle combines business with pleasure in his latest endeavor, luxury real estate in Mexico. The first seven Beach Villas at El Banco, Koogle’s premium 100-acre, low-density community near Punta de Mita, Mexico, are now for sale for over $6,200,000 each.

Each one-of-a-kind luxurious home offers expansive views of the Bay of Banderas, Marietas Islands, Sierra Madre Mountains, and El Banco’s long stretch of white-sand beach. The Beach Villas bring El Banco’s signature style to life – casual indoor-outdoor living that takes advantage of the area’s nearly perfect year-round weather combined with the elegance of Old World Mexico. The features of the Beach Villas include: a minimum of four bedroom suites, gourmet kitchens, elegant pools, spa-like bathrooms, multiple outdoor living spaces, high-tech amenities, and caretaker apartments.

“Having worked on great technology brands for much of my career, building something as tangible as a luxury real estate development is terrifically satisfying. My love of design, training as an engineer, and history as a businessman have all come into play in developing El Banco. It is my intention to create a place that others will, hopefully, enjoy for years to come,” said Koogle.

The first phase of the Beach Villas includes seven homes, two are completed and fully-furnished, and the additional five are ready for construction.

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A new website called 96short.com was launched today. The website is aimed at providing assistance to overextended homeowners in Virginia, Maryland and Washington DC. If you live in one of these areas and have fallen behind on your mortgage payment and are facing a foreclosure make sure to visit the website.

Matt Marting the confounder of 96short.com explains in today’s press release:

A short sale means selling your home for less than what is owed on the mortgage. Short sales can be a good deal for many borrowers - those with piggy-back mortgages, mortgages that exceed the current market value of the property and other overextended homeowners - provided the lender agrees to accept the proceeds of these short sales as payment in full

Matt Maritn, who is also the president of Matt Martin Real Estate, claims that his short sale team has closed on 10,000 of such transactions in the past fourteen years, effectively saving about $1,000,000,000 to customers.

Martin also quoted a real life example of how the short sale can help individual homeowners:

We met a great couple who had purchased a home in Bristow, VA, $630,000 at the height of the market in late 2004.They had taken a Pay Option or Negative Amortizing loan for the property and, when they contacted us, they owed close to $700,000 because of the negative amortization. The biggest problem was that the property was only worth $550,000 and, after fees and commissions, they would only be left with around $510,000 to pay towards the mortgage. We negotiated a short sale with the lender to write off the $190,000. The lender only asked for $5,000 in return for the write-down. The couple was then able to buy a new home in the same neighborhood for $200,000 less than what they were stuck with in their old home.

Posted in Real Estate News, Real Estate Websites Comments

Realty Lifeline- agent-to-agent free referral network was announced today at PRWeb. Website is aimed at providing real estate agents to share the referrals. Any agent can submit and bid on referrals for free. However every referral will expire in 90 days. When submitting a bid no personally identifiable info of your seller or buyer is required. After another agent successfully accepts the bid, you finalize your bid with that agent:

What are Bids?
When a referring agent posts a Rerrral on our site, it is available for all other agents to view. If you would like to get that lead (or Referral), you must place a “Bid” on it. When you place a Bid on a Referral, the referring agent can review your profile and reviews from past Realty Lifeline transactions.

How do I bid on Referrals?
You create a Bid by clicking on the Bid on this Referral button on the Referral Details page. The referring agent will review all of the Bids that he or she gets, then choose an agent that they want to work with. Who is selected is entirely dependent on the referring agent.

What are Active Bids?
A Bid is active on a Referral unless you withdraw it, or unless the Referral expires.

I’ve submitted my Bid… what’s next?
The Referring Agent will review Bids as they come in and make a decision on will get the Referral. When a Referral is awarded to you, you will see a message on the Home page and the Referral will appear under the Pending Transactions section.

This website indeed can become very popular among the real estate agents because it’s free and no third party is involved in the referral process.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Networking, Real Estate News, Real Estate Websites Comments