It’s been a while since we last hosted the Carnival of Real Estate . . . with 29 submissions, this one required a bit more work than last time. That said, I’m puzzled why there aren’t hundreds or even thousands of submissions. With all the people in real estate who are blogging, I can’t imagine why more people aren’t taking the two minutes a week it takes to participate in the carnival.

Here are my pics for this week’s Carnival of Real Estate:

1. Is Buying a Rental Property Worth it? from Alex. This post grabbed me for one reason – it was the tale of someone struggling as a landlord; someone willing to let everyone else in on his problems. He tells of his mass of evictions, vacancies, and more. My advice to Alex is to take some time and start reading the forums, articles, and this blog here on BiggerPockets before he does anything else in real estate. I don’t know much about him, but it sounds like he needs some help and the support of other successful landlords. I’d like to personally invite Alex to join us and I hope the rest of the community will do their best to help him turn his struggling landlording venture around!
2. A great guy and top real estate blogger, Jay Thompson, writes about a frightening trend that is happening in the REO space. Huntington National Bank: Are you freaking kidding me? From deep with the WTF files looks at how one bank is placing crazy things in their addendum s that no home buyer should stand for. They are not alone in doing this, and Jay rightfully rips these guys a new one. More importantly, however, is his warning for anyone buying a property to read EVERYTHING in their closing paperwork. If you learn anything today, PLEASE be sure you do this!
3. Julie Broad presents Rental Ad Scams and Spam, which points our yet another scam for landlords to look out for.
4. My friend, Nick Johnson, gives real estate agents some great advice to help improve their finances with Attention Agents: 5 Tips on how to Stop being BROKE.
5. Kerry Fletcher shares a great post for the do it yourself crowd out there, titled How much paint do I need?
6. Saundra Washington shares How Agents Can Survive in the Free Economy, which gives us a great look at how real estate agents can use some outside the box ideas to get business for free!
7. Here’s one that does what it says, thanks to Ben Roberts: 6 Essential Things Real Estate Contracts Must Have to Be Valid and Enforceable
8. Dan Green presents How To Get The Best Jumbo And Super Jumbo Mortgage Rates Possible, another post that does what it promises.
9. Dave Peniuk shares Real Estate Partners the Profits and Pitfalls, which does an examination of what you need to know about real estate investment partnerships.
10. Øyvind Eriksen presents What to Look for When You Buy Your First Apartment or House, a thorough post worth a look by any first-time home buyer.
11. Patrick Duffy presents Where would affordable housing be without government support? – ’nuff said.

Others worth a mention:

• 8 Tips For First Time Home Buyers Entering This Real Estate Market on The Digerati Life – great tips!
• 10 questions you must ask the real estate developer before you buy – while targeted to real estate in Central America, this post can be relevant for anyone looking at developments across the world.

I have to say that we had a lot of posts that were nothing but a waste of my time. While there were certainly a few others not listed above that were well written and informative, I felt like they would have little interest to anything but a very small, specific audience. We try and share those posts with the most universal appeal, and those that would most interest our extensive readership.

If you took the time to read any of the above posts, be sure to leave your thoughts below. Thanks to all who participated, and hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to host again soon.

Photo Credit: StuSeeger

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2009 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

BiggerPockets Hosts The Real Estate Blog Carnival #159

1. Loopnet.com – Loopnet is probably the largest and most well-known commercial real estate listing site. They claim to have over 630,000 active commercial real estate listings on their website. It costs $24.95 a month for visitors to have access to all of the property listings. The free membership for visitors allows full search capability, however, only a limited number of results are shown.
2. Realup.com – Realup is brand new to the market and officially launched on May 17, 2009. It appears that all of the memberships for both buyers and sellers are free. The website says that “our property listings are charged based on a pay-per-results pricing model, setting us apart from our competitors and providing the greatest value to our partners and clients.” So, they are basically charging for the traffic or leads that your listing generates. This sounds good in principle but from my experience the technology for these “pay for the lead” type of systems is usually too weak to determine what a valuable lead is.
3. Costar.com – Costar offers the ability to search for all commercial property types. Basic listings are free for real estate professionals and property owners. It costs $24.95 a month for visitors to have access to all of the property listings. The free membership for visitors allows full search capability, however, only a limited number of results are shown. They offer information on “space available for lease, comparable sales information, tenant information, properties for sale, property information for clients’ web sites, industry professional directory, analytic information, data integration, property advertising and industry news–throughout the United States as well as in the United Kingdom and France.”
4. Lead-Trac.com – Lead Trac is designed to give investors and commercial real estate professionals access to following data about commercial real estate: property data, owner data, phone numbers. They also offer direct mailing and marketing tools within the website. Pricing starts at $69/user/county/month.  In addition to the monthly plans, they have an unlimited access plan that they sell on a per county basis.  This plan ranges from $1500 to $3000 per county per year.
5. CIMLS.com – What makes CIMLS different than many other similar sites is the fact that visitors can search listings for free while realtors and property owners can also post their listings for free. Realtors and property owners have the option to upgrade to a Gold account for added exposure. The Gold account costs $14.00 a month for the first month and $20.00 a month for every month thereafter.

Photo Credit: quinet

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2009 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Where to Search for Commercial Real Estate Online

I’m not sure where I heard about this site, but I’m very excited to see that it exists, and I hope that it can expand to reach cities across the US. With a headline “Building Safer Communities,” CrimeMapping.com allows its users to view the crime statistics in 23 cities around the country, provided by the local police departments. The great thing about this service is that their data is uploaded every 24 hours and, since it is presented directly on a mapping format, it is extremely easy to navigate. Additionally, according to the FAQ, “The date range for crimes displayed represents the last ninety (90) days of activity.”

Looking to Expand across the USA

I spoke with Vance Stewart, Operations Manager at CrimeMapping.com, to find out why the site is only collecting data from this small pool of police departments. “It takes time to get them to buy off on it” he said, “the goal is to have as many cities around the country to work with.” According to Stewart, it takes somewhere between two months and a year for these departments to make their budgetary allotments, so the actual process of adding new cities is quite time and energy consuming.

Supposedly, they are getting a very good response from the site — apparently some people are so interested in having their city added that the community is asking their local law enforcement agencies to participate.

Quick Look at CrimeMapping.com

Above: Snapshot of recent crime in North Miami Beach

One of the great features that the website offers is a service that allows users to be alerted of crime in their area. If you live in one of the cities serviced by the website, you can choose to get emails when new crimes are reported in your vicinity.

I personally hope this site can continue to grow, as it is a phenomenal tool for everyone in a community, including real estate investors, professionals, homeowners, and renters. Here’s to their success!

BTW – If you know about other fantastic real estate related tools or resources online, please let us know.

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2009 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Scout out the Crime in Your Neighborhood with CrimeMapping.com

If you haven’t seen this yet, you’ve got to check it out! Its a “rapumentary addressing the wall street bailout,” written and performed by 47 year old stockbroker Gregg Somerville.

Thoughts?

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2009 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

The Bailout Rap . . . Brilliant!

My favorite is the last one . . . that’s a cool pad for the beach, no?

Photo Credit: Jan Tik

Photo Credit: ccarlstead

Photo Credit: Wrote

Photo Credit: foto3116

Photo Credit:kowitz

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2009 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

5 of The Scariest Wooden Houses You’ve Ever Seen!

Will the banks take up this new technique in dealing with foreclosed homes?

Photo by: Colin McMillen

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2009 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

New Foreclosure Technique for 2009?

We created the following video this past spring, but thought it was worth sharing once again, since it has re-emerged into the collective consciousness thanks to our friend Joseph at Sellsius. Enjoy!

Please make sure to share this with all of your friends! Blog about it or just spread the word!

BTW – We’re working on a new video series on real estate and we’ll be sure to let you know about it soon!

This Article is Copyright © 2004-2009 BiggerPockets, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

In Case You Missed It: Dick and Rich – A Real Estate Success Story