Sunday, June 1, 2008: Martha Phifer of The Orlando Sentinel features BiggerPockets.com in her Home Base column in the Real Estate Section of the paper.

Every week Martha shares in her column “products, Web sites, tips, books and other things related to home decoration or home buying or anything home related.”

In her own words, “Any time I found a cool Web site that I think readers might find useful, I include it in the column.”

We’re proud to have been selected to be featured in the column, and of course, we look forward to more press in the future.

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Tags: biggerpockets, biggerpockets.com, Martha Phifer, orlando sentinel, real estate blogs, real estate investing, real estate website

March is here and what else can I say about this past week other than — things aren’t looking good for the US. The cost of real goods continues to rise, with the price of everything from gasoline, oil, food, and commodities all continuing to climb at alarming rates.

Gold hit a new high near $980 an ounce, and crude oil set an all-time high of above $103 a barrel – both beating the real-terms peaks reached in 1979-80. Many traders believe that gold at $1,000 an ounce is now well within reach. - The Independent

Additionally, weakness in the dollar has driven the Euro to a record high of $1.5238 on Friday. While tourism and exports have increased, is this buoying the overall economy? It doesn’t look that way.

Lets leave all that behind for a little while and have a look at some of the interesting stories out there from this week:

Cool BiggerPockets Mentions

• NuWire Investor named BiggerPockets to its list of the Top 10 Real Estate Blogs, placing is in the company of some other great sites including Matrix and Business Week’s Hot Property.
• The Go Beyond MLS Blog also listed BiggerPockets in their list of top 10 blogs, and analyzes one of the factors that may influence popularity - frequency of posts.

Other quick reads for the week:

• The Real Estate Windfall Blog tells us 9 ideas on how to get and keep good tenants. Most of these important points have to do with servicing your tenants and treating them the right way. This is a MUST READ for any potential landlord.
• Learn what the difference is between getting pre-qualified and pre-approved for a loan from the Sacramento Real Estate Blog.
• Find out about the nine traits of the middle-class millionaire from My Money Blog.
• Jim Duncan cuts to the chase and tells us how not to sell your house. In the current buyer’s market, his words hold true.

Tags: biggerpockets, Economy, gold, oil, real estate, real estate blogs

I’m not sure about the rest of you, but this has been a LONG week for me. Personal issues aside, is seems like there is just so much happening in the world: Lunar Eclipse, US shoots down failing satellite, Kosovo declares independence, Castro steps down from leadership of Cuba, Ralph Nader is back, Clinton/Obama battle continues, McCain facing the heat, and on and on. Otherwise, for some reason, everyone I know is either in the midst of a battle with the flu, or some other ailment that no doctor can seem to figure out.

With that in mind, I thought we’d look at some of the important stories from other real estate bloggers out there:

• Is this the future of real estate search? - The Toronto Real Estate Intelligence Blog shares with everyone a new website called Rotten Neighbor which is designed to allow people to rate their neighbors so potential buyers can be aware of good or problem neighbors in their buying decisions. Frankly it seems like people could be asking for trouble with this one, IMO.
• Tax Shelter — Real Estate Investors Should Beware the Professional Investor Trap - The BawldGuy Talking blog presents a very thorough post that discusses the “benefit to successfully filing your tax return as a Professional Investor.” This is a Must Read!
• My Money Blog shares Subprime Loan Crisis Explained By Cartoon Stick Figures. This cartoon is the perfect analysis of how we got into the current situation that we’re in!
• According to The Real Estate Bloggers, it looks like Metal Roofs are making a comeback. I wasn’t aware of the trend . . . I’m sure I’m not alone!
• The Sacramento Real Estate Blog answers in a concise and easy to understand manner one of the questions every homeowner asks, What is Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI)?
• How Stimulating Will Raising the Conforming Loan Limit Be? - The 3 Oceans Real Estate blog takes a thorough look at how raising the conforming loan limit will truly stimulate the economy, and whether it’s really the right thing to do.

Tags: conforming, Economy, loans, mortgage insurance, neighbor, pmi, private mortgage insurance, real estate blog, real estate blogs, subprime, subprime loan, tax, tax shelter