Tips from The Cascade Team Agents

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By Janet Novack | Forbes

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The January 2013 fiscal cliff tax deal raised tax rates for the wealthy, but Washington continues to look at limiting tax breaks – either to raise more revenue or to reform the tax code and lower tax rates, or both. Here are the most expensive “tax expenditures” benefiting individuals, based on the Joint Tax Committee’s estimates of what they’ll cost Uncle Sam in 2013 through 2017. The list includes not only deductions and income exclusions, but also refundable credits and subsidies that are wholly or partly delivered through the tax code and IRS.


1. Employer Paid Health Insurance Five year cost: $760 billion
If a company provides you with health insurance or health care,…

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Some housing markets are heating up so much that homes are selling in less than 24 hours—also known as a “flash sale.” 

Recently analyzed data from major metro areas using MLS information as well as shared information amoung brokerages between Oct. 1, 2012 and Feb. 26, 2013, reveal which metros are seeing some of the fastest sales. These rankings are based on cities that were seeing a home status going from active to pending in less than a day after being listed. Many of those listings in as little as an hour.

Here are the cities are seeing the most flash sales:

  1. Phoenix: 540
  2. Chicago: 261
  3. Houston: 188
  4. Dallas: 184
  5. Austin: 163
  6. San Diego: 135
  7. Los Angeles: 132
  8. Sacramento, Calif.: 128
  9. Denver: 115
  10. …

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1) Before Heading Out to Look at Homes This Weekend - Download The Mobile MLS!

It’s like having your very own personal Real Estate Agent riding along with you in the car! One that can even give you directions!

Search for your dream home anytime, anywhere!  WE can help! Text CTRE32 to 88000 and you will have the most advanced and comprehensive mobile search available that will allow YOU to:

  • See every property from every brokerage
  • School Information
  • Annual Property Tax Records
  • Driving directions to properties
  • Calculate your Mortgage
  • See all properties based on GPS location
  • See all interior photos for any listing
  • Quick contact to see any listing
  • Save your favorite properties to view later
  • Sold…

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A consumer’s decision on whether to work with you is ultimately based on trust. Here’s how you can get the inside track on gaining their confidence — and their business.

Respondents were presented with a list of advertising media and asked to rate their level of trust as either “Trust Completely/Somewhat” or “Don’t Trust Much/At All.” Let’s take a look at the top five most trustworthy forms of advertising and promotion:

  1. Recommendations from people I know (92 percent of respondents said they trust these endorsements).
  2. Consumer opinions posted online (70 percent)
  3. Editorial content such as newspaper articles (58 percent)
  4. Branded Web sites (50 percent)
  5. E-mails I signed up for (47 percent)

Now, let’s analyze…

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Daily Real Estate News | Tuesday, March 12, 2013  

Here are the 10 most common responses from buyer’s agents when asked about the worst mistakes they see when presenting for-sale homes to clients:

1. Leftover home owners

By far, one of the top offenses cited by buyer’s agents was home owners still lingering around when agents arrived with clients to preview the home. Awkward encounters ranged from buyers finding sellers taking a shower, asleep in the bed, to even the “stalker sellers” who liked to follow buyers and the agent all over the home to see what they thought.

With the exception of the “stalker seller,” many of the home owners who were still at home blamed their listing agent for not giving them enough…

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One of the biggest myths in Real Estate is a homes assessed value having a correlation to its present market value.

Unfortunately it is easy to see why the general public is often times confused about this because a number of Real Estate agents fail to educate their clients that there is a big difference. Trust me looking at assessed values is no better than using Zillow.com to figure out what a home is worth!

When the assessed value from the town is higher than what a property is on the market for you will often see Agents writing advertising that says something like the following “Come see this bargain home that is priced $75,000 less than the assessed value”. What this immediately tells me is the Agent either does…

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Imagine yourself as a homebuyer. You are excited and motivated to begin looking at homes in your local market, so like most home buyers you hop online or head down to a local real estate office to begin your search. In either case you will probably do something very predictable. You, as a typical homebuyer, will pick two price points as in - We would like to look for homes between $200,000 and $225,000 dollars. Interestingly, even if you have been told by your lender that you are qualified to purchase a home up to $229,400 dollars, inevitably you will just round down to $225,000 or round up to $230,000. Because of this savvy sellers often use price points as a way to gain maximum exposure for their home. How? By slightly…

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It seems almost negligent these days to go meet with a prospective employer, set your kid up on a sleep-over or even add an old friend on Facebook without first running the company's name, your kid's pal's parents or your old college chum through Google -- just to see. But it's nowhere near as common (yet) to Google or otherwise do an internet search for your home's address.

There are at least six compelling reasons it makes sense to do so, though -- especially if it's an address you're thinking of renting, buying or selling. Smart homeowners would do well to search for their addresses, too, and here's why:

#1. To See If Megan's Law Registrants Live Nearby
Safety first, folks. Megan's law requires law-enforcement authorities…

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After some discouraging experiences with different agents and lending agencies, we found the amazing Cascade Team and Tonya Eliason.  They referred us to Frank Hinkley at Axia for our lending needs.  The speed and consistency in which he obtained information for us was truly impressive, and his excellent communication made our first-time home buying experience a breeze! He is honest, forthcoming, and truly put any worries we had at ease. We are now residing in our new home and couldn't be happier!  Thank you, Frank, and the rest of your team at Axia!

Karly & Blake Bickel

Cascade Team Real Estate agents spend their time serving customers, studying the market and touring homes, so they can provide the most accurate housing market data for their client.…

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By Melissa Dittmann Tracey, REALTOR(R) Magazine

Emerald may be this year’s color of the year and hot hue, but which colors should you avoid?

Color research tells us some colors to avoid. Colors that can be considered, as some researchers note, “eye irritants” and can even cause headaches or mess with your vision.

According to color research, the worst offending color:

Yellow as a “pure bright lemon.”

“More light is reflected by bright colors, resulting in excessive stimulation of the eyes,” researchers note. “Yellow is an eye irritant. Babies cry more in yellow rooms, husbands and wives fight more in yellow kitchens, and opera singers throw more tantrums in yellow dressing rooms.”

That said, yellow is the first color the human eye tends to…

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