by Amanda Kooser

If the zombie apocalypse ever arrives, you'll be happy you dropped a ton of cash for a cabin designed to fortify you against attacks by the undead.

You hear the horrifying groans. Decaying hands scrabble at the door, trying to find a way in. They want to eat you. You sit down on the sofa, kick your feet up and open a can of Spam. No worries. You're inside a Zombie Fortification Cabin from Tiger Log Cabins. All you have to do now is wait in safety and comfort for the zombie apocalypse to blow over.

The ZFC-1 is a log cabin kit designed with the walking dead in mind. The structure consists of three connected buildings. It comes stocked with reinforced slit windows, walls and doors; a barbed-wire surround; an escape…

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Real estate is fun, exciting and can be contagious, some say infectious, and yes…even hereditary. Families with generation after generation of real estate agents are more common than anyone would think.

They’re also pretty easy to spot. Here are six signs you’re raising an agent and you’ll be coaching your “little ones” through managing their first closings one day.

1. The Mobile Lemonade Stand

When your seven year old starts strategically placing (and moving) his or her lemonade stand in efforts to bring in the big bucks, you might have a deal-maker on your hands. An innate sense of the importance of location is a clear sign that a kid has a closer’s charisma running through their veins. My son Keenan used to have a lemonade stand he would…

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Daily Real Estate News |     Friday, January 31, 2014    

We compared the housing stats in Denver and Seattle to see which metro is better at “gaining yardage”; has the most “veteran” players; moves the fastest; and offers the most expensive “players”. In other words, we analyzed average lot size, new construction versus existing home sales, median days on the market, and median sales price.

So, as Seattle and Denver prepare to face off on Sunday in Super Bowl XLVIII, where do these cities score points when it comes to real estate?

Here's how the two cities stacked up against one another:

1.)  Which metro gains the most yards?
Denver’s average lot size: 74,636 square feet
Seattle’s average lot size: 60,754

2.)  Where are the…

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Following the recent recession, interest in large and expensive homes dropped dramatically as home buyers showed preferences for smaller, more affordable homes. But house hunters are being attracted to luxury home features once again, as the affluent buyer steps back into the market. In July 2013, sales of homes costing more than $1 million rose 46.6 percent from the previous July.

“The housing market is being driven by the move-up buyer, the luxury buyer,” Brad Hunter, chief economist and director of consulting at Metro-study, told The New York Times. “And those who have strong incomes, secure jobs, their stock portfolio is doing well — they are able to buy whatever they want. And what they are buying is larger houses.”

In 2007, the median size…

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NAR asked practitioners for their supernatural real estate stories and got some truly bone-chilling tales from the trenches.

October 2013 | By Meg White      

On Friday, Sept. 13, NAR Director of Social Business Practice Heather Elias asked those following NAR’s Facebook page for “spooky or superstitious real estate stories.” She got more than just a few stories about haunted listings and other strange happenings.

It was a fun thread to follow, but we didn’t want such great stories to disappear like ghosts in the night. So, in preparation for Halloween, we thought you might like to read through some of these narratives. Here are a few that sent tingles down our spines (lightly edited for style, grammar, and length).…

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Bernice Ross Contributor

 If you have been in the real estate business for any length of time, sooner or later you will hear about a house that has a scary history. What’s frightening, however, is when you experience it firsthand.

I’ve had my fair share of strange events, including doorbells ringing when there is no one there, unplugged stereos coming on by themselves, and sporadic cigar smoke in a new car where I was the only one who ever drove it. While these events were strange, they pale in comparison to two other events that really did scare me.

When I first started in the business, I had a client who wanted to purchase in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles. Although this area was about 45 minutes from my office, we had MLS access,…

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Jim Barnes was new to the real estate business and anxious to succeed. He learned quickly that one of the best ways to meet buyers was to hold open houses. Taking the advice of his broker, he volunteered to hold  listings open for other agents in the office. His offer worked.  A fellow agent had an impromptu invitation to Palm Springs for the weekend, and offered her advertised new listing to Jim for a Sunday open house. He gratefully jumped at the opportunity.

It was late on Sunday morning when Jim planted his borrowed open house signs at neighborhood intersections and in the front yard of the suburban San Diego home.  The owner's Volvo was in the driveway, but when Jim rang the doorbell nobody responded. Unconcerned, Jim retrieved the key…

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1014 270th Pl Se in Sammamish, WA on Thursday  October the 31st  “Halloween Night!” 5:30 until 8:30

Nestled deep in the Cascade foothills, hidden far from passing eyes by tall pine and towering rock laid the old cemetery. It was here that the worst of the Pacific Northwest lay buried. They were the robbers, murderers, and worse that no church would allow to be set to rest on their sacred soil. Old stones covered in moss marked their graves, and the black as night crows gathered around the clearing that was their cemetery and sat silent on the branches, watching the graves with their glassy yellow eyes.

 

Then came progress. Roads and highways were built into the mountains, and soon little towns, businesses and residential communities took…

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By Erika Riggs | Zillow

 

Edwin Gonzalez’s wife Lillian is the one who fell in love with the home.

“Since she was a little girl, she’s always wanted a Victorian,” he explained. It was Thanksgiving 2008 and Lillian’s sister sent her the Gardner, MA listing. Three days later, Edwin and Lillian went to see the home.

“The minute we walked in, we felt like we were going back in time,” Gonzalez said. “Lillian said, ‘This is mine!’ It was a dream home, really, it’s very charming. It calls you in.”

They bought the home and moved in about six months later. That’s when they started hearing rumors about the stately Victorian. Apparently, their dream home was haunted.

Haunted history

The home is known as “The…

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A nightmare on YOUR street: The new site telling people whether someone died in  their 'haunted' home

  • DiedInHouse.com uses a multitude of  sources to tell users whether anyone has died in their house
  • Thousands of requests have been submitted  since its launch on June 1, with Texas and California proving the most popular  states
  • Website has maligned real estate agents,  who say it affects business
  • Follows landmark case in which widow  failed to prove she was duped when owners didn't disclose her new house was the  site of a murder-suicide

By  Daily Mail Reporter

It's the website that…

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