SmartMoney.com has an interesting article on Extreme House Selling Strategies:

IT’S A TOUGH TIME for home sellers. While the media competes for the direst gloom-and-doom real-estate-bubble headline, crowded open houses and bidding wars are becoming a quick-fading memory. Homes prices are down, and so are sales…

The 5 Extreme House Selling Strategies listed were:

1. Tempt the buyer or the buyer’s broker
2. Stage your house
3. Throw a party
4. Do your homework
5. Rent it out

One of my favorite real estate blogs, BrownStoner.com, mentions an article from the LA Times about the Psychology of Sellers.

YOU BOUGHT YOUR house 10 years ago for $250,000. Now you’re thinking of downsizing, so you put your house on the market — for $600,000. No takers. After a few weeks, you reduce the price to $575,000. Then $550,000. An offer comes in for $520,000. You reject it and pull your house off the market, waiting for better times.

Source: LA TIMES, 10/20/2006

The seller mentioned above thinks he’s “Lost” $80,000. As BrownStoner noted:

Kenneth Harney, columnist for RealtyTimes, wrote an interesting article last week that asked a simple question: “Is it a housing bust or a media-driven panic?”

We have re-published the entire article here for your convenience.

Please visit RealtyTimes for more in-depth and thought-provoking articles on the real estate industry.

Economists Beginning to Challenge Media’s Negative Drumbeat on Housing
by Kenneth R. Harney

Is it a housing bust or a media-driven panic? Mike Moran, chief economist for Wall Street’s Daiwa Securities America, Inc., says he’s surprised that virtually nobody has challenged the constant drumbeat of negative headlines and TV news warnings of imminent crashes and home price meltdowns.

Born Again Web Site, Day 1 By: Living In Carver County

We were lucky enough to get to announce it on a live radio interview on KTLK’s “CTX Home & Wealth Show”.(100.3 FM) Hopefully it was informative & somewhat entertaining.

The crew there does a great job & the Clear Channel studio was amazingly nice.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Greg Anderson
P.S. Also, today is official kick off of the “LivingInCarverCounty.com” new & improved community web site.

In the competitive real estate market here in Carver County, there is more and more pressure for increasing creative marketing attempts to lure builder prospects. Developer Arnie Esterbrooks of Developer’s Resource hosted an event that deserves some serious “kudos.”

Last Saturday, in the new Forest Hills neighborhood in Watertown, MN, Arnie hired a helicopter to give rides to attendees of the Watertown festival, Rails to Trails. The rides lifted off from a blacktop section of the neighborhood, flew riders downtown and circled back to the neighborhood — a ride lasting about 4-5 minutes. The ‘copter ran steady from 8:30 AM until after 5:00 PM.