Falling fish shatters Ohio driver's windshield (AP) | Rss News Online
AP – A woman in Ohio is telling a fish story about one that got away — from a bird, and damaged her car. Authorities in northwest Ohio say the fish — a Lake Erie freshwater drum, known as a sheepshead — smashed a car windshield … All the pictures and news shown on this site are the property of their respective owners. We don’t hold any copyright about these pictures and news. These pictures have been collected from different public sources including different websites …  read more…

Design-kitchene – Kopf Avon Lake, Petersons Jewelry Store Avon …
Avon Lake Real Estate Listings – Avon Lake OH real estate properties … Best Homes GMAC Real Estate: Proudly serving San Antonio, Texas. … Super sparkling KOPF Melrose Style”ranch condo with Tastefully decorated throughout! …  read more…

Ohio.com – Volunteer opportunities – Aug. 9
Hot Mess Property of the Week: The Ultimate Dog House Ohio Travels with Betty: Mike asks-is the Peace Memorial on South Bass still open? Sound Check: Rock Hall celebrates 25 years with two star-studded concerts….in NYC … Junior Achievement of North Central Ohio: Volunteers are needed to assist with special events held throughout the year. Minimum age: 18. Laurel Lake Retirement Community (Hudson): Volunteers are needed a minimum of one hour per week to provide …  read more…

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Buffalo Apartments | How to Leverage a Popular Apartment
Whether you are on the east coast or the west, the best way to get the apartment of your dreams is to research, save your money, and get involved. But sometimes, if you are working in an especially co…  read more…

Log Home Living in the Laurel Highlands
Every month thousands of people from Western PA, Ohio, West Virginia and Maryland flock to the Laurel Highlands in search of something they can’t find in their everyday lives…tranquility. From whit…  read more…

Waiting for the Right Time?
Have you been waiting for the perfect time to move forward to ramp up your real estate investing business? Has all of the bad news regarding the real estate industry slowed you down to a standstill? “…  read more…

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Open Question: how much would a road trip cost?
me and a friend are wanting to go for a road trip, it’s going to be awhile untill we go, jus figured i’d ask any, probably not till 2011 LOL, anyways we’r going all around the U.S pretty much, this year i plan on saving up for a van, so we’ll probably end up going in that, i’m 17 rite now and he’s 16,….. not sure how long it should be i was thinking like a month or two really not sure, heres a link to yahoo of the map we made…….http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&source=s_d&saddr=LAke+Charles,+LA&daddr=Houston,Texas+to:Center+Loop+Road,+PO+Box+129,++Grand+Canyon+National+Park,+%3Cspan+property%3D%22v:region%22%3EArizona%3C%2Fspan%3E+%3Cspan+property%3D%22v:postal-code%22%3E86023%3C%2Fspan%3E+(Grand+Canyon+National+Park)+to:Barstow,+California+to:San+Francisco,California+to:Oakland,+california+to:Yellowstone+National+Park,+Teton,+Wyoming+to:Keystone,+South+Dakota+to:chicago,illinois+to:cleveland,+ohio+to:new+york,+new+york+to:washington,DC+to:Key+West,+FL+to:Lake+charles,+LA&geocode=%3B%3BFX0vJgIdpO9Q-SHxIVcqnPYvOQ%3B%3B%3B%3BFehkpQId6d5o-Q%3B%3B%3B%3B%3B%3B%3B&hl=en&mra=ls&sll=34.597042,-98.173828&sspn=35.905915,56.337891&ie=UTF8&ll=34.741612,-98.173828&spn=35.847262,56.337891&z=4&layer=c&pw=2

THANKS!
when you go to that link it just shows the roads, there should be a bar at the top it says include large map, click on that.

just thought i’d add that lol

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Resolved Question: I want to do a carwash on my own property will the city let me do this????????’[?
Hi,

I want to make some extra cash by doing a car wash. What i planned was to put signs up around the city and have the cars pull into my driveway wash their car and they leave. it is the driveway to my house. Will the city let me do this? If you could look it up the city is Mentor on The Lake, Ohio.

THANKS

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Resolved Question: Can a Cessna 150/172 have both floats AND tires?
Pardon this obvious noob question, but I am curious. I live in Ohio not near any water, but right next to two grass airfields. I have lakefront property in Michigan on a small private lake that occassionally have small planes land on it.

Is it at all possible, to outfit a small cessna with both floats for landing at the lake, but also with tires for taking off from the airfield? In my mind, I have envisioned a plane with floats with a wheel assembly that rests above the floats when in water, but out and over the floats to rest below the floats for airfield landing.

Thanks.

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The slowdown in the economy has caused a slump in the real estate market throughout the world. This doesn’t mean that the industry will never be able to recover from this slump. It is only a matter of time before the construction and housing market recovers and be as robust as before just as the economic situation improves. Even now, when there’s an obvious downturn, there are still profits to be made from the property industry.

Of course, we are not talking about dumping large sums of cash in any particular project. Instead, you could opt to try out the rental business. In times like this, cash rich investors will get a lot of opportunities to invest in lower than market value properties because there are a lot of property owners who may put up their properties for sale because they were not able to pay the mortgage. These properties will be a great bargain indeed.

If you are able to add some lower priced properties to your portfolio, you will be able to take advantage of the downturn to put it up to let especially to those who have had to sell their properties. Even in an economic downturn, people still needs to find a place to stay and those who have sold theirs will want to find a place to rent. If you have a property that is in a good area, it will be pretty easy for you to find tenants to let it out to.

Of course, before immersing yourself into the real estate industry, you will still need to do the necessary homework to find out which areas are great for investing in and avoid places where rented homes are not high in demand. Renting out of your property is a lucrative way to earn some income or at best, pay for your investment.

One of the best ways to search for suitably below market value properties is to check out auction houses where a lot of properties are being auctioned off at low prices. But remember that before you make a bid for any property, you will need to first do a background check on the said property. You don’t want to end up investing in a property that is beyond repair or worse, has a lot of structural problems that you may end up paying more for.

Now, if you don’t relish the idea of renting out the property, you can also hold on to it for now. And if you have extra funds, give it a nice makeover and when the time is right, you can put it up for sale at a higher price than when you bought it. The real estate industry may be plunging or stagnant now but it’s not going to stay that way forever. Just remember, whatever that goes down is bound to come up one day.

Technorati Tags: finance, housing, investment, money, property, Real Estate, real estate leads

How come anytime you walk in to a book store and find your way to the business or financial books all the views that are expressed in the titles are very similar??? In one way or another they all call out for a monetary version of bloodshed. I mean think about the titles: “How you can crush the other guy”or “it’s not personal its business”, “How to come out on top” etc etc. When I got into the real estate investment game I spent hours trying to find the one book that would teach me how to become that REAL ESTATE INVESTING GOD I knew I could become. After reading most of the popular books at the time I actually would feel beat up over the content. I mean did I have to be a “take no prisoners” type of investor? Did I have to prey on some one else’s misfortune?? The answer was no. So I set out to build a list of my own investment rules. I think we each should have our own set of investment rules. Doc’s Rules for investing:

1) Your personal guidelines: Define and follow some personal guidelines. This is the most important rule I have. These guidelines define the investments I will go after as well as the amount of investment I’m willing to part with to get it. It outlines my investment tactic as well as how I want to conduct my the business of this investment Things to include are: Top dollar amount and lowest dollar amount. Type of investment you want to deal with. Period of term for investment.. Etc etc. (Between you and me I even have a guideline about the amount of time I will work per-day)

2) Remember some ones family is behind the deal you?re working on. Simply put,whoever you are dealing with has mouths to feed. Don’t forget this. Just because you can get a great deal on a house because the current owner is in a facing some sort of adversity that is causing them to sell below market value, doesn’t give you license to kick them when they are down. Treat everyone with dignity and respect. If the price they are offering still falls within the personal investing guidelines you have set for yourself don’t use your position to abuse the seller. If you are getting the house for .40 cents on the dollar,don’t be a jerk and push for .38 cents. Always remember…it could be you in the sellers postion. (This rule DOES NOT come in to play when dealing with a bank owned property)

3) Always ask for what you want. Why can’t you ask for something in an investment deal you like, For example. You’re looking at a piece of real estate,ask the seller if they would be willing to throw in new carpet to the sale. I met a investor who was looking at a house that had been on the market for several months. When he went to talk to the seller he happen to see a 1954 Merc Coupe in the garage, so he asked if it was included in the deal. The deal eventually closed for the house AND the car. 4) Make bird dogs. I always give several of my business cards to anyone I do business with and offer them a portion of any profit I make from any investments they help me locate. You would be amazed at how many people will help you make money when they get a small part of it. (And if you follow rule #2 you will be amazed at how many of those bird dogs will sing your praises from the highest mountains)

Just some ideas of things to keep in mind when you’re working on your investment mindset. I have used these rules over the years,and in many cases they, have gotten me more return and repeat networking opportunities then I can count.

Technorati Tags: Investing, investor, money, Real Estate, real estate investing, real estate investments, retirement, retirment investments, wealth

You’ve probably seen a lot of things that say you can fix your own credit, and that’s true to a point, but it’s not always as easy as it seems for most people. However, you can certainly take steps to make your credit rating better and more acceptable to lenders in the future if you’re willing to put in the work to improve your credit and your chances of borrowing later on. That starts with step one – knowing what’s on your credit report right now and why. If you don’t know what’s there, how are you supposed to work at making it better?

Next, step two is to take a look at the credit reports that you’ve been sent from the various bureaus (there should be three of them – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) and spend some time comparing them. If you see discrepancies, part of your credit problem could be that there are things on your credit that actually don’t belong to you and that are hurting your credit. You can call the credit bureaus and ask that these things be removed, and they will investigate them for you – finding no evidence that these things really belong to you will get them removed from your file and a new copy of your credit report issued to you, which can help to raise your credit score.

Step three involves how many active credit accounts you really have, since having a good credit score requires at least three active accounts. When someone only has one or two accounts, especially if those accounts are only credit cards and not longer-standing accounts like vehicle loans or mortgages, it doesn’t show a strong history of being able to handle credit properly. You can get more accounts if you don’t have enough to have a great credit rating, but you should be careful doing that, since getting too many accounts too quickly can harm your credit – and that’s especially true if those accounts are just credit cards.

Step four is a crucial one if you know someone who has good credit and who trusts you, because it’s not a step that you can do on your own. What you want to do here is get that trusted person to add you as an authorized user on their credit cards without actually giving you the card to use – that way you won’t be spending or adding up debt, but you will be getting the benefit of their good credit added to your credit report. Only do this with a person who has had the card for at least two years and who has not been late with a payment, though, because their credit problems with that card would also attach to your report, as well.

Step five starts into the harder things, like paying down your debt, since having a high balance on your credit accounts makes you look as though you’re not responsible with credit – and it will harm your credit score. When you start paying down balances, focus on getting them down below 50% of what you’re allowed to borrow on the credit card, and from that point work to get them down to 30% of what you owe and make sure that they stay below that level, because when you do that you’ll show that you are being responsible with your credit. You’ll have a much better chance of getting future credit that you might need if you can show that the balances on your cards are low and that they are staying low, so it’s something worth concentrating on, since it shows that you’re taking good care of your credit.

Step six is to let those paid-off, open credit card accounts stay open, and don’t close them out just because you’ve paid them off. When you close out accounts they drop off of your credit report after seven years, so you’ll stop getting ‘good credit’ points for them, and you don’t want to do that. Some accounts like car loans and mortgages do that automatically, but credit cards will stay open as long as you don’t close them and you use them occasionally, so be sure to keep your credit strong by doing that.

Step seven is the easiest one: maintain what you’ve done and are doing to keep your credit score high by making sure things get paid on time. Don’t start adding up a bunch of new debt once you’ve gotten rid of the old debt, and you’ll soon see that your credit score will stay high, allowing you to get the credit that you need when you need it. If you only get and use credit when you need it, and you don’t overextend yourself, you’ll have a much better chance of keeping a great credit score for years to come and being able to buy what you need without worrying that you won’t qualify for any kind of low-interest credit.

Technorati Tags: credit help, credit repair, finance, loan modification, loans, money, Mortgage, personal finance, Real Estate

As a good common rule, houses appreciate about four or 5 pct a year. Some years will be more, some less like the trend we are presently in. The figure will vary from neighborhood to neighborhood, and region to region.

Five pct may not seem like that much at first. Stocks (at times) can appreciate much more, and you could easily earn over the same return with a very safe investment in treasury bills or bonds. But take a second peek

Presumably, if you bought a $200,000 home, you did not pay cash for the home. You got a mortgage, too. Suppose you put as much as 20 pct down ” that would be an upfront investment of 40k.

At an appreciation rate of 5 percent per annum, a 200k home would step-up in value 10k during the 1st year. That implies you earned 10k with an investment of 40k. Your annual “return on investment” would be a whopping twenty-five percent.

Of course, you are making mortgage payments and paying prop taxes, along with a few of other costs. However, since the interest on your mortgage and your property taxes are both tax allowable, the government is fundamentally subsidizing your home purchase.

Your rate of return when purchasing a house is better than most any other investment you can make in the long haul.

For example, assume your initial loan balance is 150k with an interest rate of eight pct. During the first year you would pay $9969.27 in interest. If your 1st payment is January first, your taxable income would be almost 10k less ” due to the IRS interest value tax write-off.

Property taxes are allowable, also. Whatever prop taxes you pay in a passed year may also be subtracted from your gross income, taking down your tax obligation.

When you rent a place to live, you can sure enough expect your rent to step-up every year ” or even more frequently. If you get a fixed rate mortgage when you buy a house, you have the same annual payment amount for thirty years. Even if you get an flexible rate mortgage, your payment will stay within a particular range for the whole lifespan of the mortgage ” and interest rates arent as fluid now as they were in the late 70 and early 1980s.

Some people are simply lousy at saving money, and a house is an automated savings account. You compile savings in 2 ways. Every Last calendar month, a percentage of your payment goes toward the principal. Admittedly, in the earlier years of the mortgage, this is not much. Over time, however, it accelerates.

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Once you have made your decision to buy a home and stop renting, you’ll need a strategy to get started on your search. The secret in searching for the perfect home lies in your ability to identify exactly what you want out of a home.

You can get lost in the sea of choices presented by the home buying process. Choices require decisions: Where should I live? What type of home is best for my family? How big should my home be? All these decisions can overwhelm you but these can be managed easily by being as clear as possible about your wants and needs. Develop your own guideline for your ideal home to simplify the homebuying process. Below are some questions and issues to consider in creating your guideline.

1. What amenities do you want your home to have? Do you want to have a swimming pool, a garden, or a fireplace? Be clear with what you want so you can skip houses that don’t meet your criteria.

2. Be specific about your location. Author Ilyce Glink of ‘100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask’ explains that location is one of the most important factors when considering different homes. You’ll need to think about where you will be located in relation to schools, places of worship, shopping venues and even your friends and family. Your final location will determine how much you may need to drive each day – and if it’s worth the extra effort.

3. How big do you want your home to be? The size of your home will largely depend on your family’s needs. If you expect your family to grow in the near future, you may want to buy a bigger space to accommodate your family for the next three to five years.

4. Do you want to buy a home that needs renovation? Are you willing to put in the time, effort and finances to renovate a home? How much are you willing to invest on repairs and modifications? Create a standard concerning renovations so you can remove certain homes from your search.

5. Do you value safety and security? This is an important issue for families with small children and individuals living alone. What are the things you will need in order to feel secure in a home and neighborhood? Eliminate homes that do not pass your safety and security guidelines.

Remember to put in some effort in clarifying your home preferences and goals in life. This exercise can simplify the home buying process and will help you feel comfortable with your purchase in the long-run.

Technorati Tags: home buying, Real Estate, real estate - buying/selling, real estate investing, real estate investment, real estate investments, real estate-housing

Wording you need to avoid in the ads for your rental home or risk being fined $50,000 and more.

Now is the time to take action if you think your ads are violating Fair Housing law.

It doesn’t matter if you’re the owner of a single family home or an apartment complex, you have to follow Fair Housing laws whenever you advertise your home.

You are prohibited from advertising your home in any discriminatory manner. Specifically section 804(c) of the Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. 3604(c) states, “…it is unlawful to make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published, any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling, that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin, or an intention to make any such preference, limitation, or discrimination.”

So when you advertise your home for rent on Craigslist, a website, or even an in-print ad, there are certain words you should not use.

People have been taken to court and fined $5,000 for every discriminatory ad they ran.

Do not refer to a persons skin color and do not use the words, “white”, “black”, “Hispanic”, “colored home”, and “no Hispanics”. Don’t even try to work race into the advertising of your home.

Never use religious groups in your advertising. You should never uses phrases like “Christian home” or “Jewish only”.

If your rental home is in a good area of town or a good neighborhood use the wording “desirable neighborhood”. Desirable is open to the interpretation of the reader and is therefore not viewed as discriminatory.

You should not discriminate against people who have a disability of some kind. It is not legal to use the wording “no wheelchairs” or “handicap people need not apply”. It is legal to mention accessibility features for people with handicaps such as “wheelchair ramp included”. You can also discriminate against certain types of behavior or conduct like saying “no smoking” is legal.

Do not discriminate against children or parents. It is NOT ok to use the phrase “adult building”, “adults only”, or “no children”. In December of 2007, the Southern California Housing Rights Center brought charges against Robert Krug, a Monrovia landlord, alleging that he engaged in housing discrimination by not allowing children into his apartment complex. The suit, filed in March 2007, stated that the center had people pose as renters with families and approached the manager of Krug’s 28-unit apartment building in 2004. They were told the owner didn’t allow children. As part of a settlement reached, a federal court has fined Robert Krug nearly $140,000 for the federal offense.

Familial status should never be used in the advertisements for your rental home. You can not say things like “3 children or less only” or state a preference for couples, singles, or adults.

Fair Housing law does not end with your ads but continues through the application process and remain in effect during the entire time a tenant stays in your home.

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