Brooke Astor’s son, his attorney indicted

Brooke Astor’s son, his attorney indicted
Newsday – Philip Marshall, a college professor, has sued both men, accusing them of misappropriating cash, real estate, securities and other property belonging to his grandmother. Philip Marshall’s spokesman Frazier Seitel said his client had testified before

RREEF Real Estate Hires Sally Blatt as Portfolio Manager and Alan

RREEF Real Estate Hires Sally Blatt as Portfolio Manager and Alan
Forbes – RREEF Real Estate, a part of RREEF Alternative Investments, the global alternatives asset management business of Deutsche Bank’s Asset Management division, today announced the appointment of Sally Blatt as a Director and Portfolio Manager and Alan

Find Homes on the Internet – The Advantage of Real Estate Search Engines

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Searching for a new home? If you’re like the majority of home buyers, chances are that you will spend some time on the Internet gathering information on various homes. The Web provides data and information that was previously only available to professionals in respective fields. However, due to the saturation of information found on the Web, it is sometimes tedious work to dig and find specific information.

Companies have recently started to revamp their Web tools to make them more appealing, intuitive and easy to use for consumers. The most interesting of these Web tools is the real estate search engine. Using the data of Multiple Listing Services, a real estate search engine allows anyone to look for home listings in a given city, county, or zip code. Home buyers can refine their search by entering specific criteria for the type of home they are looking for: price range, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, square footage, etc. Many companies are now offering real estate search engines, be it directly to homebuyers or to real estate agents. Some engines offer more features than others. The easiest to use are those that combine the MLS listings with aerial maps – such as Google Maps – to show where the homes are located. Here is a list of the best real estate search engines and a summary of their features:

• Easy Homefinder is a service that is embedded directly on real estate agents Web sites. It contains many features that consolidates the home searching process. For example, the listings will appear in different colors on the map to indicate the estimated price of each house. Each icon representing a home also displays the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. These two features distinguish Easy Homefinder from competing maps because it allows home buyers to quickly scan through multiple houses and find homes that match their home-buying criteria.
• Mapteam is not appealing visually, but loads quickly. A second version of the map is on the way, which will allow people to save their favorite homes from their search. It only displays homes available in a few U.S. areas.
• Redfin has been featured in many different articles, including one published in the New York Times. Redfin is visually appealing and uses a special set of satellite maps. It provides all the search features common to real estate search engines, but can also display local schools and parks on the map. Redfin started its business with home listings in the Seattle area.
• Trulia has a different way to find the data it displays to visitors. It goes to partner Web sites to retrieve their listings. This means that not all available listings are listed on Trulia. The site allows visitors to save the descriptions of the homes they liked.
• Homepages displays homes in many states. It is quick to load. It can display a lot of information that its competitors do not have, such as the local restaurants, schools, and hospitals. It provides a detailed report not only of a home but also of the neighborhood in which this home is located. The catch: the home listings are not complete, because real estate agents can pay Homepage for exclusivity over an area.

Because these search engines are relatively new, they do not yet cover the entire nation, but they are so appealing that they should soon become a standard feature on real estate Web sites.

About the Author

Content provided by 10x Media. Established in 2003, 10x Media provides innovative online marketing tools. It has expanded its online presence through networks such as Inside Real Estate, Inside Finances and Grab Real Estate, which contain thousands of pages for city and state specific real estate information across the nation.