Q: When it comes to marketing listings, what type of video is most effective in terms of attracting prospective buyers?

A: There’s a lot of talk regarding video in every industry, including real estate. Why? Because it works. Video is a great way to convey a story, as it can relay entertainment, emotion and information in a format that consumers want. It’s also a very powerful search engine optimization tool since the largest search engine, Google, owns a video distribution outlet, YouTube. And SEO comes in handy when you’re looking to be found by buyers and sellers online to list and sell homes.

So what is video? Frankly, video is different things to different users. To a search engine, a video is a file that’s created in a video player format (MP4, AVI, etc.), regardless of its content, and is weighted higher than text or still-image Web content. Even if it’s a slideshow and music, it still ranks significantly above other types of content. To consumers, most would consider video to be a “show” with live video, some form of professional voiceover/soundtrack, and possibly some still photos blended in.

A well-planned garage or yard sale can make room in your home, get rid of unused items and make some money but it needs some planning to be successful.

• Start early to research and plan
• Promotion is key
• Display items attractively
• Price items right
• Organize checkout

Saturdays are generally the best day but there may be some exceptions. Experienced garage-salers believe that a well-planned one-day event will do as well as a multi-day event. Serious purchasers will look for the “new” sale and most people don’t come back multiple days.

Advertise in local newspapers and free online classified sites like craigslist. If several families are going together for the sale, mention that in the ad; it will be a big draw. Mention your bigger-ticket items like furniture, equipment and baby items.

With roughly 12.5% of the population over 65 years of age, it is understandable that some of them are thinking of downsizing because they may not need the amount of space they did in the past. There is something to be said for the freedom acquired by divesting yourself of “things” that have been accumulated over the years but are no longer needed.

Moving to a less expensive home, could provide cash that could be invested for additional income or savings for unanticipated expenditures.

Savings can also be recognized in the lower utility costs associated with a smaller home, not to mention, the lower premiums for insurance and property taxes.

Going from the home where you reared your family to one of the new tiny homes may be a bit extreme but downsizing to 2/3 or 50% of your current home may certainly be reasonable. In some situations, your interests may have changed so that a different area or city might be a possibility.

0% financing has induced car buyers into taking the plunge because it doesn’t cost anything to use someone else’s money. While mortgage rates are not at zero, they’re close enough that many buyers are applying similar logic.

Qualified mortgage interest is deductible on taxpayers' returns subject to the maximum acquisition debt of one million dollars. For the fortunate homeowners who have paid off their mortgage, their acquisition debt was reduced to zero and only the interest on a maximum home equity debt of $100,000 is deductible.

If you have to pay interest, deductible interest is preferable because it reduces your actual cost.

There are many reasons for wanting to have a home of your own like a place to raise your family, share with friends and feel safe and secure. While investment opportunities rank high for most people based on the fact that homeowners’ net worth is over forty times higher than that of renters, so do the tax benefits that reduce tax liability.

• Taxpayers who have owned and used a home for at least two out of the last five years, can exclude a maximum of $250,000 of gain as a single taxpayer and up to $500,000 of gain for married taxpayers filing jointly.
• If the gain on a principal residence exceeds the allowed exclusion, the balance is taxed at the lower long-term capital gains rate rather than the marginal tax rate of the homeowner.
• Homeowners can deduct the interest paid on up to $1,000,000 of acquisition debt used to buy, build or improve their first or second home. They may also deduct the interest on up to $100,000 over acquisition debt that is a recorded lien on their first or second home.

The total value of all the homes in the United States is expected to end 2014 at $27.5 trillion, a 6.7 percent increase from last year and the third consecutive overall increase, according to Zillow. Homes lost $6.1 trillion in value between December 2006 and December 2011.

The cumulative increase in home values is slightly smaller than 2013's 8 percent increase, and that kind of gradual slowing is a sign of the times as the market heads for slower expected gains in 2015. Over the second half of 2014, inventory increased in many U.S. markets and, with more homes on the market, home value appreciation slowed.

"Looking at the total value of the U.S. housing stock proves just how huge and important the housing sector is to the overall economy," says Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Stan Humphries. "Virtually nowhere else will you see gains of more than a trillion dollars in one year represent only single-digit percentages of the total market. As we conclude 2014 and look ahead at 2015 and beyond, housing will play a bigger role in the broader economic recovery. As the job market improves and more households form, more people will search for homes to buy and rent, which will translate into more people buying appliances and home goods and lead to more jobs for home builders and contractors. Housing is well positioned to continue the great strides already made this year."

I have provided loads of information about your home's front door in our previous two reports, and today, we'll touch on one final and related subject - your garage doors. We recently became familiar with color designer, forecaster and renowned color consultant Kate Smith.

Smith's recent blog at sensationalcolor.com noted that the biggest mistake she sees homeowners making is using color to draw too much attention to their garage doors rather than downplaying them.

This is even more pronounced on a home with a protruding garage that already dominates the view of the home. The following points represent Smith's DO’s and DON’Ts for painting garage doors:

DO paint the garage doors in the same color as the house itself and not the trim color or white (unless white is your house color) if you want to keep them from standing out. Painting the garage doors the same colors as the body of the house may also make a home appear larger.

So, you want to sell your real estate inheritance, and your siblings don’t. How can you compromise?

When a piece of real estate has two or more owners and one wants to sell and the others don’t, a petition to partition may be the answer. This happens frequently among families when real estate is left in a will to heirs, but it can also occur when a couple divorces. How do you divide the property? What steps should be taken?

When the petition process is started, a notification is delivered from the court and given to all owners of the property, in addition to anyone who may have a legal interest such as lien or mortgage holders. The process can be expensive and time-consuming. Many owners will retain their own lawyer—anyone who doesn’t want the petition to move forward can file with the probate court seeking to stop the process.

This year demonstrated a steady build-up of housing momentum—fueled by significant improvements in economic fundamentals, low mortgage rates, and compressed inventory – and is expected to carry the market into 2015 gains, according to the 2014 Housing Review issued today by realtor.com®. This review includes the Top 10 Real Estate Trends that defined the 2014 housing market, as well as the Most-Searched Neighborhoods of the year.

“Many of the gains that we recently predicted in the realtor.com® 2015 Housing Forecast are built on housing growth established in 2014. Overall, this year’s housing market showed steady advances over 2013 with significant improvement in key housing metrics, despite some remaining challenges,” said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist for realtor.com®. “Increases in job creation and gross domestic product (GDP) have had a significant impact on consumer confidence and home buyer demand. Paired with historically low interest rates, these factors kept properties moving quickly with median time on market at approximately 90 days. Unfortunately, the low number of homes for sale and stringent lending standards prevented a normal number of first time home buyers from closing on their first home in 2014.”

Realtor.com®’s Top 10 Real Estate Trends of 2014

Indicators demonstrating a stronger housing recovery:

1. Improving economic fundamentals: After an especially harsh winter earlier in the year, the economy picked up steam and produced a banner year for new jobs. The GDP this year was higher, and is still trending higher, resulting in stronger consumer confidence. 

RealtyTrac VP discusses outlook for first-time homebuyers

Last week, housing-data giant RealtyTrac® (www.realtytrac.com) released an analysis of fair market rents and median home prices in more than 500 U.S. counties, which shows that buying is still more affordable than renting in the majority of U.S. housing markets. While this offers positive news for the housing industry, the report also reveals that the opposite is true in markets with the biggest increase in the millennial share of the population over the last six years—which begs the question: Where does the future of homeownership stand among the younger generation of first-time homebuyers?

In an interview with RISMedia, RealtyTrac Vice President Daren Blomquist, says this latest report tells us that “we’re not going to see those potential first-time homebuyers become homebuyers in the near future in great numbers because the markets they’re attracted to, largely for jobs, are unaffordable. These markets have high rents and even more expensive homes. I think this shift toward more of a ‘rentership’ society is not just a one- or two-year trend, but will be a multi-year trend.”