Short Takes: Free Online Property Valuation and more

Canada Mortgage News reports that Zoocasa has a new free property valuation service called Zoopraisal. It was able to give me a value for my house. I don’t know if the appraisal is accurate, but it’s a start.  Update: a friend who keeps a close eye on real estate prices says that Zoopraisal is close in some cases, but in at least one case it was low by nearly 20% even though the house had just sold for the higher price.  He suspects that it didn't take into account special circumstances that make a house more desirable than others fairly close by.  Hopefully Zoopraisal improves over time.

The Blunt Bean Counter has some useful details on who needs to report to the U.S. IRS. Many snowbirds don’t realize that they have IRS reporting requirements if they stay too long.

Preet Banerjee reports another good reason to avoid day trading: machine reading of news. It’s hard to act on news first if computers are acting on it in a split second.

Money Smarts has a detailed analysis of the relative benefits of Skype and long-distance voice plans for when you’re traveling.

Big Cajun Man went to the bank to get some free banking and came away with something better: a lower mortgage rate.

Retire Happy Blog has a glowing review of the new Wealthy Barber book.

My Own Advisor reviews the book The Elements of Investing.

Million Dollar Journey explains how to save money at Costco.

Comments

  1. Big Cajun ManOctober 28, 2011 at 5:54 AM

    Thanks for the inclusion, sometimes you get what you need.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Blunt Bean CounterOctober 28, 2011 at 7:09 AM

    Michael, thanks for link and idea about future article for snowbirds. You are ahead of the China real estate curve, front page article in ROB today on your same thoughts.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Michael JamesOctober 28, 2011 at 9:06 AM

    @Mark: Those ROB guys need to come up with their own ideas :-)

    ReplyDelete
  4. My Own AdvisorOctober 28, 2011 at 8:09 PM

    Thanks for the mention Michael!

    Have a good weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Jennifer WissOctober 28, 2011 at 10:03 PM

    Good job. Very nice post. Thank you.

    ReplyDelete

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