Everyone blogs for different reasons. Sometimes its for strictly informational purposes, other times to share a personal experience or observation. Visitors often comment for the same reasons. I recently received a comment on our First Time Home Buyer Tax Credit post that I would like to share:

Thank you

On October 18th, 2009 Anonymous (not verified) says:

I would like to say.

Thank you Jacqulyn Richey for placing this post up for us to read and reply to. This is one of the most imformative sites I've found.

Its things like this, a simple comment that makes its all worthwhile. That post now has over 1,400 comments.

When surfing through the internet about Las Vegas homes, you'll find a lot of sites that talk about Summerlin, Spanish Trail, Silverado Ranch, etc. They are great communities with a lot to offer a home buyer. However, there are a lot of other wonderful communities that have been largely ignored. One of these is Southern Terrace. The community was built by then Nevada home builder Perma-bilt (who was later acquired by housing giant Meritage Homes shortly after the community was built). It was probably the last master planned community built under the Perma-bilt brand and offers a lot of the same amenities you'd find in a Green Valley or Summerlin community. The association fees are under $100 a month and the community has two swimming pools, spa, fitness facilities, club house and picnic areas with bbq grills.

Southern Terrace real estate offers four beautiful neighorhoods of one and two story homes ranging from just under 1,400 sf to over 3,400 sf.  The community is located on the west side of town near Tropicana Avenue and Fort Apache in zip code 89148. The I215 beltway is just a short drive away, plus a variety of shops, restaurants and more. If you would like listings of the current Southern Terrace homes for sale, call 702-493-8033 or visit our website www.lvrealty.net -cr

The massive CityCenter project is finally nearing completion. For quite a while, the project was on the fence. Earlier this year, the project suffered a near fatal blow. It started with a construction defect prevented the construction of the Harmon condos, forcing MGM Mirage to refund buyer's deposits on those units already sold. Then in April, their partner in the project, Dubai World, refused to honor their financial commitment to provide funding of the project.

Despite their differences, MGM Mirage and Dubai World managed to resolve their conflict and came to agreement. Funding and construction resumed with the target date of completion by December of this year.

Now, CityCenter is facing another obstacle, early buyers wanting massive price reductions. A small group of early condo buyers have filed a law suit demanding that their contracts be changed and their unit prices reduced.

Will CityCenter still be completed? I think that it will be completed, but it may be sometime next year. CityCenter may not have a choice as far as the price reductions are concerned. Buyers at those price levels may not be able to get financing unless the prices are reduced to near market level. On the plus side, CityCenter will be a LEED certified green project, grandfathered into the original law. Owners will enjoy hefty tax benefits after taking possession.

So if you were thinking about buying a condo in CityCenter, there is a lot of things to consider. There are a lot of different projects to high rise condos to choose from in the valley that are already completed like Palms Place. If you would like listings of the current high rise condos for sale in Las Vegas, call 702-493-8033 or drop me an email at info @lvrealty.net -cr

For those of you familiar with Digg, Puurple looks very similar. The site allows you to post your favorite real estate stories and vote on them, just like Digg. Submitting your blog posts to Puurple will also help draw in more traffic to your site.

In all fairness, I must disclose that my husband Charles is a moderator on the site (aka spam killer). Posts not related to the real estate industry (mortgage, etc) will be removed. You will need to sign up for an account (it's free) in order to be able to submit and vote on stories.

By now almost everyone has heard how inexpensive property is in Las Vegas. The national media has beating the foreclosure drum to death. However, certain parts of town still command a hefty price tag. For those looking for a condo on the strip, prices have gone down...but are not at rock bottom.

That doesn't mean that you can't enjoy a high roller lifestyle on a more modest budget. There are quite a few communities located within walking distance to the strip that have fallen in price dramatically. They offer some of the same amenities found in strip properties, but cost far less. A good example would be the mid rise Meridian condos. Located on E Flamingo within walking distance of the strip and a monorail station, the community offers a host of resort style amenities you would expect in a higher end community including onsite dry cleaning, mail services, concierge services, two lighted tennis courts, pools, fitness center and underground secure parking.

If you have a little larger budget and prefer high rise living, Allure condos are a good choice. The Allure has brand new units that have fallen out of escrow now listed at 50% of original list price. The community has all of the upscale amenities you would expect and is located on Sahara Avenue, just a few hundred feet from the strip.

If you would like to have listings sent to you for either property, call 702-493-8033 or visit www.lvrealty.net and send us an email at info@lvrealty.net.-cr

We will be hosting a carnival of real estate on July 6th on our Las Vegas Real Estate Blog. We have decided on a specific theme as of yet (other than real estate related of course). The carnival will be accepting quality, original submissions between June 29 and July 5th. So if you wish to participate, stay tuned for further announcements.

Carnivals are a great way to increase your readership and interact with new people.-cr

I received this email from a friend and thought I'd pass it along:

You should be alert during the next days:

Do not open any message with an attached file called 'Invitation' regardless of who sent it, It is a virus that opens an Olympic Torch which 'burns' the whole hard disc C of your computer.

This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in his/her contact list, that is why you should send this e-mail to all your contacts. It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus and open it.

If you receive a mail called 'invitation', though sent by a friend , do not open it and shut down your computer immediately. This is the worst virus announced by CNN, it has been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever.

This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet for this kind of virus. This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the vital information is kept.

In others words, you are out of luck. As always, its wise to have a back up of your important information. A cheap and easy solution is a USB external hard drive. They are sold everywhere, and some come with a software suite that will back up everything for you. -cr

The Las Vegas area is experiencing what could be called a gold rush lately. With so many foreclosed homes on the market, prices have plummeted. Great news if you are a home buyer for sure, especially if you've never owned a home before. The low prices combined with the first time home buyer tax credit makes it a powerful draw, especially for retirees.

Prices for most of the retirement specific communities have been cut in half since 2006. There are several Henderson and Las Vegas retirement communities to choose from. You can use our interactive map to view different communities around the valley.

You can view the map legend on our site along with community profiles on every age restricted community in the Las Vegas valley, plus search listings online or receive them by email. Free feel to contact me directly at 702-493-8033 or at info@lvrealty dot net.

I just read a post here on Active Rain about getting more links to help boost your ranking on search engines. By a strange coincidence, a friend of mine has started a new mortgage resource site. Right now he is looking for authors in the mortgage (and real estate) industry to write some consumer oriented articles about the mortgage industry.

This is a great way to gain additional links back to your own personal site as well as traffic. You can see my author's link here. There is also a real estate and mortgage directory that is accepting (for now) free submissions. So if you are looking to expand your influence on the web, here is a great opportunity. -cr

By now, almost everyone should be familiar with the term phising. Yesterday I got a phising email about my paypal account. Thankfully, the thieves aren't that sophisticated at all as you can see:

Dear Pay pal valued member,

Due to concerns, for the safety and integrity of the pay pal account we have issued this warning message.

It has come to our attention that your account information needs to be updated due to inactive members, frauds and spoof reports.

If you could please take 5-10 minutes out of your online experience and renew your records you will not run into any future problems with the online service.

However, failure to update your records will result in account suspension

This notification expires on 48 hours.

Once you have updated your account records your pay pal account service will not be interrupted and will continue as normal.

Please follow the link below and login to your account and renew your account information
                 www.web66-cmd-rlogin .com


Sincerely,
Pay pal customer department!

So basically they are asking you to give them your paypal login information on a strange website...so they can log into Paypal and wipe out your account. Whenever you get these type of emails to "update" or "verify" your account, disregard them. Your bank or other institutions will never email you to update your account online. They will physically send you something or call you directly...if ever. -cr