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Relocating can be a difficult decision to make, but what if it’s for your job? Here are 20 reasons hard workers give for relocating their families for work.

1. More Money One great reason to relocate is that you’ll receive a raise to go along with the move. Money can be a major determining factor when it comes to relocation for professional reasons. If it’s a large enough raise, it can help you live a more luxurious life or give you the chance to start a college fund for your kids when you didn’t have that opportunity before. Read more. 

After a long and painful downturn in the housing market, home prices in many—but not all—regions of the U.S. are showing signs of recovery. According to Zillow, a real estate listing website, home values rose 5.1% across the U.S. between February 2012 and February 2013. Many local housing markets are performing considerably better than the country as a whole. Home values rose more than 13% in 10 of the 30 largest housing markets for which Zillow has data, and rose more than 20% in five of them. Read more.

With the housing rebound in full swing, “pocket listings” are growing in many parts of the country as some sellers look to preserve their privacy, and brokers use them to trigger an aura of exclusivity to a listing. But some in the industry worry that exclusivity may be crossing an ethical line. Pocket listings refer to situations in which real estate agents purposely keep sales information about a home off the multiple listing services, and brokers only show that house to people they expect to actually purchase it. The National Association of REALTORS® does not have an official policy on pocket listings, spokesman Walt Molony told CNNMoney. But some real estate boards say they don’t like the practice. Read more.

Residential Real Estate 101

This article was contributed by Madoline Hatter. Madoline is a freelance writer and blog junkie from ChangeOfAddressForm.com. You can reach her at: m.hatter12 @ gmail.com.

As a real estate investor or a first-time buyer, you need to understand what type of residence may be a good investment depending on market conditions. You may want a property that will provide positive cash flow. You may want to buy and hold property that can produce income each month. Or you may want to find a property in excellent condition in which to live. 

Investing in Residential real estate

The most common form of investing in real estate is buying residential properties. For the most part, it provides a place to live for the owner or the tenant. Either way, this is the safest type of investment for many average income families. The degree to which the house is treated as investment depends on the buyer's personal situation and interest. One characteristic of all these residences is that they can generate a constant income. The other characteristic common to them is that the property will require monthly mortgage payments, property taxes, utilities and repairs wherever needed.

Residential properties, in general, come in different styles, sizes and shapes.

1. A single-family house - This can be a tiny home about 500 square feet size, or a mansion with a 8000 square feet living area. Single family houses come in ranch style homes with one or more bathroom, or they can be townhouses. All these homes' architectural styles may vary, the structure may be unique, such as bungalows, slatboxes, colonials and so on. But the one common element in all these houses is that they are all designed for a single family to live on the property. 

2. Duplexes and Triplexes - Much like...

Are you sure you want to be a landlord? I have clients who love to regale me with stories about their fun experiences with tenants. Like the one who took almost every fixture when he moved out: carpeting, curtain rods, towel bars, you name it — even a toilet, believe it or not. Indeed, putting up with tenants can be a real pain. But that negative consideration is offset by improving real estate markets in many areas and favorable tax rules that aren't available for other types of investments. In fact, favorable tax rules are a big reason why so many fortunes are made in real estate. The other big reason is that leveraging real-estate investments with mortgage debt can greatly multiply the upside potential. Read more.

By Guest Blogger Doug Chapman at www.homedaddys.com. The thought of moving makes most all of us cringe thinking about how much time and effort is going to be put into the process. It is a daunting task, even an inconvenient task, but we have all done it in our lives probably more than once. 

 It doesn’t matter if you are moving into a new house or a new apartment, whether you are single or married with kids, there are going to be hassles involved throughout the duration of the move. However, the iPhone provides movers with a great selection of apps that will help streamline the move so that you are able to accomplish everything you need to during the course of the entire course of moving. 

Here are five of the best apps that will help you from the time you open your garage doors, pack up your storage unit, and move into the house.  Every step of your move:

 Moving List (by New Gravity Ventures)

This app on the iPhone is a no brainer to get and it only costs $2.99. It provides you with a checklist for ideas and suggestions for tasks that are needed when you are ready to move. It covers a variety of things that you must have when you get ready to move, from checklists of hiring a moving company to ways of saving money during the move. It also gives you the best ways to prepare the moving boxes with packing tape and other supplies, and it makes sure to give you a time line of when to get everything ready as well as when to call and get your utilities done.

 Moving To Do List (by Red Box Productions)

If you want a cheaper app (and I mean monetary, not in actual context), this is also a great. It is $1.99 and allows you to create your own checklist for a nearly anything, from selecting what type of move it is, to adding photos and sounds, to choosing from an...

By Guest Blogger Doug Chapman at www.homedaddys.com.

Selling your house is a process that not only will cause tense moments, but it will also make you do things that you haven’t done since you moved in – CLEAN THE ENTIRE HOUSE! That was a joke, sort of.

Regardless, when you are getting ready to stage your house, you want it to be in tip-top shape so that the prospective buyer can walk right in and feel like it is their home right from the start. There are many things you can do to make it a neutral house, and most of them just take a little elbow grease or some light lifting to accomplish.

 Here are four ideas to take into consideration when you are about to put your house on the market:

Upgrade The Fireplace

You need to get rid of the ragged, old brass screen that probably has kinks all through it. Replacing it is inexpensive, but it will go a long way when potential buyers come through the living room. Make sure you also give the entire fireplace a makeover, you know cleaning it entirely like you probably haven’t done since you moved in the house! Polish it all so that it lights up the room, and it will make your living room that much more appealing than you ever imagined.

 Light The House

When buyers come into the house, the last thing they want to see are dark rooms. Even if they are coming at night, make sure to open the curtains and let the light come through the windows. Feel free to add additional lighting fixtures throughout each room and make sure the bulbs on each lamp are new so they don’t start flickering during the tour! Increase the watts on your light ...

Existing-home sales edged up in January, while a seller’s market is developing and home prices continue to rise steadily above year-ago levels, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. Sales rose in every region but the West, which is the region most constrained by limited inventory. Total existing-home sales, which are completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, increased 0.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.92 million in January from a downwardly revised 4.90 million in December, and are 9.1 percent above the 4.51 million-unit pace in January 2012. Read more.

Members of the Greater Louisville Association of Realtors sold 880 houses and condos in January, a 19 percent increase from a year earlier. The median sale in January — the point at which half of homes sold for more and half for less — was $133,000, a 6 percent increase from a year earlier, the association said. “Our members are looking forward to a strong spring selling season, building on relatively good winter months,” Louisville Realtors President Paul Ogden said in the group’s monthly news release. Read more.

Home prices in the fourth quarter of 2012 showed a rate of annual appreciation greater than in any quarter since the end of 2005 the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said today.  There were 133 metropolitan areas in which median prices rose during the quarter out of the 152 tracked by NAR.  Prices increase in 120 areas in the third quarter and only 29 one year earlier.  Twenty-nine areas posted price declines in the recent period. Read more.

More than half of homes listed on the Louisville real estate market in 2012 ended up selling, a dramatic improvement from the previous five years, according to statistics analyzed by Louisville agent Greg Fleischaker. As we reported last month, sales by the Greater Louisville Association of Realtors jumped 16 percent in 2012. Read more.

Once upon a time, house hunting meant perusing local newspapers and being led through properties by a real-estate agent. Nowadays, most home buyers head straight to their computers: A record 90% searched online this year, up from 65% a decade ago, according to the National Association of Realtors. Trouble is, homes listed for sale online aren’t always actually available. More than a third of home listings that are labeled as “active” on third-party listing sites Trulia and Zillow are no longer for sale, according to a 2012 study by consulting firm WAV Group that was sponsored by online brokerage Redfin (which also lists properties for sale). For their part, Trulia and Zillow say such outdated posts can be the result of real-estate agents inputting information incorrectly or forgetting to make updates. Read more.

As reported by The Daily Mail Online: "The sprawling Kentucky mansion built by the liquor mogul behind Jack Daniel's whiskey is now up for sale for $6 million in Harrods Creek, an exclusive neighborhood of Louisville.  'The Avish,' the stately, columned 20,000 square foot manor, was developed in 1910 by Owsley Brown and his wife, Laura Lyons. Construction on the home was completed in 1925. The name translates to 'Rocky Hill' in Gaelic, which was the name of the family's ancestral home in Ireland. Mr Brown's father, George Garvin Brown, had founded Brown-Forman, the liquor company whose brands now include Jack Daniel's, Southern Comfort and Finlandia Vodka. The home was most recently inhabited by Owsley Brown Frazier, a fourth generation member of the Brown dynasty who had served as a director on the Brown-Forman board and had been an active philanthropist in Louisville." Read the article in its entirety.

CHICAGO (MarketWatch)—Good pictures are crucial in marketing a home for sale. Just ask Clarissa and Mark Padilla, who were able to get a contract on their Sherman Oaks, Calif., condo unit in less than two weeks—and at a price they wanted. Clarissa Padilla attributes the quick sale to the professional photography that marketed the home and was able to lure about 20 to 25 people to an open house the first weekend. “When we saw the photos, we fell in love with our place all over again,” she said. “The colors were so bright, and it made it look fresh and very spacious. It’s only 950 square feet. [The pictures] made it look huge.” Read more.

Sales of existing homes rose in July even with constraints of affordable inventory, and the national median price is showing five consecutive months of year-over-year increases, according to the National Association of Realtors®.  Monthly sales rose in every region but the West, where inventory is very tight. Total existing-home sales¹, which are completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, grew 2.3 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.47 million in July from 4.37 million in June, and are 10.4 percent above the 4.05 million-unit pace in July 2011. Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said housing affordability conditions are very good.  “Mortgage interest rates have been at record lows this year while rents have been rising at faster rates.  Combined, these factors are helping to unleash a pent-up demand,” he said.  “However, the market is constrained by unnecessarily tight lending standards and shrinking inventory supplies, so housing could easily be much stronger without these abnormal frictions.” Read more.

Today, we report another month of positive real estate news as Louisville home sales were up 18 percent over last year! Eight hundred, fifty-two homes were sold in July 2012, compared to just 720 in July 2011. While this was just shy of May and June’s identical 859 homes sold, activity was likely affected by the record heat wave blasting the area, and might have been higher. For some historical perspective, 678 Louisville homes were sold in July 2010, 926 in July 2009, and 696 in July 2008. Louisville home values are also improving. The median home sale price for the month dipped from $147,000 in June to $144,590 in July but with the trend still moving upward, there may be some optimism for those holding to the view of a recovering real estate market. Read more.

Since 1968, the Council for Community and Economic Research and its predecessor have compiled data measuring differences in the cost of living in American cities. The Courier-Journal analyzed the organization’s most recent Cost of Living Index — which covers the first three months of 2012 — to see how Louisville compares. The council is an Arlington, Va.-based nonprofit group whose members include chambers of commerce, economic development professionals and universities. Every three months, it gathers prices on dozens of goods and services in more than 300 metro areas.

 After living in Manhattan for almost a decade, Jon Salomon got used to paying $10 a drink or more at pretty much any bar in town. In 2008, he moved to Louisville and after a night out, the bar tab gave him a bit of sticker shot — in a good way. “I would sort of look at it with some disbelief,” Salomon said, joking that with drinks about half as expensive here, he was tempted “to buy rounds for the whole bar.”According to the Council for Community and Economic Research (also known as C2ER), it’s about 2.5 times more expensive to live in Manhattan than in Louisville. Read more.

Some Louisville-area real estate agents are noticing something that hasn’t happened in a long time: getting multiple offers on the same property. Since the housing market crashed four years ago, all the leverage has been with buyers as sales tanked and prices declined in Louisville and throughout the country. But now sales and prices are on the rebound in Louisville — at least, compared to a year ago — and some agents say sellers are getting more than one offer on houses and condos that are in “move-in” condition and are listed for a fair price. Read more.

Louisville Realtors logged their eighth-straight month of sales gains in February with a 26 percent increase from a year earlier. Members of the Greater Louisville Association of Realtors sold 774 houses and condos last month, compared to 614 in February 2011. “The warm start to 2012 continues to offer a few degrees of positive news,” the group said in a news release. More sales are in the pipeline, too. Realtors helped buyers sign 1,111 contracts last month, a 22 percent increase from a year earlier. Read more.

Buying a home is now more affordable than it has been in the last twenty years. Thanks to continued declines in home prices and rock-bottom mortgage rates, the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index hit a record level of affordability. According to the index, 75.9% of all new and existing homes sold during the three months ended Dec. 31 could have been comfortably purchased by families earning the national median income of $64,200. That was the highest percentage recorded in the 20-year history of the index, and a sharp increase from just three months earlier when 72.9% of all homes sold were considered affordable. Read more.