Consumer Focused Carnival of Real Estate

The guidelines for this carnival.

As always, I arranged the entries that met guidelines into three levels, based upon originality, usefulness to the consumer, and how much thought and effort and research went into an entry.

Unfortunately, there were no "strongly recommended" articles submitted this time, and therefore, no Host's Choice.

RECOMMENDED

Never Pay the Dealer Up Front has some words of warning about pre- and during construction purchases.

Buying a Foreclosure Property is a little short on analysis and how to put the odds on your side, and some of the details are incorrect, but it's a good article for consumers to have read.

Your host presents Non-Exclusive Buyer's Agency Contract - A Bet Consumers Can't Lose

MET GUIDELINES

Adfecto Abundantia - Aspire 2 Wealth submits House Lust. He's going about it in a way that's practically guaranteed to end up hosing himself (setting himself up for all the classic traps), but it does meet guidelines.

Tallahassee Real Estate - Area Analysis is very specific to one metropolitan area.

How to Make Sure this is your Dream Home: 7 Practical Tips gets the permissible debt to income ratio wrong, but it's a solid basic article otherwise.

SPAM AND OTHER RIDICULOUS SUBMISSIONS

A site named Bond Index Funds wants to sell you bond index funds. Unfortunately for them, that has nothing to do with the carnival at hand. But their advice would be hazardous to your financial health even if it was germane. You might be better off claiming to be the long lost relative of a dead Nigerian millionaire.

American Consumer News submitted a straight shill post. This is not consumer news, except by how many people you can sucker into making a major financial mistake. Absolutely no understanding of the business model of the business they're pitching, or even just the basic facts of the situation. These people have about as much concern for American consumers as Osama bin Laden.

KC Lau needs to buy a clue. He can't keep to the one submission per carnival guideline, and he can't or won't comprehend that the post must be related to real estate. I wouldn't trust my money to the advice of someone like that.

No Load Index Mutual Funds submitted a straight shill article that had no relation to real estate. my thoughts about index funds are that they're for market timers, and that's about it. Just Say No to clueless internet shills.

For those who might object to the treatment their submission received, the relevant information has been in the guidelines since before submissions were being accepted for this carnival. Having been told to read the guidelines, you willingly submitted these posts. Live with it.

Consumer Focused Carnival of Real Estate will return in two weeks (April 9th, 2008), here at Searchlight Crusade, unless someone else wants to host. Deadline for submissions will be April 7th.