| One small company reinvents a $30 billion market and More parents helping kids buy homes |
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In 2006, roofing salesman David Carlson vented to his brother-in-law about his frustrations from climbing onto rooftops and manually measuring to give estimates on repair work. Measuring by hand is a tedious process. Plus, people fall off roofs.Carlson's brother-in-law, Chris Pershing, happened to be a software engineer. He did more than listen: Pershing set out to build a software program that would literally change the way the $30 billion roofing industry views America's rooftops.Today Pershing's company, EagleView, uses aerial photography and 3-D modeling to produce on-demand reports for accurate measurements of almost every roof in the country. No ladder, no tape measurers and no perilous, time-consuming estimates."Having an Eagle View report has become an industry accepted standard," says Kirk Belz, a partner at Mid-America Adjusting Services, an Ozark, Mo., company that investigates claims for national insurers. [Read the full article] Time-share owners hawk their slots on Craigslist, but you get a wider selection -- and fewer worries -- via sites working with property managers.The find: $1,862 for a week in a one-bedroom unit, with a sleeper sofa, at Lake Tahoe Vacation Resort in South Lake Tahoe, Nev., vs. $2,814 for two rooms at a nearby inn.Orlando and Las Vegas may be the time-share capitals of the U.S., but these resort hotspots don't have a monopoly on the idea. You can find time-shares in places such as Newport, R.I., and Traverse City, Mich.The find: $2,377 weekly for a one-bedroom unit at Wyndham La Belle Maison in New Orleans, vs. $3,953 for two rooms down the street.A smart search will uncover more time-shares on major travel sites such as Travelocity (look for "kitchenettes") and sites of big hotel chains (try keywords such as "vacation club," "residence," or "villa"). [Read the full article] Far fewer homes have been sold over the past five years than previously estimated, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday.NAR said it plans to downwardly revise sales of previously-owned homes going back to 2007 during the release of its next existing home sales report on Dec. 21.NAR's existing home sales numbers, released monthly, are a closely followed gauge of the health of the housing market.While NAR hasn't revealed exactly how big the revision to home sales will be, the agency's chief economist Lawrence Yun said the decrease will be "meaningful.""For the real estate business, this means the housing market's downturn was deeper than what was initially thought," Yun said.Yun said the database NAR uses to track existing home sales, the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), has led the real estate agency to over-count existing home sales for several reasons. [Read the full article] 
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