Las Vegas Real Estate Blog

Google Sky... The constellations of Andromeda, Hydra and Vulpecula are now just a mouse click away for amateur star-gazers, following the launch of Google Sky. 

Google Earth combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips.

• Fly to your house. Just type in an address, press Search, and you'll zoom right in.
• Search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Get driving directions.
• Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings, or look up to explore the sky
• Save and share your searches and favorites.

Now you can stargaze using Google's popular desktop mapping application Google Earth. In the latest version of Google Earth, hit the "Switch between Sky and Earth" button on the toolbar to get a map of the night sky from your current location. Several Sky layers are listed on the left-hand side, including Constellations, Backyard Astronomy, Hubble Showcase, The Moon, The Planets, User's Guide to Galaxies and Life of a Star. The Sky layers are composed of over 1 million photographs from various scientific and academic sources. Looks like an incredible educational resource for anyone who wanted to be an astronaut when they grew up. Google Earth is a free download for Windows, Mac and Linux.

Users can overlay the night sky with other information such as galaxies, constellations and detailed images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

Imagery for the system came from six research institutions including the Digital Sky Survey Consortium, the Palomar Observatory in California and the United Kingdom Astronomy Technology Centre.

Recent medical studies documenting the influence of prayer in our physical lives challenge mainstream Christians to rethink their ideas and practice of prayer. A new model of prayer questions dysfunctional images of prayer based on

• the doctrine of divine omnipotence,
• the rewards-punishments notion of health and illness, and
• linear notions of the power of prayer. Relational, holistic, and multidimensional images of God, human existence, and the effects of prayer provide the basis for a constructive theology of prayer. Ironically, the fact that prayer is not omnipotent makes it possible to practice prayer in a technological context.

Actually "God" is not God's name.  

In the world of the super-holy, we are not even allowed to mention God by his name but some people think to avoid this by calling him G_d. But if you do this regularly then this becomes his name. After all, what's in a name? It is that by which we call somebody, so G-d is his new name...

So, to whom to pray?

In a Short Sale, it is possible the bank could report the difference in what you sell your property for and what was owed. This means the IRS could consider the difference as income, and you could be taxed on that income. The bank might also ask you to pay a portion of the difference back in the form of an unsecured note, which is similar to an I.O.U. However when we negotiate with the bank, we employ tactics to have the bank consider the debt settled and that no further monies are owed.

In a foreclosure, your house is sold at an auction. This typically causes the difference of the total amount you owe and the foreclosure sale price to be much greater. This means you have a higher potential tax liability. Additionally, the bank may come after you for a Deficiency Judgment.

• I've been looking lately over posts with the lowest ranking number of comments.

Why? Because I am intrigued to see why are they ranked low? It's because the choice of subject, poor writing... or plainly because they are boring. Most of the time I am surprised to find out that they are, after all, not boring and sometimes quite insightful... I place the comment well deserved thinking that it was a time well spend.

• Other times I look over the highly ranked posts as some have incredible number of comments.

Why? Because I am intrigued to see why are they ranked so high? It's because the choice of subject, the great writing... or plainly irresistibly interesting. Some indeed are incredible good and professional. But others are just average... The number of comments leaves nothing more to say on the subject,but more or less about the same.

So the question remains in my mind: What makes a post to stand out to the extend that people feel commenting to exhaustion and others go by unobserved? There is a magic secret in the making?

Back in April Congressmen Robert Andrews (D-NJ) and Ron Lewis (R-KY) introduced a bill to the House of Representatives called The Mortgage Cancellation Act of 2007 which called for the elimination of IRS tax penalties on "debt relief income" as it relates to the sale of your home. This is a substantial change to the existing tax code aimed a providing people who sell their homes in a short sale situation relief from additionally-incurred income tax. The bill has been referred to the Ways and Means Committee for review.

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exclude from gross income of individual taxpayers discharges of indebtedness attributable to certain forgiven residential mortgage obligations.

Current IRS code requires debt relief to be taxed as gross income. If you sell your home but are unable to sell it for an amount more than the existing mortgage on the property your lender is supposed to issue a 1099 to you in the amount of the difference between the mortgage and the short sale amount. This dollar amount then becomes taxable as gross income and must be included in earnings calculations for the year in which the relief was provided.

This bill is in the first step in the legislative process. Introduced bills go first to committees that deliberate, investigate, and revise them before they go to general debate... and may undergo significant changes in markup sessions. The majority of bills never make it out of committee.

• NAR seeking stories to support proposed Mortgage Cancellation Relief Act of 2007
  With pressure on lenders to allow short sales to assist burdened homeowners, the forgiven debt can create a tax problem for the seller.

The current tax code requires a lender who forgives debt to provide a Form 1099 to the IRS stating the amount the borrower has been forgiven. That disclosure applies whether it is a short sale, foreclosure, deed in lieu of foreclosure or any similar arrangement that relieves borrowers of the obligation to pay some portion of their debt. If the property is sold at foreclosure or is sold for less than was borrowed, that difference is considered income and is subject to the tax.

What's your take on it?