Don’t Touch That!

The Presidents recently released budget plans to reduce high income earner’s tax deduction for mortgage interest payments. The plan is for taxpayers in the 33% and 35% tax brackets would only be able to deduct their mortgage interest payments at the 28% rate. It would affect those with taxable income of $250,000 and up and bring in $321 billion over 10 years. Commissions have called for eliminating the deductions in the past. But the proposals have gone nowhere and the same outcome is expected this year. The real estate industry for the mortgage interest deduction are making it clear to both Congress and the White House that they strongly oppose any limits to the deductions. The real estate industry is concerned that capping the deduction will hurt the housing market from rebounding. By curtailing the deduction costs the Treasury Department would raise an estimated $131 billion a year and it would also cut the size of eligible mortgages up to $500,000. This is not good for real estate agents but hopefully the NAR will stand up against these new proposals.

http://www.austinrealestatehomefinder.com/  

Real Estate News and Tools - New and Revised Computer Tablets Hitting the Market for 2011

Austin Texas > Technology > Real Estate: There is lots of news for the computer tablets which are useful for agent in the field and for listing presentations. No more of decade old listing books with slicks and brochures.

HP released it tablet that is based called TouchPad, looks similar to Motorola's Xoom or Apple's iPad. It has a black case and 9.7-inch touch screen, and it weighs 1.6 pounds, which is about the same as Apple's iPad. But unlike tablets from competing hardware makers, HP uses its own operating system, called WebOS.  The platform Palm OS has been developing and is also the source for the Blackberry Tablet. No price yet.

Motorola’s Xoom will be released on Feburary 24^th. It has an Android 3.0 with a 10.1 inch HD wide screen, a front and rear camera and camcorder. Some got a sneak peak of the tablet from the super bowl commercials. It is expected to be compatible with WIFI and data plans. The tablet is estimated to be $700 which will make it a hard competition to the iPad.

The good news is that the TouchPad and Xoom can handle Adobe Flash unlike the iPad.

Big news is that Apple has already started producing a new iPad with a faster processor, HD camera, USB and SD card slot. Hopefully it will be released in the spring with a similar price range of the current iPads. Also they will be producing a smaller 7 inch iPad to compete with the Android tablets currently on the market.

Expect a lot of growth and changes in this area for 2011 and an impact on how we use these devices in real estate.






http://www.austinrealestatehomefinder.com