Here’s an alternative to a sub-prime mortgage for Americans – or is it just sub-prime online?
Springwise reports that a new, US-based online facility called Home Equity Share has leapt into the niche for people who can’t get together a 10–20% deposit with a service that matches home buyers with investors who are prepared to put up all or part of the deposit.
Potential home buyers post a profile that lists the area they want to buy in, and their prefered price range. They’re automatically matched with compatible investors, come to an agreement and sign a preliminary commitment. Once the buyer finds a property that the investor agrees on, the investor provides the deposit, the buyer arranges a conventional mortgage and away they go.
At the end of a period of time specified in the contract – usually three to seven years – the buyer can purchase the investor’s interest in the property.
Home Equity Share doesn’t charge for the matching service or contracts, makes a dollar by requiring that participants use a registered real estate agent who pays a Home Equity Share referral fee of 20% of the commission earned on transactions referred through the site.
If you believe online metrics site Alexa, YouTube recently overtook Google in terms of unique visitors.
But, according to WebProNews, this is more a testament to the inaccuracy of Alexa than any sudden in surge of visitors to the online video site, which is owned by Google.
WebProNews says that although Alexa data can be useful as an indicator, its data catchment is limited to those who’ve actually downloaded the Alexa toolbar. And that demographic is, more often than not, webmasters.
The extent to which this factor skews Alexa results is illustrated by the fact that Google is known to get 100 billion monthly page views, while YouTube is puttering along with a modest (!) 16 billion per month.
Yahoo! scored higher that Google for the first time in a user survey, in the University Consumer Satisfaction Index. Yahoo!’s revamped network of websites, email and social networks gave it 79 points out of 100, next to Google’s, which is still preferred for search, 78, according to a report from MSNBC/Reuters.
Skilled migrants are not going to Australian rural areas, reports the Australian Financial Review. There are 140,000 places a year for skilled migrants but there is a problem with over-qualification. Nearly 40% of highly qualified migrants from poor countries are employed in low and medium-skilled jobs.
The Australian Government has refused to compel migrants to go to particular areas, leaving it up to the cities and town to attract migrants. The Opposition wants 45% of migrants to go to country towns and cities.
I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.
– Oscar Wilde
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