You May Wish to Create a PERSONAL Account. With a PERSONAL account you may search all listed Kansas City properties, save your specific searches and have properties emailed to you as frequently as you like. Create your personal account or login to yours below.
Already Have a Personal Account-Login Now! Please click on house below to create your personal account or login to your "Homefinder".
 |
Joel Branstrom and his family will be headed to the Final Four basketball tournament after all. And in style.
Branstrom, an Olathe Northwest High School biology teacher and girls basketball coach, became a media sensation last week after hitting a half-court shot while blindfolded, foiling a student-orchestrated prank.
Hit the shot, the joke went, and he’d attend the April 3-5 tournament in Indianapolis. No one thought he really would.
The shot landed Branstrom on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” and “First Take,” plus “Inside Edition” and “Good Morning America.”Read more: Olathe Northwest coach gets a second once-in-a-lifetime shot – KansasCity.com
 Image this, your house is on fire and the fire department arrives only to find or in this case can’t find your water hydrant without wasting precious time because it is buried with snow. According to a Kansas City Star article, fire officials across the Kansas City Metro area are worried that critical minutes could be lost trying to locate hydrants to hook up water hoses.
Bryan Dehner, Overland Park fire chief, said it would help fireman if homeowners would check on the hydrants near their house and dig them out if they have been buried. Dean Cull a fire Marshall and an official of the Heart of America Metro Fire Chiefs Council said “Being able to access water quickly can mean the difference of saving a life or a structure.” The council urges residents who decide to dig out their neighborhood hydrants to also shovel a one foot path from the street to the hydrant.
According to Dehner, Overland Park fire trucks have systems that tell firefighter that a hydrant is in front of a particular address. Dehner also said that some Kansas City metro departments DO NOT have hydrant locator systems.
 The expiration of the US estate tax excemption occured December 31st, 2009. Currently, the federal lifetime estate and gift tax exemption for an individual is 3.5 million. According to the UPI, while you can’t predict the future, you can help plan for it. And the key to planning in these uncertain times is flexibility, especially in the estate-planning arena. Unless you are “lucky” enough to die in 2010, the only year that we will not have an estate tax, there will most likely be some bill that must be paid to Uncle Sam at the time of death.
Rather than a cause for celebration, “no one believes that Congress in its ultimate wisdom, with all the deficits looming, with a recession and two wars … would ever allow the estate tax to lapse. But that’s what happened,” said tax attorney Martin Press.
“It’s created great uncertainty,” he told USA Today. The confusion comes, in part, from a wide agreement that Congress will either reinstate the tax that brought in revenues of $26.5 billion in 2008 or shift the tax to a capital gains levy on property that is inherited and then sold. “A lot of middle-income Americans could end up being affected by a tax they never expected,” Marguerite Mount, managing director of the Mercadien Group told the newspaper.
When members of the U.S. Senate finally headed home last week, they also left the future of 50 individual and business tax breaks in limbo. All expired at the end of 2009. To read more
 Kids Build Better Bridges Shakespeare wrote that all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
Well according to a Kansas City Star article a group of 20 young people ages 14-33 most of whom have developmental disabilities – “…might bristle at the word merely.”
The Johnson County-based non-profit B.E.S.T. Network — the acronym is for Beyond the Star Theater yesterday performed a special holiday revue at the Bishop Miege High School Theatre. The singing, dancing and sign-language show included favorite musical numbers the group has worked on all year long as well as holiday songs.
Founder and director Marlene Wagnon said the one thing all B.E.S.T. members have in common is their love of performing.
“We’re about reverse inclusion,” Wagnon said. “We want our kids to express themselves and express their abilities. We invite typical kids to participate with those with special needs, and we work to break down barriers and form real friendships.”
B.E.S.T. was the brainchild of Wagnon, whose daughter Audrey has Down syndrome. Audrey wanted to act, sing and dance, but Wagnon couldn’t find any outlets for young would-be performers with disabilities. So in 2002, Wagnon started B.E.S.T., offering classes out of her Overland Park, Kansas home. 
A junior at Bishop Miege High School, Allie Bishop first connected with B.E.S.T. after participating in a production of the Jellybean Conspiracy, a two-act play about similarities and differences. Allie also had a friend with developmental disabilities whom she liked spending time with. Allie performs with B.E.S.T. and volunteers to help the group.
“I love all the people who do it, with and without disabilities,” Allie said. “They’ve changed my life completely. I know I want to spend my life working the special needs people… They make me happy.” “Becoming their personal best and letting them communicate their ideas and feelings is so important,” Wagnon said. “They bring joy and no fear.”
For more information about the show or the organization, call 913-663-9936 or go to www.thebestnetwork.org.
“Kansas City will receive $24 million in stimulus funds to turn the urban core of the city into a national model for electrical delivery and efficiency”, According to the Kansas City Star. Combined with another $24 million in private investment from Kansas City Power & Light and its energy partners, the project will create a “smart grid” demonstration project, which many see as the future of the electric industry.
US House of representatives, Emmanuel Cleaver called the plan “a transformative project that we in Kansas City are doing something that no other urban center is doing in the nation. KCP&L officials say “smart grid” project should help 14,000 commercial and residential customers. Read More About the Kansas City Green Impact Zone.
 Wow here is what you need to know Go HERE to Kansas City Real Estate to Learn More! If you thought you could only buy if you hadn’t bought real estate before or if you thought the tax credit ended on November 30th,2009. Think again, because you now have until April 30th, 2010 to be under contract and until June 30th, 2009 to close!! Members of the military, military intelligence and foreign service who are on qualified extended official duty are not subject to the recapture fee and individuals who have been deployed overseas for 90 days or more in 2008 or 2009 can claim the credit through April 30, 2011!!
The $8,000 first time Homebuyers Tax Credit creates a new $6,500 tax credit for homeowners buying a new home by July 1, 2010. The homebuyer tax credit expansion measure includes these provisions:
• Extends
• Homebuyers with contracts as of April 30, 2010 qualify for the credit so long as they close the transaction within 60 days.
• The full credit is available to homebuyers with incomes of up to $125,000 for a single return or $225,000 for a joint return.
• Not available for homes costing over $800,000.
• Homebuyers who already own a home are only eligible if the home they are leaving has been used as a principal residence for five consecutive years in the last eight.
• Provides authority to the IRS to provide greater oversight while processing the return and requires that the taxpayer claiming the credit be 18 or older.
 It really isn’t as difficult as this video may makes it seem nor is getting a home loan as easy as you might think. Find out more about the Extended and Expanded 2009/2010 Home buyer Tax Credit. Please let me know if I may assist you.
See All Kansas City Properties
Whether you’re thinking about buying or selling or seeking information, rely on RE/MAX Best Associates 800-391-BEST(2378) X106 or 913-339-0615 to provide accurate up to date information about the marketplace email to: tfarrell@remax.net or visit http://www.kansascityerealestate.com
 According to a Kansas City Star article; “Every one likes wine with character.” Especially when the $50. variety, both red and white, will sell for $20. with five dollars of each bottle sold going to further literacy through the Room to Read program.
Room to Read’s mission is to partner with local communities throughout the developing world to provide quality educational opportunities by establishing libraries, creating local language children’s literature, constructing schools, and providing education to girls.
All based in San Francisco, Twitter, Room to Read and Crushpad a facility that allows enthusiasts to create their own barrels of wine without owning a vineyard. Crushpad provides grapes, storage, bottling and their expertise.
What started as team building activity at Twitter may someday become “the largest social wine making project in history” according to Crushpad founder Michael Brill. A Pinot Noir and Chardonnay will be released in the summer of 2010. You may purchase the wines now by following this link and follow the progress of the wine making by following the Twitter project here.
Kansas Citians may get involved by purchasing the wines; there will be ‘Tweetups’ throughout the country and wine tastings will be announced. Current Twitter members may follow progress @fledgling.
 Victory – Victory – Victory! As the expiration looms for the end of the original homebuyer tax credit (Nov 30th), Congress has agreed to extend and expand the real estate homebuyer tax credit. NAR (The National Association of Realtors), has published a comparison chart you may find very helpful to understand and explain this new version of the real estate tax credit. Read the Tax Credit Comparison document on line or Download the Real Estate Tax Credit Comparison by Clicking HERE and save to your computer now. President Obama may sign as early as today! Please call or comment with questions.
|
RE/MAX Best Associates – Serving Kansas City since 1994 Located in the heart of Overland Park in Corporate Woods, RE/MAX Best Associates is a full-service residential and commercial enterprise serving the Kansas City metropolitan area on both sides of the Kansas and Missouri lines.
The goal of this site is to deepen and widen the Kansas City community's knowledge of the market. The updates here will include property data, local news, events and other useful property information. For investors, buyers and sellers, this blog will provide local information to help you make prudent decisions based on real data.
|
