My wife and I have been playing around on Redfin and visiting a few open houses each week. We aren’t really actively looking for a new home but we find the exercise to be valuable. By visiting open houses, we get a better idea for how much house we can buy, what we like and dislike about various houses, and a look at how life might be in a larger home. Most of the homes we look at are within 15 minutes of where we live now, since we love the area, and we only go to the homes that have open houses.

When it comes to open houses, there is definitely a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Since I’ve never had an open house, I don’t know what or how much advice real estate agents give but there is tremendous variance in the quality of an open house. Having gone to at least a dozen, here are a few ideas for those of you looking to hold an open house.

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If you were only looking at some property tax assessments, you might not get the idea that the housing market recently crashed. Many counties continue to value homes at what they used to be, before we saw a drastic drop in home values. While this isn’t true for all localities, you might find that your property tax assessment is higher than you feel it should be. Especially if “market value” has changed in your neighborhood.

Obviously, because you pay property taxes based on what the county (or city or state) says your home is worth, the higher your assessment, the more you owe. If you feel that your property tax assessment is too high, you can challenge it, saving yourself some money if the assessment is adjusted downward.

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For the last few months, my wife and I have batted around the idea of buying a new home. There’s nothing wrong with our current home but we’d really like a place that had some character to it. A place that was slightly bigger and one that wasn’t quite cookie-cutter (we’re in a townhome now, so we’re identical to everything around us). We love our current house, so we don’t have a big reason to leave, and with her focus on school and mine on work, it’s one of those passive searches.

We use Redfin to do the searching because their technology is by far the best of any I’ve seen. The integration with Google maps, the search capabilities (you can search on the type of home, type of listing, whether it has a view, garage, etc.), regional sales data ($ per square foot, charted by date in a particular city), ability to save listings, and it’s ease of use make it perfect for house searching. My wife and I share the same account and save listings we like to show one another. You can search within some of the most convenient geographic restraints too – city, county, university, etc.

Their claim to fame though, is the fact that they refund half of the buyer’s agent’s commission (more on their commission refund). They pay their agents a salary, not a commission, so you pocket those savings at 1.5% the purchase price of the house, with a minimum commission of $5,500.

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There are two parts to any investment – cash flow and equity appreciation. Cash flow refers to how much money the investment generates and equity appreciation is how much the investment itself grows in value. When you look at real estate, cash flow refers to any rents you can earn and equity appreciation refers to any increase, or decrease, in the property’s value.

In the last few years, real estate has taken a huge hit because prices simply grew too quickly, financially incapable people were given loans they couldn’t afford, and the myth that “buying a home is the best investment ever” was finally revealed to be the result of incredible anecdotes and not a statistical look at historical home values.

I’ve never liked the idea of real estate as purely an investment for a variety of reasons.

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Every year, Remodeling Magazine publishes a list of home projects, their estimated costs, their resale values, and how much you can expect to recoup whenever you sell your home. I wouldn’t use the list to decide which home remodeling projects to start but if you have two you like equally, their information might present the tipping point.

I looked at Remodeling’s Best Home Renovations list in 2007 (and in 2006) when the housing boom was still happening. Now that we’re in a recession and the value of homes falling, how does the list compare?

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This is a guest post from Ramit Sethi, the founder of iwillteachyoutoberich.com. His new book, I Will Teach You To Be Rich, will be published on March 23rd.

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a reader named Dave:

A few months back I was looking to buy a home in Houston. During my search I decided to look at this builder because of the “incentives” they were offering. Well, I soon found out that these “incentives” were nothing more than a bait and switch tactic.

Anyhow, a couple of days ago out of the blue I received the e-mail below, and couldn’t believe what I was reading. With all of the unfavorable economic conditions we’re facing, home builders continue to send out this garbage.

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When it comes to making money, I’m all for capitalism. I like a free market and you can try to make money from as many means as possible. However, do you really need to be a vulture and swoop in on a foreclosure? There may or may not be a family living in that house but if you wanted to make money, do you want to use a service that preys on the misfortune of others?

There are plenty of places you can go to make a buck, you don’t have to tempt fate by making a couple bucks off someone you have to kick out of their home. (yeah, they made mistakes, but do you want to be the person who puts the nail in the coffin… just for an extra dollar?)

In all honesty, RealtyTrac doesn’t prey on the downtrodden… but they let other people pick at the bones of the dead. Is that worse? I think so, but that’s up to you.

On the outside, it looks like graffiti-covered dump.

On the inside, 190 Bowery in Manhattan is a six-story, 72-room, 35,000 square foot single family home that is absolutely gorgeous. It was once the home of Germania Bank and was built in 1898.

Jay Maisel, a well-known photographer, bought the building forty-two years ago for $102,000 and has lived in it since with his wife Linda and daughter Amanda. When he got it, it “was knee-deep in garbage and coated in soot.” He said his parents cried when they found out and that “Every single thing that can come out of a human body has been left on my doorstep. But it was more disgusting than dangerous.”

The slideshow is a collection of eleven beautiful photographs covering every floor of the building. The home is estimated to be worth at least $30 million. There are more photos in this interview with Jay Maisel (interview).

The 72-Room Bohemian Dream House [New York Magazine] (hat tip to Kottke.org)