About 2 weeks ago we made an offer on a house and it was accepted. Last week the house (and whole town) flooded and the house ended up with about 4 feet of water in the basement. The house is not on a flood plain it was just an unusually bad flood here in Iowa. The current owner is in the process of gutting the whole basement, furnace, water heater, ceiling (although it was untouched by water) and having a contractor come in to do the repairs. Is the value of the home going to take a real big hit because of the flood?

This is an interesting question and one that is very difficult to answer...

The short answer is "as many as it takes to find a home for you".

The long answer is complicated and will likely change depending on your circumstances.

Purchasing a home will most likely be the single largest investment someone ever makes. As such, it is important to make sure you find a home that meets your current, and future, needs.

We tell our buyers to list home qualities and features into three categories:
1) Must Haves -- things you simply can not live without

I bought a home for $382 at end of Aug 2007. Within 45 days the builder was selling the same home for 100k less.

What can I do, if anything, to recover the cost difference from the builder?

The answer to this *might* depend on what state you are in.

In Arizona, you do not have to be on the loan to be on title. I can't say for sure if that holds true in other states. You might try calling a title/escrowi company (if your state uses them) and ask. They should be more than willing to answer you with no cost/obligation.

"DOM" on an MLSi stands for "Days on Market". Day 1 would be the day the listing was taken by the Realtor. Some area MLS's (including the Phoenix metro MLS) split up DOM into "CDOM" or Cumulative Days on Market, and "ADOM" meaning Agent Days on Market.

Most MLS's that use CDOM and ADOM work like this:

Day 1 for CDOM is the day the Realtor takes the listing. ADOM and CDOM are the same, unless the seller changes agents. If that happens, ADOM resets to 1, but CDOM keeps running.

Generally speaking, only "livable space" is included in determining the square footage of a home. Garages, unfinished attics and basements for example are not included when calculating square footage.

"Livable space" is a bit tricky though. Hallways and closets are included when determining a homes square footage, and no one really lives in a hall or closet. However it'd be difficult to live in a home that didn't have closets and halls...

MLSi stands for Multiple Listing Service. This is a system, usually run and supported by the local Real Estate Board, that has details of almost every home listed for sale with a real estate agent.

It used to be a big giant notebook with paper printouts but today has been computerized in virtually every reaql estate market in the country. Licensed agents (who are current on their local board dues) can submit and search the MLS for homes listed for sale.

The "book definition" of earnest money is: "a sum of money given to bind an agreement, such as the sale of real estate, the advance of a loan or some other transaction requiring a deposit. Earnest money is forfeited by the donor if he or she fails to carry out the terms of the contract or agreement."

In other words, earnest money is money applied "up front" from a buyer to show a seller the buyer is serious about the purchase. The money is deposited in an escrowi account and held by the escrow company. Usually (but not always) the earnest money is applied toward the buyer's down payment.

The Arizona Residential Resale Purchase Contract includes verbiage commonly known as the "appraisal contingency". Simply put, this contingency says that if a home doesn't appraise for the purchase price the buyer may cancel the contract and have their earnest money returned in full.

An important question, and one I covered awhile back in my blog on this post on title insurance at The Phoenix Real Estate Guy...