Women have special concerns about personal safety. The US Census Bureau says there are more than 14 million women who live alone in cities. Moreover, 118.5 million women populate cities and their suburbs.

As security issues loom large in our cities, single women make up more than one-third of the growth in real estate ownership since 1994. More single women buy homes than ever before.

Some builders and city planners are increasing security measures as they begin to recognize that many homes, condominiums, parking lots, streets and sidewalks are not designed with women in mind. A few cities even offer classes to help prepare women who are afraid to take public transportation.

Women Home Buyers Fear Violence

My mother taught me to walk at a brisk pace in public places if I felt uneasy. She said women with a confident walk are less likely to be prone to violence because attackers look for easy prey. It’s advice I heed.

Violence is a concern because many lower-priced homes that an average single woman can easily afford to buy are located in or near crime-ridden neighborhoods. The evening news and daily newspapers report on a multitude of crimes every day and dwell on the sensational ones. For good reasons, this may fuel womens’ fear of :

* Assault

* Rape

* Mugging

* Harassment

* Murder

Fear is a healthy emotion. Women should listen to their guts. A good book that talks about how to predict violence and listen to your internal signals for survival is The Gift of Fear, by Gavin De Becker.

Compare Prices

12 Home Buying Safety Tips for Single Women

None of this is meant to be frighten women away from buying a home, but to help prepare women for home ownership safety and to offer tips on finding the right home by shopping with security at the forefront.

Here are home shopping tips for safety-conscious home buying:

* Buy Homes With Attached Garages.

When winter arrives, the days get shorter, which means by the time day-shift workers arrive home, it’s already dark. Consider how you might feel walking in the dark toward the house if your garage were detached. Insist on an electronic garage door opener.

* Consider Gated Communities

Ask how often the gate code is changed. Most homeowner associations routinely change the codes to prevent entry by unauthorized persons. Check to make sure the gate is timed to close before a second car can enter.

* Pay Attention to Lighting

No woman wants to feel like a prisoner in her own home. Most of us enjoy living in a neighborhood where we can feel free to take a stroll after dinner or walk to the grocery store. Abundant street lighting and motion-sensor lights offer more security than dimly lit areas.

* Buy Homes With Security Systems

Find out if the security system is leased or owned and how much it costs per month. Ask for an explanation about how the home is wired, and whether all the doors and windows are monitored on the system. Determine who answers breaches — whether it’s the police or the security alarm staff.

* Inspect Door Locks and Door Jambs

Look at the door jamb to determine if it’s been cracked or repaired. Notice if the lock is new. If you notice a damaged door jamb or a new lock, ask why. A screen door that acts as a security door with its own locking system provides more protection. Also, make sure all exterior doors have strong deadbolts, which unlock from the inside — for fire safety reasons — without a key.

* Check Location of Bedrooms

Second-floor bedrooms might appear safer, but the likelihood is the distance from the first floor could make them effectively soundproof, so sounds of a break-in may not travel to the second floor. It’s also more difficult to escape from a second-floor bedroom if the threat is a fire rather than a burglar. Burglars tend to prefer quiet locations where they can go about the business of breaking in without being seen from the street.

* Consider Condos Above the Main Floor

Criminals don’t want to bother with climbing stairs, taking an elevator or being noticed in a building, which is why first-floor condos tend to attract more crime. Condos that face the street are often considered more secure than those toward the back.

* Inspect the Windows

Single-pane windows are easier to break than dual pane. If any of the exterior doors have large windows of glass, make sure the door knob is located far enough away from the window to discourage break-ins. It’s easy to break into a home by smashing a window, reaching inside and turning the door knob.

* Beware of Homes on an Alley

Alleys are quiet, generally dark at night, and provide ways for criminals to approach your home — unnoticed by the neighbors. Alleys provide easy escape routes as well. Some neighborhoods are installing gates on alleys to discourage public access to private homes.

* Pull Neighborhood Crime Reports

Most city police departments report crime statistics online. Search for your city name and police to find a local web site. You can also look at the FBI’s national registry of sex offenders to determine how many sexual predators live in your area. You’ll be amazed.

* Check Out the Neighboring Structures

Some studies show that crime is higher in mixed-use neighborhoods than in subdivisions or communities of single family homes. They say that mixed-use, such as apartment buildings or commercial properties located among residential, increases crime because residents lose control over who can loiter.

* Buy Homes With a Fenced Back Yard

A fenced yard discourages crime because it makes it harder for unauthorized persons to gain access. In addition, you might want to consider adopting a dog, since fenced yards provide a play area for dogs. Dogs make great companions and offer a sense of security for some women. It’s not necessary to get a big dog, either, as little dogs can often yap louder and more incessantly than big dogs. Your neighbors will love that!

Before you start making repairs, before selling your home or marking dates on your calendar for an open house, it’s smart to prepare a home selling plan. Of course, you want top dollar, but you could make costly home selling mistakes along the way if your enthusiasm for quickly selling causes you to run out and stick a for sale sign in the yard before you’re fully prepared to sell.

Motivation for Selling

Explore your reasons for selling. Everybody has a reason to sell. If you aren’t truly motivated or committed to selling — if it just struck you one morning that you should move to the other side of town and you haven’t completely thought through the process — you could be setting yourself up for disappointment.

Buying a New Home

Most people who sell do so to buy another home. Put together a list of neighborhoods where you may want to live and drive them. Go to open houses. Check out pricing between newer homes vs. older homes. Weigh your options. You might find you prefer to stay where you are.

Call Real Estate Agents

Interview real estate agents, talk to at least three neighborhood specialists. Ask each listing agent to give you a marketing plan that explains what they will do to market your home. In addition, ask the agents to prepare a comparative market analysis for you and ask each for advice about:

* Preparing Your Home for Sale

Compare suggestions and consider accepting the most sound advice. Generally, you will want to move out bulky and excess furniture.

* Repairs Before Selling

Not all resale repairs will pay off. You don’t want to spend a lot of money making improvements but you do want to repair obvious maintenance issues, if any have been neglected.

* Home Staging

You can hire a professional stager, ask your agent to help stage or stage it yourself. You will get more for your home if it is staged.

* Home Pricing

Do not select an agent based on suggested sales price. Some will overbid each other to get the listing. But do not overprice. Homes that are overpriced often sell for less than market value.

* Net Profits from Selling

I always prepare two net sheets for sellers, each with a low price and a high price. This way, sellers can be prepared for the worst and hope for the best. If the lowest net price will let you buy the home you want, it’s time to find financing.

Find a Lender

First, call your existing lender to find out exactly how much you need to pay off. You should order a beneficiary statement. Then check out new financing offers from your own lending institutions and credit unions. Ask for a Good Faith Estimate – GFE. Compare rates and fees. Also, ask for referrals to mortgage brokers from agents. Often, mortgage brokers have more flexibility to discount rates and are more competitive.

* Get a loan preapproval letter, so you know how much of a mortgage you will qualify to obtain.

* You don’t need to apply for the maximum mortgage, and a lower mortgage payment might make you more comfortable in the long run.

* Compare mortgage loan types and choose wisely.

Sell Before Buying

The moment your home goes on the market, you might be tempted to bounce around online looking at homes on the web. Next thing you know, you’ll want to make an appointment to view a few homes. Don’t get carried away by virtual tours and beautiful photographs of your dream home. It is almost always more profitable to sell before buying.

I suspect there are two camps of people who like to fill out surveys — those who are busting at the seams for the chance to share glowing reviews and those with a rant or need to vent, and not much else in between.

Put me in the rant camp. It’s a lot more fun, for example, to read an Ebert movie review of a bad movie than a good one. But you can imagine my delight when I discovered that the National Association of Realtors was conducting a survey among its members. NAR is interested in hearing about the experiences of agents nationwide who are working with the four largest lenders in distressed transactions.

The lenders are Bank of America, CitiMortgage, Wells Fargo Bank and J. P. Morgan Chase. NAR is meeting with these lenders to discuss the ongoing challenges we in the industry face. You might want to contact your REALTOR® or NAR if you’ve got a gripe that you want heard. Anybody who bought or sold a distressed property over the past four years most likely has a complaint.

Few people can buy a Tallahassee home for cash. According to the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), nearly nine out of 10 buyers finance their purchase, which means that virtually all buyers — especially first-time purchasers — required a loan.

The real issue with real estate financing is not getting a loan (virtually anyone willing to pay lofty interest rates can find a mortgage). Instead, the idea is to get the loan that’s right for you — the mortgage with the lowest cost and best terms.

REALTORS® routinely suggest that consumers start the mortgage process well before bidding on a home. Many lenders (the sources of money) and programs, for example, are available right here in the finance section of Realtor.com as well as through recommendations from local REALTORS®. By meeting with lenders — either online or face to face — and looking at loan options, you will find which programs best meet your needs and how much you can afford.

REALTORS® also recommend pre approvals for another reason: Purchase forms often require buyers to apply for financing within a given time period, in many cases, seven to 10 days. By meeting with loan officers in advance and identifying mortgage programs, it won’t be necessary to quickly find a lender, check credit, and rush into a financing decision that may not be the best option.

What is it?

“Pre-approval” means you have met with a loan officer, your credit files have been reviewed and the loan officer believes you can readily qualify for a given loan amount with one or more specific mortgage programs. Based on this information, the lender will provide a pre approval letter, which shows your borrowing power. You can visit as many lenders as you like and get several pre-approvals, but keep in mind that each one carries with it a new credit check, which will show up on future credit reports.

Although not a final loan commitment, the pre approval letter can be shown to listing brokers when bidding on a home. It demonstrates your financial strength and shows that you have the ability to go through with a purchase. This information is important to owners since they do not want to accept an offer that is likely to fail because financing cannot be obtained.

How do you get pre-approval?

Real estate financing is available from numerous sources, including lenders here in the finance section of Realtor.com, mortgage companies that have worked with local REALTORS® and in some cases, individual REALTORS® themselves. Based on his or her experience, the REALTOR® may suggest one or more lenders with a history of offering competitive programs and delivering promised rates and terms.

The loan officer will carefully review your financial situation, including your credit report and other information. The lender will then suggest programs which most-closely meet your needs. For instance, a first-time buyer may qualify for state-backed mortgage programs with little money down and low interest rates, while a repeat purchaser (someone who has bought a home before) with more equity (money invested in the home) might want to get a 15-year loan and the lower overall interest costs it represents. Typically, first-time buyers opt for the traditional 30-year loan, with either a floating interest rate or a fixed rate of interest over the life of the loan.

Two years after the US subprime crisis, China is seeing its own real estate bubble as a result of massive state stimulus programs. Many economists are warning it could burst soon.” Spiegel says the consequences for the world economy are difficult to predict: “The bubble could burst in two years, says Cao Jianhai of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, and then it will be up to Hu’s and Wen’s successors to correct the situation. In the worst case, Cao predicts, there could be a large-scale run on the banks. ‘Of the 4 trillion yuan in the Chinese economic stimulus package, 3 trillion are in fact coming from local governments—and they borrowed the money from the banks.

Buying a Tallahassee home is the biggest investment many people ever make. And it can be the wisest, due partly to a number of tax advantages the government has instituted to encourage home ownership. These benefits can help reduce the cost of buying and owning a home and also leave you with more money when it’s time to sell.

Because tax rules vary based on income and other factors, you should consult an accountant or financial advisor for advice on your particular tax situation.

Mortgage interest

One of the biggest incentives to owning a home is that the interest you pay on your mortgage is tax-deductible, up to a limit of $1 million. This deduction, like most other tax breaks for homeowners, applies to any kind of home. That includes a second home, as long as you spend a certain amount of time there: either 14 days each year, or 10 percent as much time as it’s rented.

In addition, you can deduct the interest on up to $100,000 of other debt that uses your home as security — for example, a home equity loan. However, the amount you can deduct may be limited if the money you borrow raises your debt above the home’s actual market value. This can sometimes happen when a lender extends you a loan based on more than the value of the house.

You can also deduct any amount you pay for points to reduce the interest rate of your mortgage or other loan linked to your home. In most cases, the points on a mortgage to buy or build your principal home can be deducted fully in the first year. However, if you refinance, take a home equity loan, or a loan secured by a second home, the points must be deducted over the life of the new loan. The exception is if you use part of a refinanced mortgage to improve your house; that portion of the points can be deducted in the same year.

Tax-free profits

Another major advantage of home ownership is that, in most cases, you don’t have to pay taxes on any profit you make when you sell your home. The law allows you to exclude from taxes up to $250,000 in profit from the sale of your principal home — $500,000 for a couple who file jointly. This exclusion also covers the sale of a parcel of land adjacent to your house, unless it’s used for business.

There are some stipulations, however. The home must be your principal residence, and you (and your spouse, where applicable) must have lived there for at least two of the previous five years. You can only claim the exemption once every two years. If you don’t meet those requirements, you may still claim a partial exemption if the sale was due to a change in your place of employment, necessary for health reasons, or due to other unforeseen circumstances.

Property taxes

You can claim property taxes you pay as an income tax deduction. This applies to both your principal home and any others you may own. Any money held in escrow to pay future taxes, however, is not deductible.

Moving expenses

The government allows you to write off many of your moving costs when you buy a new home if it’s at least 50 miles closer to your job than your old home. To qualify, you must continue to work full-time in the general area of your job for 39 weeks during the following year. If you’re self-employed and work in your home, any move of 50 miles or more will make your moving expenses deductible. However, you must also work full-time near the new location for 78 weeks during the next 24 months.

Of course, because tax rules vary based on income and other factors, be sure to consult an accountant or financial advisor about your particular situation.

In the market for a new home or a second home? Request a mortgage loan through LendingTree and get up to four offers in minutes.