Cool Gifts For The Real Estate Lover, Investor, Homeowner: A Photo Gallery

by Silicon Valley Blogger on 2007-12-1416

Welcome to The Digerati Life Real Estate Gift Boutique! Okay this is just for fun so I hope you can play along.

Inspired by an article from SFGate about real estate gifts, I garnered some illustrations that reflected some highly interesting real estate oriented gifts for the home buyer, seller, owner, renter or investor. I hope you enjoy your window-shopping experience! 🙂

Unique Gifts for Real Estate Aficionados

Know someone who’s selling their house? You can help them appeal to St. Joseph, the Patron Saint of all things real estate by getting them St. Joseph home kits to be used for devotional purposes. St. Joseph was a carpenter by trade who taught his own step-son Jesus his wood-working skills — hence the belief by some that by burying this saint’s statue in your backyard, you can expedite the sale of your home. I’m not sure how serious people are about some of this stuff but I actually have a friend who took it to heart (he belongs to the same faith as I do) and really went ahead and buried a statue. For the record, it worked for him.

st. joseph home sale kit     real estate coin

Not only that, there’s also a Saint Benedict Home Protection Kit. Saint Benedict is known as the Protector of Hearth and Home, so if you would like to banish the negative vibes from your house, this is the way to go:

st. benedict home protector kit     st. benedict key ring

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For the aspiring land baron or geography student: OwnAPieceOfAmerica.us will give them a piece of America. A lot of pieces, in fact. If you’re looking for a unique gift, well this would be it (along the lines of StarRegistry.com, where you “name a star after your love”). Marketed towards the person who has everything, you can purchase a deed for a square inch of land from each of the 50 states. You can also purchase deeds for one square inch pieces of land in any state you wish. They all seem to be for the same price (between $19.95 and $49.95) and that’s because you’re really paying mainly for the processing of your deed and the deed itself rather than any old land, as far as I understand it. This is purely for novelty purposes only!

Land Deed

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Gift someone the opportunity to acquire a brand new house, instantly! You can give someone the chance to own a luxury home in California by getting them a raffle ticket to own such a home. It costs around $150 to get entered into a Dream House Raffle for a $2 million house, 4,400 square foot house in San Rafael. Here’s a shot of the house from the front:

dream house raffle

Same raffle entry price to win a Palos Verdes home; while I just caught another one in Brentwood Estates in Simi Valley. Seems like a lot of these raffles are for homes in California.

dream house

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To tickle your sweet tooth, you can settle for the classic candy house. Chocolate or gingerbread are my favorites and I’ve received a few of these in my time! If I do get one, I usually just use it as decor because the sugar buzz is just way too much. 🙂 But watch out, since these things are also heaven for ants and other hungry pests!

gingerbread house

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You can always go the tried and true route by giving away the gift of information and education via books or DVDs. There are tons of real estate books or other form of multi-media such as DVDs, and even entertaining feature films such as Closing Escrow (a real estate satire) and Open House (a musical comedy about securing the American Dream), that you can check out.

Closing Escrow Movie     Open House Movie

Or how about imparting some lessons in real estate property management and general money management to your young ones in a fun and educational way? Then let’s not forget one of the hottest items for the 2007 Christmas Season: the new Monopoly, Electronic Banking Edition board game (and definitely one of my favorite games ever) which has these cool new features:

  • Updated money transactions using electronic banking card features (such as debit cards).
  • New tokens to reflect today’s culture: the thimble, wheelbarrow and vintage racing car are replaced by modern tokens such as a tin of Altoids, a flat screen TV, a space shuttle and a dog in a handbag.
  • Railroads have been redeveloped into airports.
  • Utilities are now internet service providers and cell phone companies.
  • Properties have been modernized (e.g. Texas Stadium, Times Square).
  • Fun new cards telling you to go to jail for identity theft or lose a million dollars because your network gets hacked.
  • Exchange money using much higher amounts: players start with $15 million in their bank card account.
Monopoly Electronic Banking Edition

You can also go for the classic Monopoly or one of its myriad other variants.

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Now if you want to make a statement with a heftier gift, why not give away real property? Sounds cool, ‘no? However, I was actually surprised to find out that it would be better to receive property through an inheritance instead of as a gift — mainly because of tax purposes. Here’s why, according to the SF Gate article:

When you pass along a primary residence, you can pass on the appreciation without it being taxed (up to $250,000 for an individual and $500,000 for a couple). But if you gift that same house, the receiver has to pay capital gains on your appreciation when he or she sells. For a property that was bought many decades ago, the difference between the value of the home as a gift or an inheritance is significant.

Well, maybe you’d rather nix the idea of giving or receiving property for now, and instead go for that Deed to America instead!

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On a more serious note, if you’re looking to give to charity, your gift can go a long way at places like the Coalition on Homelessness, which is local to San Francisco. But you can check your own area for similar reputable charitable organizations that exist to help our homeless brethren.

Charity for the homeless

 
 
Image Credit: abc.net.au. Post inspired by this article from SF Gate.

Copyright © 2007 The Digerati Life. All Rights Reserved.

{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }

Mrs. Micah December 14, 2007 at 11:02 am

Hmm…buying up America one inch at a time. I’d probably go for a star instead because they’re shiny. Think of it as heavenly real-estate.

thebaglady December 14, 2007 at 11:06 am

this article was pretty funny to me because my hubby is named joseph and his entire family is pretty catholic. He was incredulous that there are these little action figures for home sellers to bury.

RacerX December 14, 2007 at 4:16 pm

So about four years ago my Mom and Stepfather bought a house. During that time Southern Oregon was going through a tough housing market (getting back to that now!)

They bought the house from a recently divorced but very nice guy that November, who sold it right before the bank was about to get it.

The next Spring my Mom began to garden and work on the lawn and they kept running into these little bumps.

All told they found 40! St Joe statues…The power of prayer indeed…

thewild1 December 14, 2007 at 4:30 pm

wow forget the raffle. someone please get me that 2 million dollar house in california

and electronic monopoly.. these kids have it all too easy these days

Dividends4Life December 14, 2007 at 6:24 pm

That was entertaining!

I don’t think I want to buy any land at $20/inch, but I would sell my land (and house) at that rate.

Where do I sign up! 🙂

Best Wishes,
D4L

guinness416 December 14, 2007 at 8:59 pm

That’s pretty hilarious RacerX. And if you can’t shift your house there’s always St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless causes.

Silicon Valley Blogger December 15, 2007 at 3:29 am

RacerX,
That must be the best story I’ve heard so far related to real estate. 😀 Talk about determination! Or is it desperation?

And yes, Guinness416 — I’m impressed, you seem to know a lot about the saints. If you’re looking for a miracle, it’s St. Jude who heeds your prayers.

Dividends4Life, let’s see: at $20 a square inch, that boils down to $2,880 per square foot. Yeah, I’ll take that anytime!! 😀

Sara January 30, 2008 at 4:41 am

I do love a musical. Maybe I will check out Open House.

Sam Bell March 6, 2008 at 1:21 pm

Regarless of the type of real estate investing you are considering doing. Based on my 6 years of investing experience, people who are educated in the investing process and understand investing strategies are the most successful. I came across some free investment strategy videos and this ebook that I thought would be cool to share with everyone. You can download it at SamBell3rd.com. Happy investing and I hope this resource is a benefit for you.

MarbellaPropertyGuy February 12, 2009 at 9:23 pm

Wow, great gift ideas. Now who’s going to buy them for me? Just kidding.
Maybe I’ll pick something out for my wife.

Scott Costello July 31, 2009 at 8:30 am

Winning that dream house for $150 would be awesome! Coming from an investor stand point, that is a very good way to possibly sell a house you are having trouble selling. Hold a raffle 🙂 thanks for the good idea

Gifts for Men May 1, 2010 at 4:33 pm

I love the chains. I would love to have them. St. Joseph is a patron saint of many things. Not only is he the saint for real estate/home setters, he is also the patron saint for good husbands.

SDG October 4, 2010 at 4:10 am

That monopoly set would get us going – absolutely love it. The gingerbread house also looks amazing – any receipes to reccomend? 😉

Joseph N December 27, 2010 at 6:06 am

Its a great gift to show that you care, and to help other to keep the spirit up!

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