This week we’ve been asked to host a real estate blog carnival by the folks at Zillow.com. The is the fourth weekly carnival in this series. If we understand our mission correctly, we are supposed to provide a cross-section of the best real estate blog entries across the country that have been posted in the past week. So here goes…

Over on Matrix, New York’s master of real estate statistics, Jonathan Miller, draws readers’ attention to the increase in help that homebuyers have been receiving from their parents. The NAR’s most recent survey found that the percentage of people getting backing from Mom and Dad more than doubled since 1991. There’s another term for it too: Early Inheritance.

We bet these guys haven’t forked it over to their kids yet. The folks behind the Landlord Blog discuss the merits of real estate as a “Plan B” when careers don’t go quite as planned.

Chiming in from Seattle on his blog Mike’s Corner, Michael Price interviews a local real estate attorney who provides some do’s and don’ts to real estate agents thinking about starting a blog. One no-no: Obvious self promotion. We’d have to agree: Readers can smell bullsh!t a mile away.

Personal Finance blog Free the Drones picks up on a story from Money Keg about how refinancing can hurt. In a nutshell, every time you refinance you’re resetting the clock to the beginning of amortization cycle when most of your monthly payment is going to paying down interest not principal.

From down in Georgia, Shane’s RE Investing Blog reveals that the term “subject to deal” applies to situations in which one person takes over another’s loan payments in return for the deed of a house. “You are not assuming the loan,” he writes, “but you are telling the seller that the payments will be made.” Evidently, the extent of liability is up for debate.

Also filed under finance, Searchlight Crusade discusses why you’re better off steering clear of Option ARMs and just managing your own cash flow a little better.

Charlottesville blogger Real Central VA opines that the real estate economy can actually be divided into “two separate, distinct yet interconnected real estate cycles.” You’ll have to click thru to find out what they are.

What does a strong Pound Sterling mean for UK investors looking at real estate abroad? Find out on Nubricks.com.

Another contrib from Charlottesville, or C Ville, introduces a new word into the real estate lexicon: Realtorsaurus. Not sure it’s on Wikipedia yet.

Whether you live in Minneapolis or not, you might benefit from these tips on how to better position your property in the less exuberant market of 2006. Our fave: Price it right from Day One. Amen, brutha!

Pittsburg Homes Daily forgoes a post on architecture (bummer, man) to ruminate on the concept of virtual real estate.

Over on the nationally-read Inman New Blog, Glen Roberts discusses a lawsuit recently filed in Missouri on behalf of a family who was reportedly denied a permit to live in the city of Black Jack, “because of a law that prohibits more than three people from living together unless they are related by ‘blood, marriage or adoption.”” Go ACLU.

Never afraid to question authority, the Real Estate Tomato takes a swipe at agency web sites. The implication: Take matters into your own hands, realtors!

Boston area Spotlight Realty sings the praises of a new realtor networking site called Active Rain. We’re sure it’s a great site and everything, but we couldn’t stop admiring the hair-dos on the site. You just don’t see this stuff in New York.

We’ve never met one, but we’re glad to know they’re out there. Sellsius compiles its list of the Top 10 Women Real Estate Bloggers. You go, girl!

Queer Cents makes much of the fact that a McMansion down the block that would have sold in a snap two years ago is now having to bring in a jazz band and hand out free pinot grigio to get buyers to pay attention.

Zillow examines its own bread-and-butter business of virtual appraisals, asking the question, How Close Is “Close Enough”?

If you’re an agent looking to launch an email marketing campaign, the generically-named Real Estate Marketing blog recommends a product called Campaign Monitor.

Speaking of marketing, our head was spinning after reading a post on Web Home USA about something called “Temporal Search Marketing”.

Photo by TravelnFotog