Real Estate Law
A 1031 Exchange lets an investor dispose of investment property, defer capital gain taxes, and leverage all of their equity to acquire replacement investment property (from LoopNet). This site offers a database of net leased properties, articles, industry news, market profiles, and more.
ADA Hot Links and Document Center
Part of the Job Accommodation Network, which is a service of the Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) of the U.S. Department of Labor, this resource provides a comprehensive listing of links to disability-related materials. Find ADA (Americans with Disabilities)-related laws and regulations, building, housing and recreation accessibility guidelines, and more.
Advanced Buildings Technologies & Practice
Various engineers, architects, and other building professionals contribute to this expert reference source. Find essays, illustrations, and case studies pertaining to the "resource efficiency of commercial and multi-unit residential buildings." Topics cover building structures, finishes and furnishings, heating and cooling, plumbing and water heating, lighting, load management, electricity production, ventilation and air quality, ecology, and motors and equipment.
This site boasts a collection of over 5,000 legal forms -- about 2,000 of which are available for free to registered users. Coverage includes affidavits, applications, bankruptcy, business, corporation, divorce, leases, partnership, rent, statements, trademark, and trusts. Also find practical plain English articles from Nolo.com and a forms search feature.
American Legal Publishing Online Library
American Legal Publishing provides access to its city and town codes of ordinances. Covering more than 25 states, the publisher informs visitors of the date of the last ordinance included for each municipal code. Visitors can choose between framed and unframed versions. They can also browse or search the individual codes.
American Planning Association (APA) is a non-profit public interest and research organization committed to urban, suburban, regional and rural planning. The Web site provides extensive information about the organization and its affiliate, the American Institute of Certified Planners. You will find news, including articles and reports on its role in natural disaster recovery, an education center for information about degrees and standards, jobs, conferences and workshops.
Researchers and legal professionals will find much substantive free information here. There are APA amicus briefs, articles, a bimonthly e-newsletter on federal legislative and public policy issues, policy guides, news and information on eminent domain legislation, article abstracts from professional publications and more.
ASCE Civil Engineering Database
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) offers a bibliographic database containing information about its publications and covering the years, 1972 to present. Broad subject categories include architectural engineering, construction, environmental engineering, structural engineering, urban planning, and more. Search by author, title, keyword, or publication year.
Reed Construction Data makes available this resource for finding information about building codes. Covering all states, major cities and some counties, the Building Code Library provides information about codes and amendments as well as contacts for the authorities in each jurisdiction. It does not provide the full-text of building codes. Rather, it lists the code type, special application notes, code model and amendment contact information. Site access requires free registration.
Community Reinvestment Act (FFIEC)
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) offers information about Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) lending activity. The CRA "is intended to encourage depository institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate." Obtain statistics about small business or small farm loans or community development lending by county, metropolitan statistical area (MSA) or financial institution. Also find CRA ratings and reports. The site provides a search engine.
The Howrey law firm offers this comprehensive annotated directory of Web-based resources for researchers interested in construction law issues. Find resources for building codes, licensing issues, public records and other legal topics.
Environmental law and construction attorney J. Kent Holland, Jr. maintains this site devoted to construction risk management issues. Find a monthly newsletter (Construction Risk Report), an annotated collection of links and a directory of professionals in related areas (architects, construction lawyers, etc.).
The Bureau of Labor Statistics offers Consumer Price Indexes, news releases, reports and fact sheets.
Formerly called The Planning and Architecture Internet Resource Center, Cyburbia is a resource for urban planners, civil engineers, real estate professionals and others interested in urban planning. It offers an extensive directory of links to Web sites covering community and economic development, planning, demographics, land use and zoning, information technology and more. You will also find several forums, where registered users may ask and answer questions pertaining to planning and the build environment.
In celebration of the 10th anniversary (July 26, 2000) of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Presidential Task Force on Employment of Adults with Disabilities offers this portal of federal government information related to the Act. The portal covers several topics, including employment, education, housing, transportation, health, benefits, technology, community life and civil rights.
The site facilitates finding government information (laws, regulations, guidance documents, etc.) related to the Act. For example, from the home page, select Housing, and then the sub-topic, Accessibility and Universal Design, to find guidelines, model codes, checklists, and more.
This site offers information and tools for real estate professionals and researchers. For example, use Home Price Check to find the sale price of a house by its address. Coverage includes most states, but may be selective within a state. Use the help documentation to determine the coverage of your geographic region.
The American Institute of Architects offers this resource for architect jobs, project leads, conferences, industry news, and more.
General Code Publishers offers numerous municipal codes in folio infobases. Most are from cities and counties in the northeastern United States.
Electronic Library of Construction Safety and Health (eLCOSH)
The Center to Protect Worker's Rights provides this Web site about construction safety and health. Find information by type of hazard, trade or type of job site, or conduct a search of the NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) Web site, which covers content from eLCOSH. Documents covered include brochures, how-to manuals, newsletters, research reports, training manuals and more. In addition to materials provided by eLCOSH, the site refers visitors to quality external resources.
Enterprise Architecture Glossary Of Terms
Lead by the federal Chief Architects Forum, the Wiki is a work-in-progress for developing working draft definitions of 175 enterprise architecture terms. You will find several definitions already available, but they might be somewhat difficult to read. After following the link for a definition, scan the page for both the "business definition" and "technical definition." You might also find additional definitions or comments farther down the page.
The Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law compiles information about fair housing for people with mental disabilities. Find fact sheets covering issues like terminating a lease before it expires, reasonable accommodations, disability discrimination and more. The Center also provides news, case annotations, publications, articles and links to additional resources.
FDIC Real Estate Retrieval System
Find FDIC properties for sale nationwide. Generate a list using the following criteria: property type, location, market price.
Federal Reserve Board Selected Interest Rates
The Federal Reserve Board offers Release H.15 on selected interest rates. It provides daily interest rates for U.S. Treasury and private money market and capital market instruments.
Fire Research Information Services
The Building and Fire Research Laboratory (BFRL) of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) offers a collection of fire resources -- including a bibliographic database dubbed FIREDOC -- for fire protection engineers, scientists, and fire service personnel. FIREDOC contains bibliographic information about the resources available from the Fire Research Information Services. These include published reports, journal articles, conference proceedings, books, and audiovisual materials. After registering (by phone) to use the database, searchers may also order documents it references. Registration is not required to search the database.
Other resources at this Web site include a collection of online documents (free) published roughly from 1993 forward, a collection of links to related external resources, and links to other BFRL information sources.
Find a database of bank and government-owned property foreclosures. Search by location (don't miss the fast zip code search option), then narrow by additional criteria, if desired. Criteria includes residential vs. commercial property, price range, number of bedrooms, and number of baths. The database then lists all results. Click on the "details" link to obtain property information.
Economy.com, "provider of economic, financial, and industry research" for investors, offers this database of economic and financial statistics. Users must register to retrieve data, but more than 1 million data series are available for downloading, or display, free of charge.
Some of data includes the House Price Index, new non-residential construction, bankruptcies, imports, exports, consumer loans, bank balance sheets, interest rates, unemployment, and more.
The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council offers several reports on home mortgage lending and insurance (PMI) activities. Obtain statistics about conventional loans, refinancings, home improvement loans, and more by metropolitan statistical area (MSA) or financial institution. Also find a copy of Regulation C, which requires certain mortgage lenders to disclose data regarding HMDA reportable loans, as well as staff commentary.
HUD USER Bibliographic Database
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Office of Policy Development and Research offers a database containing abstracts and bibliographic citations to research reports, articles, books and data in housing policy, building technology, economic development, urban planning and related subjects. Search by keyword, title, descriptor or date. The information provided includes where you can obtain the full text of the publication.
HUDCLIPS offers full text databases containing HUD handbooks, notices, Titles 12 and 42 of the United States Code, Title 24 of the Code of Federal Regulations, housing waivers, mortgagee letters, OGC Preservation documents, HUD forms, and more.
International Council of Shopping Centers
Find the Monthly Mall Sales Index, Monthly Department Store Sales Report, Factory Outlet Sales Index and other indices and statistics.
Justia Real Estate Law Overview
Provides overview of real estate law, including links to statutes, dockets, news and blogs on the topic.
Trademarked by Information America, Inc., an affiliate of West Group, KnowX offers information about bankruptcies as well as other public data like real estate records, incorporations and limited partnerships, state and county level recording office filings (DBAs, fictitious names, trademarks), professional licenses, sales tax permits, stock ownership, judgments, liens, death records, and more.
Municipal Code Corporation publishes codified ordinances for many local governments. Its web site offers free access to Folio Infobases for more than 100 municipalities in the United States.
Unfortunately, little help exists for formulating queries and displaying search results.
Seattle Public Library offers a directory of Web-based municipal codes.
Formerly a collection of online municipals codes published by Book Publishing Company, this site now links to municipal codes published and maintained online by LexisNexis. The codes are available free of charge. The preface, or opening page, of each code indicates how up to date it is.
Official Federal Land Patent Records Site, The
The Bureau of Land Management provides information about public land transfers. The database covers federal land title records for eastern Public Land States issued between 1820 and 1908 as well as land titles issued between 1908 and the mid-1960's. It does not cover the thirteen colonies, territories and a few other states. Search by state and name, or by a number of other criteria. The database returns the land accession or serial patent number, state, patentee name, tribe (if Indian land), issue date, U.S. or mineral reservations, authority (law under which the government issued the land), number of acres, land office and other information. It also provides a legal land description, images of the land patent in various formats and certified copies.
Vision Appraisal Technology provides access to its collection of databases containing real estate assessment data. Databases cover municipalities in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia. You cannot search an entire state simultaneously; rather, browse to find a location of interest and then search its database.
Revised 26 September 2003. ESRI, maker of geographic information system (GIS) and mapping software, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) team to provide maps that show hazard areas. Select a city/state and type of hazard (e.g., flood, earthquake, tornado, etc.) to retrieve a hazard map.
Looking for Web access to property records? Check this site first! It offers a comprehensive collection of links to county property records. Most links lead to county sites that permit searching by owner name or property address.
Public Records Online Directory
Real estate research company Nationwide Environmental Title Research, LLC (NETR) provides a directory of official sources of county real estate records. Arranged by state and county, the directory links to official online sources. Where none is available, it provides telephone numbers. The site also provides a county locator tool, real estate calculators and a directory of environmental service providers and data resources by state.
LexisNexis offers this resource containing news summaries and select publication updates pertaining to real estate law. News topics include landlord and tenant issues, zoning and land use, construction and development, condemnation, buying and selling and financing. Use of the site is free and all information appears in full-text.
Pacific Information Resources, Inc. offers a directory of sources of public records and public information. You can search the directory by keyword or browse it by jurisdiction. It covers free and fee-based sources in the United States, Canada and other countries around the world. Find sources for unclaimed property, civil or criminal lawsuits, vital records, property records, corporate records, professional licenses, sex offenders, and more.
TaxRecords.com offers limited free access to property data in New Jersey and Maryland as well as in Montgomery and Delaware counties, Pennsylvania and Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Search by owner name, address, sale amount, and other criteria.
Cyburbia, formerly the Planning and Architecture Internet Resource Center, offers an extensive list of zoning codes on the Web.
