Now I generally seek a donation from the seller but I have worked out agreements with real estate companies. That is they agree to make their usual 3-7% and in return provide me 1% of the selling price of the home. That is for those who know that Earth House was responsible for providing you with a buyer for the house or helped you to sell the home or property.

The purpose of Earth House isn't to obtain but to give. And I want to give you help. Help is like passing by and seeing a site that provides you with a specific audience of ready made buyers. Some are armchair but some are willing to put feet and finances to their desire to own an alternative home.

Now I work on Earth House as a calling from God. I didn't get into it to sell homes but to provide information. It was people who came to me to sell and I provided them with an outlet. It was something that doesn't provide me a living. I need you to understand that. So when I ask for a donation that is a donation that often doesn't arrive after the home or property is sold.

Don't fret and don't worry. I still provide you with a service and that service is done because I am providing a listing service which provides you an opportunity no other site on the net provides. As in this site wasn't meant to be a real estate site and yet we are real estate oriented.

So send us your alternative home, your off grid home, your acreage or your property to list. I will put it up free of charge. I do this kind of thing for free.

If we help you sell then give us a bone. Let it be the 1% selling price or send us a gift. Maybe a book or an instrumental cd or a good basket of food. I do get hungry while working on these things. And smile cause I'll help you out the best I can.

Yours truly

Joel Akin

Owner of Earth House

Write me earthhouse@gmail.com

Listing Issues

1. Some are concerned because I list properties and yet I do not have a real estate license to sell homes.

A: I don’t sell the home. You do. The fact is I have never sold a home or land as part of my website per se, I only list them and attract interest to it. Thus the actual selling of the property ALWAYS remains with the SELLER!

2. You ask for a donation as high as 1% of the selling price. We don’t wish to pay that.

A: Then don’t. Most people are honest and careful with their money. Some real estate companies don’t allow money to go out of the office without a contract for the sale of the property. Whatever the reason I say give what you can. Why? I see it as an answer of time being a specialist in the area of earth sheltered, or eco properties. There are few people out there who specialize like I do.

3. We have a property but wish to keep some parts of it private.

A. In the dozens of listings over the last 12 years I have never given out what doesn’t belong to me. Despite the curiosity of the media I do not give out private information without prior approval of those who are in ownership of it. Rest assured that I keep your information private and give out only what you yourself wish to be known. Of course this doesn’t mean you should hide information when it comes to a final sale. That however is your issue and if you cannot confirm things to me then I do have the choice of refusal of listing.

4. The website you build for us is under your control. We want control over it.

A. What many people do is build their own websites. Then they write me with a simple agreement to link to that site and to let me bring in the traffic. It is free of cost and if I help to sell then you can send me a donation, but you retain all control of the website. Despite what many people think it takes 2-3 years in some cases to begin to get traffic to a site in any significant numbers. A hub like mine changes that so instead of waiting years you see results in days or a few weeks at most.

5.  How do we send pictures?

A. This is a common fear of many believe it or not. There are a number of simple steps to follow.

-Take as many images of the land and home as you wish. I recommend anywhere from 1-20.

-Most cameras come with a format and the most common formats are called gif or jpeg. When you send the images they are often large in size, up to 5-20 megabytes in size. Thus I have you send them to earthhouse@gmail.com as they are a large company(Google Gmail) that makes uploading, as they call it, your images easy to do and easy to send.

-If possible give a short description of each image. Some people send earth sheltered images but when we are dealing with earth bermed or earth covered it helps to state that so people know it is more then just a hill of earth. Also some homes that are earth bermed have two fronts, if you will, so show us the direction of each by describing the image as best you can.

-for more information see “Sending the details”