Commercial Property
Newspapers have been crummy to the real estate industry for years, from ridiculous per-inch pricing to scathing editorials about commissions.
Speaking to a banking group in Orlando this week, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke called upon bankers to take "vigorous" measures to "reduce preventable foreclosures by reducing the principal amount homeowners owe." In other words, write down the value of the mortgage to what the market value is currently worth to avoid an even more expensive foreclosure process.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is interviewing several overpaid CEOs today to find out what the relationship is between outlandish executive pay and the subprime mortgage meltdown.
Several recent newsbites have the real estate industry gritting its teeth, because it keeps looking worse and worse for housing.
Whenever the National Association of Realtors says the housing market should be improving shortly, Wall Street pundits stomp Yun and company for being self-serving.
The financial press did its job. It scared Americans so badly about a possible recession that now we might just have one.
Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it. The national press wanted to knock housing down as king of the hill, and they succeeded, but now the stock market is tumbling down the hill as well. And the recession that"s been feared for months will finally come.
Realty Times is presenting it"s annual Best and Worst list for the tenth year in a row. That"s right. It"s our ten-year anniversary. For marrieds, it"s the year of the diamond. For Realty Times, it"s the year of the diamond in the rough.
It"s the kind of sacrifice that brings a tear to your eye.
It didn"t take long for the bloom to leave the rose. The notoriously pessimistic backward-looking S&P Case-Shiller Index says housing prices fell a record 2.4 percent between December and January and 10.7 percent for the year. Following on the heels of the February report from the National Association of Realtors, the Case-Shiller report appears to contradict the NAR"s findings that home sales went up 2.9 percent and home prices fell 8.2 percent over the past year.
To hear the national media tell it, homebuyers are fools to buy right now. Home prices have dropped 5 percent since October 2006. Our economic problems aren"t over, so home prices are bound to drop further. Why would anyone catch that falling knife? But there are some markets out there that are making monkeys out of housing bears.
If you noticed a lot more coupons in your inbox yesterday, you"re not alone. Forty-two percent of etailers had some kind of online promotion from discounts to free shipping, according to the National Retail Foundation"s annual survey.
The National Association of Realtors isn"t the only real estate trade group to blame the national press for slowing housing sales. The National Association of Home Builders is joining the pity party with the lowest two-month reading of its sentiment index since January 1985. Any reading above 50 is considered optimistic. Right now, builders are at a pessimistic 19.
If ever there were a time when Realtors need to return to the mothership for debriefing and retraining, it"s now. With wide losses in the stock market due to fears that banks will be unable to recoup losses from the subprime market, and will tighten lending further, the real estate market will be more challenged than ever. Time to brush up those technology, people, and business skills!
Every day there are more and more ways to search and get information on homes online – whether they are for sale or not.
Mortgages are packaged into securities and sold to investors, but the number of subprime loans in a package is unknown. What has caused investors to get spooked is not knowing whether or not securities will lose value because of the unknown quantity of high-risk mortgages that may end up in default. Mortgage securities are necessary to help provide liquidity to mortgage lenders. As their packages of loans are purchased as securities, they have new money to lend to more borrowers.
In a recent survey of local and state REALTOR® Association Executives (AEs) and MLS executives conducted by the National Association of Realtors" Marketing Research Department, SentriLock ranked number one in four out of five key categories: lockbox product, service, system and overall satisfaction.Comparing Sentrilock to GE"s Supra and Risco products as well as mechanical lockboxes, Sentrilock was bested only in price by Risco, but soundly beat all competitors in the other categories.
There"s a new report that puts the unemployment rate in a glaring new light.
I"m tired of all this whining. Economists who admonished Greenspan for flooding the economy with money, are now surprised that after 17 raises in short-term interest rates that consumers, particularly homeowners, are having a hard time.
Despite positive fundamentals such as low unemployment, rising wages, and low borrowing rates, consumers are panicked about the housing market and sitting out a golden opportunity to buy at low interest rates with plenty of inventory to choose from. One reason is the constant drumbeat by the press that housing prices are softening, but consumers aren"t getting much insight or perspective along with their daily thumping of bad news.
Home sales have dropped nine percent since year-ago levels in July 2006, according to the National Association of Realtors. The wonder of it is that home sales haven"t plummeted even further thanks to the steady and inaccurate drum beat of the financial press that mortgage money isn"t available. For that reason alone, sales figures for August should be disastrous.
California will not suffer a recession in 2008.
Amid rising interest rates, gas prices, and foreclosures, builders of new homes are losing confidence that the housing market will improve before 2008.
According to a new report researched by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA,) the economic benefits of MLS home sales is great, with each home sale impacting consumer spending by an additional $32,200 over the subsequent three years after the purchase. That"s furniture, appliances, remodeling, services and taxes included.
MLS-2, a real estate information and listings search service, says their most recent study of Bay Area MLS listings suggests that using the term "motivated seller" is more common, but is it effective?
Even though he may face a major financial loss, a California homeowner is so fed up with the way speculator-owned rental occupants are destroying the neighborhood that he and his wife are willing to sell short and bring money to the closing table to get out.
In most of the nation, household sizes are getting smaller, but home sizes, according to the number of bedrooms, continue to grow, according to the most recent analysis of the U.S. Census Bureau"s American Community Survey. Twenty percent of occupied homes had four or more bedrooms in 2005, compared to 17.7 percent of homes in 2000.
Economists expected a rebound in housing starts for February because of worse-than-usual weather conditions in January, but building permits were lower than expected for single-family homes, shifting emphasis to multi-family apartments and condos.
Thanks in large part to declining sales in the American-based automobile companies, Michigan"s real estate market has seen a significant decline over the few past years. According to the Michigan Association of Realtors, home sales dropped 13.6 percent from 2005 to 2006 while average home prices dipped 2.3 percent to $149,753.
It"s one of the most unsightly and often hard to fix trouble spots for homeowners -- a lawn that has gone to the dogs!
The strength of home prices in Topeka, Kansas are reflective of what’s been happening around the state in the last 12 months -- weathering an economic storm while other states have not been as lucky.
A new survey by Citi Smith Barney says that over half of millionaires and 40 percent of affluent investors, those with $100,000 in assets excluding real estate and employer retirement plans, or approximately 25 percent of the U.S. population, surveyed believe that real estate is good investment.
High prices, higher interest rates, rising inventories and skittish buyers have driven speculators from the marketplace, but some investors are here to stay. While it"s no longer possible to flip a home to another buyer at a substantial premium, perhaps even before taking possession, it"s still possible to make money in real estate.
Windows XP just came out a couple of years ago, but the Microsoft Corporation wants to improve its operating system by introducing a new version called Windows Vista that has more robust security features. The problem is, you may not be able to install or use your current productivity or MLS-access software on it because the bugs haven"t been worked out yet between Vista and other software vendors, according to Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions executives.
A buyer and her agent don"t seem to be communicating very well. After finding the house they wanted online, the buyers asked the agent to show them the home, and now the agent has put pressure on the buyer to buy the home.
Foreclosures and short sales are rampant in California, the veritable epicenter of the mortgage meltdown.
Listings don"t sell without buyers, but representing buyers, especially in an era when buyers can get listings online and contact listing agents directly, can be hard duty for some agents. They don"t want their time wasted, and many are beginning to ask buyers to sign representation agreements. But are they doing the buyer any favors?
With a long weekend of holiday cheer to look forward to, particularly an extra weekend of shopping before Christmas Day on Monday, December 25th, Realty Times readers should be delighted with some fun facts and figures that suggest that online shopping isn"t just for homes, courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Most home buying and selling guides are out of touch with market realities. They inevitably recommend that consumers cut their Realtor"s commission, or cut Realtors out altogether, to save money. The problem is that it"s not practical or profitable to do that in most cases.
What"s not so good for the goose may be good for the gander, as home sales continue to rock the economy, but poor recent news from home builders could benefit sellers of existing homes.
During the past few years we have been talking about toxic mortgages -- and the need to avoid them. Without fail, each time the subject has arisen lenders would write to say we were wrong, that option ARMs and interest-only loans were simply "affordability products" with no financial sting. As to prepayment penalties and stated-income loan applications, they were -- we were repeatedly told -- minor concerns and not much of an issue.
The Tax Relief Act of 1997 and its capital gains exclusions for homeowners who live in their homes only two years spawned a new kind of homebuyer -- the daytrader investor who buys property with selling in mind. An investor writes Realty Times and asks if it"s a good time to sell his Bend, Indiana property.
LendingTree doesn"t just let lenders compete over you, it also has significant forays into the real estate industry where it is trying out several business models, including selling leads directly to agents, the RealEstate.com Broker Network, which offers rebates to customers, and iNest, a subsidiary which offers a rebate and specializes in the new home construction market. Tapping Bret Violette, formerly of Weichert Realtors, as the company"s senior vice president and manager of the Western division, a mystery subsidiary is being launched.
Pundits are in disagreement about how long the housing slowdown is going to last. While the NAR is optimistic with a prediction that sales will pick up in early 2007, Lowe"s and others believe the housing recession will last about 18 months. Meanwhile, listing agents wonder how to move their listings.
According to The Detroit News, foreclosures have surged in the metro Detroit area, three times what they were last year. Michigan and other "rust belt" states (MI,OH, IN,) where economies were dependent on automobile production and steel, have been bleeding jobs for years, and new businesses aren"t moving in to take advantage of the available workforce.
Zillow"s announcement that it is allowing sellers to add information to the company"s "zestimates" of their information but not to change the zestimate raises some interesting questions. How accurate is Zillow and will homeowner-added information improve accuracy?
As one seller learned the hard way, flexible commissions doesn"t always mean low commissions. Does the seller have a beef with finding out she paid more than the "standard commission"?
There are ten issues that will impact commercial real estate construction in 2007 and beyond, suggests a new report by Dr. Mark G. Dotzour, chief economist for the Texas A & M Real Estate Center.
Middle and low income levels across the country are contributing to vastly different life expectancies across racial boundaries, but so is location. What"s troubling is that the medical community doesn"t know why folks live longer in one part of the country than another, even when they make less money.
Cash back at closing is strictly illegal, when it"s a ploy to inflate home values in order to obtain cash-back monies from lenders, says real estate expert Ralph R. Roberts.
Four months after purchasing a condo from Kimberly Orlando and Nguyen Nguyen in Huntington Beach, California, the buyers filed a lawsuit against the sellers, their real estate agent, the homeowners association, the termite inspector and the home inspector. The plaintiffs alleged causes of action for negligence, fraud, breach of contract, and negligent misrepresentation against the sellers and sought over $250,000 in damages from the sellers. Others in the lawsuits had already settled, but Orlando and Nguyen decided to take their chances in court.
Long-time nemesis of NAR, San Francisco anti-trust attorney David Barry has failed in his recent attempt to put an open-to-the-public statewide MLS on California"s November ballot. Barry had filed a ballot initiative with the California Attorney General Bill Lockyer, claiming that a public MLS would end the real estate industry"s monopoly on home listings.
Like other publicly held companies, Yahoo! faces keen competition as well as the market"s mercurial opinion as to its stock"s value. With some huge hurdles in online advertising, it"s joined forces with Zillow.com, but the alliance failed to keep Yahoo!"s stock from sinking 20 percent, a punishment reminiscent of the tech-wreck of 2001.
Despite rising mortgage interest rates and many economists and pundits predicting a turndown in the economy, two leading organizations say housing sales are still on track to end the year near previous records.
It just might be the perfect closing gift.
According to the U.S. Census, the idea of Father’s Day was conceived by Sonora Dodd of Spokane, Wash., while she listened to a Mother’s Day sermon in 1909. Dodd wanted a similar tribute to honor her father, William Smart, a widowed Civil War veteran who raised his six children on a farm.
Forty year mortgages can reduce your monthly mortgage payment, but is that enough to offset the extra cost of tacking 10 more years onto the conventional 30-year mortgage?
A buyer is comparing two areas in Dallas, Texas. Should he choose for affordability or appreciation?
Following Monday"s "Day Without Immigrants," which many feared would shut down the U.S. economy, with millions protesting the criminalization of illegals, Cinco de Mayo, a popular Mexican holiday, continues the nation"s focus on the Hispanic culture within the U.S.
One-third of the homes sold in 2004 were vacation, second homes or investments sold to non-occupying owners. In 2005, the numbers were even more startling. Just when it seemed there couldn"t be a bigger market for vacation homes, the National Association of Realtors® announces a record year for the sale of second homes.
There"s nothing like a reformed sinner. Henry Blodgett, infamous for hyping technology stocks in the go-go 1990s along with pals Mary Meeker and Jack Grubman until the NASDAQ and DOW both imploded, taking trillions in investor value with it, is writing for Forbes, that venerable money mag.
Is real estate poised for another boom? The economy appears to be expanding, but not so quickly that inflation is a problem. That could mean steady-to-even-lower interest rates, that could impact housing favorably in the spring.
While the National Association of Realtors (NAR) observes that housing is returning to a more normal market that is balanced between buyers and sellers, the U.S. Census reports the hottest counties for population growth in the U.S.
Is the news media beginning to see that buying and selling homes is a sure way to capture consumer eyeballs online? If so -- will it do anything about opinions on the real estate industry and its commissions?
If it seems like ads on TV for anything from medicines to luxury cars to financial services are being sold by such musical acts as The Kinks, The Who and The Rolling Stones, you"re right on. What does this have to do with housing?
Michael Khouri, 49, is a partner in Buckner Khouri Chavos & Mirkovich, an Orange County (CA.) law firm. He has a busy law practice focusing on federal court, criminal defense, and administrative law. When his father passed away last year, Khoui became trustee of a triplex in a very desirable area of Marina del Rey, California, only a block from the beach.
It seems like the embarrassing legal problems Homestore has experienced drag on and on. Now the company is attempting to distance itself from its past by cutting a deal with "Peter and the Wolff" and changing its name.
A Realty Times reader wants to know if buyer"s agency is a good way to distinguish himself. With a slowing real estate market, buyer"s agency is an excellent alternative way to do business.
Kitchen and bath designers, interior designers, remodelers, builders, etc. all have national associations with local subsidiaries, just like Realtors have the National Association of Realtors and their local associations.
If you think everyone you meet is a real estate agent, you"re not far wrong. According to new figures from ARELLO, the licensing officials, there are more than 2,636,783 licensees in the United States.
December brought a late Christmas present to America"s homebuyers -- lower mortgage interest rates. Will they continue through January? That"s very possible, considering a recent economic event as rare as a solar eclipse.
Are we teetering on the edge of a recession? One harbinger, the inverted yield curve, says yes.
You may notice that a lot of national housing news seems to center on California. There"s a very good reason why.
Minority households are growing; between 1991 and 2003, they"ve increased from 22 percent to 35 percent, and of new home buyers, from 13 to 24 percent and or home remodelers from 12 to 19 percent.
The National Association of Realtors has filed a motion to dismiss the complaint filed by the Department of Justice against the organization in Civil Action No. 05 C 5140 with a memorandum of law in support.
The inaugural CENTURY 21® First-Time Homebuyer Index offers some interesting contradictions. First-time homebuyers are getting younger and say their dream home is a brand-new suburban home in the southern U.S., yet the most popular destinations for real-world homebuyers are older homes in urban-oriented New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, near family, friends and jobs.
You can easily clean up bad indoor air quality at home with just a few lifestyle changes and adjustments in your air quality management.
In a moving letter to Treasury Secretary John Snow, Tom Stevens, president-elect of the National Association of Realtors pleads for extreme caution in deliberations to include the elimination of the mortgage interest deduction in budgetary and legislative proposals. Doug Duncan, chief economist for the Mortgage Bankers Association explains in plain terms why losing this important homeowner tax benefit will throw the housing market into a bust.
This week, Realty Times puts its focus on consumers. Recent reports say that consumers are both wary and weary and a pullback in consumer spending could pull the plug on economic growth, throwing the nation into a mild recession. What will homebuyers do now that the summer homehunting season and back-to-school rush is over?
The Presidential Advisory Panel on Tax Reform has released its recommendations on reforming and simplifying income tax laws, with the result that the real estate industry was expecting -- the panel is suggesting eliminating the mortgage interest rate deduction and giving a credit of 15 percent of mortgage interest paid to all homeowners. Currently, only homeowners who itemize take advantage of the mortgage interest rate deduction. In addition, a $1 million limit on mortgages eligible for the tax break would shrink to the average regional price of housing, ranging from $227,000 to $412,000.
National Association of Realtors vice president Sue Gourley plans the conventions for the NAR. As the NAR prepares for record crowds this year in San Francisco, from October 28th through the 31st, she has recommendations for six must-do"s while you"re at the convention this week.
Some people are saying the air is starting to come out of the housing bubble, but record sales suggest that homes have a long way to go before the bubble pops in mid-air. Either way, you should be ready with your homebuying or homeselling strategy.
There"s a reason why location is still the number one word in real estate. Not surprisingly a new survey by Kelton Research, commissioned by HomePages, a division of HouseValues, finds that neighborhood is the first item checked on the househunters" lists.
Sometimes you don"t get what you pay for. A homeseller finds that a discount-proffering real estate agent hasn"t done much for the attractive commission he"s charging.
On September 8, 2005, the Department of Justice filed suit against the National Association of Realtors over its new Internet Listings Display (ILD) policy less than one hour after the NAR announced the policy to its members.
As residents return to New Orleans, Houston and other areas hit or spared by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, new questions are arising about housing. Some will find a way to salvage their homes, while others will find total devastation. Hundreds of thousands of people will have to start over somewhere else, which will make for the largest relocation effort in U.S. history.
The increased availability of low-barrier entry loans which are readily purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac may be impacting the number of people who are buying homes beyond their suggested price range.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, economists and futurists are speculating as to what will happen to housing across the United States. Only a short time ago, "the housing bubble" was the big news, now it"s finding homes for millions of refugees. While over 30 states have responded to the crisis with temporary shelters, the long-term outlook is that existing housing will be more precious than before.
If you"ve been wondering whether to buy or sell in 2005, you won"t go wrong either way. Leading housing economists suggest that 2005 will go on record as the second highest year for sales since 1972.
The building trend is definitely hotter in the warmer, southern states. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, four of the 10 counties with the highest growth in the number of housing units are in Georgia, while three are in Florida. Other top ten counties were located in Virginia, Arizona, and Idaho as the only Midwestern state, with one top ten county each.
Del Webb, the Pulte brand that focuses on Baby Boomer and senior lifestyle communities, has just released its 2005 Del Webb Baby Boomer Survey which offers insights into the opinions and concerns of this highly-targeted segment of homebuyers. Where are these 79 million strong people going to live and what kind of homes do they want to buy?
Two readers wonder if they can be released from their listing contracts.
Imagine that you are using a copy of Microsoft Word that you didn"t pay for. One day, Microsoft walks into your office and demands past, present and future royalties from you, based on the amount of money you"ve made using their product.
Discount brokerage may not be the answer to investment returns, according to recent study of a large discount stock brokerage firm"s clients. The fault lies not in the brokerage services themselves, but in the personalities of the investors, according to the results. And the lessons for homebuyers and sellers couldn"t be more apparent -- buy and hold still works in stock market investment and as a homebuying strategy.
For nine weeks in a row, mortgage interest rates have slipped, creating land office business at real estate brokerages and the buzz is May will be another record-setting month.
The Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac"s chaperone, reports that average U.S. home prices increased a whopping 12.50 percent from the first quarter of 2004 through the first quarter of 2005, the largest four-quarter increase in over 25 years.
Be careful what you wish for.
In reading the impassioned reporting by national media about the Department of Justice"s anti-trust investigation into the real estate online policies, it"s obvious that the newspapers and magazines are getting the identical anti-NAR source - the DOJ.
Freddie Mac released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market Survey in which the long term mortgage rates reached a seven-month high. However, Realty Times sees no slowdown in the housing market.
In an interesting paradox, residential property disclosures by sellers are required in most states, while commercial property disclosures are not. However, Florida statutes say that brokers have an obligation to disclose latent defects in a residential property, while a seller has no such obligation if the buyer intends to buy the residential property for commercial use, such as rental.
Critics of the National Association of Realtors" virtual office Website (VOW) policy love to point out that the policy has invited the scrutiny of the Department of Justice (DOJ.)
According to The Progressive Farmer magazine, the U.S. is experiencing a "rural renaissance." Rural counties, such as every county in Tennessee and in much of the U.S. increased in population during the 1990s, while metropolitan areas lost population, according to the U.S. Census.
Spending the last three months in its "quiet period" prior to launching its IPO, HouseValues is announcing the business plan it believes will make it a more worthy competitor against publicly-held competitors such as LendingTree and the privately-held HomeGain.
The heart has a communication all its own. That"s the philosophy of corporate trainer and speaker Petey Parker.
It"s no surprise to learn that consumers will ditch service providers over bad service nearly as much as they will on price. The new Coldwell Banker® "Customer Service Study," prepared in conjunction with Harris Interactive in August 2004, quantifies customer dissatisfaction via an online poll.
According to Dallas-area Realtor Leeca (pronounced Lisa) Wilcox, one of her biggest challenges as a new real estate agent in 2002 was coming into an organization dominated by superstars. She realized immediately that she had to find a way to distinguish herself.
Author Robert Campbell is a market timer. He explains his secret to success - the short memories of housing market ups and downs by others.
The quality-of-service pendulum swings with too wide an arc in the real estate industry. A number of organizations are trying to do something about it.
Taking its enormous success with cable television to the next level, Realty Times" "Showcase of Homes" will now be broadcast via satellite on Dish Network and DirecTV every weekend.
If you"re looking for old movies to rent that are sure to give you lots of Halloween goosebumps, think unreal estate. The following three classic films star houses as symbols of evil.
According to Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, Hispanics should account for as much as 40 percent of all new homeowners over the next 20 years, which suggests that the predominantly Anglo Realtor community could have a lot to learn about this growing demographic.
On the heels of a state Supreme Court decision in Iowa that put one flat-fee real estate broker"s antitrust lawsuit against a "full-service" broker out to pasture, another set-to is brewing in Omaha, Nebraska.
The Chicago Association of Realtors has issued a statement following a seven-hour board meeting of MLSNI directors which took place August 25, 2004:
To launch its nationwide television show for Realtors" listings, Realty Times has searched for the perfect host who can combine broadcast journalism and real estate experience with personal charisma and flair.
A reporter from a major financial magazine called recently wanting to brainstorm a theory - that it is the discounters in real estate which are causing real estate commissions to come down. While discounters have had an impact by making it easier for consumers to get a "discount," there are other points to consider.
Brokers, agents and association executives are waiting for the other shoe to drop in the forensic audit called for by MLSNI board members into the activities of MLSNI, its CEO Jay Huffman, and MLSNI"s investments into entities such as Multiple Solutions, LLC, a subsidiary formed to oversee MLSNI"s investments into REBIG, a data licensing firm headed by Huffman"s wife, Brenda Huffman.
In any market, buyers will have objections when you show them homes. One of your most important skills as a salesperson is to know how to overcome objections. If you don"t, you could spend your short real estate career driving people to hundreds of homes without ever closing a sale.
With the best of intentions, associations such as the Florida Association of Realtors are creating mold addendums to state-mandated seller"s real property disclosure statements, but could the real estate industry be taking on too much responsibility?
The Federal Reserve"s decision to raise interest rates Wednesday might create as many problems as it solves, suggests Dr. Irwin Kellner, in his recent CBS Marketwatch column, "Between Scylla and Charybdis," Dr. Kellner makes the point that because job growth has been weak, so has personal income growth, with the result that many have borrowed at adjustable rates that can only rise with the Fed rates.
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The California Association of Realtors has been tracking the behavior of homebuyers online since 2000, when it issued its first ground-breaking report, "Internet VS Traditional Buyers." What"s changed? They"re using the Internet more than ever.
NAR"s new venture with Sentrilock, LLC has announced the first installations of the SentriLock REALTOR Lockboxes. Designed to bring competition to the marketplace dominated by GE (Supra, Risco,) the SentriLock boxes will be feature-rich and easy-to-learn, promises the company.
"You can do better."
"Michael" wanted to know how long he can expect to sell his home in today"s economy.
For those of you still basking in seller"s markets across the country, enjoy it while it lasts, because your market could switch to a buyer"s market overnight, and it could be brutal.
Over 115 association and brokerage leaders representing about 200,000 members from almost all 50 states have pledged over $100,000 toward research and development funding in their quest to improve and nationalize practice standards for real estate salespersons.
Just like many real estate professionals don"t consider themselves appraisers, inspectors or interior designers, many don"t want to be the ones to pick up a camera and snap photos of a home.
The National Association of Realtors has just announced that its membership has grown to over one million members, but what does a 25 percent increase in membership since 2000 really mean? While it means more clout on Capitol Hill, it also means a shift in attitudes toward the real estate industry.
After 28 years rising through the ranks from salesperson to trainer to head of the relocation division and right hand to Ebby Halliday Real Estate, Inc."s president Mary Frances Burleson, Petey Parker is leaving her real estate "family" to pursue a long-held dream - a career as a keynote speaker.
Real estate professionals are pressed for time because of the multi-tasking nature of their industry. They are also inundated with vendors trying to get into their pockets. So how can vendors make the most of the 10 minutes the broker/manager allows them at a morning meeting?
Realtors are importuning Realty Times to "do something" about Yahoo! and its publication of a SmartMoney story that disses real estate professionals. We already did - four and a half years ago.
You"re trying to get your sellers to get rid of clutter before putting the house on the market. The last thing you should do is suggest a garage sale. Here"s why.
On February 12, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a division of the U.S. Treasury, has adopted a regulation that "preempts state banking laws and exempts national banks from having to comply with state banking laws, including those protecting consumers from predatory lending and other abusive banking practices," says the National Association of Realtors.
When Realty Times started its annual awards back in 1999, it was about recognizing the best of the Web. But a lot of what goes on in cyberspace isn"t very noble. So we found that including the worst that"s out there makes us appreciate the good all the more. So let"s have fun honoring those who deserve a halo and deliver a kick in the pants to those who don"t.
It"s official: American home buyers and refinancers are dis-ARMing at a rapid pace. Freddie Mac"s newly-issued survey of adjustable rate mortgages found that the ARM share now stands at just 25 percent, down from 33 percent in 2004. In the mid-1980s, by contrast, ARMs were the most popular financial tool for buying a house, with a 62 percent market share.
A new law working it"s way through the Kauai, HI, county council would regulate some vacation rentals and outlaw others in certain residential areas.
Accountant Michael Scott, his wife and their two kids have been living in their first home since 1999, but recently became concerned that it"s in a high-risk flood zone in a low-lying area along the east side of the San Francisco Bay.
Local market expert Shirley Chambers reports the Loudoun County real estate market can rightly be classified as a significant local bubble.