Commercial Property
You make money when you buy, not when you sell a home, suggests one popular idiom. That could be the reason the wealthy are trolling for bargains.
Discrimination is an ugly thing, but so is unlimited power. When you think about it, prejudice is one of the manifestations of power.
The Altos 10-City Composite Index was down 1.7 percent for the first quarter of 2008, with most of the decline occurring in March (1.3 percent.)
The 15-year FRM this week averaged 5.34 percent with an average 0.4 point, up from last week when it averaged 5.27 percent. A year ago at this time, the 15-year FRM averaged 5.86 percent.
For the first time in seven months, existing home sales increased, says the National Association of Realtors. February sales rose nearly three percent over January. That"s encouraging says the NAR, but is it enough to spur buyers?
It was a less than impressive on-camera performance. On morning television yesterday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson looked nervous, stumbled over his words, and used strong terms to describe the economic slowdown.
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.
Homeownership reached a record high in 2004 of nearly 70 percent, parallel to home sales approaching all-time record highs. Homebuying was such a popular sport that one in 10 U.S. residents owns a second home.
The National Association of Realtors has its tally for 2007. While it was the fifth highest sales on record, 2007 also was the first in over 40 years that home prices and sales went down instead of up.
If you"re waiting for signs of a housing bottom, join the club. Nobody blows a whistle and say, "It"s time to buy!"
Federal funds rate cuts aren"t magic bullets for the economy, say a number of pundits -- so many in fact that magic bullet may be replace housing bubble as the most overused phrase in finance.
Housing prices have fallen five percent since their peak July 2006, according to the September Standard & Poor"s Case/Shiller monthly index, but the damage isn"t as bad as the financial press makes it out to be. While Robert Shiller, chief economist for MacroMarkets LLC notes that the 1.7 percent drop in 20 index markets is the biggest single slide ever, the aggregrate 4.5 percent year-over-year slide is nothing compared to the 10 percent bath stockholders took just this month.
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.
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.
After blowing through approximately $62 million in private investors" money, plus another $40 million from Foxtons" CEO Jon Hunt, New Jersey-based "full-service discount" broker Foxtons North America declared bankruptcy on October 5, 2007. Foxtons" sellers who were still under contract were threatened with lawsuits by the company if they canceled their listings. Then, they were stuck with no service until a hearing on October 27, when a federal bankruptcy judge sold them like slaves to other brokers.
It was an easy prediction to make -- that home sales in August would get worse. And boy, did they ever.
August was a worse month for mortgage brokers and borrowers, according to a just-released Campbell Communications survey sponsored by Mortgage Finance. About 33 percent of home purchase closings of loans originated by mortgage brokers were canceled during August. Worse, approximately, 57 percent of the brokers" customers found they could not refinance their adjustable rate mortgages that had resetting interest rates.
The Canadian reverse mortgage marketplace doubled in size when the number of commercial lenders went from one to two. The expansion coincides with the first waves of Canada"s almost 10 million Baby Boomers turning 60. This is not a coincidence.
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.
The Federal Reserve rate cut of last Friday failed to stop the bleeding in the U.S. stock market. That"s because the Fed cut the "discount" rate, not the federal funds interest rate. What"s the difference and how will housing be impacted?
Robert Hughes, our market expert for Las Vegas, can"t say enough about the resilient Las Vegas real estate market.
With rare exception, Supreme Court anti-trust rulings aren"t industry-specific, says Florida attorney Hank Sorensen. That"s why Realtors should pay attention to what happened when a manufacturer of fine leather goods tried to put a floor under what retailers could discount the items for when they sell them to consumers.
The National Association of Home Builders Chief Economist, David Seiders, reports that the while the housing downturn has been underway roughly two years, most indicators point toward further deterioration in 2007, with only a slight improvement in 2008.
A growing number of protesters are insisting that the U.S. government isn"t doing enough to protect the nation"s borders from illegal Hispanic immigration.
The Pet Realty Network may seem like a silly idea, but the demographics suggest the idea is ahead of its time. As the U.S. becomes more and more densely populated -- that"s to say heavily populated (not populated with dense people,) residents must face the fact that the age of encroachment is over. No longer can smokers pollute the wide open spaces; nor can pet owners impose their barking, meowing, litter-producing, defecating animals on others.
Both new and existing home sales numbers were released last week, but the totals suggest a disappointing spring market that is unlikely to be made up in the summer, particularly with expensive gas prices and higher mortgage interest rates looming.
In real estate, the two sides of the transaction don"t have to be adversaries. Both the buyer and seller want to agree to a deal that will close, and in the new world of technology-enhanced transactions, the offer presentation rules have changed. Today, it"s common for the listing agent to present the buyer"s offer to the seller, but is that good or bad for moving the transaction along?
Foreclosures are up to one filing for every 264 households, says a new quarterly report by RealtyTrac, an online marketplace for foreclosure properties. But following five years of record and near-record gains, is such a high number that unexpected?
David Seiders, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, has just released The Seiders Report, an analysis of housing economics. According to Seiders, key findings are:
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.
A little birdie sent Realty Times an email of a listing that had been Photoshopped to real advantage. Seems the telephone lines that converged over the home were edited out of the main presentation photo. To the agent"s credit, the secondary photos included the offending wires.
A broker is concerned that a new agent who is showing potential may be derailed by her husband who is less than supportive of her new career.
For homebuyers waiting for mortgage interest rates and home prices to come down, their wish just came true, but only if they have good credit. For those requiring sub-prime loans, the market is only going to get tighter.
Realty Times predicted that home sales would rise in the spring, due to the retraction of prices, mortgage interest rates, gas prices, and inventory, and it"s good to be right so far, but there are still naysayers out there who believe that housing is headed further downhill.
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.
The real estate industry is run by independents. Despite inroads by franchise brands to scoop up aging brokers" companies, providing them with an exit strategy, half of brokers range from mom and pop shops to sizeable independent firms with multiple offices. The other half are franchise owners, or franchise-owned brokerages.
If you"re a Realtor who doesn"t know much about the condos, now"s the time to brush up on one of the housing market"s perfect solutions for many homebuyers. Here"s fresh information designed to blow away those myths and prejudices that are still hanging on about condos that you can use to improve your condo sales.
The chorus is growing in the chant that housing has struck bottom and will slowly rise again. A new report by the National Association of Realtors suggests rising existing home sales through 2007 and 2008 and a turn-around for new home starts by summer 2007, but homes won"t appreciate over inflation rates for the first time in decades. And that"s a little scary.
A new licensee living in California wonders whether he"d be better off as a real estate agent or a mortgage broker. Realty Times has advice for him.
It was the year of fear, which never materialized in the housing crash that Wall Street seemed to want so badly. Realty Times looks back on the funny, poignant, inspiring and maddening real estate events of 2006. Here are the highlights, in no particular order.
MLSs are one step closer to becoming free public utilities, if the Federal Trade Commission has its way. Using its considerable resources to bring pressure against individual MLSs who don"t have the financial means to fight back, the government agency is forcing brokers to include listings in MLS feeds in which sellers have contracted with listing brokers to bring their own buyers. The FTC doesn"t see this as milking the cooperative cow through the fence, but many brokers see it as the stealing it is.
Laurie Janik, general counsel to the National Association of Realtors says changes to the trade organization"s online listings policy should ease federal scrutiny from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).
As the housing market continues to slide though the mortgage morass, the growing economic impact is generating more talk of a housing industry-spawned recession.
Effective September 1, 2006, a new sales contract became available for use by real estate agents in the Washington metropolitan area. The form, entitled Regional Sales Contract, was promulgated by the Greater Capital Area Association of Realtors (GCAAR), a trade association representing real estate agent and brokers in this area.
It"s amusing to see an entity besides the real estate industry take heat for its business model.
Florida real estate statutes have recently changed making transactional brokerage the default form of brokerage in the state. Licensees can now present themselves as transactional brokers, single agents and non-representation brokers, according to Dan Berube, broker-owner of Pensacolainformation.com, a virtual real estate office.
In an attempt to save the cooperation-based MLS system from the infighting of some traditional brokers VS some nontraditional brokers, the National Association of Realtors and general counsel Laurie Janik is meeting with the Department of Justice (DOJ) regularly to explain the case for the infamous "opt-out clause" and third-party "referral-fee" clause in its Virtual Office Website Policy, adopted in May 2003, that has been bitterly complained about by eRealty, zipRealty, LendingTree and others as restrictive to their business models.
The meltdown in the subprime mortgage sector continued last week, raising concerns that home buyers with impaired credit will face higher rates and far fewer options in the months ahead.
The AEI-Brookings Joint Center For Regulatory Studies has just issued a "critique" on the traditional real estate commission structure called, "A Critical Assessment of the Standard, Traditional, Residential Real Estate Broker Commission Rate Structure."
Call it guts, genius, ego, or folly, but some agents believe they can swim upstream against established local competition and the franchise consolidation current and open their own mom and pop realty shop. What are the pros and cons of becoming your own managing broker?
Some economists are circulating the new memo -- things aren"t so bad out there in the world of real estate.
You"ve probably heard the news that as part of the economic stimulus package Congress has raised mortgage limits for single family home purchasers in dozens of high cost areas around the country to $729, 750 -- up from the previous $417,000.
The sky is falling, at least according to the financial press. Home sales are down from year ago levels for the first time in 11 years, and the sixth time in 38 years. Will that sideline buyers? Not if you put them back into the game.
We"ve been telling you at Realty Times that the housing slowdown wouldn"t last long, and now optimism is to the point that some economists are starting to wonder if the Federal Reserve will start to lower short-term interest rates in 2007 in order to reignite home sales.
While it"s unconscionable that any realty agents would steer people to or from certain housing or neighborhoods in this day and age, it"s also sickening that the U.S. government empowers bounty-hunting nonprofit organizations to be in the position of judge, jury, and dealmaker over fair housing violations. One organization doesn"t see it Realty Times" way.
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.
As population continues to sprawl, and many former urbanites find themselves living the Green Acres life, it"s important to learn about how to choose a well-water property when you don"t have city services.
The U.S. Census reports some startling facts about the single and unmarried demographic within the American population. Just one question -- isn"t single and unmarried the same thing?
It"s hard to imagine how a company can make a business model out of saving people"s licenses, but Save My License is hoping you"ll buy their annual "insurance" policy to provide you with legal help in case you"re fined or your license is in danger of being revoked.
A buyer"s market can be paralyzing for buyers who find themselves sitting on the sidelines even though they badly want to get in the game.
This is a continuation of a previous article. For Part I, click here.
Fidelity National Real Estate Solutions (FNRES) is rumored to be up to something big. Though no one"s talking at the company, it"s being said that the company is finally going to put all the pieces together and launch a major threat to online competitors who drive traffic to Realtors. Judging from the company"s strengths as a subsidiary of one of the largest title insurance companies in the world and its position as a major productivity service provider to Realtors and their MLSs, whatever FNRES has planned is sure to be Realtor-friendly.
On this day in 1776, the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress which was the beginning of America as a sovereign nation. While we celebrate the day with parades, fireworks and backyard barbecues, it"s nice to be reminded of how far we"ve come as a nation.
Houston is back on the national housing radar.
Some may be old enough to remember the rock band from the 1970s called Three Dog Night. There is an interesting story behind their name. Australian aborigines domesticated and kept wild dogs (dingos). On cold nights they would customarily sleep with their dogs to keep warm. On colder nights they would sleep with two dogs, and if a night was especially cold, it was a "three dog night”.
People are living longer and healthier lives, which will impact what kind of housing options they want later in life, suggests the Senior Advantage Real Estate Council in its annual senior Senior Home Seller Survey "Moving Forward: 50 & Beyond."
Just when you may have thought that rising interest rates were taking the fun out of high-risk mortgage products, Freddie Mac introduces a new array of 40-year loans.
It"s hard to imagine housing having a soft landing without picturing a witch wearing glittery red shoes crushed underneath, but that"s exactly what economists say is happening at this year"s NAHB Construction Forecast Conference last week in Washington, D.C.
As online listing policies designed to protect listing broker copyright rights are under fire from the Department of Justice, non-listing brokers are also leveling criticism.
Today is the 100th anniversary of the famous San Francisco earthquake.
It all came to a head in 2003 when many in the real estate industry reacted to new revenue plans by Supra to put lockboxes on subscription plans, with cumbersome technologies designed to trap Realtors into providing streams of income to GE-owned Supra/Risco, said some real estate professionals at the time. Association Executive meetings in 2003 at the NAR conference gave new meaning to the phrase "the air was blue" when they began talking about how Supra was no longer going to support lockboxes that were neither worn out or needing to be replaced. Instead, the company"s plan was to hook associations and their members into lengthy "subscriptions" highlighted with outdated technologies, fumed the AEs.
It"s not his case yet, but attorney J.T. Westermeier, partner in the firm of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary US LLP, says the Department of Justice is off-base in suing the NAR for its Internet Listings Display policy.
Real estate brokers around the country are tracking prices in Zillow"s new site, and like what they see -- housing valuations as much as 40 percent off the mark. Even Zillow doesn"t shoot at a higher target, admitting to BusinessWeek that its "estimates are typically on target, falling within 10 percent of the actual home-sale prices 62 percent of the time."
Zillow, the new online customer service portal that is supposed to rely heavily on real estate brokers while simultaneously putting them out of business, may Segway it"s way into real estate history.
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.
Do you measure up? The National Association of Realtors" latest buyer-seller survey suggests that buyers have certain expectations of their agents.
Although agency disclosure is required by state law that homebuyers are told the role of their real estate agent in the sales process, and most importantly, whom the agent represents, less than one-third of real estate agents comply, according to the National Association of Realtors" 2005 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.
Following the passing of Charles McKee, president of The Realty Alliance, the all-star real estate networking group is starting over with an interim president and a new strategic plan to increase its voice and power in the marketplace.
Baby boomers, otherwise known as the "me" generation, are going to continue to influence marketers and the real estate industry for decades to come.
While real estate softens in the rest of the country, three out of four wealthy Floridians remain optimistic that their homes will continue to appreciate in value, according to a survey by Harris Interactive and The PNC Financial Services Group, Inc., a wealth management company.
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" new president Tom Stevens doesn"t pussy-foot around about banks, group health insurance, the housing bubble, and other hot topics.
Here are the best domestic economic and housing resources that are operated as nonprofit or private sector entities. A lot of information is free to the public, while much is also available for sale.
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.
While Realty Times is more interested in how a publicly-held real estate company treats and serves its Realtor customers than how much money it makes, the news released by Cendant that it was spinning off its real estate division in anticipation of ending a Cendant conglomeration is newsworthy for a variety of reasons.
A Realtor wants to welcome newcomers to her neighborhood. How can she send a form letter that sounds fresh, as well as welcoming and professional?
What are sellers thinking about when they sell their homes? While all sellers and agents want a successful outcome, so do their agents, but they may not always agree on what it takes to get there.
Jim Remley says you can Sell Your Home In Any Market. That"s the title of his new book and he offers "50 surprisingly simple strategies for getting top dollar fast."
According to broker Ralph Roberts, one in four mortgage loan transactions is fraudulent.
After publishing a scathing article urging consumers to skip using real estate agents, The New York Times announced it would be cutting about 500 jobs due to challenging ad sales.
Franchise brokers are growing. Market share by top firms is shrinking. Competition is growing. Those are the results of studying a cross-section of 12 residential real estate markets across the U.S.
LendingTree"s Tom Reddin recently announced that the company is entering the real estate brokerage business in select Northwest markets. The question is why? Why would a third-party mortgage broker/referral fee-based lead generation company want to be in the real estate business?
Most experts agree that the so-called housing bubble is primarily on the coastlines of America, with the most impact in beach areas of Florida and California, and the revolving job centers of Washington, D.C. and New York.
Americans are feeling wealthier, which could cause them to spend some serious money on homes.
With a title sure to burn through popular culture like a grass-fire, Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side Of Everything is a book by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner that includes brief studies and conclusions about what incentifies people, particularly real estate agents. The National Association of Realtors finds their research and conclusions not only unflattering, but flawed, according to sources.
According to the latest Coldwell Banker® Luxury Index, America"s wealthy homeowners haven"t changed much in their preferences when it comes to the amenities they want to have in their homes or to add to their homes post-purchase.
While Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan worries how to cool the housing market without damaging the sensitive American economy, the nation"s builders may give him a little help by limiting some of the speculative buying that"s been happening in "hot" markets.
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.
Dallas-Fort Worth may have hit the economic and housing bottom, with nowhere else to go but up. At least a pack of rich developers in Dallas" Uptown area think so.
Be careful what you wish for.
Can the lack of one key room such as a dining room impact showings? A reader has been told so by her Realtor, but she wants a second opinion.
Suddenly Bill Powers, COO of Realty Executives, finds himself to be the go-to pundit for media covering the investigation of the Department of Justice (DOJ) into NAR"s online policies. During the NAR"s mid-year governance meetings last week, CNN and USA Today both tapped Powers to be the counterpoint to the media"s position that NAR is in the wrong to fashion an online listings policy for MLS subscribers.
Over 1400 real estate industry leaders, in 58 markets, have participated in the drafting of standards by a grassroots organization recently incorporated as the Real Estate Standards Institute.
Editor"s note: The following information is adapted from this week"s script for Realty Times TV. See Realty Times TV every Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time on channel 223 (Dish Network) and on Sundays at 11:00 a.m. Eastern time on channel 227 (DirecTV.)
It"s fascinating to learn the thought processes and actions behind today"s buyers and sellers, and every bit of information the industry can learn helps it to hone its services accordingly.
It began 10 years ago when she was speaking at the NAR convention in Atlanta. Garton-Good"s daughter Crystal, then 22, came to visit from her home in Orlando. The two had a fun girls-night-out planned.
It is common to assume that paying bills on time automatically means having a high credit score. Unfortunately, that"s not always the case. There are many misperceptions about how scores are calculated -- and yours could be lower than you might expect.
Illinois home builders remain confident in the south suburban residential housing market with 97 percent of respondents forecasting a positive future for new construction, according to the recently released "State of the Market" Residential Real Estate Survey commissioned by Anderson Associates Architects in conjunction with the Southwest Suburban Home Builders Association (SSHBA).
Following the divisive events of last year, in which three of the largest brokers in Chicagoland moved their North Shore-area listings from the giant regional association-controlled Multiple Listing Service of Northern Illinois (MLSNI) to the broker-controlled MAP over licensing issues, accounting irregularities, and other conflicts with the CEO, new leadership is working toward healing the rifts of the past and moving toward merging the two MLSs into one, say sources.
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.
If your property tax is aligned with or assessed based on the value of your home, a swing in property values could warrant close scrutiny of your property tax bill.
According to Standard & Poor"s Ratings Services" Housing Volatility Index (HVI), which calculates the volatility of housing in 331 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) and determines the probability of price declines in the event of an economic downturn, what went up may be coming down.
Like having a boy or a girl, your chances are fifty-fifty. In 1999, Realty Times made several predictions for where real estate would be in five years. We were mostly right, but not always for the right reasons.
You"ve seen it happen often - an otherwise law-abiding citizen breaks the law. Not because he"s a criminal, but because he"s part of a crowd, and being law-abiding won"t get him what he wants.
Anthony Marguleas of A.M. Realty in Los Angeles is currently working on a book about the secrets and myths of the real estate industry. He"s conducted research into the time it takes to become a qualified real estate agent, versus other professions. The results, he says, make shocking reading.
Known as the "most environmentally advanced commercial building in Washington, D.C., the National Association of Realtors" new headquarters overlooking the U.S. Capitol is already an award-winning symbol of environmentally-friendly "green" building standards.
Is it possible to be altruistic and profit-motivated at the same time? One California CEO believes so.
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.
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.
Realty Times has obtained documents that reveal that REBIG, one of the targets of the forensic audit ordered by MLSNI shareholders, is negotiating with Price WaterhouseCoopers (PWC) to sign a nondisclosure agreement in advance of any review of REBIG documents or discussions with REBIG personnel. While the concept is acceptable to PWC, suggests the attorney for MLSNI, terms of the agreement are "problematic."
Chicagoland"s MLSNI is still in turmoil as board executives attempt to attract some big brokers back to the MLS fold.
General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC,) parent of GMAC Real Estate, has dropped its recently filed lawsuit against LendingTree, Inc.
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.
According to nearly 1,400 real estate agents who participated in an April survey conducted by Campbell Communications, about 12 percent of closings have to be rescheduled past the original closing date, and another three to four percent never make it to closing. The number one cause of the majority of these delays and lost deals, say about 73 percent of the agents surveyed, is due to "underwriting delays."
How does that expression go? If you want to guarantee failure, try to please everyone. Homestore now has an important decision to make, how to grow its business without alienating its agent customer base on Realtor.com.
Former Cendant executive Bob Moles has left the company to join childhood friends and family in a start-up real estate firm where he"ll bring his brokerage and relocation expertise to bear.
The real estate industry, unlike the legal, medical and other licensed professions, has allowed the practice of referrals and the collection of referral fees for decades. Now that third-parties have entered the real estate industry by getting affiliates licensed, or hiring brokers of record, and charging for "success-based" lead generation, the term "referral fee" is controversial, especially if Homestore subsidiary Realtor.com were to start a business model that results in "closed-lead fees," lead generation fees or "success fees."
The real estate industry loves to have conventions, but time and profitability constraints on attendees are influencing how conventions are planned. Here"s a look at two types of gatherings that have been successful over the last three years by relying on voice and online technologies.
It"s hardly a surprise that Cendant is concerned with the quality of online marketing of listings. As an organization with three of the largest, and most prominent brands among franchise brokerage firms, branding is a major selling point to broker and agent affiliates. Leadership is ever vigilant of any situation in which brand image and/or consumer demand could cause third parties or direct competitors to create new service models that divert revenues away from franchisees and their agents.
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.
Saul Klein, John Reilly and Mike Barnett, principals of the Internet Crusade stump around the country for a grueling number of events annually in order to promote the National Association of Realtors" e-PRO certification.
Accusations are flying between former employees and the founder of Informedia Group, Inc. in light of Realtor client complaints against the company.
Agents around the country are complaining about a Website vendor, Informedia Group, Inc., which they say took their money in advance, registered their domain names in the company"s name, and then abandoned support of their Websites.
Prudential Real Estate Affiliates Inc. is exploring ways to become its own listings portal, and may capitalize on its affiliates" and other brokers" listings to deliver "qualified leads" and collect referral fees from its affiliates.
Brokers are paying it forward. First, Gary Keller writes a book on how to become a millionaire real estate and opens training sessions to competitors.
With the announcement that Prudential purchased all the assets of venture capital-backed eRealty, it was obvious that yet another dot-com has failed to take over the world.
It"s looking a lot like 1999 again with real estate becoming a primary focus for some companies, and the pressure to succeed is creating some pretty strange bedfellows. Or soulmates?
When I first started out in real estate, buyers and sellers hired real estate agents primarily because agents held the keys the information vault. Knowledge is power, and because agents had exclusive access to the MLS and other sources of information, consumers had to hire agents in order to buy or sell a home.
This week Middletown, CT-based subprime lender Mortgage Lenders Network USA (MLN) pulled the plug on its loan originating operations after growing from 7 to 1,800 employees in 10 years.
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.