I’ve been writing about the mess that is Foreclosuregate on this blog, on Notorious, and on AOL Real Estate. And something I worried about (yet predicted, hoping to be wrong) was that we’d see significant lawsuits against banks, servicers, and MBS sponsors brought by homeowners and investors. Well, it appears that mortgage litigation rose significantly … Read more
At the 2011 Association Executives Institute meeting in Dallas, NAR has put forth a bold if risky plan it is actually calling the “Political Survival Initiative“. In short, NAR will launch a “REALTOR Party” that will go beyond simple issue advocacy to full-blown political support for individual candidates based on issues NAR considers important (e.g., … Read more
Agent Ratings is in the news again. MLSListings, based on Sunnyvale, California, has announced that it will launch a pilot REALTOR ratings program with the California Association of REALTORS. But it appears that the MLSListings program isn’t what HAR attempted to do a while back, where consumers directly rate agents: Designed by independent consumer review … Read more
As some of you know, I’ve long been an admirer of Keller Williams as a brokerage model, because of its consistency. I may not be a huge fan of all of their practices, but as a business consultant, I’ve always admired how its strategy fits together so very well. I wrote about KW on Inman … Read more
As some of you know, I’ve long been an admirer of Keller Williams as a brokerage model, because of its consistency. I may not be a huge fan of all of their practices, but as a business consultant, I’ve always admired how its strategy fits together so very well. I wrote about KW on Inman … Read more
This is simply mindblowing: The use of blogs has steadily increased as a marketing tool for real estate agents. One in ten members reported having a real estate blog. In 2009, 7 percent of members reported having a blog. Among REALTORS®, blogs are most common among those aged 29, and nearly one in five members … Read more
The recent news out of California, that cash buyers have set a record in home purchases, is the kind of news that makes me go Hmmmm. I wrote about it on AOL briefly, but wanted to dive into a bit more detail here. First, the news from the LA Times (h/t: Calculated Risk): All-cash buyers grabbed … Read more
So CoreLogic releases a report in which it claims that NAR’s widely used Existing Home Sales stats are total garbage: CoreLogic reported sales totaled only 3.6 million in 2010, down 12 percent from 2009. By comparison, NAR reported sales fell only 5 percent in 2010 after rising in 2009, and were flat relative to 2008. … Read more
The Wall Street Journal carried a story today on its front page entitled, “Banks Push Home Buyers to Put Down More Cash“. The key paragraph: The median down payment in nine major U.S. cities rose to 22% last year on properties purchased through conventional mortgages, according to an analysis for The Wall Street Journal by … Read more