NRT appoints new executives

NRT Inc., the nation's largest residential real estate brokerage company, announced several executive appointments today.

Judy Reeves, who served as senior vice president of the Northeast Region for NRT during a time of major expansion there, has been promoted to executive vice president and chief administrative officer for NRT. She also has added responsibility for overseeing a local operating company in Parsippany, N.J., and another company in Harrisburg, Pa.  more...

Foreclosure real estate listings lock arms with FSBOs

Foreclosure.com, a provider of residential foreclosure property information nationwide, soon will offer for-sale-by-owner property listings to its subscriber base, the company said today.

The company entered a private-label agreement with Owners.com, a national database of for-sale-by-owner listings. The FSBO properties provided by Owners.com will be included with Foreclosure.com's foreclosure listings for each state.  more...

Financial markets watching Fed meeting

The mortgage industry and other financial sectors will be paying close attention to the Federal Open Market Committee's meeting tomorrow.

Analysts generally don't expect the Fed to raise interest rates yet, but they'll be watching for wording changes in the Fed's policy statement issued after the meeting, according to news reports.

The federal funds target rate, which banks charge each other overnight, is at a 46-year low of 1 percent.  more...

HUD plan would raise Fannie, Freddie affordable housing goals

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced a proposed rule today that would increase the affordable housing goals for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The proposed rule, which now has a 60-day public comment period, would increase the goals of the two housing government-sponsored enterprises in stages over a four-year period beginning January 2005.  more...

Real estate Web site revenue increases

Online business conglomerate InteractiveCorp, the parent company of online lending and realty services exchange LendingTree, reported first quarter net income of $38 million, or 5 cents per share, compared with a loss of $110 million, or 23 cents per share a year ago.

Total revenue grew 6 percent to $1.5 billion from $1.4 billion the previous year.

Revenue at LendingTree was up 2 percent over the prior year, despite a 45 percent drop in industry-wide home loan refinancings, the company said.  more...

Median-priced real estate more affordable

Homes were generally more affordable for the typical family in the first quarter of the year than they were in the fourth quarter of 2003, according to Housing Affordability Index data released today by the National Association of Realtors.  more...

Real estate construction spending rises

Construction spending on housing put in place during March 2004 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $944 billion, approximately 1.5 percent above the revised February estimate of $930 billion, according to the U.S. Commerce Department's Census Bureau.

The March figure is approximately 8 percent above the March 2003 estimate of $875 billion.

During the first three months of this year, construction spending amounted to $198 billion, approximately 7 percent above the $186 billion for the same period in 2003.  more...

Mortgage rates climb

Long-term mortgage interest rates were higher Friday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield decreased to 4.5 percent.

The 30-year fixed-rate average increased to 5.79 percent, and the 15-year fixed-rate rose to 5.13 percent. The 1-year adjustable was up at 3.24 percent.

The 30-year Treasury bond yield fell to 5.28 percent.

Rates are current as of 7:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Mortgage rate figures are according to Bankrate.com, which publishes nightly averages based on its survey of 4,000 banks in 50 states.  more...

Who owns real estate giant Homestore?

Most real estate professionals may not know much about FMR Corp. or Capital Research and Management Co., but these companies must know a fair amount about online real estate through their large ownership stakes in Homestore, the real estate media and technology company that operates Realtor.com, an official Web site of the National Association of Realtors.

Capital Research, a 73-year-old investment management firm, owns 13.6 million common stock shares, or 11.1 percent, of Homestore, according to a Securities a  more...

Agent disciplined for steering gay couple

If I owned a dress shop and a tiny woman walked in, I'd probably take her straight to the petite aisle.  more...