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'Bazooka Backstop' targets mortgage mess

By Lou Barnes, Friday, July 25, 2008.

Mortgage rates are still stuck near 6.75 percent, the financial markets confused and locked up until a blast of argument-resolving data arrives next Friday.

Oil down to $123 and natural gas to $9.25 helped stocks for a while, but they still fell apart on no-bottom housing news and a sinking job market. The economy is obviously weakening, but rates are held up by fear that inflation is the greater risk -- even the stock market's Thursday elevator-shaft could not hold down long-term rates.  more...

Inman News announces Innovator Awards winners Premium Content

By Inman News, Friday, July 25, 2008.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Bob Hale, who for 20 years has served as president and CEO for the Houston Association of Realtors, today received the "Innovator of the Year" award during an awards ceremony at the Real Estate Connect conference.

The Inman Innovator Awards honor forward-thinking technologies, Web services, business models and innovators in online real estate, brokerage and media companies.  more...

Watching Web visitors can pay off

By Lai Saetern, Friday, July 25, 2008.

SAN FRANCISCO -- As invasive and creepy as it may seem, tracking and following every single step that Web visitors make is a valuable approach for Realtors to seek potential clients and simply makes for better business, according to Jim Marks, founder and president of Virtual Results.

Marks spoke during a panel discussion on Web analytics and return on investment Thursday during the Real Estate Connect conference, which ends today.  more...

June's new-home sales fall 33%

By Inman News, Friday, July 25, 2008.

New-home supply running at 10 months
Although sales of new single-family houses in June dipped just 0.6 percent from May's level, they were down more than 33 percent from a year ago, according to estimates released jointly today by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Sales last month were running at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 530,000 units, compared with 533,000 units in May and 793,000 in June 2007.  more...

Clients can tell you how to build 'killer' Web site Premium Content

By Matt Carter, Friday, July 25, 2008.

Building a killer brokerage Web site is as simple as knowing who your clients are, what they want, and making it simple for them to get it.

Unless they are passionate about technology, brokers may be better off hiring somebody else to build their site -- but they should be sure to hire a vendor that's not relying on an out-of-date template, and will build a site that can be scaled for growth without ditching tools like a customer relationship management platform.  more...