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Zillow Mortgage's major flaws

By Jack Guttentag, Monday, July 7, 2008.

Zillow, the popular real estate site, now has a complementary mortgage site. It is also complimentary (with an "i") because neither participating lenders nor borrowers pay for the service.  more...

Buyer overpaid because of appraisal error

By Benny Kass, Monday, July 7, 2008.

DEAR BENNY: I own a home that I bought approximately three years ago. I was going through my paperwork and realized that my initial appraisal was done on the house and indicated that it contained five acres. However, I bought only 2.5 acres. It appraised at exactly what I bought it for, so what does this mean? I have a loan based on a house that would not have appraised at the selling price when I bought it. --Sherina  more...

Phone book referrals bad for business

By Barry Stone, Monday, July 7, 2008.

Dear Barry,

In one of your columns, a buyer was annoyed that her agent would not recommend a home inspector by name. I'm a Realtor, and our company has a policy against recommending any service providers, and that includes termite inspectors and home inspectors. We simply hand our clients the Yellow Pages and point out the section where inspectors are listed. Past experience has shown us that this is the safest way to do business.

If a home inspector that we recommend makes a mistake, we could be sued for making that referral.   more...

Yahoo climbs Hitwise real estate ranks, RE/MAX falls

By Inman News, Monday, July 7, 2008.

Yahoo Real Estate improved to second on the Hitwise top-20 list of real estate Web sites in June from third in May, with ZipRealty.com jumping two places to third and RE/MAX's remax.com sinking from second to fourth.

Longtime category leader Realtor.com had a 4.46 percent market share among real estate category Web sites, according to the latest Hitwise report, while Yahoo's realestate.yahoo.com site had a 2.7 percent market share and ZipRealty.com had a 2.7 percent share.  more...

Free get-together targets Connect, tech audience Premium Content

By Matt Carter, Monday, July 7, 2008.
RE BarCamp is being held at the Swedish American Hall in San Francisco

The "user-gen" concept has spread to industry conferences, with some well-known players in the real estate technology field piggybacking on an annual industry event in San Francisco to launch what's believed to be the first ever "RE BarCamp."

BarCamps -- the name is derived from the hacker slang term foobar -- are get-togethers where participants discuss early stage Web applications and open source technologies. BarCamps have been held in more than 350 cities worldwide, according to Wikipedia.  more...

IndyMac halts lending, will cut half its workforce

By Inman News, Monday, July 7, 2008.

IndyMac Bancorp Inc. announced Monday that it's no longer considered "well capitalized" by regulators, has stopped accepting new loan submissions or rate locks, and will lay off 3,800 employees -- about half of its workforce.

IndyMac Chairman and CEO Michael W. Perry promised the company will honor all existing rate-locked loans and will continue to fund the loans in coming weeks.  more...

'Most people see through this business model'

By Inman News, Monday, July 7, 2008.

The following is a collection of reader comments found on Inman.com:  more...

Builders bearish on California

By Inman News, Monday, July 7, 2008.

California builders' group: Worst year for housing starts since WWII
The California Building Industry Association reports that single-family housing production this year is forecast to be down 75 percent from a peak year in 2005. Total housing production, including single-family and multifamily, is projected at 72,350 units this year, with 38,250 single-family units and 34,100 multifamily units.  more...

Economies are tanking everywhere

By Lou Barnes, Monday, July 7, 2008.

The immediate credit market response to a wave of new economic data is as-was, lowest-fee mortgages 6.5 percent, 10-year T-note just under 4 percent.

However, last week marked very significant change: Economic decline here and in Europe is now beyond argument, and the decline is fighting inflation for the Fed and the European Central Bank, neither of which needs to raise its rate further.  more...

When prices are too good to be true Premium Content

By Matt Carter, Monday, July 7, 2008.

A constant stream of headlines about rising foreclosures and falling home prices in many U.S. markets might lead bargain hunters to believe that there are some incredible deals to be had out there.

And indeed, there are. But are there really more than 100 homes available in tony Miami Beach, Fla., for less than $100,000?  more...