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REO adventures in 'Lender Land' Premium Content

By Kris Berg, Tuesday, October 20, 2009.
Flickr image by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitchbuzz/3952689387/" target=blank>BitchBuzz</a>.

Talk about your unintended consequences. Two weeks ago, I was innocently watching Twitter when someone linked to a clever animated video spoof on social media. At the end of the video and to my surprise, I learned that I too could make a funny little video by visiting the site shown in the credits -- for free! Being me and all, I took the bait.

At the time, I happened to be in the depths of bank-owned despair. I had been wearing my buyer agent hat a lot lately, and it seemed like every home I encountered was owned by a bank.  more...

Oct

20
2009

Breaking open brokerages

By Inman News, Tuesday, October 20, 2009.

A new Inman News survey (click here to take the survey) explores the day-to-day challenges facing real estate brokers. Inman News is seeking participation from real estate brokers across the country in this survey.  more...

Final push for tax credit Premium Content

By Matt Carter, Tuesday, October 20, 2009.

Real estate industry trade groups are mounting a final push for an extension of the first-time homebuyer tax credit, with Sen. Johnny Isakson planning to tie the issue to an extension of unemployment benefits.

Lawmakers are holding two hearings this week during which the tax credit, scheduled to expire Nov. 30, will be debated.

On Thursday, the U.S. House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee will discuss more than 100,000 suspected cases of fraud involving the credit currently being investigated by the IRS.  more...

New-home permits down, starts inch up Premium Content

By Inman News, Tuesday, October 20, 2009.

The rate of single-family building-permit authorizations dropped an estimated 14.9 percent year-over-year in September and dipped 3 percent compared to August, the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development announced today.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate for single-family housing starts, meanwhile, was down an estimated 8.7 percent year-over-year in September and rose 3.9 percent from August. This rate is a projection of a monthly total over a 12-month period, adjusted to account for typical seasonal fluctuations in construction activity.  more...

Bad policies inflating new bubble?

By Tara-Nicholle Nelson, Tuesday, October 20, 2009.
Image courtesy of <a href="http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&method=&pid=1441442" target=blank>Cato Institute</a>.

Somewhere I once read a description of homeowners' habitual equity-tapping before the bubble burst so vivid it embossed an image permanently on my brain. The exact words I don't remember, but my mental image is of a scientific laboratory, full of cages containing miniaturized homeowners, each pressing away at a lever on their mini homes to get their addictive fix of cash from their homes. Some of them go so far as to resemble Homer Simpson after scoring a doughnut, tongues lolling out as they drool, "Moneeeeeey. Goooooood."

That image came back to me afresh when I first read the title of Johan Norberg's new book, "Financial Fiasco: How America's Infatuation with Homeownership and Easy Money Created the Economic Crisis."  more...

Best sales agent: individual or team?

By Bernice Ross, Tuesday, October 20, 2009.

DEAR BERNICE: We have a rental house we inherited from my Mom in 2007. Our tenants just gave us notice. The market has improved enough that we would like to sell the house. We plan to fix it up and list it after the first of the year. We see a lot of advertising for a "team" in our area that seems to do a lot of business. There is another agent who seems to get her listings sold fairly quickly. Which would be better for us? We like the idea of having a group of agents working to sell our property. Can an individual agent do as good of a job as a team? --Lucille J.

DEAR LUCILLE: There's not a simple "yes" or "no" answer to your question. Most properties sell through other agents using the multiple listing service. Nevertheless, whomever you select as your listing agent must have a strong marketing plan.  more...

A search index for the distributed Web Premium Content

By Gahlord Dewald, Tuesday, October 20, 2009.
Lijit screenshot

The distributed Web is here: blogs and guest posts scattered throughout the Web; comments on all of those posts; Twitter posts; content-specific networks like Flickr and YouTube; and so on. As you participate and engage with your audience on sites that you don't own, your content and thoughts become literally scattered.

Lijit (www.lijit.com) is a tool that indexes your content and surfaces it to site visitors by way of a widget (yes, they stick with their naming convention and call it a "wijit"). So if you want to provide your audience with a way to search through all the stuff you've posted or commented this tool might be just the thing.  more...

Bridging the divide on REO inspections

By Barry Stone, Tuesday, October 20, 2009.

DEAR BARRY: My friend is trying to buy a house and is concentrating on foreclosed properties. He usually makes an offer and then hires a home inspector. If the inspector finds many problems, my friend doesn't buy the house. So far, he's done this twice. What seems unfair is that the next buyer who comes along has to pay for a home inspection when one has already been done. This seems like a rip-off.

If an existing inspection report were available to download, a buyer could simply ask the seller if any repairs have been done since the last dated inspection. How many times must a home be inspected in such a short period of time? --Roy  more...