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Give up home, Fannie will lease it back

By Inman News, Friday, November 6, 2009.

Fannie Mae is offering to let troubled borrowers who don't qualify for a loan modification stay in their homes as renters if they volunteer to relinquish ownership through a deed in lieu of foreclosure.

Fannie Mae's Deed for Lease program is also available to qualified borrowers who had previously been granted a loan modification but were unable to keep up their payments.  more...

Move Inc. revenue declining

By Matt Carter, Friday, November 6, 2009.

Realtor.com operator Move Inc. said in a regulatory filing Thursday that third-quarter revenue fell 15.7 percent from a year ago, and warned of further declines in the final three months of the year.

Revenue totaled $52.9 million for the third quarter, down from $61.2 million a year ago, and is projected to total between $47 million and $48 million in the final three months of the year -- a level Move executives expect to stay, on average, next year.  more...

The real estate video road show

By Inman News, Friday, November 6, 2009.

 more...

Redfin offers real-time sales info

By Inman News, Friday, November 6, 2009.

Seattle-based real estate brokerage Redfin says it's begun posting the sales price of homes as soon as they are sold, along with photos and other details, and has updated its Web site to include similar information on every property sold in the past two years in the markets it serves -- about 1.4 million properties.

Consumers outside of the Seattle and Washington, D.C., markets must be registered users to obtain that and other detailed information shared between brokers and once accessible only by real estate agents.  more...

Index compares prices in college towns

By Inman News, Friday, November 6, 2009.

An annual index comparing home prices in 120 college-town markets revealed a $1.37 million price difference between homes of similar characteristics in Akron, Ohio, and Palo Alto, Calif.

Akron, home to the University of Akron, ranks as the most affordable college town tracked by Coldwell Banker, with a $121,885 price tag for a typical four-bedroom, 2.5-bath home that averages 2,200 square feet.  more...

Seeking outside help for short sales, REOs

By Inman News, Thursday, November 5, 2009.

Alex Charfen is co-founder and chief executive officer of the Distressed Property Institute -- which has trained a number of in-house transaction coordinators and bestowed its "Certified Distressed Property Expert" designation on about 12,000 agents and brokers who have completed its courses.

He is leery of third-party companies that offer to act as short-sale negotiators and make "outrageous claims about their closing percentages," and those that "claim do be national processing centers for foreclosures."

And he said consumers shouldn't have to foot the bill for participating in short-sale transactions.  more...

Congress extends homebuyer credit

By Inman News, Thursday, November 5, 2009.

President Obama is expected to sign a bill passed by Congress today extending and expanding the first-time homebuyer tax credit to homes under contract before May 1.

The credit, equal to 10 percent of a home's purchase price, remains capped at $8,000 for first-time homebuyers, but income limits have been raised.

Congress also approved an expansion of the credit to allow homeowners who have been in a principal residence for at least five of the last eight years to claim a tax credit of up to $6,500 if they sell that home and buy another.  more...

FHA delays new condo rules

By Matt Carter, Thursday, November 5, 2009.

The Federal Housing Administration is delaying implementation of new rules for condo approvals until Dec. 7 and will reportedly pull back from some changes that critics said would have delayed or derailed many condominium sales.

In a June 12 letter to lenders, the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced FHA would implement a new approval process for condominium projects on Oct. 1.  more...

Real estate's new intermediaries

By Inman News, Wednesday, November 4, 2009.

With distressed properties accounting for a greater percentage of sales than ever -- more than half in some hard-hit markets -- agents and brokers who have never handled a short sale or bank-owned home may find themselves feeling left out if they don't jump on the bandwagon.

But many real estate professionals who do specialize in short sales warn that it's a business of risks and rewards, requiring skill, connections and patience.  more...

Real estate's bright, not-so-bright ideas

By The Real Deal, Wednesday, November 4, 2009.

NEW YORK -- This city's real estate market is at something of a crossroad. For more than a year now, the industry has been dealing with the fallout from Wall Street and the credit crisis, leaving brokers, developers, city officials and everyone in between groping for strategies to keep financially afloat. While it's hard to fault real estate professionals for throwing any ideas they have at the problem to see which ones stick, some of those approaches have worked better than others. This month, The Real Deal dissected some of the biggest policies and proposals that are being used -- or considered -- to help shore up the industry.

The goal was to see which ideas have helped get the market moving, and which have fallen flat, and to examine how much promise the ideas being bandied about now have.  more...

Fed keeps lid on short-term rates

By Inman News, Wednesday, November 4, 2009.

The Federal Reserve will keep its target rate for the federal funds overnight rate at zero to 0.25 percent, and continues to expect that economic conditions are likely to warrant "exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period."

The Federal Open Market Committee, in announcing the decision to keep the key short-term rate unchanged, said activity in the housing sector has increased over recent months. While household spending appears to be expanding, it remains constrained by ongoing job losses, sluggish income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit.  more...

Demand for refis surges

By Inman News, Wednesday, November 4, 2009.

Applications for mortgage were up a seasonally adjusted 8.2 percent last week, even though demand for purchase loans sagged, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in releasing the results of its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey.

Requests for purchase loans were down a seasonally adjusted 1.8 percent from one week earlier for the week ending Oct. 30, the MBA said. The decrease was more than offset by a 14.5 percent increase in applications for refinancings, which accounted for 66.1 percent of all loan requests.  more...

BHG Real Estate offers iPhone app

By Inman News, Wednesday, November 4, 2009.
BHG's iPhone app, Home Selection Assistant

Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate LLC is offering an iPhone application that detects the user's location when they snap photos on home tours and automatically provides them with more information about the home and its surrounding neighborhood.

The iPhone app, Home Selection Assistant, also allows users to put together photo albums for each room in homes they are interested in, creating searchable content that can be synced with iTunes for access on a home computer or shared on Facebook or via e-mail, the company said in a press release.  more...

ZipRealty narrows losses

By Inman News, Wednesday, November 4, 2009.

ZipRealty Inc. edged closer to profitability during the third quarter, as transactions grew 30.6 percent and revenue by 12.8 percent from a year ago, the company said.

The Emeryville, Calif.-based brokerage's $779,000 net loss for the quarter ending Sept. 30 was less than half the $1.69 million loss for the same period a year ago.  more...

6 MLSs agree to share data

By Inman News, Tuesday, November 3, 2009.

The six largest multiple listing services in North Carolina have joined forces in a data-sharing project that allows participants of any of the MLSs to display data from all six MLSs on a broker or agent Web site.

Dubbed Carolina Data Share, the initial members include: Brunswick County Association of Realtors, Carolina Multiple Listing Services Inc., North Carolina Mountains MLS, Triad MLS Inc., Triangle MLS Inc., and Wilmington Association of Realtors.  more...

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