Move Inc. earnings fall from last quarter

Move Inc., which operates Realtor.com and Move.com property-search Web sites, today reported net income of $1.7 million in the second quarter, compared with net income of $3.3 million in second-quarter 2005.

Excluding stock-based compensation expense, net income would have been $4.3 million in second-quarter 2006, the company reported.  more...

Two plead guilty in home loan scheme

An Orange County, Calif., man who allegedly bilked lenders out of $9 million has pleaded guilty to federal wire fraud and money laundering charges, prosecutors said.

Kenneth Christopher Ketner, 57, and his company, Mortgage Capital Resource Corp., obtained lines of credit from commercial lenders by purporting to fund home loans for borrowers throughout the country, the U.S.  more...

New Century continues to grow loan production

Subprime lender New Century Financial Corp.  more...

California Realtors denounce failed ballot measure

The California Association of Realtors, in an announcement this week, called attention to the failure of a ballot initiative that sought to establish a statewide database for property listings information.

San Francisco lawyer David Barry, who has filed several antitrust lawsuits against the California Association of Realtors and other real estate groups, led the ballot initiative, which he said failed for lack of financial support because the  more...

Mortgage rates fall on weak economic news

Mortgage rates fell for the second consecutive week as slower economic growth eased inflation concerns, according to surveys conducted by Freddie Mac and Bankrate.com.

In Freddie Mac's survey, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped to an average 6.63 percent this week, down from last week's average of 6.72 percent.  more...

ZipRealty launches FSBO program

ZipRealty today launched a program to help for-sale-by-owner sellers market their homes to prospective buyers.  more...

Top Producer partners with RE FormsNet

A new partnership between Top Producer Systems and RE FormsNet aims to make it easier for real estate agents to create electronic contracts by eliminating duplicate data entry from various parties to a real estate transaction.

Easy creation of electronic contracts is a key step in making more parts of the real estate transaction paperless.

Under the new alliance, real estate sales and marketing software Top Producer 7i will integrate with real estate forms software packages ZipFormOnline and WinForms Online, enabling real es  more...

Toronto real estate market cools

Home sales in the Toronto, Canada, market fell for the second consecutive month in July, as prices began to stabilize, the Toronto Real Estate Board reported today.

The 7,082 sales recorded through the TorontoMLS system last month were 4.1 percent below the 7,387 sales in July 2005, according to TREB.

The average price of an existing home in the metro area registered $342,034 in July, up 4.9 percent from $326,034 recorded a year ago, but down 4.5 percent from $358,035 in June.

"With inventory up 11 percent over last July, some of the upward pressure on prices has eased  more...

California sees sharp rise in foreclosure activity

Second-quarter California foreclosure activity rose at the fastest pace in at least 14 years, according to DataQuick Information Systems, a real estate research company.

Lenders sent 20,752 default notices to homeowners statewide during the April-through-June period. That was up 10.5 percent from 18,778 the previous quarter and up 67.2 percent from 12,408 in the second quarter of last year, DataQuick reported.  more...

PropertyShark.com incorporates N.Y. co-op data

PropertyShark.com, a real estate data company, announced today that it is incorporating all co-op data from the New York City Department of Finance's online property records database, called ACRIS.

"For the first time, co-op sales prices will now be made public on the easy to search PropertyShark.com Web site," according to the announcement.  more...

Overnight real estate rates down again

Long-term mortgage interest rates sank further Wednesday, and the benchmark 10-year Treasury bond yield dipped to 4.96 percent.

The 30-year fixed-rate average fell to 6.14 percent, and the 15-year fixed-rate dipped to 5.84 percent. The 1-year adjustable held at 5.42 percent.

The 30-year Treasury bond yield decreased to 5.05 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...