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Obama backs uniform loan disclosure Premium Content

By Matt Carter, Tuesday, June 30, 2009.

The Obama administration today released details of plans to combat "the worst abuses in mortgage markets" by creating a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to safeguard consumers from deceptive practices and provide them with concise information for comparing mortgages and other loans.

The agency would have the power to set standards protecting consumers and encouraging competition, and the authority to make sure consumer-protection regulations "are written fairly and enforced vigorously," the Treasury Department said in a press release.  more...

New laws for Pennsylvania mortgage brokers

By Inman News, Tuesday, June 30, 2009.

Two Pennsylvania laws enacted in the wake of a $29 million mortgage fraud scheme will bar state-licensed mortgage brokers and loan originators from being the sole recipients of information from lenders, and penalize companies that retaliate against whistle-blowing employees.  more...

Realtor launches online 'reality show'

By Inman News, Tuesday, June 30, 2009.

Fedua "Sarah" Bandy, a Realtor in Colts Neck, N.J., has launched an online video series to promote her goal of $1 million in net revenue from sales commissions in one year.

Borrowing ideas from the pages of "The Millionaire Real Estate Agent," a book by Keller Williams founder Gary Keller, Bandy plans to send out 16,000 direct-mail pieces per month to a list of people selected from a particular geography and demography.  more...

Sorting out real estate data, politics

By Inman News, Tuesday, June 30, 2009.

Zach Scott, chief operating officer for Point 2 Technologies, a real estate technology company based in Saskatoon, Canada, expects more mobile tools for real estate and richer Virtual Office Web site experiences on the horizon. VOWs allow greater consumer access to real estate data but face an uphill battle against the more established Internet Data Exchange (IDX) standard.

Hear Scott speak during the Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco, which runs from Aug. 5-7.

What do you see happening in the real estate market in 2009?  more...

States get room to regulate lending

By Inman News, Monday, June 29, 2009.

Federal law doesn't entirely preempt states from passing consumer protection laws governing national banks and seeking to enforce those laws in court, the U.S. Supreme Court held today.

The 5-4 decision was a defeat for the banking industry and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the federal regulator which maintained only it had the power to conduct bank examinations or enforcement actions against national banks.  more...

Bill would suspend new appraisal rules

By Inman News, Monday, June 29, 2009.

Legislation that would grant a plea by the National Association of Realtors to suspend for 18 months new rules governing appraisals conducted on loans purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has been introduced in the House of Representatives.  more...

Realtor membership rises in some areas Premium Content

By Erik Pisor, Monday, June 29, 2009.
Flickr image by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/victoriapeckham/164175205/" target=blank>victoriapeckham</a>.

From 2004 through 2005, home-sale activity surged toward a peak in most U.S. metropolitan real estate markets. The feverish market activity lured a long line of individuals to obtain a real estate license, with the hopes of cashing in on the booming sales.

The exodus of Realtors into the business began to reverse with the slumping real estate market. According to the National Association of Realtors, all but one state association's May 2009 membership totals trailed membership totals for May 2008, with 28 state associations experiencing a double-digit percentage drop in membership -- that trend has not held for all local and state Realtor associations, though.  more...

Inman News wins blog award Premium Content

By Inman News, Monday, June 29, 2009.

The Inman News Blog won a "Best Blog" award in an annual competition by the National Association of Real Estate Editors, and James Randel, author of "The Skinny on the Housing Crisis," took first place in the Robert Bruss Real Estate Book Awards, named for the longtime Inman News real estate columnist who died in 2007.

NAREE, which celebrates its 80th anniversary this year, announced the winners of the real estate journalism and book awards during a conference this month in Washington, D.C.  more...

For-sale inventory halved in California

By Inman News, Monday, June 29, 2009.

The for-sale inventory of homes has dropped by more than half from May 2008 to May 2009, according to the latest California Association of Realtors report on May home sales and prices.

The association's Unsold Inventory Index for May, which measures how long it would take to sell all for-sale single-family resale homes given that month's sales pace, suggested that the market had reversed from a buyer's market in May 2008 to a seller's market in May 2009.  more...

KB Home trims inventory, losses

By Inman News, Friday, June 26, 2009.

Builder KB Home said home sales were down 37 percent during the second quarter from a year ago, to 1,761 units, with the average price declining 5 percent to $216,200.

But the Los Angeles-based home builder managed to slash inventory by 39 percent from a year ago, to 3,804 homes, while paring losses to $78.4 million, down from $256 million in the second quarter of 2008.  more...

Study: Pros, cons of mortgage choices

By Inman News, Friday, June 26, 2009.

The Mortgage Bankers Association has released a 60-page study intended to serve as an overview for choosing between different types of mortgages and determining when to refinance.

The 58-page study, "A Financial Analysis of Consumer Mortgage Decisions," also analyzes the pros and cons of using surplus cash to pay down a mortgage or investing in Treasurys or municipal bonds.  more...

Holding real estate agents accountable

By Inman News, Friday, June 26, 2009.

Eric Stegemann, who leads strategic development at Tribus Real Estate, a real estate consulting and technology firm, is coming to the Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco, which runs from Aug. 5-7, 2009.

Tribus services include training and marketing, and the company also offers technology tools including customer relationship management, lead management, accounting, communications, virtual tour and location-aware mobile search.

Stegemann also serves as managing broker at River City Real Estate, based in St. Charles, Mo.  more...

Appraisal issue coming to a head Premium Content

By Matt Carter, Friday, June 26, 2009.

An increasingly common complaint of Realtors -- that "lowball" appraisals below agreed-upon sales prices are derailing many home sales -- has been taken up by industry trade groups.

The National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Home Builders have both identified issues surrounding appraisals as a factor putting a damper on sales of new and existing homes in May -- the first month new rules governing appraisals conducted on loans slated for purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took effect.  more...

Closing.com gets ready for RESPA reform

By Inman News, Friday, June 26, 2009.

Closing.com, a Web site that allows consumers and real estate professionals to comparison-shop for settlement services online, says it will display cost estimates in the format required on the standardized Good Faith Estimate before lenders are required to use that form beginning Jan. 1.

By the fourth quarter of this year, borrowers using Closing.com will be able to submit a "pre-GFE" to loan originators, allowing for more reliable estimates of closing costs, the company said in announcing the launch of a 2.0 version of its Web site in beta testing.  more...

Little change in mortgage rates

By Inman News, Thursday, June 25, 2009.

Mortgage rates were mostly flat this week on mixed economic news, Freddie Mac said in releasing the results of its weekly mortgage market survey.  more...

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