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Catch it on camera at Real Estate Connect

By Inman News, Wednesday, July 29, 2009.
Flickr photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kratz/2695100333/in/set-72157600855940068/">John Kratz</a>.

Inman News columnist and avid photographer Teresa Boardman will lead a photo walk at 4:30 p.m. Aug. 5 in San Francisco for attendees of the Inman News Real Estate Connect conference, which runs from Aug. 5-7.

The photo walk is "a chance for people to grab their cameras, see some sites in beautiful San Francisco, go for a walk, and grab a bite to eat," says Boardman, who has a collection of her photos online at Flickr.com, a photo-sharing site.  more...

IRS eyeing homebuyer tax credit claims

By Inman News, Wednesday, July 29, 2009.

The Internal Revenue Service says a Jacksonville, Fla.-based tax preparer is the first to be succesfuly prosecuted for fraud related to the federal first-time homebuyer tax credit.

James Otto Price III, 47, pled guilty on July 23 to falsely claiming the first-time homebuyer credit on a client’s federal tax return, the IRS said. He faces up to three years in jail and a fine of up to $250,000 when he is sentenced.  more...

Loan workouts up 25% in June

By Inman News, Wednesday, July 29, 2009.

Mortgage servicers participating in the HOPE NOW alliance boosted loan workouts by 25 percent from May to June, helping the number of workouts to exceed foreclosure starts for the month for the first time since April.

More than two out of three of the 310,000 loan workouts accomplished in June were categorized as repayment plans, rather than loan modifications that reduce borrower's payments and are considered less likely to redefault.  more...

Refi demand cools

By Inman News, Wednesday, July 29, 2009.

Demand for purchase mortgages held steady during the week ending July 24, but requests for refinance loans were off 10.9 percent from the week before as mortgage rates inched up, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in releasing the results of its Weekly Applications Survey.

An index measuring application volume for both purchase and refinance loans was down a seasonally adjusted 6.3 percent from the week before.  more...

Servicers prodded to do more loan mods Premium Content

By Inman News, Wednesday, July 29, 2009.

Loan servicers have committed to "significantly increasing" the rate at which they negotiate loan modifications with homeowners facing foreclosure, the Obama administration said in announcing a new goal of achieving 500,000 trial loan modifications by Nov. 1.  more...

RE/MAX CEO: expect shorter short sales

By Inman News, Wednesday, July 29, 2009.
Margaret M. Kelly

Detroit native Margaret M. Kelly steadily climbed the corporate ranks at RE/MAX after taking a job with the company as a financial analyst in 1987. She stepped into her current role as sole chief executive officer for the global real estate franchise giant in 2005 after serving for a year as co-CEO.  more...