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'Happy birthday' from your market

By , Tuesday, November 17, 2009.
Flickr photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/melloveschallah/3440131767/" target=blank>melloveschallah</a>.

SAN DIEGO -- In the free-flowing and informal world of social media, Realtors may stir up more business by wishing a colleague happy birthday, or snapping a picture of an encounter with a snake, than by blatantly promoting listings on sites like Twitter and Facebook.

That's been the experience, at least, of Mike Parker -- a genial Realtor from Northern Kentucky who shared his social media expertise with colleagues at the National Association of Realtors' annual convention in San Diego.  more...

NAR OKs indexing of listings

By , Tuesday, November 17, 2009.

SAN DIEGO -- The National Association of Realtors' board of directors adopted a new policy Monday making it clear that real estate brokers can allow search engines like Google to index property listings displayed on their Web sites under data-sharing agreements with other brokers.

NAR's board of directors approved several changes to the association's Internet Data Exchange (IDX) policy as it wrapped up the group's annual meeting in San Diego.  more...

NAR invests in DocuSign

By Inman News, Monday, November 16, 2009.

The National Association of Realtors' venture capital fund, Second Century Ventures LLC, has made an undisclosed "strategic investment" in electronic signature services provider DocuSign.

NAR Chief Executive Officer Dale Stinton -- who also serves as president of Second City Ventures -- will join DocuSign's board of directors.  more...

Smarter Agent on all U.S. cell phones

By Inman News, Monday, November 16, 2009.

Smarter Agent announced today that its real estate applications for mobile phones are now available for all carriers, devices and platforms, as the result of a new partnership with Verizon Wireless and the rollout of an application for the Android platform.

The company, which also offers applications for Sprint, AT&T and T-Mobile phones, claims it's the first to offer downloadable real estate applications on all major carriers for all U.S. cell phones.  more...

Life lessons equip real estate coach

By Mary Umberger, Monday, November 16, 2009.
Image courtesy TomFerry.com

It's fair to presume that when Tom Ferry was a teenager, he might have benefited from a little coaching -- not that he would have tolerated anyone offering it.

"I was the worst possible kid," says Ferry. "I was stupid, obnoxious, angry. I was kicked out of four high schools. My parents were separated, and they each kicked me out of their house at 15.

"I lived on the streets -- literally -- for three months."  more...

Skeptics of RPR database voice worries

By , Saturday, November 14, 2009.

SAN DIEGO -- Executives with a new subsidiary created by the National Association of Realtors to build a national property database are facing some skeptics and critics as they hold briefings on the product at NAR's annual conference.

The database is expected to eventually include records on every parcel in the U.S., residential and commercial, combining public property records with data from multiple listing services and  commercial information exchanges CIEs.

Some MLS executives attending the conference say they want additional assurances that it won't compete with services they offer. In addition, some NAR members -- particularly appraisers -- aren't happy that the project's business model relies on selling automated valuations to lenders and government agencies.  more...

Survey: bigger share of first-time buyers

By Inman News, Friday, November 13, 2009.

The latest annual National Association of Realtors Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, released Friday, found that the share of first-time homebuyers rose to 47 percent of all home sales, compared with 41 percent in the 2008 study -- with 55 percent of first-time buyers using a Federal Housing Administration-insured loan and 8 percent using the Veterans Affairs loan program.

The results are based on 9,138 responses from a national sample of homebuyers who completed an eight-page survey in July 2009.  more...

NAR: 12.9% home-price drop in '09

By Inman News, Friday, November 13, 2009.

National sales of resale homes are expected to rise 2 percent this year compared to 2009, with the national resale median price falling 12.9 percent, the National Association of Realtors reported Friday in its latest annual forecast.

The projected sales rise would be the first in two years, after a 12.8 percent drop in 2007 and a 13.1 percent drop in 2008, and NAR is projecting an additional 13.6 percent rise in existing-home sales in 2010.  more...

HUD offers leeway with new RESPA rules

By Inman News, Friday, November 13, 2009.

Federal housing regulators say they will "exercise restraint" for the first four months of 2010 in enforcing new regulations governing mortgage loan disclosures and settlement procedures.

The new rules, which the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has put forward under the authority of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA), include a new good faith estimate (GFE) and HUD-1 settlement statement.  more...

NAR: Tax credit was 'nip and tuck' battle

By , Friday, November 13, 2009.
Flickr photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/smcdevitt/3006575967/" target=blank>SarahMcD ॐ</a>.

SAN DIEGO -- Securing an extension and expansion of the homebuyer tax credit was a dicey proposition -- and a feat not likely to be repeated, a top lobbyist with the National Association of Realtors told members at their annual meeting in San Diego.

"You have no idea how nip and tuck it was on the credit," Linda Goold, NAR's director of tax policy, told Realtors packed into a meeting room at the Grand Hyatt Hotel. "There were days when we could not imagine how it would happen."  more...

Everyone is No. 1?

By Frank LLosa, Friday, November 13, 2009.

CLICK HERE to comment.  more...

Redfin off Hitwise top 20 list in October

By Inman News, Friday, November 13, 2009.

Real estate brokerage site Redfin.com was bumped from a list of top 20 real estate sites, and commercial real estate information site LoopNet.com joined that group in October, online metrics company Hitwise reported Thursday.

Redfin, which has alternated off and on the top 20 list in recent months, on Thursday announced a $10 million round of financing that brings its total to about $30.8 million -- its first round of venture funding was in 2005 (see story).

The top seven sites on the list were unchanged from September, with No. 1 Realtor.com growing its U.S. market share of online visits to real estate-related sites from 6.86 percent in September to 7.1 percent in October, and No. 2 Yahoo Real Estate's market share falling from 4.66 percent in September to 3.59 percent in October, Hitwise reported.  more...

MLSCloud.com looms larger

By Inman News, Friday, November 13, 2009.

An online network of public-facing multiple listing Web sites, launched six months ago, now features dozens of participating associations and MLSs that together represent about 612,000 Realtors, according to an announcement Thursday, which is more than half of the U.S. Realtor population.

MLSCloud.com serves as a consumer portal to its participants' individual public-facing property-search Web sites, and features a clickable U.S. map to bring consumers to the most relevant sites.  more...

FHA premiums should cover losses

By Inman News, Thursday, November 12, 2009.

The Federal Housing Administration's capital reserve ratio has fallen below statutory minimums, but the government mortgage insurance program will not require a taxpayer bailout unless the economy becomes mired in a depression, officials said.

In releasing the results of an independent actuarial study, Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan and FHA Commissioner David Stevens today said that in the event of a second severe recession, FHA's capital reserves would be wiped out, but premiums from insurance written in coming years would be sufficient to cover losses.  more...

Taking social media seriously

By , Thursday, November 12, 2009.

In this increasingly communicative world, the age-old phrase, "Be careful what you say," may be due for a dust-off: "Be careful what you say, type, tweet, text, blog or e-mail."

And as social media blurs the line between personal conversations and business communications, companies and groups within the real estate industry and in other industries are working to define the gray areas and draw clear lines about what's acceptable and what's not.  more...

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