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Calif. resale price rises for 7th month

By Inman News, Tuesday, October 27, 2009.

The statewide median resale home price rose for the seventh straight month in September, while the pace of single-family sales of previously owned homes was up 0.6 percent from the prior month and up 2.1 percent compared to the same month last year, the California Association of Realtors trade group reported Monday.

The median price of resale homes in the state was up 1.1 percent in September, to $296,090, while falling 7.3 percent compared to September 2008, CAR also reported. The year-over-year statewide median price had dropped in double-digitpercentages for 22 consecutive months before the single-digit percentage decline in September, the group noted.

The statewide median price compares to a national median resale price of $174,900 in September -- the national median price dropped 8.1 percent compared to September 2008.  more...

Atlanta broker, GMAC Real Estate split

By , Monday, October 26, 2009.

GMAC Real Estate LLC and one of its largest franchisees, Metro Brokers Inc., are parting ways, with GMAC claiming in a lawsuit that it's owed nearly $350,000 in unpaid fees and other losses on a 10-year franchise agreement that wasn't due to expire until 2014.

Atlanta-based Metro Brokers, which boasts 2,100 agents at 26 offices, maintains that the company terminated its franchise agreement on Oct. 1 because of doubts about the direction in which GMAC Real Estate's parent company, Brookfield Residential Property Services, is taking the franchise.  more...

Estately: We're in the black

By Inman News, Monday, October 26, 2009.

Estately Inc., a Seattle-based real estate brokerage company that works on a referral basis, says it reached profitability in the third quarter.

Company founder and CEO Galen Ward said in a blog post that the company achieved the milestone by slowing down its expansion into new markets, freezing new technology purchases, boosting conversion rates, and shipping two "white label" products, or unbranded versions of Estately.  more...

Until recently, Ward said, "we considered white labeling to be a potentially fatal distraction." But he had a change of heart after talking to the founder of another company, NetConversions, that got through the dot-com crash by doing side projects

Longtime innovator gives voice to vendors

By Mary Umberger, Monday, October 26, 2009.
Greg Robertson

A friend recently ribbed Greg Robertson that his Vendor Alley blog was "the TMZ of real estate."

Likening Robertson's frequent postings at VendorAlley.com to the wildly popular but often-notorious celebrity news site is a stretch, he says.

Nonetheless, he does get attention in the industry -- like the time just a few weeks ago, when he adapted the subtitles in a clip from "Downfall," the German-language film about the last days in Adolf Hitler's bunker, to poke fun at efforts by the calREDD ...   more...

September home sales up 9%

By Inman News, Friday, October 23, 2009.

Demand from first-time homebuyers helped drive a 9.4 percent increase in sales of existing homes from August to September, the National Association of Realtors said today, continuing a trend of increasing sales in five out of the last six months.

At a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.57 million, sales of existing single-family, townhome, condominium and co-op properties in September were also up 9.2 percent from a year ago.  more...

Bill targets appraisal rules

By , Friday, October 23, 2009.
Flickr photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/thetruthabout/2763078149/" target=blank>TheTruthAbout...</a>.

Pending legislation to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency would give the new agency 60 days to implement uniform appraisal rules that would supersede the Home Valuation Code of Conduct -- controversial procedures governing appraisals when loans are slated for purchase by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

An amendment attached to HR 3126, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009, would direct the agency -- if it's created -- to convene a rulemaking committee and establish uniform "appraisal independence requirements" across federal agencies.  more...

A call to preserve real estate's core values

By Inman News, Thursday, October 22, 2009.

Pamela Liebman, president and chief executive officer for th  more...

Bid to delay new RESPA rules fails

By , Thursday, October 22, 2009.

A bill that would create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) has emerged from a key committee vote without an amendment that would have delayed implementation of new loan mortgage disclosure forms and closing procedures scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1 under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA).

In the process of "marking up" and passing HR 3126 in a 39-29 vote, the House Financial Services Committee did sign off on another amendment that would remove much of the CFPA's oversight authority over the title insurance industry and mortgage insurers. The bill also included previous draft language limiting the CFPA's authority over real estate brokers and agents.  more...

Tool helps unemployed get loan mods

By Inman News, Thursday, October 22, 2009.

A new Web-based tool can help workers who have lost their jobs demonstrate whether their unemployment checks will be large enough and last long enough to help them to qualify for a mortgage loan modification.

The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), one of the Obama administration's main foreclosure prevention initiatives, allows laid off workers to obtain loan modifications -- but only if loan servicers can determine that borrowers have at least 9 months of unemployment benefits remaining.  more...

Agent, broker confidence slips

By Inman News, Thursday, October 22, 2009.

Real estate agents and brokers surveyed in September by Point2 Technologies were slightly less confident about the future than they were in August, but remained more optimistic than pessimistic overall.

On a scale of one to 10, Point2's Real Estate Confidence Index recorded a 5.83 reading at the national level in September, down from 5.88 in August. It was the first decline in the index since it was launched in June, the company said.

The index has three components, measuring the current, near-term and long-term sentiments of real estate professionals.  more...

Critics question homebuyer tax credit

By , Wednesday, October 21, 2009.

The first-time homebuyer tax credit is "an extremely ineffective stimulus," which, like the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), "mainly rewards the very people who got us into this mess. It's a futile attempt to blow just a little bit more air into the real-estate bubble."

Those views -- put forward Tuesday in an opinion piece by MarketWatch's Washington bureau chief, Rex Nutting -- may reflect growing public sentiment against additional taxpayer-funded measures to stimulate the economy.  more...

Demand for mortgages off as rates rise

By Inman News, Wednesday, October 21, 2009.

Applications for mortgages fell 13.7 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis last week as interest rates on fixed- and adjustable-rate mortgages inched up, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in releasing the results of its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey.  more...

Final push for tax credit

By , Tuesday, October 20, 2009.

Real estate industry trade groups are mounting a final push for an extension of the first-time homebuyer tax credit, with Sen. Johnny Isakson planning to tie the issue to an extension of unemployment benefits.

Lawmakers are holding two hearings this week during which the tax credit, scheduled to expire Nov. 30, will be debated.

On Thursday, the U.S. House Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee will discuss more than 100,000 suspected cases of fraud involving the credit currently being investigated by the IRS.  more...

New-home permits down, starts inch up

By Inman News, Tuesday, October 20, 2009.

The rate of single-family building-permit authorizations dropped an estimated 14.9 percent year-over-year in September and dipped 3 percent compared to August, the U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development announced today.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate for single-family housing starts, meanwhile, was down an estimated 8.7 percent year-over-year in September and rose 3.9 percent from August. This rate is a projection of a monthly total over a 12-month period, adjusted to account for typical seasonal fluctuations in construction activity.  more...

Feds to finance billions in loans

By Inman News, Monday, October 19, 2009.

The Obama administration has launched a program intended to help state and local housing finance agencies finance several hundred thousand mortgages for first-time homebuyers, and provide opportunities for borrowers at risk of foreclosure into more sustainable loans.

State and local housing finance agencies (HFAs) -- which before the financial crisis financed more than 3 million home purchases through the issuance of tax exempt bonds -- have been frozen out of the bond market, forcing many to suspend lending or scale back their programs and raise rates.  more...

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