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Buyers and sellers get on the same page

By The Real Deal, Friday, October 16, 2009.

NEW YORK -- Zhann Jochinke, an associate broker at Argo Residential, put an alcove studio on the market last year for $525,000. But the offers that came in were as low as $390,000.

"People were putting bids out there just to see if the person had to sell," he recalled.

More recently, however, he convinced the seller to drop the price to around $490,000.

Offers began coming in at "5 percent or less off the asking price," he said. Now, the listing is in contract, and expected to close in the next month.  more...

RealtyTrac, mlsfinder.com fall off Top 20

By Inman News, Friday, October 16, 2009.

Home improvement lead generation site ServiceMagic elbowed its way past Rent.com and Trulia.com to take the fifth position on Hitwise's list of most visited real estate Web sites in September.  more...

HGTV parent acquires OpenHouse.com

By Inman News, Friday, October 16, 2009.

Scripps Networks Digital has acquired Realogy Corp.'s OpenHouse.com -- a Web site where homebuyers can find information about open houses -- adding it to a suite of HGTV Web sites including FrontDoor.com that provide information through the homeownership lifecycle.

Realogy and its brands will maintain their association with OpenHouse.com through a continued marketing relationship with HGTV's FrontDoor.com, which includes an online listings distribution agreement for all of Realogy's property listings, Scripps said. Realogy Franchise Group was FrontDoor's initial listings partner when Scripps launched the site in 2007 (see story).  more...

HUD says no RESPA reprieve

By , Friday, October 16, 2009.

Federal regulators say they won't be swayed by a last-ditch effort by industry groups representing bankers and other lenders to postpone Jan. 1 implementation of standardized mortgage loan disclosure forms and procedures that are intended to help consumers comparison shop.  more...

Tooling up, scaling down in lean times

By Erik Pisor, Friday, October 16, 2009.

SAN DIEGO -- An industry veteran with more than 35 years of real estate experience, Rick Hoffman has worked through several housing market cycles and is no stranger to the challenges and adjustments brokers face during housing downturns.

As president and chief operating officer of NRT LLC's Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in the San Diego, Calif., area, Hoffman -- along with other real estate managers -- has coped with the current housing market and economy by adjusting the company's operating model.

"To me, the downturn was probably a big positive. It caused me to operate more efficiently and be more cost-conscious," Hoffman said. "The marketplace has required that we (brokers) make decisive moves."  more...

Mortgage rates stay below 5%

By Inman News, Thursday, October 15, 2009.

Rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages stayed below 5 percent for the third week in a row, averaging 4.92 percent with an average of 0.7 point for the week ending Oct. 15, Freddie Mac said in releasing the results of its weekly Primary Mortgage Market Survey.

That's up from 4.87 percent last week, but well below the 6.46 percent average surveyed at the same time a year ago.  more...

California adopts rules for AMCs

By Inman News, Thursday, October 15, 2009.

California has become the sixth state to regulate appraisal management companies after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law legislation establishing compliance standards for the firms and requiring them to register with the Office of Real Estate Appraisers.

The Appraisal Institute, an industry group representing appraisers, issued a press release lauding California's law, saying it will protect consumers and appraisers while providing "positive effects" to the state's real estate market.  more...

Q3 bank repos up sharply

By Inman News, Thursday, October 15, 2009.

The number of properties subjected to foreclosure-related filings increased 5 percent from the second quarter to the third, driven by a 21 percent increase in bank repossessions, data aggregator RealtyTrac said today.

RealtyTrac said the number of properties hit with foreclosure-related filings dropped 4 percent from August to September, to 343,638, but that number still represented a 29 percent increase from a year ago, and the third-highest monthly total since the downturn began.  more...

Mortgage bankers see sales rebounding

By Inman News, Wednesday, October 14, 2009.

The Mortgage Bankers Association projects double-digit growth in sales of both new and existing homes in 2010, even though the group expects unemployment will continue to climb and won't peak until the middle of the year.

The MBA expects sales of existing homes to rebound 11.2 percent next year, to 5.57 million, and for new-home sales to bounce back 21 percent from this year's projected "very low levels" of 398,000.  more...

The first Internet property listing

By Inman News, Wednesday, October 14, 2009.
Flickr photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbill/234433731/">mrbill</a>.

Who was the first person to post a for-sale home listing on the Internet?

Inman News Publisher Brad Inman (@BradInman) posed the question in a Twitter post (click to read) today.

If you know who it is, tell us. We would like to profile this individual and find out about their inspiration for this first-ever feat. (And did the home sell?)

***  more...

Demand for purchase loans eases

By Inman News, Wednesday, October 14, 2009.

Applications for mortgages fell a seasonally adjusted 1.8 percent for the week ending Oct. 9, due largely to a 5 percent drop in demand for purchase loans from the previous week, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in releasing the results of its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey.

Looking back a year, applications for purchase loans were down 6.8 percent. Applications for refinancings were essentially flat from the previous week, declining by a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent, the MBA said. Refinancings accounted for 67.4 percent of all mortgage applications, up from 66.3 percent the previous week.

   more...

CAR tech whiz shares favorites

By Inman News, Wednesday, October 14, 2009.
Flickr photo by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/williamhook/2830319467" target=blank>William Hook</a>.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Josh Sharfman, chief technology officer of the California Association of Realtors, offered up several dozen Web sites and services that are of use to real estate professionals during a presentation at the California Realtor Expo in San Jose.

Sharfman's list included Web-based software that can substitute for, or serve as a companion to, Microsoft Office's suite of applications, including OpenOffice.org, Google Docs and Microsoft Office Live.

   more...

Economists mixed on California's outlook

By , Tuesday, October 13, 2009.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Drastic cutbacks in new-home construction have helped reduce inventories of homes for sale in California faster than expected, and falling home prices and low interest rates are making owning look like a better deal than renting for many, according to Richard Green, director of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at the University of Southern California.

That, coupled with the fact that home prices have fallen below replacement cost in many markets, means that "if you know you are going to live in a place for at least five years, it's just silly" not to consider making the move from renting to homeownership, Green told Realtors meeting in San Jose Thursday.  more...

Fewer sellers slash asking price

By Inman News, Tuesday, October 13, 2009.

Fewer sellers were willing to reduce their home's asking price in September than they were a year ago, but 44 percent of listings in 28 markets tracked by ZipRealty had seen at least one price reduction, the company said in releasing the results of a monthly survey on price reductions.

The percentage of homes with price reductions was down 2.8 percent from a year ago. But among nearly half of the homes with reduced asking prices, sellers had come down by an average of 9.6 percent, or $25,362, ZipRealty said.  more...

First American offers free market reports

By Inman News, Tuesday, October 13, 2009.

First American CoreLogic has launched a new service, ePropertyWatch, that provides homeowners with e-mail updates on their property value, recent sales, price trends and foreclosure activity in their neighborhood.

Homeowners who register for the free, advertising-driven service are also notified of any liens filed against their property at the county recorder's office to protect them from fraudulent transfers of deed.  more...

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