Archive for February, 2006

Zillow Gets Real Estate License in Many States

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!Claiming still that they are not getting into the real estate brokerage business, Zillow still has gotten real estate licenses in Washington state and other states recently the Seattle Post Intelligencer is reporting this morning.
Richard Barton, CEO of [...]

18Feb2006 | Tom Royce | 2 comments | Continued

California Homes Sales Slow to New Low in January

California is in the heart of the bubble slowdown. After astronomical growth in the past four years, the market is regrouping with slowing sales and lowering prices. The increases of the past 4 years have priced the average homeowner out of the market, and the retrenchment out of the exuberant optimism is now being replaced [...]

17Feb2006 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

David Weekly Expands To Arizona

David Weekly Homes, one of the largest builders in the United States, is expanding into the metropolitan Phoenix area as they start building in in a master planned community.

The Houston-based homebuilder will be part of the Estrella Mountain Ranch community in Phoenix. The 24,000-acre master-planned community will include a Jack Nicklaus golf course, two lakes [...]

17Feb2006 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Washington Mutual Cutting Staffing in Home Loan Group

A combination of a slowing real estate market, higher interest rates, and a search for operational efficiency, Washington Mutual will reduce its workforce by 2,500 jobs in its home loan division. Washington Mutual is a leader in the mortgage field after years of acquisitions and tremendous expansion. Many will see this as a harbinger of [...]

17Feb2006 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

New York Top Hotels Convert to Condo’s at Rapid Rate

It is not only the Plaza that has converted some of its rooms in New York City recently as this International Herald Tribune article states, but many of the top properties in the city are converting to condo’s. And the list of potential buyers continues to grow. The cachet of living in one of the [...]

16Feb2006 | Tom Royce | 2 comments | Continued

Jury Award Greenville Man 1.8 Million in Eminent Domain Case

“This is America, after all,” he said. “When one of your most basic freedoms of land ownership is under threat, no one can rest easy.”

This is the response by a man who had his family home condemned by the City of Greenville, South Carolina to build a riverfront greenbelt. The cities taking of the property under [...]

16Feb2006 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

New Housing Starts Surges in January, 2006

Housing starts set record levels in January as builders capitalized on warmer than normal weather allowed the housing industry to be much more productive than normal. While few experts take this as a sign of renewed vigor in the real estate market, the numbers do poke a hole in the perception that a national housing bubble is imploding.

The Commerce [...]

16Feb2006 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

MUST READ: How New Eminent Domain Laws Are Being Used

We tend to react strongly to eminent domain abuses as they are taking one of the pillars of what makes the United States so great, property ownership, and attempting to destroy our reliance on it. An editorial in the Altanticville, a local Long Beach, New Jersey newspaper, illustrates how the process is being bastardized after [...]

16Feb2006 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

PropertyShark and Trulia Join Forces To Combat Zillow

PropertyShark, a regional property informational site, and Trulia, a regional real estate search engine, are going to be sharing resources in response to the arrival of Zillow this past week. Zillow has the early lead in the online real estate information marketplace as they have a significantly stronger investment and infrastructure, even with accuracy issues during their [...]

16Feb2006 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued

Biloxi Mississippi Real Estate Market Soaring

With changes in gaming regulations in Mississippi allowing land based casino gaming, Biloxi is having a huge surge in real estate prices. The city is poised to experience a housing and gaming boom during the hurricane rebuilding going on. Going through the horror of the hurricane, it is nice to see the residents have a [...]

16Feb2006 | Tom Royce | 3 comments | Continued