Archive for April, 2008

Countrywide Selling REO Property To Minority and First Time Buyers

Countrywide Financial has joined into a partnership with New Vista Asset Management to sell their foreclosed upon properties. What is different that most property sales by bank owned real estate is that Countrywide is not just dumping the properties. Instead they are trying to sell them to minorities and first time buyers as part of [...]

26Apr2008 | Tom Royce | 7 comments | Continued

CB Richard Ellis Is First Commercial Real Estate Firm To Make The Fortune 500

CB Richard Ellis has made the Fortune 500. This is pretty big news as the company is the first commercial real estate firm to make the list. They came in at 404th place of the largest companies in the United States.
Congratulations to the crew over there. It looks like all of the aquisitions over [...]

26Apr2008 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

NAR President Shows New Fangled Real Estate Technology – Like The Typewriter

The National Association of Realtors has released a video today showing how the Past President of the NAR Pat Combs uses her technology. She shows how cool the concept of scanning documents makes her state of the art instead of using a fax machine.
While it is not all bad, all I have to say [...]

25Apr2008 | Tom Royce | 6 comments | Continued

New York Times Makes Precarious Leap on Foreclosure Market

We all try sometimes to make a concept work and fail miserably. Well, that is what the New York Times did today with their story on Foreclosures in Greenwich, Connecticut. They were trying to show that foreclosures are not just hitting the speculators and lower income, but were even having an affect on the gentrified [...]

25Apr2008 | Tom Royce | 2 comments | Continued

Great Article on How Inman Reinvented Themselves

Marketing Sherpa, one of the most respected marketing sites on the internet, has an intriguing article on how Inman News has reinvented itself over the past couple of months to remain a market leader.
There is a great deal to learn in the article and congratulations to Brad, Joel, and the rest of the team [...]

24Apr2008 | Tom Royce | 2 comments | Continued

Rental Rates Surging Across Country For First Quarter 2008

While housing prices remain moribund, the demand for rental properties has rates surging across the country. Simple economics will tell you the longer that people hold off buying the more renters are created. The newly married and young buyers that normally would enter the housing buying cycle are still renting as fear, uncertainty, and doubt are [...]

24Apr2008 | Tom Royce | 3 comments | Continued

Sign of the Times: RE/MAX Partners With RealtyTrac To Add Foreclosure Data To Websites

With a large percentage of homes that are selling being ones in foreclosure across the country, RE/MAX Regions has decided to partner with RealtyTrac and add foreclosure data to their websites.
I can not find the report I read saying nearly one in three resales in California are foreclosures, but it is not surprising (found – via [...]

24Apr2008 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Top 10 Seach Providers For March 2008

Here are some interesting numbers for information use only if you are trying to figure out where to concentrate you real estate search efforts. Many people, and most who are trying to sell you something, think that you have to focus your efforts on many different search companies.
Well, Google, Yahoo, MSN/Live, and AOL have 93 [...]

23Apr2008 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

States Blame Federal Government For Failed Mortgage Remediations

What should not be a big surprise for any who read this site, now the states are blaming the federal government for not slowing down the rate of foreclosures hitting the market. There has been no slowing of the rate of foreclosures no matter what efforts the states take at counseling or programs they have [...]

23Apr2008 | Tom Royce | 0 comments | Continued

Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Spanked For New Accounting Problems

Is this any surprise, both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are now being told to moderate their aggressive accounting methods and be more prudent on the numbers they are reporting. The issue is a bit esoteric but coming after the accounting scandals that enveloped the agencies in the past year, any hint of impropriety should [...]

23Apr2008 | Tom Royce | 1 comment | Continued