News / Features
By Peter Ricci Showing a home is a delicate balancing act, one where dozens of itty bitty components must all be in perfect working order. Of course, it can be easy to overlook a detail or two while planning
By Peter Ricci For months, real estate professionals and trade groups alike have bemoaned the lack of housing-related policies on the presidential campaign trail, and it seems Mitt Romney has taken consideration of those criticisms to heart in devoting
Asking prices on real estate website Trulia rose 2.3 percent year-over-year in the latest Trulia Price Monitor, according to a news release from the website. That increase marks the seventh straight month of asking price increases on Trulia, and
By Peter Ricci The National Association of Realtors is reporting that the median listing time of properties for sale in July was 69 days, a 29.6 percent decline from the 98 days in July 2011. The data represented a
By Peter Ricci The g-fee increase for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans was undoubtedly the most controversial element of the payroll tax cut brawl in Congress last year – in case your memory is foggy, the added revenue
By Peter Ricci Any real estate agent will tell you how valuable the Internet is to any real estate business, but the Web’s value does come with one catch – if all agents are using it, how do you
By Peter Ricci The CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI) increased by 3.8 percent in July from a year ago, the highest year-over-year increase for the index in nearly six years, according to the California-based data company. Not since August
By Peter Ricci Construction spending in July was up 9.3 percent from last year in the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce. Though construction spending did fall slightly from June by 0.9 percent to
By Peter Ricci Distressed sales accounted for 23 percent of all residential housing sales in the second quarter, according to RealtyTrac’s Q2 2012 U.S. Foreclosure Sales Report. That total is up from a 22 percent share in the first quarter
By Peter Ricci Now this is interesting – after a solid month of rising interest rates impacting the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey, fixed mortgage rates fell in Freddie Mac’s latest survey; yet, mortgage applications in
By Peter Ricci Bidding wars are normally the ultimate sign of a hot real estate market, that demand for real estate is so stratospheric that prospective homebuyers are nearly falling over themselves with offers for the homes. Sadly, bidding
By Peter Ricci It’s a narrative that many real estate professionals are all too aware of – a distressed property appears in a certain market, where it sits for months and negatively impacts the selling prices of the surrounding
Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Gary Greene will be merging its operations with ERA Bogany Properties, effective September 1, 2012. As a result of the merger, Bogany’s office at 4710 Bellaire Boulevard will become the new home of
By Stephanie Sims Interested in what prospective clients think of the market? Redfin’s latest quarterly homebuyer survey answers could help you better reach and help your clients. Less than two weeks ago, Redfin collected data from 829 people across
By Peter Ricci The multifamily housing sector has been a true anomaly; while housing construction has bounced along on a largely sideways path for most of 2012, multifamily housing has been booming, with multifamily housing starts up 30 percent
By Peter Ricci The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signings, rose 2.4 percent from June to July and reached its highest level in more than two years, or, since the expiration