Top Agent Network to complete Boston rollout

TAN helps top-producing agents coordinate sales outside the MLS

BY INMAN NEWS, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27, 2013.

Inman News®

A social network designed to help top-producing agents share information about pre-MLS and non-MLS listings announced today that it will conclude its Boston-area rollout by launching chapters in the North Shore, South Shore and Cape and The Islands on April 29. 

Top Agent Network (TAN) aims to enlist the membership of local markets' elite real estate agents to help them coordinate sales of homes that have not yet hit the market and homes that have not yet been listed on multiple listing services. Members of TAN also use the network for other purposes, like obtaining service-provider recommendations, referrals to agents in other areas and general advice, the company said. 

Housing starts near 5-year high in February

Builder confidence lags on tight lending and low appraisals

BY INMAN NEWS, TUESDAY, MARCH 19, 2013.

Inman News®

New-home buyers image via Shutterstock.

Homebuilders were a lot busier in February than they were a year ago, starting construction on 27.7 percent more units.
Aside from the 982,000 mark seen in December 2012, February's seasonally adjusted annual rate of 917,000 home starts was the highest since July 2008 when it reached 949,000.
Housing starts of all types were up 0.8 percent from January to February, and have climbed by about 90 percent from a post-collapse bottom in early 2009. Single-family starts are up about 75 percent from their post-bubble low, pointed out Bill McBride on his blog Calculated Risk.

Single-family housing starts in February were at a rate of 618,000, a 31.5 percent jump from a year ago and up 0.5 percent from January.

Foreclosure timelines now measured in years

Process taking longer in some states with new laws protecting homeowners

BY INMAN NEWS, THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 2013.

Inman News®

Boarded-up home image via Shutterstock.

The number of mortgages that are delinquent or in foreclosure is declining, but those in the pipeline are years away from clearing, according to a report from Lender Processing Services Inc. released today.

Of all the loans in the foreclosure process in January 2012, 42 percent were still in the foreclosure process a year later, the report said. Only 22 percent had become real estate owned (REOs), and 11 percent had been liquidated through short sales or deeds-in-lieu.

In states where the foreclosure process is handled by the courts, 58 percent of loans in foreclosure are more than two years past due. In judicial foreclosure states, that figure is 33 percent. Judicial foreclosure states have three times as much foreclosure inventory as judicial foreclosure states.

Taking it to the streets -- more on mobile

The Breakaway Brokerage: Part 5

BY INMAN NEWS, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2013.

Inman News®

Joel Burslem

By JOEL BURSLEM

The first part of this postcovered the strategic opportunities for brokers to reach out to mobile users. We talked about the types of mobile users, where they sit in the funnel, and gave some broad ideas for how and where to engage them.

This week, I want to get more tactical and offer tangible ways to focus your mobile efforts in three main areas: the mobile Web, native applications and mobile marketing.

Mobile Web

Every broker should be optimizing their site for mobile browsers. After a few years spent monitoring analytics accounts for major brokerages around the country, one thing is clear: Mobile Web traffic -- those visitors coming to broker websites from smartphone or tablet devices -- has steadily marched upwards. I suspect your numbers are no different.

Scratching below the surface, what's also interesting is where that traffic is heading. Here's a hint: It's probably not your home page.

Tame your cloud storage services

Attachments.me connects Gmail to Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive and Box

BY TOM FLANAGAN, TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2013. Inman News®

Cloud storage image via Shutterstock.

Cloud storage services are fantastic. They enable us to access our files across multiple devices and increase our productivity. But managing different cloud storage services independently can be frustrating. Like many real estate pros, I have files stored in Dropbox and Google Drive. If I want to share photos from my Dropbox account with a client or colleague, the task has to be executed via Dropbox. In other words, I have to launch Dropbox and share the photos from the application. The more cloud storage services I utilize, the more challenging streamlining my data becomes. Attachments.me is an app that connects Gmail with Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive and Box. The app makes it super easy to search and share attachments from these cloud storage services directly through Gmail.

9 ways to better market your properties

Hot tips from Real Estate Connect NYC

BY BERNICE ROSS, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 18, 2013.

Inman News®

Homes for sale image via Shutterstock.

Every Real Estate Connect conference is packed with plenty of hot tips, strategies and new apps. Here's a quick rundown of some of the coolest apps and strategies from last month's Real Estate Connect in New York City. Which of these will you implement in your business?

1. Is your website responsive?

The latest programming languages allow your website to automatically adjust to the size of the screen on which the site is being viewed (i.e., be "responsive). The software detects the device your Web visitor is using and then automatically adjusts to fit the screen. If you are considering a new website, WordPress is one of the most widely used platforms for achieving this goal.

Redfin expands to 5 new markets

Move grows website listings by 14 percent

BY INMAN NEWS, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2013.

Inman News®

Seattle-based online brokerage Redfin has expanded to five new markets, boosting the number of listings on its site by 14 percent, the company announced today.

The new markets are Houston; New York City's Bronx borough; Charlotte and the Raleigh-Durham area in North Carolina; and the state of Delaware. The move extends Redfin's services to a total of 21 major markets and grows its reach by nearly 10 million new people -- a 10 percent increase in audience size, the company said.

"For Redfin, this expansion demonstrates a fundamental broadening of our business model," said Glenn Kelman, Redfin's CEO, in a statement. "A few years ago, the company's service was viable only in a handful of coastal cities with the country's highest home prices. As Redfin has developed new economies of scale, we have actually improved the quality of service while lowering costs, allowing us to bring new markets to profits quickly."

Your paperless office may soon be printing plastic

Only time will tell if 3-D printing has real estate applications

BY GAHLORD DEWALD, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2013.

Inman News®

The Makerbot Replicator 2 Desktop 3-D Printer. Image via Makerbot.com

It seems like 2013 is gearing up to be the year of 3-D printing among the tech set. Let's spend a few minutes looking at this technology -- also known as "additive manufacturing" -- and what sort of impact it might have.
3-D printing technology enables you to make a physical object out of plastic from a computer file. It is to industrial design what the ink jet printer is to graphic design.
So, in the same way that you might use an ink jet printer to print off a couple of brochures or sell sheets or other business collateral, you might use a 3-D printer to "print" off an object -- a keychain fob, an action figure, a spare plastic part for something, and so on.
First off, let's be very clear and honest: 3-D printing is extremely cool, but it's also a long way from mainstream. There are significant constraints on what this technology can do today.

The printers build up objects a layer at a time, which are limited in size and also in complexity or "resolution." The resulting objects are prone to deformities and defects, and will often require some degree of hand finishing to be considered of decent quality.

But in the same way that the capabilities of desktop printers have advanced radically, I suspect that 3-D printing will also improve rapidly should a market become apparent. What we see today with hobbyist 3-D printing will morph into something more polished and useful over time.
Let's examine the technology in terms of time frame.

6 ways to increase your chances of being audited

Real Estate Tax Talk

BY STEPHEN FISHMAN, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2013.

Inman News®

Audit image via Shutterstock.

Now that we've entered the tax filing season, many taxpayers' thoughts naturally turn to the subject of IRS audits. What are the chances you'll be audited by the IRS? It depends.

The overall audit rate is low. In 2012 only 0.94 percent of all individual taxpayers with incomes under $200,000 were audited. Taxpayers with incomes of $200,000 to $1 million were audited at a 3.7 percent rate.

LPS to review three years of mortgage documents

$120.6M settlement resolves 'robo-signing' allegations by 46 states

BY INMAN NEWS, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 1, 2013.

Inman News®

Robotic hand image via Shutterstock.

Lender Processing Services Inc. has agreed to pay more than $120 million and review three years of documents to settle allegations that the company "robo-signed" and otherwise improperly handled mortgage documents that LPS and its subsidiaries handled for loan servicers in foreclosure proceedings.

The $120.6 million settlement with attorneys general of 46 states and Washington, D.C. requires that LPS review documents executed between Jan. 1, 2008 and Dec. 31, 2010 to determine whether any need to be re-executed or corrected. For the next three years, LPS will be required to provide the attorneys general with quarterly reports of the company's remediation efforts.

"Today we've taken another step forward to hold accountable the many players in the marketplace who contributed to the foreclosure crisis," said Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan in a statement Thursday. "LPS and its subsidiaries became a sort of document factory, literally rubber stamping thousands of foreclosures with no regard for fairness and accuracy in the process."

Builders hope Realtors will help them win back buyers

National ad campaign aimed at restoring market share of new-home sales

BY INMAN NEWS, MONDAY, JANUARY 28, 2013.

Inman News®

Vintage advertising campaign for new homesimage via Shutterstock.

By LEW SICHELMAN

Builders are going after real estate agents' bread and butter, and they'll be asking for agents' help to do it.

Starting in March, builders will finally launch a long-awaited multimillion-dollar ad campaign aimed at persuading would-be buyers that brand-new homes are a better choice than the scratch-and-dent houses they'll find in the resale sector. But the largely digital campaign is primed to win over the hearts of real estate professionals, too.

Why? Because agents and brokers absolutely control the housing market. According to a study by Chadwick Martin Bailey, the Boston-based consumer research company, 84 percent of 1,000 people identified as likely buyers in the next year are either already locked up with an agent or expect to connect with one when they actively begin their search.

Educate your clients before they buy or sell land

3 places to look for hidden deal breakers

BY ALISHA ALWAY BRAATZ, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2013.

Inman News®

Developer image via Shutterstock.

Acquiring land and building houses, barns and businesses used to be a lot easier. Take the land runs of the 1890s. All a person really needed was a fast horse and hammer.

Nowadays, there are endless hoops to jump through, it takes a lot of money, and there are 12,862 rules. Helping a client buy or sell vacant land isn't as easy as you might think. And you better think.

Buying land and building on it isn't straightforward. Neither is selling bare land (simple as it may sound).
Thus, "Buyer beware!" is a phrase lazy Realtors repeat in their minds as they overlook three essential and elemental areas in which to educate their client: covenants, conditions and restrictions (CC&Rs);
architectural review committees (ARCs); and development costs.

What will we do to get the economy going?

Commentary: Listlessness in markets corresponds to White House policy vacuum

BY LOU BARNES, FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 2013.

Inman News®

Maze image via Shutterstock.

This week brought lots of minor reports but nothing to change the outlook.

A 12 percent spike in December housing starts got more attention than it deserved -- a dead-of-winter month is not a good indicator -- and pushed interest rates up a hair. But inflation remains completely under control, core CPI up only 1.7 percent in the whole of 2012.

Three long-runners contribute to frozen markets: first, misinformation and scare-mongering about the Fed's "quantitative easing" (QE); second, the European gap between wishful public pronouncement and weakening data; and third, the prospect of Japan trying to print its way out of deflation -- not contained QE, but a true, inflation-inducing print job.

The core hazard facing us all: how to get right the timing and magnitude of fiscal austerity before the Fed has to stop buying our debt. We may be making more accidental, near-term progress than we know.

The newest estimates of deficits since the Fiscal Anthill deal suggest we may already be trying to reduce the deficit too fast. Going from $1 trillion to $750 billion in 2013 alone is about all the reduction the economy can take.

New group proposes 'syndication bill of rights' for listings

NAREP accepting comments through Feb. 15

BY INMAN NEWS, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013.

Inman News®

"Don't tread on me" image via Shutterstock.

NEW YORK -- The National Association of Real Estate Professionals, a Dallas-based nonprofit, has released a syndication bill of rights meant to establish industry standards for the display of listings on national real estate search portals.

Longtime real estate agent Ben Caballero founded NAREP in September 2012, initially proposing that brokers band together to build a national multiple listing service to bypass publishers like Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com. Caballero said he was motivated by frustration with the listing inaccuracies and misleading price estimates found in some publishers' listing databases.

Caballero, who serves on the board of directors of Dallas metro area Greater Metro MLS, is at Real Estate Connect New York City to drum up support for the bill of rights and get comments that he'll incorporate into a revised version. After the comment period ends on Feb. 15, the revised bill of rights will be sent out for accreditation by members.

Caballero will be in the Chrysler Board Room at the Grand Hyatt New York today between 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. to discuss NAREP's bill of rights draft. Download a copy of the draft here.

The current bill of rights was inspired by meetings Caballero had at the National Association of Realtors national meeting in Orlando in November, and was based in part on Clareity Security's Real Estate Syndication Bill of Rightsreleased in 2011.

Real Estate in Rockford Illinois. Key Realty, Inc

Foreclosure Northern Illinois. Foreclosureni.com

Zillow co-founder to discuss 'the Next Big Thing'

Real Estate Connect Speaker Q&A: Rich Barton

BY PAUL HAGEY, TUESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2013.

Inman News®

Looking ahead image via Shutterstock.

Innovation is sometimes difficult to see coming. Ask newspaper executives about what happened to revenue from real estate classifieds when Realtor.com, Zillow and Trulia came along.

Or maybe entrepreneur Rich Barton -- co-founder and executive chairman of Zillow and current partner at Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Benchmark Capital -- would be the better one to ask. Barton has been on the front edge of innovation in real estate, travel and employment for the last two decades.

He'll share what he sees coming at Real Estate Connect New York City opening day from the main stage in a presentation titled "What is the Next Big Thing?"

Rich Barton

Before starting Zillow in 2005 (where he served as CEO until 2010, when Spencer Rascoff took over), Barton founded Expedia, now the world's largest travel site, serving as president and CEO until 2003.

Barton is also co-founder and chairman of Glassdoor.com, a site where employees rate and review companies, see how salaries stack up, search for jobs and see where people work in their extended Facebook network.

Real estate industry already embracing 'open source'

3 Linux products to watch for

BY TOM FLANAGAN, TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2013.

Inman News®

An Ubuntu phone docked to a keyboard and monitor. 

Image via Ubuntu.com.

What does Linux or any other open source application have to do with real estate? Probably more than you think.

Open source products power our websites, blogs, Intranets and more. In fact, WordPress, which is widely embraced by the real estate industry, is one of the most popular open source publishing platforms in the world.

Open source software is computer software that is available to use and typically distributed without a license fee. Linux is an open source operating system. There are many different flavors of Linux that are utilized in a variety of scenarios.

As the Web and software development continues to gravitate towards open standards, Linux and other platforms continue to grow in popularity. I don't expect Realtors to start building media centers or developing LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) configurations. However, there's nothing wrong with getting a little geeky in a tech column.

Coldwell Banker has new mobile app for Android, iOS

 

Features include Yelp integration, one-touch agent contact, interactive map search

BY INMAN NEWS, FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 2013.

Inman News®

Coldwell Banker Real Estate LLC has released a new, free mobile app for iOS and Android platforms that allows consumers to search for homes using an interactive map, contact an agent with one touch, and discover nearby amenities with Yelp integration. The app features Facebook, Twitter and email integration and a "save-to-favorites" function. Users have access to a database of 1.5 million U.S. and international homes, and the ability to notify a Coldwell Banker agent directly about their interest in a property. The new app also allows users to delineate a geographic area for home search by drawing a shape in the app's map view on their mobile devices' touch screens and then see the homes for sale pop up within that area. Users can also use their mobile devices' geolocation ability to search for homes and open houses, and get driving directions using the app and access video content from Coldwell Banker Real Estate's video library.

Your relationship with Instagram needn't be exclusive

 

Realtor Notebook

BY TERESA BOARDMAN, THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 2013.

Inman News®

The honeymoon is over image via Shutterstock.

I followed with interest the confusing changes to Instagram's terms of service that, for a while at least, seemed to indicate that parent company Facebook was claiming the right to license all public Instagram photos for commercial uses, including advertising.

The resulting outcry led Instagram to issue an apology and announce that it was going back to the original terms of use that they have had since they started up in 2010.

Over the years there have been rumors about Google+ owning my content, and Facebook owning it, and then Pinterest came along and staked a claim to it as well. 

I will admit that on those rare occasions when I do read terms of service, I rarely understand them completely. They are usually huge and complicated, but I am told that I have to agree to them before I get to use something that I want to use.

'Fiscal cliff' bill addresses some key housing issues

Battle over mortgage interest deduction still to come

BY KEN HARNEY, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 2013.

Inman News®

The U.S. Capitol image via Shutterstock.

When the monthlong congressional game of chicken known as the "fiscal cliff" ended late last night in the House of Representatives, housing and real estate emerged as winners on most key issues.

The Senate bill that finally passed the House by a 259-167 vote extended a number of federal tax code provisions that are important to homebuyers, sellers, builders and real estate professionals.

The bill also made permanent the Bush-era reduced tax brackets for all but the highest income earners in the country, along with a permanent "patch" to the increasingly troublesome alternative minimum tax (AMT) that threatened millions of middle-income homeowners with higher taxes.

Fiscal cliff compromise must begin with president

Commentary: Is Obama out to break the Republicans?

BY LOU BARNES, FRIDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2012.

Inman News®

President Obama on the campaign trail before the November elections. Photo credit: barackobama.com.

In reverence of Peter Drucker -- who once observed that "nobody predicts the future -- the idea is a firm grasp of the present" -- no predictions here for the New Year.
I'll just prioritize the puzzles ahead, and point out some things to watch for.
Nothing in 2013, no issue at all, compares to the need for fiscal repair. The Fed can buy our new debt for another year, but now we must make progress. And the fiscal cliff is only the first turn in a larger maze.
None of us can know another's mind, and even firsthand reporters can misunderstand intentions. Political matters today are touchy almost beyond discussion. However, the mind of the president is central to the fiscal issue.