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.