Bernanke defends easing but holds off for now

Commentary: Central banks must be as active as neccessary without risking inflation

BY LOU BARNES, FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 2012.

Inman News®

Iceberg image via Shutterstock.

At the end of each August, the world's central bankers gather in Jackson Hole, Wyo. Sit around the ol' campfire singin' sad songs, goin' fishin' in pin-striped suits, and tellin' tales about the big trout that got away. This year, most of 'em.

Despite the risk of feeding conspiracy theorists, it's good to know that these people talk with each other constantly. The People's Bank of China comes to Jackson Hole. Money is money everywhere, the problems different but the same, and today are tightly linked. Mangled policy in Europe creates risk in China, and makes it all the more difficult for China to adjust its own severe imbalances.

One central banker is missing: in the midst of widespread expectation of bond purchases by the European Central Bank, its chairman, Mario Draghi, cancelled his scheduled Jackson Hole speech. One thing is certain: if you're afraid to leave town, you don’t have a deal.

Don't wait for NAR to rethink the future Realtor Notebook

BY TERESA BOARDMAN, THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2012 Inman News®

Man holding lightbulb image via Shutterstock.

It has been my observation that people who are not members of the National Association of Realtors are more supportive of the organization than many of its members.

To me, as a member, NAR is big and bureaucratic and seems out of touch with the average member. The average member is much older than the ideal member, more likely to be female, and may not have health insurance but still pays dues every year.

And every year, NAR launches some new initiative. The latest is called "Rethink the Future of Real Estate."

According to a dedicated website created by NAR, rethinkfuture.com, the Rethink initiative will launch in August. A number of workshops will be held with a goal of reaching 20,000 people before publication of a final report at NAR's 2013 annual conference.

Most traffic to third-party sites doesn't convert into sales How to take advantage of Trulia, Zillow leads at no cost

BY BERNICE ROSS, THURSDAY, JULY 26, 2012 Inman News®

Discouraged woman image via Shutterstock.

The major third-party websites such as Realtor.com, Trulia and Zillow like to promote how many "unique" visitors they have to their respective sites. For agents and brokers alike, the question is whether all this traffic is something that translates into closed transactions for their respective businesses.

I recently did a three-part series on listing syndication including a look at how some brokerages are addressing the syndication issue. After the first part of the series ran, I received a nice call from one of the people at Zillow. She shared that they had 35 million unique visitors the preceding month.

An alternate approach to mortgage shopping Commentary: Regulators can't see past best mortgage price

BY LOU BARNES, FRIDAY, JULY 13, 2012 Inman News®

Bloodhound image via Shutterstock.

Midsummer is known in the news biz as "silly season." In the absence of real news, headlines run "MAN BITES DOG." It's a little early this year, but it got hot early. The usual time is on the cusp of July to August, when Europe shuts down for a month's vacation; this year Europe may shut down somewhat later, for longer.

Only one piece of hard economic data this week: An index gauging the sentiment of small-business owners dumped three points of index optimism in June. That's a lot for a single month, but the overall index value is still in the middle of the chatter back to 2010.

How to solve the stimulus-austerity gridlock | Commentary: Reining in health care costs would boost economy

BY LOU BARNES, FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012 Inman News®

Health care image via Shutterstock.

Markets show justifiable concern at a steady flow of soft data all over the world, but it's hard to figure disappointment that the Federal Reserve did nothing dramatic this week.

The Fed's QE (quantitative easing) operations have been designed to pull down long-term interest rates, to prevent runs on banks, and to ease credit. In the last 80 days the run from Europe has accomplished Jobs One and Two, cutting 10-year T-note yields by one-third, and all but drowned the U.S. system in cash.

Economists: 2012 marks the end of a long bottom | Real estate industry experts offer midyear forecasts

BY PAUL HAGEY, FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2012 Inman News®

Swooping arrows image via Shutterstock.

DENVER -- U.S. housing markets are likely to continue on a path of slow recovery after seeing a multiyear bottom, according to three real estate industry economists participating in a forum hosted by the National Association of Real Estate Editors said today.

Continuing uncertainties over negative equity (about a third of homeowners with mortgages owe more than their homes are worth, according to Zillow), fuzzy housing finance reform possibilities, lagging foreclosure processing and tight lending standards are potential obstacles to the slow-rising tide of the U.S. housing market, they said.

Websites that depend on agent dollars are doomed | Realtor Notebook

BY TERESA BOARDMAN, THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2012 Inman News®

Dinosaur image via Shutterstock.

A couple of months ago I was contacted by the editor for a local news website. They syndicate some of my real estate content and we have had an ongoing relationship for many years.

They wanted to talk about having neighborhood pages with real estate listings on their website, and they wanted to get local agents to pay to sponsor the pages and to pay to advertise real estate listings on them.