Realty Times – A recent memo from the Legal Department of the California Association of Realtors® (CAR) advises members that they now have an ethical duty, when representing buyers, “to advise their clients that sellers may not treat offers as confidential.” This duty arises from the fact that, effective January 1, 2006, an addition has [...]
NoblevilleLedger.com – With 2005′s slow, steady rise in interest rates and central Indiana’s fifth consecutive year of increased home sales in the rearview mirror, F.C. Tucker Co.’s Jim Litten, president of the residential real-estate services division, said he is optimistic about area real-estate sales in 2006. Litten predicts another strong year with sales matching 2005. [...]
Lansing State Journal – More than 60,000 Michigan new-home buyers stand to collect $300 to $400 each under a tentative $27.5 million settlement reached between homeowners and title insurance companies. If approved, the payments would end a class-action lawsuit filed by homeowners who said they were overcharged for title insurance. The suit involves those who [...]
U.S. Newswire: Continued strong demand for homeownership drove home sales to an all-time high in 2005. Total home sales, which include single-family homes and condominiums, were up 2.0 percent in Illinois in 2005, according to year-end analysis by the Illinois Association of REALTORS(r) (IAR). In 2005, a total of 183,123 homes were sold across the [...]
Palm Beach Post – Amid all the talk of a bubble in home prices, another bubble has been inflating — this one in the number of people flocking to work in the real estate industry. Palm Beach County now has nearly as many real estate agents as annual home sales. But with sales slowing, real [...]
Montana’s News Station – BOZEMAN The high-end segment of the Bozeman real estate market continues to surge. Five years ago, it was rare to find a Bozeman-area house priced upward of a (m) million dollars. But in 2005, 12 houses fetched prices in seven figures. During the past week, the real estate industry’s Multiple Listing [...]
Newsday.com – Whether you’re a first-time home buyer, an investor, vacation property buyer, historic preservation buff – or even looking for a boat to convert into a live-aboard residence – you are not shopping the market to the max unless you check out the federal government’s best real estate resources: the combined property disposition program [...]
MSNBC – Luxury home builder Toll Bros. Inc. Tuesday slashed its forecast for home sales for the second time in three months. Toll is widely seen as a bellwether for the U.S. housing market. Its deteriorating forecasts may indicate that the slowing U.S. housing market is eroding faster than previously thought, Raymond James and Associates [...]
Des Moines Register – With the national housing market cooling, Iowa cities are expected to post some sweet increases in median home prices this year — ranging from 4 percent to 7 percent. With higher interest rates and a slower market, the Des Moines area’s relatively flat 5.7 percent projected growth “is a good forecast,” [...]
On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors released its report which states that U.S. home sales will drop in 2006 as mortgage rates climb and house prices inch up more slowly than they did in 2005. David Lereah, the NAR’s chief economist, said sales of existing U.S. homes should slide 4.7% to 6.74 million units [...]