Archive for April, 2006

School enters housing market

Friday, April 28th, 2006

In Colorado, the Tellurdie School District has entered the real estate market. In an attempt to retain their teachers, they have come up with a unique solution that has them owning several area properties.
Tellurdie found itself having a hard time retaining teachers because of the escalating cost of living. To address […]

Housing Shift

Thursday, April 27th, 2006

The Wall Street Journal recently took a look at a snapshot of residential real-estate prospects for 18 major metro. They looked at inventories, job trend data, and several other sources of data to create a list of robust and slowing real estate markets.
According to their analysis, the three most robust markets are […]

Existing Home Sales Climb

Wednesday, April 26th, 2006

For the second month in a row, existing home sales climbed. On Tuesday, the National Association of Realtors reported an increase of 0.3 percent in March compared with February. This brought the seasonally adjusted annual sales rate to 6.92 million units. Additionally, the median price of a new home rose to […]

Foreclosure Numbers Up

Tuesday, April 25th, 2006

ForeclosureS.com reported a rise in mortgage foreclosure activity in the first quarter of 2006, particularly in major urban centers. Several western and southwestern housing markets appear to be the hardest hit.
For example, Los Angeles County recorded 6,314 pre-foreclosure filings and foreclosures through March, up from 4,911 in the fourth quarter of 2005. […]

Just How Big Is It

Monday, April 24th, 2006

A recent report by Research and Markets took a look at the real estate management industry and found the following:
The US real estate management industry includes 220,000 individual companies generating about $160 billion in annual revenue. Of these, 60,000 are local real estate brokers, another 50,000 are involved in non-owner property management and appraisals, […]

Buyers Leaving High Cost Coastal Areas

Friday, April 21st, 2006

According to a recent article by RealEstateJournal.com, high coastal housing costs are driving more people to cheaper nearby cities. Additionally, states in the Southwest and Pacific-Northwest continue to attract exiting Californians while Florida remains a hot real estate market for many people. To read the article in its entirety, click here.

CA: Market Remains Flat

Thursday, April 20th, 2006

DataQuick Information Systems, a real estate research firm, found that California home sales fell statewide in March for the sixth month in a row. Additionally, annual price appreciation remained flat. An analyst for the company stated that the numbers reflect the transition from the past four year frenzied high-flying housing market to […]

MA: Push for Non Lawyer Closings

Wednesday, April 19th, 2006

The Real Estate Bar Association for Massachusetts and the Title Appraisal Association are having a show-down in Massachusetts over a potential bill which would allow non-lawyers to perform commercial real estate closings. Massachusetts is one of only a half-dozen states that mandate some attorney involvement in the real estate title exchange process.
The […]

Following the Job Market

Tuesday, April 18th, 2006

Analysts at Freddie Mac believe there is a link between the building of housing wealth and the job market. The conclusion is that in states where the economy is booming single-family housing is becoming unaffordable at a faster rate.
For example, job creation on the West Coast is at its highest while the Midwest […]

Title Issues Increasing

Monday, April 17th, 2006

Title problems were found in 36% of all residential real estate transactions in 2005 — up from 25% in 2000. That is the finding from the “Abstracter and Title Agent Operations Survey” conducted by the American Land Title Association (ALTA).
The three biggest problems dealt with:
(1) obtaining releases and/or obtaining […]