An opinion seen at HW: Here’s a familiar scenario: Jane and John live in a nice house and pay their mortgage on time every month. Their outstanding loan amount is higher than the home’s market value, making them underwater borrowers. They wish they could move into a...
Are government programs finally starting to solve the housing crisis? From HW: The number of refinanced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgages nearly doubled in the first quarter as the largest banks launched the expanded Home Affordable Refinance Program. Servicers...
We might still be having some newcomers joining us as a result of the Realtor Magazine article, which was posted on the NAR website last week. The actual magazine just arrived at my house yesterday by mail. Welcome agents! Let's discuss the publishing of each agent's...
Seen in the latimes.com: The gig: Ed Kushins, 65, is the founder and president of HomeExchange.com, based in Hermosa Beach. It is one of the nation's largest members-only home exchange businesses. What is a home exchange? With 43,000 members, HomeExchange helps...
Hat tip to ProfHoff and Susie who sent in stories about the BofA "Mortgage-to-Lease" program: Excerpts from wsj.com: Executives last year began to ask themselves "isn't there a way to sort of combine that whole process and keep the borrower in the property? It's just...
Hat tip to daytrip for sending this in from cnnmoney.com:
Thanks to the many readers who sent in articles and video about realtors using drones to photograph houses - this is the first that I was able to copy: Hopefully we might see one of these around here before long!
From HW: Four years after the housing bust, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are putting some of the blame on real estate speculators, saying they played a key role in blowing up the housing bubble that eventually popped, causing home prices to...
Now that the barn door has been left open for several years, our local MLS provider, Sandicor, has finally developed a website that will allow the consumer to access the MLS directly: http://consumer.sandicor.com They don't ask us for ideas about what it wanted and...
A month ago, the president of NAR asked for ideas on solving the housing crisis here. The national convention starts this weekend in Anaheim, and hopefully during the session, he'll be reviewing thoughts from realtors around the country. He can start solving the...
