Sep 09
Optimism Grows Among Sellers, Buyers Consumers have a fairly optimistic 12-month outlook on housing at the end of the summer home-buying season, says Doug Duncan, chief economist at mortgage giant Fannie Mae. The optimism is being buoyed by confidence in the job market and more favorable expectations regarding their personal finances compared to a …
Sep 08
Deep-Cleaning Targets to Help a Home Shine Buyers are just more attracted to clean houses. And while a standard job may give a home a momentary shine, a deep clean of hidden spots may help provide the wow factor your listing needs. The Cleaning Authority offers the following tips on deep cleaning a …
Sep 07
Student Housing Gets an Upgrade Luxury student housing is popping up around colleges and universities across the country. Residential developers are adding fancier amenities to student housing options as enrollments in higher education continue to rise. About 47,700 new beds are expected to roll out onto the market in privately owned, student housing properties …
Sep 06
Bad Habits That May Ruin a Home Certain home owner habits could actually be harming the home, and can lead to major home improvement projects later on. This Old House recently featured a list of several bad home owner habits to avoid, including: Slamming the front door Slamming the heavy front door can push it …
Sep 02
10 Beach Towns With Housing Bargains Beach towns don’t tend to be cheap. However, a few places offer opportunities for more buyers to live in the beach town they always dreamed of. RealtyTrac recently identified the beach towns with fewer than 50,000 residents that have the highest quality of life (e.g. air quality, low …
Sep 01
Real Estate to Get Its Own Stock Category Real estate companies have been included in a category with banks and insurance firms since 1999 in stock markets across the globe. But that soon will change. Come Thursday, real estate will be getting its own dedicated category. The Wall Street Journal reports that the move …
Aug 31
Buyers Will Pay More for Smart Tech Features Home buyers are willing to pay extra in order to have a smart home, according to several new studies. Network-connected thermostats, security devices, appliances, and lighting already installed in a home may help home owners sell their properties faster and for more money, reports The …
Aug 30
HARP Extended to 2017 as Bridge to New Refi Program The Federal Housing Finance Agency is extending the Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP) until Sept. 30, 2017. The FHFA estimates that more than 300,000 home owners could still benefit by refinancing through HARP. The Home Affordable Modification Program and HARP aim to help borrowers …
Aug 29
Things Pet Lovers Look for in a Home Sure, your clients may think a particular listing is perfect, but what does Fido think? It’s a question becoming more commonplace these days, as more Americans than ever are pet owners. In fact, 79 million U.S households currently own a pet, and 83 percent of …
Aug 26
Google Issues Warning to Sites With Pop Ups If your site has a pop-up ad, you may want to change it soon. Google says it plans to punish sites that have pop-up ads on mobile by factoring it into their search algorithm. It also is going after interstitial, web pages displayed before or after an …
Aug 25
Redesign Slated for Loan Forms Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced Wednesday a redesign for the standardized form borrowers use to apply for a loan, the first substantial revision in more than two decades. The changes to the Uniform Residential Loan Application (URLA) include simplified terminology and new data fields capturing …
Aug 24
Clients Expect Social Media Responses Within 1 Hour If customers contact you via your social media channels, they expect to get a response immediately. In fact, 53 percent of customers who tweet a brand expect a response within an hour. If their tweet references a problem, 72 percent then say they expect a …
