Fourth Quarter Kicks off with Continued Equilibrium A strong continuation of equilibrium-oriented trends mark the start of the fourth quarter, according to the realtor.com® National Housing Trend Report for September 2013. While key indicators show a relatively consistent pace with August figures, the year-over-year perspective...
2013-10-18
Consumers in U.S., Canada Will Demand More Credit Consumers' appetite for credit will continue to grow, according to the latest quarterly survey of U.S. and Canadian bank risk professionals. In a recent survey from FICO, a leading predictive analytics and decision management software company, 46 percent of respondents expect the...
2013-10-17
Market Cycles Influence Alternative Business Development Options Real estate and relocation professionals often expand business services by recognizing market trending and filling underserved needs in their market areas. By capitalizing and building on business models and skill sets already in place, each of the following individuals and their firms...
2013-10-17
Lower Limits Could Affect Markets In early September, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the entity that oversees Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, gave notice that it would revise the conforming loan limits in an attempt to stimulate the private sector, specifically the private mortgage securitization (PLS) market....
2013-10-17
Baby Boomers Right at Home in Empty Nests Think parents are depressed because the kids have left the nest? Think again.
Empty nesters are enjoying better social lives, traveling more frequently and have more financial freedom, according to a recent Del Webb Baby Boomer Survey from national homebuilder PulteGroup, Inc. The...
2013-10-17
August Construction Rises 2 Percent At a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $490.2 billion, new construction starts in August advanced 2 percent relative to July, according to McGraw Hill Construction, a division of McGraw Hill Financial. Residential building stayed on the upward track, and nonbuilding construction...
2013-09-24
Growing Companies Invest More in Their Mobile Workforce The 8th annual Runzheimer International® Total Employee Mobility® (TEM®) Benchmarking Report shows that companies with high revenue growth (greater than 10 percent) invested more in their mobile workforce than companies with little to no revenue growth. High growth...
2013-09-24
Defining the "Made-To-Order" Generation Today’s college students customize their own experiences across most aspects of life, and fully expect to do so moving forward. While past generations focused on "fitting in," today's 16-to-24 year-olds expect "made-to-order" solutions tailored to their...
2013-09-24
Significant ERC Survey Findings and the Impact on Your Relo Business We always look forward to Worldwide ERC’s annual effort to capture the macro trends in domestic employee mobility. Despite the challenges of capturing broad-based data in a time of fast-paced change, the “U.S. Transfer Volume and Cost Survey” nonetheless gives us our...
2013-09-24
Distressed Sales Continue to Fall, Confirm Market Strength Sales of distressed property continue to decline—from a high nationally of 49 percent in March of 2009 to 15 percent in July 2012 as reported in the most recent REALTORS® Confidence Index:...
2013-09-23
Branding Power: Can Brokers Compete with Portals? It’s no secret that the big real estate portals are on top of their branding game. With big advertising budgets, multichannel consumer branding campaigns, and ample, frequently updated content, you’d have to be living under a rock to be unfamiliar with players such as...
2013-09-23
5 Ways to Leverage Your Business Expertise Locally As the proprietor of your brokerage firm, your expertise not only applies to the daily operations of your business, but to the wider scope of finding success in the small-business sector as a whole. And in a bipolar economic landscape, there is tangible demand for individuals with...
2013-09-23
Are Dated Appraisals Holding Back the Recovery? Some of the most beaten down real estate markets are finally experiencing that long-awaited bounce back from the crash. Cash offers are yielding more sales. Pent-up demand is driving prices higher. But something’s missing.
Brokers in the faster markets such as Nevada, California...
2013-09-23
Consumer Spending Flat in July, but Housing Improves The Deloitte Consumer Spending Index remained flat in July as improvements in real housing prices and labor markets offset weakness in other areas. The Index tracks consumer cash flow as an indicator of future consumer spending.
"Real home prices continue to move higher from a...
2013-08-21
Critical Time for the Consumer Mortgage Choice Act With the August Congressional recess, we entered a critical period for key legislation including the Consumer Mortgage Choice Act, H.R. 1077 and its Senate Companion, S. 949 introduced in May by Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Mike Johanns (R-NE). Both of these bills fix the definition...
2013-08-21
Survey: Executives Expect Increased Availability of Credit for Remainder Of 2013 According to a recent survey by audit, tax and advisory firm KPMG LLP, executives believe the lending environment will continue to improve for businesses in 2013, with more than 60 percent anticipating that their businesses will be able to readily access credit throughout the remainder...
2013-08-21
Survey Says: Business Opportunities Abound for Relo Departments New business opportunities don’t always require new products and original services, but sometimes just a new approach. Some brokerage relocation departments are successfully re-directing expertise to reflect their local markets’ ever-changing needs by expanding, linking or...
2013-08-21
Market Insider: Regional Variations in Recovery The national housing data have been quite impressive this year. Existing-home sales were up 9.4 percent last year and are on track to match with similar increases this year. New-home sales are showing even better percentage gains, though off very low levels after having collapsed by...
2013-08-20
Your Web Presence: Why Responsive Design Falls Short While often ballyhooed as a panacea for the wide variety of computing screen sizes real estate professionals must accommodate online, one-size-fits all websites are actually a trade-off that often end up being more trouble than they're worth.
The problem: These “responsive...
2013-08-20
RE/MAX Leader: 'Prepare for the Boom in New-Home Sales' While RE/MAX Chairman of the Board and Co-founder Dave Liniger is famous for building one of the world’s largest and most successful real estate brands, he’s also renowned for his expertise in being ahead of the curve on key market trends. The next big wave in real estate,...