By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
In July 2008, in the heat of the presidential election, McCain campaign advisor and former U.S. Senator Phil Gramm caused some controversy when he seemingly characterized the United States as “a nation of whiners” who were plagued by a “mental recession.” In other words, the economic problems of the time were all in people’s minds.
Events since then would appear to controvert Gramm’s argument. The economic troubles manifesting themselves at the time—including considerable overleveraging among major banks, increasing unemployment, and rising mortgage defaults—were not just figments of our collective imaginations.
However, in spite of his flawed analysis, Gramm may have been on to something with his concept of a mental recession. In fact, we may be heading into one right now. Continue reading »
By Robert Freedman, senior editor, REALTOR® Magazine
What are the chances of getting the first-time home buyer tax credit extended, particularly before its expiration Dec. 1? No one can know that, of course, but what’s clear is that the leadership in Congress wants it extended—and if you have the leadership on board, you’re in a strong position. Yet with health care reform consuming Congress’ attention, even the leadership faces a challenge ensuring the tax credit gets the consideration it deserves.
After sitting down with Linda Goold, NAR’s director of tax policy, and Samuel Whitfield, an NAR legislative representative, I learned the tax credit has really been the economic recovery’s workhorse. The IRS says 1.4 million households have used the credit. What’s more, a number of independent looks at the credit, including one by Economy.com (owned by Moody’s) and Campbell Surveys, estimate that between 350,000 and 400,000 home purchases would not have happened without the credit. NAR has come up with a similar estimate.
Goold and Whitfield say there’s bipartisan support for extension, and NAR is on Capitol Hill daily reminding lawmakers that the clock is running. But it’s coming down to the wire.
By Katherine Tarbox, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
In February 2009, REALTOR® Magazine launched the Masters Series, a video diary of top-producing practitioners, who represent expertise in a certain field within real estate. We traveled all over the country to meet some of the best real estate pros, followed them around for a day, and learned their trade secrets.
We’re planning for the 2010 series and we want to hear from you. Next year the video will focus on mastering certain aspects of the business: staging, prospecting, negotiating, and more. Continue reading »
By Robert Freedman, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
Today, with the financial crisis still very much with us, it would be a hard sell for federal banking companies to get the go-ahead to own real estate brokerages and property management companies. It’s safe to say that the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury Department would take a hard look at whether the business lines of federally chartered banking companies should extend so far into the commercial sector like that.
NAR Past President Martin Edwards, Jr., thanks Reps. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) and Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) on Wednesday at NAR headquarters in Washington, D.C. Calvert is to the immediate left of Edwards (back to camera) and Kanjorski is to Calvert's left.
But eight years ago, when banks sought to get the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve to let them do that, they came just shy of succeeding. What stopped them was the action of a few determined members of Congress. Continue reading »
By Mariwyn Evans, Commercial Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
If you think you have a good nose for where the next new area of development or redevelopment will be in your market, we want to hear from you. Contact Mariwyn Evans at mevans@realtors.org by Sept. 25. Also, take our poll on good signs of future growth in an area.
By Erica Christoffer, Contributing Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
Several bits of news have popped up in the past week, reminding us just how significant real estate Web sites have become in today’s market and in today’s online culture.
Last Friday, Time Magazine released a list ranking the 50 Best Web Sites of 2009. Several real estate-related sites made the cut.
This, coupled with recent findings published by the Nielsen Company that shows traffic to the top U.S. real estate Web sites is up, points to the continued growing interest in real estate on the Web. Continue reading »
By Katherine Tarbox, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
In 1999, former REALTOR® magazine Senior Editor Robert Sharoff gave birth to the idea of showcasing talented real estate pros under the age of 30. Thousands of applications and hundreds of profiles later, the 30 Under 30 program is thriving.
The 2010 edition will mark the 10th anniversary for this feature. And today, REALTOR® Magazine will begin accepting applications for this program. Continue reading »
By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
One of the most interesting and original thinkers of the 20th century may have been a colonel in the U.S. Air Force that few people have heard of. John Boyd, a former fighter pilot who transformed into a military strategist later in his career, was a colorful and cantankerous interlocutor and a thorn in the side of many high-level, careerist officers who worked in the Pentagon. But he was also indisputably brilliant, and a major influence on several subsequent figures, such as current Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
Boyd’s rich body of work is too complex to go over in a single blog post, and not all of it can be directly tied to real estate. However, I think one of his more succinct maxims is worth sharing here: Continue reading »
By Robert Freedman, Senior Editor, REALTOR® magazine
Hopefully you don’t consider it a mark against buyers if they want to use FHA financing. It’s true it typically takes longer to process FHA-backed financing than it does conventional loan applications, but with the challenging credit environment, for a big chunk of your potential clientele the only financing available to them is FHA. What’s more, these days it’s taking longer to get conventional financing applications processed, so the time gap between the two has narrowed considerably.
Yet here in NAR we continue to hear that sellers—and some sales associates—are discouraging FHA borrowers from making offers on homes in the outdated belief that FHA is significantly slower and more paper-intensive than conventional financing.
Not true, says NAR Senior Policy Analyst Megan Booth. While it’s the case FHA still requires borrowers to jump through some hoops that don’t apply to conventional borrowers, the agency has undergone a sea-change in the last several years in the way it does business. Continue reading »
The Week in Quotes
By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine
With the nation’s focus on rising unemployment, an uncertain economic recovery, and health care reform, here are some of the more salient quotes from leading figures this week:
“It is hard to escape the conclusion that the Fed may need to maintain fairly low interest rates over a period of many years … If you want to bring down leverage, you should keep monetary policy sufficiently accommodative to forestall a collapse in spending and a deflationary spiral.”
- Goldman Sachs economists Peter Berezin and Alex Kelston, commenting in a report released this week Continue reading »