Charlottesville People – Do you Care What the National Association of Realtors Say?
I know I'm a broken record. I get a tremendous amount of value from the National Association of Realtors - from their publications (On Common Ground is tremendous), to the lobbying they do to the information they share … but as far as home sales…
Lawrence Yun is Right (My take on the NAR’s Revisions)
“From a consumer's perspective, only the local market information matters and there are no changes to local multiple listing service (MLS) data or local supply-and-demand balance, or to local home prices,” Yun explained. (business insider) True. Ignore the NAR. Read local real estate analysis that…
Realtor.com’s App Rocks – So Say I & my Clients
Say you want to know what houses are for sale in a certain, undefined area around Crozet Park. I never thought I'd say such nice things about Realtor.com. I've written a few things about them over the years, and while I still have issues with…
HR 2413 – “Safe and Sound”: The Bill to Reform Fannie and Freddie?
We'll see. H.R. 2413, supported by the NAR, is billed as: To establish a sustainable Federal Secondary Market Facility for Residential Mortgages that is financed by private capital, to terminate the conservatorships of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and repeal the charter Acts of such…
Real Estate Data and Analysis is Local. And always will be
If you haven't been paying attention to the national real estate data world for the past week, you might have missed the National Association of Realtors responding to claims that it has been inflating housing sales. CNBC notes that: As for the Realtors' data, I…
Insight into the Home Buying and Selling Process
Part One of ... If I'm not researching how my potential buyer and seller clients are behaving, I'm not sufficiently doing or preparing for my job. As such, I have been digging into the NAR's Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers. Expertise is something you…
Home Buyer Tax Credit Closing Extension Has Life – H.R. 5623
The Home Buyer Tax Credit Closing Extension has life. Maybe? In a 409-5 vote, House lawmakers have passed a standalone bill that would extend for three months Wednesday's deadline for closing on a home purchase in order to claim the federal homebuyer tax credit. From…
So … Has the Tax Credit Closing Deadline Been Extended? Maybe.
If only passing a bill into law was this simple ... Update #3 24 June 2010: Still no progress on the bill. It's still stalled. Our representatives will try again ... "after the July 4 recess." Well, gosh, that's helpful, seeing as how the tax…
Realtor Alphabet Soup – Valuable?
GRI, ABR, CRS, EPRO, SRES, ALC, GAA, SIOR, RSPS ... The above are some of the many designations Realtors can earn (with the accompanying annual fees) ... the education provided by the courses can be valuable, but cluttering up a business card? Why? Consumers…
I’m an Associate Broker in Virginia. So What?
It's been just over eight years since I received my Commonwealth of Virginia real estate license. So now I'm an Associate Broker. No longer "just a Realtor" (and yes, brokers would look at me with disdain when I would say that I was not a…