March 26th, 2009 by roostblog in Features
Roost is strutting its stuff this week at the 2009 Annual Conference for Leading Real Estate Companies of the World (LeadingRE) which is being held at The Westin Kierland Resort & Spa in Scottsdale, AZ.
LeadingRE is a global network of nearly 700 premier real estate firms with 5,500 offices and 170,000 sales associates in 38 countries around the world.
Collectively, this group sold more than 1.2 million homes worth $370 billion in 2007, more than any national real estate brand. LeadingRE [...]
The national unemployment rate rose to 8.1 percent as employers cut an additional 651,000 jobs in February. This is the highest unemployment rate that this nation has seen since late 1983. There have been almost 2 million jobs lost in the last three months alone.
The figures were far worse than analysts had expected and unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any upside coming in the next several months. So how is the high unemployment rate going to affect real estate?
Previously [...]
So the Obama administration is doing everything in its power to try and save your home. Really? They launched the “Making Home Affordable” or “Home Affordable Modification “initiative today and if you have nothing better to do, you can read the 17 pages of Government speak at:
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/modification_program_guidelines.pdf
For those of you looking for some of the high-level highlights so you can move on with your day, here they are:
Eligibility Requirements
Origination Date of Loan Subject to Modification:
The mortgage to be [...]
February 25th, 2009 by roostblog in Features, General, Reaction
So like everyone else, I’m pretty sick and tired of all the constant negative talk about the real estate industry that the media seems to spew on us on almost a daily basis. It really gets to me when they make huge sweeping generalizations about the real estate market across the nation. So with the help of some of my close real estate friends, I thought I would provide a glimpse into some local markets to see how the “feet [...]
February 19th, 2009 by roostblog in Features
So the more I think about the Stimulus Bill in regards to home buyers, the more I think of the chicken and the egg.
On the one hand I think it’s awesome that new home buyers have a pretty significant tax credit that will hopefully encourage them to seriously look at buying a home. But on the other hand, they still have to be able to purchase the home and to say that is easy is probably the understatement of the [...]
February 17th, 2009 by roostblog in Features, General, Reaction
The stimulus bill, formally named the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009″ is broken up into several initiatives. However, we’re interested in how this will impact the housing industry specifically.
There’s an additional benefit for some homebuyers in the bill awaiting President Obama’s signature. First-time buyers can claim a credit worth $8,000 - or 10% of the home’s value, whichever is less - on their 2008 or 2009 taxes.
First-time buyers include people who have never owned a home before as [...]
February 11th, 2009 by roostblog in Features, General, Reaction, Real Estate Marketing
So you’ve had to have been sleeping under a rock for the past couple of years to not have heard the decline in the real estate market. Prices are plummeting. Volume is way down. Agents are getting out of the business. Brokerages are downsizing or closing.
But with any down economy or industry, there are opportunities abound if you just play your cards right. A lot of brokerages are taking a “wait and see” approach to the market and their business. [...]
February 5th, 2009 by roostblog in Features
What does it say about a real estate market when there are more square feet tied up in various states of foreclosure than there are currently available for sale?
For one thing it says that times are tough and these towns need some real help!
We muscled through a large number of public sources of information and found well over one thousand towns/cities across the US are in this situation. And from that group, we identified the following 10 cities and towns [...]
January 15th, 2009 by roostblog in Announcement, Features, General, Real Estate Marketing
It has been a rough couple of years in the real estate industry but there are plenty of brokerages that are still kicking and doing business. Now the landscape has definitely changed but brokerages that are not only surviving but thriving in this less than stellar real estate environment have one thing in common…they get it.
Take River City Real Estate for example. A three-office brokerage on the outskirts of Saint Louis would probably not be the type of brokerage you [...]
January 13th, 2009 by roostblog in Features
I had the pleasure of meeting Adolfo Foronda on Seesmic last year. I thought he was a great guy with a witty sense of humor. Little did I know, he lived a second life as the Nerd Stalker. While hanging out at one of the latest Mashable Monthly soirees, I had the opportunity to sit down with the Nerd Stalker to tell him a little about Roost. Click here to see the short interview.
