Angelic behavior for a few months won’t erase past poor decisionsKey Takeaways To improve credit scores, clients should pay more than the minimum payment, close unneeded accounts, make payments on time and start using cash more.How many buyers have you met who walk in your door with a rotten credit rating and confidently promise to fix things up before they apply for a mortgage?That’s never a good sign, even in times like these when first-tim
If you’re not gaining traction, you need to identify the reasons that are hindering your successKey Takeaways Focus your time and efforts on action that drives leads, leverage your relationships to help prospects in other ways besides finding or selling a home, and be of service.How do you get listings to grow your real estate business?Real estate agents are some of the busiest people you’ll ever meet. But the results often don’t match the
Home prices aren’t on the rise everywhere. In some cities, buyers have actually seen prices drop in recent months. Though the national median price for an existing single-family home reached a record high in the second quarter, a handful of metros saw the local median price decrease from a year ago, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. The 10 metros to post the largest year-over-year declines in median home prices are:1. Sprin
Lending firm 360 Mortgage Group has announced a new platform it claims will allow customers to receive approval for a loan in just 15 minutes and cuts down the closing process to as few as eight days. The company’s NOLO platform—which stands for No Originating Loan Officer—lets customers complete the mortgage lending process entirely online without ever having to speak to a loan officer. Because the program has advanced data mining capabili
While the overall market for new homes is poised to expand, townhome construction is slowing down. Townhouse starts totaled 94,000 over the last four quarters, 5 percent lower than the previous four-quarter period, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Townhouses—or single-family attached housing—comprised 25,000 starts during the second quarter of this year alone, which is 14 percent lower than a year ago.The market share o
About 15 percent of people ages 25 to 35 were living with their parents in 2016, according to Pew Research data. Many millennials came of age during the last recession, “so it’s taking them longer to financially recover,” says Jason Dorsey, president of the Center for Generational Kinetics, a research firm in Austin, Texas. “They had a tough job market from the start, and there’s been quite a lot of wage stagnation. … It’s more soci
Open floor plans, which typically combine the kitchen, living room, and dining room in one large, open area, have dominated home design trends in recent years. But now, buyers may be starting to shun this type of layout, The Wall Street Journal reports.“While [the open floor plan] was successful in allowing multiple generations to congregate, it also led to consolidated visual chaos,” New York-based designer Phillip Thomas told the Journal
Mortgage giant Freddie Mac has announced a new program allowing some home buyers to skip a traditional appraisal, which could lower the fees the buyers pay and speed up the closing process. Freddie’s Automated Collateral Evaluation (or ACE) will determine a property’s collateral risk by culling data from multiple listing services, public records, and historical home values, and then assess whether a buyer needs a traditional appraisal or an a
The boom in prices will impact middle-class families whose income can't keep paceSince 2014, the U.S. has gained 346 new $1 million neighborhoods, which can be a good thing — or a not-so-good thing, depending on how you look at it.According to Zillow, nearly one in 20 residential ZIP codes fall into this category because 10 percent of the homes in the area are worth $1 million or more.On one hand, the upshot of highly valued homes is due to t
Those words: “Can my buyers back out of a house if they don’t like it?” shouldn’t be uttered. Peter Lorimer of PLG Estatesdelves into why.There has to be a real reason for buyers to back out other than, they don’t like it.New real estate agents: If your buyers do want to back out for whatever reason, don’t say that they changed their minds.If buyers change their mind, there has to be a legitimate reason to back out of a deal, so it m
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