The Birth Of A Real Estate Company
San Francisco -- At 8:30am PDT, Better Homes & Gardens Real Estate officially opened its doors. The company, which is part of the Realogy group in Parsippany, NJ, has licensed the BHG name from Meredith (publisher of Better Homes & Gardens Magazine) for 50 years, with a 50-year option to renew.
Led…
www.thinkglink.com/uploaded_images/Foreclosure-sign-766973.jpg
"The damage has been as bad as anyone imagined so far," writes Demos senior fellow James Lardner. "Foreclosures, after roughly doubling in the past year, are running at a rate of close to 25,000 a week. That's an alarming figure in…
Check out this video on how to stage your kitchen. For more staging videos, check out ExpertRealEstateTips.Net or ThinkGlink.com.
www.youtube.com/v/Z0WZS_9mt84&hl
June 7, 2008.
Good Morning America Weekend Edition
I'm supposed to be taped on Saturday for Good Morning America's weekend edition. It's a real estate-related piece, and I'll let you know if they turn up.
It's been a lot of fun working with the GMA producing team the last few days. It's a doozy of a story. Hope you can tune in.
June 5, 2008.
Looking For Information On Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs)?
The National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT) has relaunched its website.
"Whether you're an investor, real estate professional, reporter, policy-maker or anyone else interested in REITs and real estate investment, www.reit.com provides the information you want most," said Steven…
New home sales rose 3.3 percent in April, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
That's an annual pace of 526,000, increasing from a pace of 509,000 the month before. The March rate was the lowest in 17 years.
Still new home sales declined 42 percent from April 2007, the biggest year over year…
Boy, am I mad. My nearly-new grill that I bought not even a year ago at Costco, has literally fallen apart. The gas line has completely disintegrated in two place (I'll post a photo of this later). So, grilling is completely out of the question. When we called the manufacturer, they offered us a…
Selling A Home? Chances Are You're Looking Online
I'm at the National Association of Real Estate Editors meeting in downtown Dallas. We're at a lovely hotel/condo called The Magnolia, which is a building that used to be owned by Mobil Oil. There's a huge red Pegasus at the top of the building. In fact, right now I'm sitting in a ballroom called the…
$10,000 Scholarship For Women Who Study Real Estate
With all the bad news about student loans and real estate lately, it may be hard to see a light at the end of the tunnel sometimes.
But here's a bright spot.
The Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) Network just announced a scholarship program. They're offering up to 10 scholarships of $10,000 each for…
How Do You Feel About Buying A Foreclosure?
Who's your average foreclosure buyer? A single man under age 35, if you put together a composite of characteristics revealed by a recent survey. Trulia.com, a residential real estate search engine, commissioned Harris Interactive to poll people about how they feel about foreclosures. More than 2,000…
Foreclosures Increase Almost 60 Percent in a Year
RealtyTrac, the leading online marketplace for foreclosed properties, announced this morning that the number of foreclosures nationwide in March 2008 rose 57 percent since March 2007. The numbers jumped 5 percent from February to March this year. The top 10 states for foreclosures were Nevada…
Hear Ilyce on NPR's Marketplace Money
National Public Radio's Dan Grech interviewed Ilyce this past Friday about how relisting real estate works and what it means.
To hear the clip go here: http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/04/04/rewinding_real_estate/
Published: Apr 8, 2008
What's The Top Real Estate Web Site?
ForSaleByOwner.com recently announced that it's the most visited real estate Web site, in terms of unique visitors. In February 591,000 unique visitors checked out the site according to comScore Inc. These days home buyers and sellers look to save as much as they can and one way to save is to reduce…
People Continue To Buy Second Homes
It seems like every month we hear more news of how the real estate market keeps deteriorating. Developers build fewer homes. Home buyers refrain from buying.
The market for investment homes and second homes does not appear to be suffering quite as much. It remained relatively consistent last year as…
Today's BusinessWeek.com Column On Higher Commissions
This is a response to an article that ran today on BusinessWeek.com and MSN Money: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Banking/HomebuyingGuide/PayMoreToSellAHomeFaster.aspx
"From: Janel Dated: 3/27/2008 I have been a Realtor since 1983. I started in Colorado and now sell in NC, my policy for my…
Editing Errors Sometimes Happen
I got an email from a reader in North Carolina, wondering if I intended to say that 2008 would be a strong seller's market.
I couldn't even imagine what kind of story I would write that someone would get that impression. When I took a look at the story online and compared it with what I had written…
I'm Thinking About My Friend, Bob Bruss
Bob Bruss passed away this week, on Wednesday. If you're a regular reader of your local real estate section, you probably have read Bob's work many times.
Bob was one of the great real estate writers, using his experiences as a real estate attorney, property investor, teacher and real estate broker…
Lehman Brothers announced today that it was shutting down BNC Mortgage, the subprime mortgage company that it bought in 2004. A note on the BNC Mortgage site says that the company will be honoring all of its loan commitments -- so don't panic yet. Lehman says it will lay off 1,200 people. That's in…
Notes from Yesterday's Ilyce Glink Show
Bob wrote:
I was driving to the airport this morning and heard your broadcast replay at 4:30.I hear you mention a web site where you could have your home place on MLS without a charge. I did not have a pen or paper to write this down and I woulod apprecaite if you would send me the name of the web…
I'm in Los Angeles, attending the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (www.sabew.org, SABEW) annual conference. Since we're staying at the Disneyland Hotel, in Anaheim, Walt Disney Company President Bob Iger came to speak to us this morning about where Disney is headed and how he sees…
Sixteen months ago, I spent some time in Southern California for business. I stayed with my friend Wendy, television producer extraordinare, who lives in Sherman Oaks. We walked all over Sherman Oaks, and she showed me how teardowns were selling in a moment. She was considering selling her house…
Over the past few years, the green buzz has been growing. More home buyers are concerned with how builders are putting up homes, and how "green" they are.
Building a "green" house means focusing on sustainable design and construction. In other words, being as energy self-sufficient as possible while…
9 Things You Should Ask Your Listing Agent
I wrote a story last week about some things you should ask your listing agent before you hire them. Here's the link to the story, in case you missed it: www.thinkglink.com/Nine_Thing_You_Should_Ask_Your_Agent.htm
The story has generated a fair amount of email from brokers, some of which I'll include…
David Crook's Book On Investing In Real Estate
If you're looking for some reading material, check out the Wall Street Journal Complete Real Estate Investing Guidebook (Three Rivers Press, 2006). Buy it online for less at www.amazon.com.
Dec. 29, 2006
Comment From Today's Show: Quit Claim Deed
I received a call asking me to explain the uses of a quit claim deed. I said that, generally speaking, a quit claim deed transfers whatever ownership interest you have in a property to someone else.
For example, if I gave you a quit claim deed for the Brooklyn Bridge, I would transfer any ownership…
