Improving Your Business

Stories, articles and advice aimed at improving your business

6 Important Facts about First-Time Homebuyers

First-time homebuyers continue to lose market share in today’s housing market First-time homebuyer share has dropped to its lowest level in 27 years, with just 32 percent of all existing-home sales going to first-time buyers in 2015. That was one

4 Eye-Opening Trends in How Americans Use Technology

What forms of technology are most popular with American adults? Sixty-eight percent of U.S. adults now own a smartphone, up from 35 percent in 2011. Tablet ownership has soared to 45 percent. And in the last 11 years, cell phone

Millennials Will Give Up Urban Living – With Conditions

What will it take for Millennials to leave urban areas? The incentives must be strong, a new survey finds For Millennials, the name of the housing game is “space” – and not just any space, but rather, space with a

Don’t Hold Your Breath for Any Fannie/Freddie Reforms

Will Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac ever change? Investors and housing advocates alike have anxiously awaited government plans to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but recent comments by Obama administration officials indicate they’ll have to wait a bit longer.

Is Twitter Planning to Remove its 140-Character Limit?

Character limit removal a way to make the platform more accessible In an effort to appeal to a wider audience, Twitter may alter the maximum character length for tweets or remove it entirely, according to a report on Recode.net. Although

Wire Fraud Scammers Target Real Estate Agents, Clients

Resurgence of wire fraud scams alarms NAR Wire fraud, or fraud using telecommunications technology, is on the rise in real estate transactions, according to a new report in the Washington Post. The scam works like this: hackers gain access to either

China’s Economic Strife May Be America’s Gain Says AREAA Chair

China is currently steeped in economic turmoil, and its tumbling stock prices and overinflated real estate market have industry professionals asking the question: How will this affect the U.S. real estate market? The answer has major implications for agents, brokerages

New Agent Safety App ‘BEVscore’ Honors Beverly Carter

In honor of deceased real estate agent Beverly Carter, a Web developer is set to release BEVscore, a new safety app that locates and monitors peoples’ whereabouts. Carter was a real estate agent who was murdered last year after showing

Does a Fed Rate Increase Doom Housing?

Today, the Federal Reserve has its September meeting, where it could potentially decide to increase interest rates for the first time since 2008. The CME FedWatch Tool measures the market’s expectation of Fed target rates. Currently, the market-estimated probability

4 Important Trends in Homebuying in 2015

Millennials and technology are two of the big trends in housing this year In a Redfin-commissioned survey of 2,134 people who bought or sold a home in the past two years,  Surveymonkey revealed some interesting trends about the real estate industry. Here are the

Fannie Mae Announces HomeReady Affordability Program

Plan revamps mortgage program to better benefit borrowers’ needs People with low to moderate income are gaining a boost when it comes to getting a mortgage. In an effort to better suit borrower needs, Fannie Mae has announced they

Zillow Group Declares Pending Sale of Market Leader to Perseus Software

Zillow Group has announced the pending sale of Market Leader to the Perseus Division of Constellation Software, Inc., (an international provider of software and services), for $23 million U.S. dollars. The deal is expected to close in the fourth

Home Energy App Offers Homeowners a Way to Save

On Wednesday Sept. 9, Energy Datametrics, a software and technology services provider of energy efficient management programs, introduced their new do-it-yourself energy evaluation app, Homeselfe, which is available for free on both the App Store on iOS, and Google

realtor.com Unveils New Metrics Report…for Free

A few months back, Zillow Group, the new conglomerate of Zillow and Trulia, rolled out a new feature that allowed brokers to review a variety of listing metrics through its Zillow Data Dashboard, from impressions to total listing views.

The 5 Facets of Cellphone Etiquette

Ever-present cellphones create new social habits – and opinions on them It’s virtually impossible to go anywhere without seeing someone on their cellphone, whether they’re talking, texting, answering emails, using apps or social media, or listening to music. Cellphones

Feng Shui Plays Huge Role in Home Selection for Chinese-Americans

Feng shui, the ancient philosophy on harmonizing one’s home, plays a huge factor on whether many Chinese-Americans buy homes, according to a new survey from The Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate and the Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA).

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