By Stephanie Sims HousingWire reported today that refinance activity has hit a three-year high, and mortgage applications increased 2 percent from last week, the highest levels since April of 2009. When Facebook founder and one of the world’s wealthiest

By Peter Ricci Pending home sales rose year-over-year for the 14th consecutive month in June, according to the latest Pending Home Sales Index from the National Association of Realtors. A forward-looking index based on contract signings, the Pending Home Sales

By Peter Ricci New residential single-family home sales were up 15.1 percent in June year-over-year, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The increase comes a week after existing-home sales rose 7.9 percent from the year

By Peter Ricci Every week, it seems new analysts and business firms jump on the housing recovery bandwagon, calling the bottom for the embattled industry and looking forward to a brighter future. As housing moves forward, though, there are

Zillow joined the fray of optimism that has swept over real estate analysis the past few weeks with its latest Real Estate Market Report, stating that not only did housing values bottom in February of this year, but they

By Peter Ricci As everyone has probably heard by now, existing-home sales were a bit tepid in June, falling 5.4 percent from May according to the latest data from the National Association of Realtors. The reason for the decline

By Peter Ricci It’s no mystery to anyone that follows the U.S. real estate market that foreign buyers are a major force. In the last year alone, international residential sales were $82.5 billion, a 24 percent increase from the

By Stephanie Sims With its recent announcement that it would stop wholesale lending, Wells Fargo has yet another announcement: the company will also start cutting its Realtor joint ventures that engage in mortgage banking activities due to regulation changes.

Existing-home sale price for all housing types rose 7.9 percent year-over-year in June in the National Association of Realtors’ latest housing report. It’s the fourth straight month of yearly price increases, a streak that has not occurred since 2006.

By Peter Ricci Nearly six in 10 respondents to the latest Real Estate Buyer’s Agent Council (REBAC) survey reported higher buyer interest in 2012, a 34 percent increase from 2011 and one of the strongest signifiers yet of greater

By Peter Ricci The presidential campaign season is one rife with rumors and myths, and during 2008, President Obama was the center of quite a few of them – that he was a Muslim, that he was sworn in

By Peter Ricci The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) posted notable gains in July, rising six points to its highest level since March of 2007. The six-point increase is the largest one-month gain for

By Peter Ricci A bold, informative and fun Internet presence is practically a give-in for agents in today’s IT-driven economy, and WordPress offers a fun, relatively simple way for agents to set up their own personal websites or blogs. However,

By Peter Ricci Libor, or the London interbank offered rate, has been a constant fixture in the news cycles the last couple of weeks, with each story weighing more importance on the oddly-named term. Very little has been said,

By Peter Ricci You know the message is good when even the Wall Street Journal reports it – real estate in the U.S. has been doing pretty good in 2012. Recent government reports were notable for their optimistic tone, home values

By Lani Rosales for AGBeat Visual social media has been the big hit of 2012, with visual bookmarking site Pinterest leading the way alongside photo sharing tool Instagram. New data from Shareaholic reveals that referral traffic from Pinterest still