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

By Tara Steele for AGBeat In the recent American Dream Survey by real estate search giant Trulia, Chief Economist Dr. Jed Kolko notes that renewed optimism about housing is not without reason, but the pendulum may have swung too

By AGBeat It is well known that Google constantly grooms its algorithm to provide what it deems the most relevant search results possible in its endless quest to think like a human brain. In February 2011, a batch of

By Kathleen Cosner for AGBeat We have a new “industry standard” making an appearance for both appraisers and Realtors. Those of us who do work with appraisal management companies and complete Broker Price Opinions are being asked to submit

By Peter Ricci It’s the ever-present question on everyone’s mind, right up there with the meaning of life and the purpose of the Higgs Boson – what DO homebuyers want, in today’s real estate market? All kidding aside, it’s

Wells Fargo is shutting down its wholesale lending business as part of a broad settlement with the Justice Department for a discriminatory lending lawsuit. The San Francisco-based bank will also pay borrowers $125 million to settle claims and commit $50 million

The National Association of Home Builders/First American Improving Markets Index (IMI) expanded yet again last month, with the NAHB adding 11 more metros to the index, which now totals 84. A measure of improving economic conditions, the IMI now

By Peter Ricci It was seven years ago that ICANN, the nonprofit that oversees top-level domain names, announced it would allow new domain names in addition to .com, .net and .org, and this summer, it was revealed that the

After a few months of relative quiet, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) made considerable waves on Monday with its released of a 1,099-page rule detailing its new standards for mortgage disclosure forms. Intended to simplify the process for