Industry

Industry news including trends, finance and people.

By Kat Kestler • October 7th, 2009

Ray Gronowski has been named Senior Vice President of Sales & Partnerships at Listingbook. In his role, Gronowski will focus on the growth of broker partnerships, increased agent awareness of Listingbook services and greater adoption. He will also focus on building a sales force to accomplish these goals.

Check out the fantastic article from Sunday’s NYT entitled “Brokers Enrich Their Web Tactics.”

If a mortgage lender gives you an answer to this without asking you any questions, say thank you, hang up and call someone else.

Why? Because in today’s world there is no such thing as “today’s interest rate”.

NPR reports on the largely unused Hope for Homeowners program, part of last summer’s housing bill that was meant to address the crisis in mortgage foreclosures.

High loan and interest fees, tough restrictions for consumers and costs to lenders are some of the reasons why the program has not caught on.

AJC.com: Millard Fuller, the visionary Christian with a single-minded, some say stubborn, focus that resulted in more than 300,000 houses built for the poor, died unexpectedly Monday night.

The Triad Business Index for November 2008 was unchanged over the previous month, but over the past 12 months, the TBI was up 2.4 percent.
Some of the highlights of the November report:

Residential building permits, which reflect planned construction, were off 8.4 percent

Existing, single-family homes sold in the Triad totaled 1,719 in the 4th quarter (seasonally [...]

With the economy wobbling and troops amassing and terrorism in the back of our minds, we’d all like a little inspiration heading into ‘09, right?

This YouTube video delivers 40 inspirational speeches in 2 minutes.

Some of the least likely people succeed in real estate.

As a manager and broker interviewing potential agents, it was always a challenge trying to figure out those that would be stars, those that would just make it and those that would fail. Experience tells me that an agent’s success or failure is not usually based on one strength or weakness.

The Fed made a historic and agressive move on Tuesday, when it cut the federal funds rate from 1% to a range of 0% to 0.25%. The federal funds rate is the rate banks charge one another for overnight loans.

What this means for the consumer is that loans based on the prime rate, such as car loans, credit cards, and student loans, should also follow a similar path, making it more attractive for consumers to borrow.

The Pew Center on the States has released a report saying that states are ramping up their response to the housing crisis.

According to the report: 1 in 33 homeowners is projected to experience foreclosure in the next two years as a result of sub-prime loans from 2-3 years ago.