Sat.Feb 06, 2021 - Fri.Feb 12, 2021

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Inside United Wholesale Mortgage’s plan to topple Rocket

Housing Wire

Weeks before United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) went public in a SPAC deal that valued the lender at $16.1 billion, its president and CEO Mat Ishbia said observers shouldn’t expect a different United Wholesale Mortgage or a different Mat. He proved it in his first earnings call. On Thursday morning, Ishbia, in his characteristic fast-talking bravado, bragged about the wholesaler’s position as the biggest purchase lender in the market, cautioned that they’ve prioritized the long ga

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3 Reasons We’re Definitely Not in a Housing Bubble

Keeping Current Matters

Home values appreciated by about ten percent in 2020, and they’re forecast to appreciate by about five percent this year. This has some voicing concern that we may be in another housing bubble like the one we experienced a little over a decade ago. Here are three reasons why this market is totally different. 1. This time, housing supply is extremely limited.

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Should You Buy a Home or Keep Renting? How To Decide in 7 Steps

Realtor.com

marchmeena29/Getty Images It’s a big question with no easy answer: Should you keep renting, or is it time to think about buying a home? One of the major benefits of being a homeowner is building equity with each mortgage payment, instead of putting money into your landlord’s pocket. But that doesn’t mean buying is always the best choice—as a renter, you enjoy more flexibility and avoid many of the costs that come with homeownership.

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Toronto Detached Homes Prices Increased $32,500 Just Last Month, While Condos Stall

Better Dwelling

Greater Toronto real estate entered another cheap credit fueled buying frenzy. Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) data shows home prices made a sharp increase in January. The market frenzy wasn’t evenly distributed though, with the suburbs outperforming the city. Detached real estate also saw most gains, making astronomical price increases.

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3 Real Estate Office Hacks to Help Kickstart the Busy Season

Ready to better your Back Office? Dive into the secrets to a powerhouse back office with Brokermint expert, Jessica Souza. In this free download, she shares her 3 transformative hacks designed to clean house, get everyone on the same page, and set yourself up for success. From optimizing agent profiles to ensuring flawless transactions and boosting agent retention, these strategies are your ticket to a seamless operation.

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The last stand for forbearance housing market crash bros?

Housing Wire

In 2021, a lingering symptom of the economic sickness we suffered in 2020 is forbearance. Not the forbearance plans themselves, which allowed mortgage holders to delay their payments for many months, but the fact that 2.72 million homes remain in forbearance and can therefore be considered at risk. Forbearance will have to end at some point, and when it does, couldn’t all these homes flood the housing market at once, driving prices down and scaring would-be homeowners away from purchasing?

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The Luxury Market Is Attracting Buyers in 2021

Keeping Current Matters

As more people continue to identify their changing needs this year, some are turning to the upscale housing sector for more space or finer features. In their most recent Luxury Market Report , the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing (ILHM) shares: “In a snapshot of 2020, despite the devasting effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the luxury real estate market has seen one of its strongest years since 2008.

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Advice For Selling a Home Quickly

Realty Biz

How to Sell a Home Fast. Do you want to sell your home quickly? There can be many different reasons as to why you would want to sell a home fast. Perhaps you’re in the process of building your own home, and you need the extra funds to cover construction costs, or you’re just desperate to sell the house fast so you can move somewhere else you’ve always wanted to be.

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It’s still really difficult to get a mortgage, but getting easier

Housing Wire

Mortgage credit is still the tightest it has been in more than six years, but steady loosening in January revealed lenders are preparing for a rebounding economy, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in a report on Tuesday. The group’s Mortgage Credit Availability Index rose 2% to 124.6 last month, still hovering near levels previously seen in 2014, though it is the third month in the past four that credit availability has picked up as supply eases out.

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6 Foundational Benefits of Homeownership Today

Keeping Current Matters

Over the past year, our homes have become an integral part of our lives more than ever. They’re much more than the houses we live in. They’re our workplaces, virtual schools, and safe havens that provide shelter, stability, and protection through the evolving health crisis. Today, 65.8% of Americans are fortunate enough to call their homes their own.

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Over Two-Thirds of Toronto Real Estate Investors Plan On Listing Properties For Sale

Better Dwelling

The majority of Toronto’s real estate investors are looking to cash in. A Toronto Regional Real Estate Board (TRREB) survey, conducted by Ipsos in Fall 2020, shows most investors are looking to sell in the next year. This is a record number considering cashing in on their gains. It’s not just the pandemic though, only […]. The post Over Two-Thirds of Toronto Real Estate Investors Plan On Listing Properties For Sale appeared first on Better Dwelling.

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Need Curated Pre-foreclosure Lists to Generate New Real Estate Leads? Trellis Has the Data!

Trellis is a state trial court research and analytics platform that provides Real Estate Professionals (Buyers, Foreclosure, Loan Modification, etc.) with LEADS on Pre-Foreclosures, Lis Pendes, Distressed Assets and more — to help uncover **new** opportunities and grow their business. The process is quick and easy — and all in real time. Trellis will supply you with a link to the relevant dockets, a Leads sheet and access to its UI where applicable.

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DIY Expert Advice: How to Update Your Chair Cushions

Homes.com

If you've got tired or faded dining chair cushions, this DIY tutorial is for you! Update your chair cushions with these easy, step-by-step instructions and say hello to a brand-new space! The post DIY Expert Advice: How to Update Your Chair Cushions appeared first on Homes.com.

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Zillow to buy ShowingTime for $500M

Housing Wire

Zillow entered a new corner of real estate Wednesday, announcing a definitive agreement to buy ShowingTime for $500 million. The splashy buy further situates Zillow as more than a website with pictures of homes for sale, but a competitor to real estate brokerages. The Seattle-based company announced in September Zillow Homes, a traditional brokerage business, hiring agents in Phoenix, Tuscon, and Atlanta.

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47% of New Buyers Surprised by How Affordable Homes Are Today

Keeping Current Matters

Headlines matter. Right now, it’s hard to read about real estate without seeing a headline that suggests homes have become unaffordable for most Americans. In reality, there’s hard evidence that shows how owning a home is more affordable than renting in most parts of the country, as record-low interest rates are keeping monthly mortgage payments about 23% lower than the typical payment of 20 years ago.

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Canadian Unemployment Is 55% Higher Than G7 Average: OECD

Better Dwelling

Canada’s “economy” is recovering faster than expected, but employment is lagging. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a group promoting trade between 37 advanced economies, published the latest unemployment rates for member countries. The data shows Canada is significantly behind its G7 peers, with only a few OECD countries worse off.

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Accelerating Real Estate Sales Pipelines to Streamline Buyer Journeys

Navigated 360° tours, like YourVRTours, advance pipelines by engaging clients further along the sales funnel. These immersive experiences provide comprehensive property insights, increasing buyer intent and readiness. By embracing navigated tours, agents can optimize property exposure, better qualify leads, and streamline the sales process. Stay ahead in the ever-evolving real estate landscape with innovative technology that elevates buyer journeys and progresses pipelines more effectively.

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Did You Skip Mortgage Payments Last Year? Here’s What That Means for Your Taxes

Realtor.com

Getty Images Amid the economic turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic, millions of Americans opted to pause their monthly mortgage payments. That choice could have implications for their taxes this year — and in years to come. In March, as COVID-19 began to wreak havoc on the job market and caused millions of Americans to lose their jobs as businesses shuttered, federal lawmakers and regulators took the extraordinary step of extending forbearance to mortgage borrowers.

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Inside Compass’s colorful past and publicly traded future

Housing Wire

Real estate brokers are a chatty bunch, but a few can be draining socially. Discuss the weather, how your pets are handling the pandemic, even the housing market, but these brokers will steer the conversation to one subject, and one subject alone – the residential real estate brokerage Compass. Compass – the broker will lament – puffs itself up as a “tech” company, but it’s really just another brokerage.

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The Best Advice for Selling a Home

Point2Homes

Image: Andy Dean Photography / Shutterstock.com. Do you want to sell your home fast? Most people feel this way when they put their homes on the market. Besides, who wants to go through months of getting the home prepared for a showing and then scrambling out the door with a couple of kids and the dog? Certainly, not many. In fact, the thought of selling a home isn’t something that most people look forward to.

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Share of Home Buyers Getting Outbid Almost Doubles

Eye on Housing

An earlier post revealed that 69% of buyers who were actively engaged in the process of finding a home in the final quarter of 2020 have spent upwards of 3 months searching for a home without success. For the first time in this series history, the number one reason long-time searchers haven’t made a home purchase is not because of.

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Maximizing Your Online Presence: Tips for Real Estate Agents on Social Media

Speaker: Sarah Santa Ana, Real Estate Coach, Move4Free Realty

Networking is one of the crucial elements in every real estate organization's success. Both agents and real estate companies need to maintain robust networking links. This is why social media is essential for any real estate professional! Social media enables you to stay in touch with your present clients, maintain connections with your past clients, and engage potential customers and investors.

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4 Crucial Questions To Ask Your Partner Before Buying a House Together

Realtor.com

courtneyk / Getty Images If you’re hoping to buy a house with your significant other, it can be easy to get caught up in the fun stuff, like deciding the style of home you’d love (Victorian, midcentury modern, Cape Cod?) and finding the perfect neighborhood (downtown or middle of the woods?). Still, don’t be fooled: The home-buying process is riddled with pitfalls, particularly if you haven’t vetted how prepared your partner is for such a financial leap of faith.

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First American notches $7.1B in 2020 revenue

Housing Wire

“Big Four” title insurer First American Financial Corp. announced a healthy $7.1 billion in total 2020 revenue in its annual earnings report, released Thursday. That’s a 14% rise year over year, according to officials. Net income was $696.4 million last year, or $6.16 per diluted share, and a pretax impairment of $54.9 million, or 45 cents per diluted share.

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5 Homes on Architectural Digest’s 2021 AD100 List

Sotheby's International Real Estate

Founded over a century ago, Architectural Digest magazine is a perennial source of inspiration for home design and décor. To be featured in any manner by the publication signifies achievement. One of the highest accolades? Being named to the prestigious AD100 list, the magazine’s annual selection of the top 100 international designers and architects working today.

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Meet the Real Estate Tech Entrepreneur: Galiano Tirmani from Boxabl

GeekEstate

This week, we interviewed Galiano Tirami from Boxabl. Without further ado… Who are you and what do you do? My name is Galiano Tirmani and I’m the Co-Founder and Business Development Manager of. Boxabl, a new construction technology company that’s positioned to disrupt the massively outdated, trillion-dollar housing construction market. The Boxabl team has engineered cutting edge, scalable technology that allows a mass scale, automobile-style factory approach to home engineering.

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Rise of The Apps: Building Your Dream Tech Stack For Real Estate Success

Speaker: Trey Willard, Realtor/Team Leader at Keller Williams Realty, Inc.

In order to create continued success in today’s real estate market, realtors need to utilize an arsenal of technology that will increase their efficiency and presence on social media. Using technology to manage your prospects and tap into their needs through websites, social media, and other channels is critical for real estate success in 2022 and beyond.

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These People Rushed to Buy Homes During Covid. Now They Regret It.

Realtor.com

Helynn Ospina for The Wall Street Journal Stella Guan spent months searching for a home to buy, getting outbid again and again in the white-hot real-estate market of the Los Angeles suburbs. Finally, her offer on a “beautiful” Santa Clarita house was accepted in August, she said. The graphic designer, 30, paid roughly $600,000 for the house. But after sleeping there for only a few nights, she had an unfortunate realization.

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New program puts Black real estate agents at forefront

Housing Wire

The National Association of Real Estate Brokers has announced the creation of its “Black Real Estate Agent” program to provide financial, educational, and career support for aspiring Black real estate agents. HomeLight is partnering with NAREB in this venture with the goal of ultimately improving the rate of homeownership for Black Americans across the country, according to Antoine Thompson, NAREB national executive director.

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Why hiring a real estate photographer is critical in spite of smartphones

The American Genius for Real Estate

(MARKETING) Regardless of budget, a professional real estate photographer is a must-have partner in today's photo-savvy social media landscape. The post Why hiring a real estate photographer is critical in spite of smartphones appeared first on The American Genius Real Estate.

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Grand But Crumbling Ditmas Park Mansion Hits the Market Again at $1.5 Million

Brownstoner

Its columned facade was once a graceful sibling to the manse next door, but for decades the Colonial Revival on Ocean Avenue has been losing its luster. On the market in 2017 for $2.85 million, 1000 Ocean Avenue is back but with a new price of $1.5 million. There aren't… Read More > The post Grand But Crumbling Ditmas Park Mansion Hits the Market Again at $1.5 Million appeared first on Brownstoner.

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5 Data Proven Ways Agents Can Do 18% More Business

Curious as to how you could do 18% more business? How about 14 more transaction sides per year? Check out this infographic with data from a RealTrends study to learn more.

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Chip and Joanna Gaines Reveal a ‘Controversial’ Home Trend That’s Red-Hot Today

Realtor.com

Discovery+ Joanna and Chip Gaines have seen plenty of home trends come and go, yet in the latest episode of their new show “Fixer Upper: Welcome Home,” they highlight one particular upgrade that, in the words of Chip, is downright “controversial.” In the episode “Planting Roots in Waco,” Chip and Jo are aiming to remodel the home of one of their employees, John , who moved from New York City to Waco, TX, in order to work with this famous couple.

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Forbearance rate slowly descends to 5.35%

Housing Wire

The U.S forbearance rate is falling, though not as quickly as it once was. Data released on Monday by the Mortgage Bankers Association showed that the share of servicers’ portfolio volume in forbearance fell 3 basis points to 5.35% last week. For the third month in a row, the MBA estimated 2.7 million homeowners are in some form of forbearance, and for almost four months now, forbearance portfolio volume has hovered between 5% and 6% — the longest a percentage range has held since the surv

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Low Mortgage Rates & Desire for Space Continue to Convert Prospective Buyers into Active Buyers

Eye on Housing

Of the 15% of American adults considering a future home purchase in the final quarter of 2020, 56% have moved beyond planning and are actively trying to find one to buy, up from the comparable 43% share a year earlier. This increase marks the fourth consecutive year-over-year rise in the share of prospective buyers who have become active buyers. Several.

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Smart Homes of the Future What Should you Expect

Realty Biz

If you plan to build a smart home, learn more about the technologies that will define the smart home of the future, their practicality, benefits and more. Smart homes are now a dominant trend in the real estate market. A recent market report estimated the global smart home market to grow at a CAGR of 21% from 2019-2025. By 2023, the number of smart homes is forecast to grow and surpass the 300 million mark.

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How Enriching the Lives of Your Clients Leads to Greater Sales Success

Speaker: Ari Capogeannis, Director - Revenue Marketing at NVIDIA and Bill Pappa, Sales and Marketing Leader at Ai Media Group

Building strong personal and professional relationships with clients is a critical success factor. Sales professionals who focus on relationship building generate more leads and raise their brand awareness. Because this can take time, having regular engagements can help you cultivate these relationships more efficiently. The most effective way to accomplish this is through direct hyper-personalized touchpoints.