Homester.com Web News Archive

Real Estate Fraud on Rise (Builder Online) - Real estate fraud is surging, fueled by a booming housing market, feverish refinancing activity and lax regulation, authorities say. In the last two years, according to the FBI, reports of mortgage fraud have tripled to 21,994, while the dollar value of the alleged crimes quadrupled to $1 billion.

Local real estate firms post solid growth in 2005 (Springfield Business Journal) - A hot market has Springfield’s real estate firms reaching for the top. Carol Jones, Realtors Nov. 15 announced $1 billion in year-to-date contract sales for 2005, shattering the company’s 2004 record of $882 million in contract sales. Closed sales for 2004 were $701 million.

Real estate veteran joins Broe (Rocky Mountain News) - Commercial real estate veteran Marty Slaught, who has completed more than $240 million in leases and sales during the past 22 years, has joined the Denver-based Broe Real Estate as director of marketing and leasing.

Text Messaging in Real Estate Takes Off (Real Estate News) - RISMEDIA, Dec. 7 — “[Next year] will be the year of text messaging, especially for real estate,” says Dave Geipel, co-founder of QWASI and CellSigns. Geipel and business partner Mark Ford developed CellSigns, the only interactive text-message based marketing system for real estate agents.

The year's 10 best real estate books for owners and investors (The Charlotte Observer) - At the end of each year -- just in time for the holiday gift season -- it's my honor to select the 10 best real estate books from the hundreds published during the year. The column takes 52 weeks to prepare because I read at least one real estate book every week.

Don't Give Up on Real Estate (The Motley Fool via Yahoo! News) - Most of us have watched in amazement as the residential real estate market in the U.S. has gone through the roof. Almost all of the homebuilding stocks have reflected the positive environment. Even though there have been some healthy corrections this year, homebuilder DR Horton (NYSE: DHI - News) is up more than 400% from five years ago and Centex (NYSE: CTX - News) is up about 300% in the same

Valley real estate: No boom, but recovery, professor says (San Jose Mercury News) - Kenneth Rosen, a real estate consultant and professor at UC-Berkeley's Haas School of Business, has a pretty upbeat outlook for Silicon Valley in the coming year. Not red-hot-boom optimism, but steady, heading-in-the-right-direction optimism.

Developer sees promise in real estate industry (Sun Star) - The real estate business in Cebu is promising. That’s what Arah Burgos, general manager of Meridian Realty Corp., said in an interview last Monday.

Blog jabs at Marin real estate 'bubble' (Marin Independent Journal) - Does your blood boil every time you see a two-bedroom, one-bath fixer in Mill Valley for sale for $1.6 million? Do you have the urge to lob paint balls at the next real estate agent who brags about multiple offers for his $2.3 million townhouse listing in Sausalito?

Local real estate activity picks up in November (Ottawa Business Journal) - Ottawa real estate agents moved 908 residential properties in November, 3.2 per cent more than in the same month a year ago, but down from the 932 sales recorded in October.