Former president and CEO of Century 21 Real Estate Nick Bailey is rejoining RE/MAX as its chief customer officer, a position where he’ll be tasked with overseeing new business growth, brokerage support, franchise sales, professional development, international expansion and industry relations. Bailey had previously spent more than a decade at the RE/MAX World Headquarters during […]
OCC warns banks against asset-depletion loans
September 4, 2019 by Leave a Comment
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is asking banks to maintain strict lending standards for a kind of unconventional mortgage that’s focused on the borrower’s assets. According to the federal regulator, so-called asset-depletion loans are growing fast in the subprime lending market. These loans let borrowers draw upon their assets, instead of their […]
Studies show negative side to open office plans
September 4, 2019 by Leave a Comment
Open office plans have grown in popularity in recent years with employers believing they help to foster a more collaborative workspace that’s preferable for the majority of workers. But new studies have cast doubt on those ideas, showing that the impact of employee well being and productivity isn’t as strong as first thought. An article […]
Opendoor launches new mortgage offering
September 2, 2019 by
iBuying giant Opendoor announced last week it’s planning to enter the mortgage game. The company says it won’t just restrict its services to making instant cash offers on seller’s homes, but will now issue loans for buyers of its homes as well. The company said the idea is to speed up the time it takes […]
Housing markets will do just fine in a recession, economists say
August 30, 2019 by
Consumer fears of a recession are growing, and experts say it could cause some Americans to get skittish about possible knock-on effects on the housing market. One reason for that is many Americans remain haunted by memories of the Great Recession last decade, which caused thousands to lose their homes to foreclosure. But experts say […]
Reali expands with an alternative iBuying model
August 30, 2019 by
California-based estate startup Reali this week launched a new home trade-in program that lets homeowners buy a new home and sell their old property in a single transaction. The Reali Trade-In program is different from others in that homeowners buy a new home first, before selling their old one. The idea is to try and […]
Zillow: Teacher’s starting salaries aren’t enough to pay the rent
August 29, 2019 by
Zillow has some rather disturbing news for budding academics that could well persuade them to forge an entirely different career path. It says that “entry-level” teachers will need to spend more than half of their salaries on the typical rent in 19 of the 50 largest U.S. metro areas this school year, according to its […]
Automated home appraisals to become more widespread
August 28, 2019 by
Mortgage companies are increasingly turning to computer algorithms to appraise seller’s homes, and a new federal proposal may see the practice become even more widespread, the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the Journal, federal regulators want the majority of U.S. homes valued at less than $400,000 to be exempt from a requirement that says […]
Young consumers are confused about home buying, survey finds
August 27, 2019 by
More than half of younger adults in a recent survey say they lack knowledge about homeownership and mortgages, and the findings demonstrate they may need more resources to learn about these things, the survey authors say. LendEDU, a personal finance resource that carried out the survey of consumers aged 23 to 38, said that confusion […]
1 in 3 older adults struggle with housing costs
August 26, 2019 by
Real estate listings website PropertyShark says a recent survey of 1,000 people it carried out shows that almost one in three adults aged 45 and above are struggling to cover their housing costs. The survey found that homeowners with low incomes tend to report the biggest housing costs burden, but the issue is actually present […]
