RealtyBizNews: Real Estate News & More
With the latest on mortgages, refinancing, real estate & home tips
Much of our news and editorial here at RealtyBizNews deals with the web, and how real estate businesses are engaging the Internet. Recent news from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names (ICANN), may impact the way we all do business on the world wide web, and especially Brokers. Dot Branding is a term real estate brokers and investors need to learn, or ask their attorneys about.
Back on the trail of North America’s realtor engagement of the web, we landed in Vancouver today. And, like her sisters to the South, it appears Vancouver is severely lacking in online savvy and real estate engagement.
We have been hammered with news stories over the past couple of years about the part of the American Dream that has to do with home ownership. Is home ownership still an aspiration, or is it just looked upon as another bad investment? Constant hype by the real estate industry, over decades, that homes are good INVESTMENTS, brought exhilaration in the real estate market as the investment factor drove it right up to the precipice, and malaise as the market tumbled down.
In investment news from Europe, retail property looks like the next boom territory for investors on the continent. According to a recent Jones Lang LaSalle survey, retail investment in 2010 accounted for at least 28 percent of the total commercial property sector. And, Allianz Real Estate, a unit of German insurer Allianz SE, is actually broadcasting they intend investing €11 billion more.
Old Republic Home Protection made six real estate professionals across the control very happy today, announcing they were the winners of the “Why I Use Home Warranties” contest. The rules required the contestants to explain in 150 words or less the “value they believe a home warranty brings to every real estate transaction.”
Tyler Casey seems like a nice kid. Without getting too personal here, let’s just say he is a young real estate professional with some drive and initiative. Case works for Jim Bishop & Associates Coldwell Banker in Pittsburg, Kansas, as well as venturing out with Casey-Bird Properties LLC, and his own Tyler Casey Realtor aspect.
Property23 specializes in providing affordable investment opportunities for is customers, making the most of low-cost foreclosed houses that would otherwise sit vacant and unsold. With millions of foreclosed houses on the market, and Property23 invests in high-quality properties, refurbishes them, and helps customers make informed purchases.
Across the country house prices are still on the decline for the most part. And nowhere is this more evident than in St. Louis where more and more homeowners are “underwater” where their home’s actual value is concerned. According to Zillow, the people who owe more than their home is worth continues to rise, with one in three mortgages being upside down now.
