Tag Archives: Agents & Brokers

Commercial real estate (CRE) patterns are expected to continue on a steady but modest growth path, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) predicted Friday in its quarterly CRE forecast. "Jobs are the key driver for commercial real estate, and the accumulation of 7 million net new jobs from the row point a few years ago is steadily showing up as demand for leasing and purchases of properties," said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun. However, Yun said, "the difficulty of accessing loans remains a hindrance to a faster recovery."

With the federal government shutdown and debt ceiling negotiations still fresh in the nation's collective mind, Fannie Mae expects "continued market volatility" heading into the start of 2014.

LoanLogics, a leader in loan quality management and performance analytics, announced the unveiling of its MERS Independent Third Party Performance Monitoring and Annual Review service. The specialty audit practice reviews and tests MERS controls and processes so servicers can ensure they are compliant with MERS regulations and avoid scrutiny.

Lenders Compliance Group Inc. (LCG) announced the appointment of Michael J. Wallace Esq. to the position of director of marketing compliance.

Despite a softening market, competition among buyers remained fairly fierce in October, Redfin reported in its Real-Time Bidding Wars release for the month. Last month, 55.9 percent of offers written by the brokerage's agents faced competition from other buyers, a decline from 58.3 percent in September. Bidding wars have been on a downward slope since peaking at 79 percent in February. Even with the decline, though, competition last month was higher than expected, given the effects of the government shutdown on consumer confidence.

Though tightened underwriting standards have been partly to blame for why housing isn't recovering faster, CoreLogic's Sam Khater says the silver lining is that loan performance has improved greatly. "While there has been much consternation about underwriting being too tight in the context of forthcoming mortgage regulations, one underappreciated outcome has been the very good performance of mortgages during the last few years," Khater said in an article in CoreLogic's most recent Marketpulse report.

According to Ellie Mae's data, which draws from a sampling of the loan applications flowing through the company's network, purchase loan share was 61 percent in October.

In the third quarter, 1.4 million homeowners rose to the surface as their home values once again outranked their equity, according to the Zillow Negative Equity Report.

LRES, a California-based company specializing in commercial and residential valuations and asset management, announced it has received a Certificate of Authority to conduct business in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The Senate Banking Committee has voted to approve Janet Yellen's nomination to chair the Federal Reserve, bringing Yellen one step closer to being the first woman to serve as head of the country's central bank.