US Futures Pare Losses, but Trend Still Down
Realty Check with Diana Olick
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The sales pace is back to what it was in 2005 and 2006, but the circumstances are of course very different. Now it's about stiff competition for limited supply.
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Home Builder Sentiment Down: And They’re Mad At Me??
Posted By: Diana Olick
If you happened to read my blog last week, you’ll remember what a warm reception I got from the CEOs of the major public home builders at the JP Morgan Basics and Industrials conference. As they summarily rejected my polite requests for interviews at our live camera, they also made it abundantly clear that it was media hype fueling the negative sentiment among healthy home buyers across the nation.
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Sunday Open House, Monday Morning Quarterback
Posted By: Diana Olick
I think I may have been too optimistic about Washington, DC. There, now you all can start yelling at me that I’m tanking the real estate market again. But I have to call it as I see it. In the last couple of weeks I’ve heard some anecdotal information from my realtor cronies around Georgetown that things are really selling well. Yes, they’re staying on the market longer than last year and yes they have to be sanely priced, but yes--they’re moving.
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Pimping? Man Sells Ad Space On His Own Home
Posted By: Diana Olick
“I just decided that I should do something pretty creative in trying to earn as much money as possible…and I just woke up one morning and had the idea.” That's California homeowner Darren Shuster talking about how he woke up with a new vision of his home: house as billboard. I’m not kidding. We saw the painters. He’s literally selling ad space on his 3-bedroom ranch.
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More Foreclosure Data: This Time From Mortgage Bankers
Posted By: Diana Olick
I hate to confuse the situation any more, especially after all the lovely emails so many of you sent, berating me for publicizing the foreclosure data from RealtyTrac. God I love my job…but I am forced today to report more, because, well, that’s what I do. This time it’s from the Mortgage Bankers Association, which conducts a survey of loan servicers and claims to have data on 44 million loans.
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Your "Take" On My Take Of RealtyTrac Numbers
Posted By: Diana Olick
Well, it appears none of you really believe my explanation of the RealtyTrac numbers. So be it. I thought I'd post a few of your replies, although I'm not adding the ones that claim I'm being paid by the company. Trust me, I wish I had some extra income coming in, but sorry to say I don't freelance. Here's what you have to say:
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RealtyTrac: Real Numbers or Hype?
Posted By: Diana Olick
Yesterday, the folks over at online data tracker RealtyTrac gave me an exclusive on their monthly foreclosure numbers, because the numbers were just SO out of hand (and because I positively begged them). Foreclosure activity nationwide is up 19% from April to May and up 90% from May 2006 to May 2007. That’s big, and let me tell you, all the media outlets jumped on the bandwagon. ABC World News Tonight even led with the story.
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Homebuilder's New Mantra: Don't Talk To The Media!
Posted By: Diana Olick
I'm blogging to you from the J.P. Morgan Basics and Industrials Conference in mid-town Manhattan, where I've never in my life seen so many freaked out CEOs. I say this only because not nine months ago I attended a similar UBS conference, where the Homebuilder CEOs and their CFOs and their PR reps and their baggage handlers and their mother-in-laws were all fighting with each other to jump in front of our cameras to talk about the recovery shining brightly ahead in the housing market.
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Sunday Open House: Monday Morning Quarterback
Posted By: Diana Olick
Thanks to all who wrote in with your Open House stories this past weekend. Please keep them coming, as the more we get, the more we know! Anonymous in NJ writes: Ridgewood is a high tax suburb with good schools and a great downtown. But it seems like the bloom is off the rose as far as fast moving residential real estate. There's nothing moving in the 8-1.5 million range despite what a lot of the brokers are saying (they are all drinking the same coolaid!). Oddly, there seems to this denial factor with sellers too.
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I’m Asking For Your Help
Posted By: Diana Olick
We all know real estate is local, and try as I do to focus in on as many different metro markets as I can, many of you are on my case for allegedly over-generalizing the market. I am, therefore, in response, attempting to launch a new feature that better gauges housing, neighborhood to neighborhood, market to market. Alas, I am but one reporter, and much as I’d like to get out of town more often, I can’t get everywhere, and thus I am soliciting your help.
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Realtor Rebates: Is Cash To Clients Fair Game?
Posted By: Diana Olick
In a tough housing market, where sellers are bleeding cash out every window as they try to unload their homes, and realtors are fighting within their own ballooned ranks to eke out a commission, the issue of realtor rebates is getting, well, more confused than ever. Realtor rebates are cash incentives to buyers or sellers that help realtors to get the sale, but some argue they can mislead buyers, skewing the true value of the real estate transaction and could raise the possibility of fraud.
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About Realty Check
Realty Check takes you from the housing boom to bust and beyond. Led by Diana Olick, we were here when the house came crashing down and we have the singular expertise to explain how it will be rebuilt. The goal of this blog is to bring the market, the rescue plans, the politics and the pontification home to you, with clear concise explanations of the wildly complicated issues in all facets of real estate today and tomorrow. Realty Check is read by leaders in the real estate industry: Investors, Realtors, Big builder CEOs, Mortgage Bankers, Wall Street Analysts and Administration Officials to name a few.
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Olick serves as CNBC's real estate correspondent as well as the author of the "Realty Check" blog on CNBC.com.
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