How is 2010 shaping up?

    There are a number of events that occurred recently that show our nation and our industry is showing improvement.  Americans are more attuned to what is occurring around them locally, regionally and nationally.  They are discovering that they are not alone in their concerns for their wellbeing and the forces that are impacting their lives.  People are making local decisions that have national impact. This has resulted in a newfound positive energy that is swelling up inside folks just like you and me.  For example, the miracle in Massachusetts, Ford motor company turning an annual profit for the first time since 2005, and resurgence in positive trending in consumer confidence all contribute to the cautiously positive attitude that Americans are beginning to exhibit.  People are finding that these new individuals who are being raised up to represent us appear to have good common sense.  As individual Americans voice their opinions, they realize they are being heard loud and clear by other mainstream Americans.  Hopefully these Americans will make a positive difference in our future and our business will show positive improvement long term.

The Economy:  I am encouraged about the future of real estate and I hope you are too!  All of the indicators point to an improving market.  Below are some examples of the optimism in the air:

• The spread between layoff and new job creation is beginning narrow
• South Florida has stabilized and property values are rising
• Orlando and Tampa areas’ single family housing is stable and rising in price
• Housing inventory as it relates to months of inventory on the market, is narrowing
• The Federal Reserve did not raise interest rates and will hold them at current levels for the near future
• The condo market continues to soften slightly in price; however, it has almost reached the bottom in pricing and purchases of condominiums are increasing
• Corporate profits continue to improved and fourth quarter profits for 2009 are anticipated to be huge
• Credit is still tight
• Corporate America will begin hiring in the future but gradually.  Full employment is not forecasted until 2016
• GDP growth will be between 2.5 to 3% for 2010, fourth quarter report will be adjusted downward
• Corporate inventory is replenishing, future inventories replacement will be gradual
• Teenage unemployment continues to remain high
• College graduates are working hard to become employed and when they find employment they are in most cases disciplining themselves to stay employed
• Consumers are embracing frugal spending behavior
• Stock markets will move up and down in the near term; however, long term the market will continue upwards to be above 11,000 during 2010
• Most economists are no longer forecasting a double dip recession

• The value of the dollar may have reached its floor and will begin to strengthen
• Inflation is still flat, but expect some movement upward later in the year
• Banks profits continue to improve
• Jumbo finance rate has softened considerably
• Appraisals are becoming more realistic
• Cost of a barrel of oil is still in the normal range and supply is still greater than demand
• Unit number of housing sales continue to grow
• Unit number of foreclosures will continue to increase; a decrease will lag behind improved employment numbers
• People are relocating to areas where hiring is occurring providing opportunities

   The public is returning to the marketplace for housing.  As our economy improves, consumers will increase home sale opportunities.  It is great to be positioned to help those consumers that are returning to the market.  The Southern Region wishes the best for everyone during 2010.

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In these metro areas, both modest incomes and stable real estate markets are improving the outlook for borrowers.

No American city fully sidestepped the housing foreclosure problem. But tell-tale boarded-up windows and lines of once-glittering condominiums standing empty are images largely absent from several metro areas. And many of these real estate markets are well-poised to recover.

The cities coming back strongest from the foreclosure crisis are those that didn’t see massive price inflation as the housing bubble swelled (the national peak was the second quarter of 2006, but different areas peaked at slightly different times), as well as blue-collar towns with modest economies. This is according to data provided to Forbes by Lender Processing Services (LPS), a mortgage-industry service provider.

In Depth: Cities Recovering From The Foreclosure Crisis

Full Ranking: Recovering Cities

Texas cities with housing prices that never overheated, such as Austin and San Antonio, as well as former manufacturing centers including Buffalo, N.Y. and Harrisburg, Pa., join Midwestern cities like Wichita, Kan., and St. Louis, Mo., in showing signs that they’re not as harmed by the foreclosures gripping the rest of the country.

“The upper Northeast and Midwest cities didn’t have much of a boom, so they didn’t have much of a decline,” says Michael Fratantoni, vice president of research at the Mortgage Bankers Association, the professional association for real estate financiers, based in Washington. “The Texas markets have also fared better than the rest of the country. The energy sector has been a source of jobs, even through this downturn.

But a slowing rate of foreclosures in a particular city doesn’t tell the entire story. Because of government pressure to limit foreclosures and modify delinquent loans, a new group of bad loans–those that are 90 days or more past due–are weighing down the market, and many of these borrowers have only temporarily stalled foreclosure. In 2009, of loans that were seriously delinquent (three or more months behind on payments), 200,000 more each month fell further behind on payments than entered foreclosure, according to LPS.

“‘Foreclosure crisis’ is a misnomer. It’s not a foreclosure crisis, it’s a nonpayment crisis,” says Ted Jadlos, senior managing director of the Applied Analytics group at LPS. “Foreclosures are just the symptom. It’s truly about how many people are missing payments.”

Where fewer borrowers are falling behind on payments, the market has a better chance of rebounding. More than half of delinquent loans that are restructured end up in foreclosure a year later, according to LPS.

Behind the Numbers
To find the cities that are recovering best from the foreclosure crisis, we used data from LPS to determine how many of all loans were foreclosed in each of America’s 100 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas–census-defined regions used by the government to collect statistics. The fewer foreclosures, the higher the city ranked.

We then factored in the percentage of loans where borrowers were three months late, or more, on their payments. More than half of these bad loans end up in the foreclosure process, so fewer delinquencies means fewer eventual foreclosures. In metros without a high percentage of these delinquencies, the tide of foreclosures flooding the market will be stemmed sooner.

Both of these measures were determined based on a six-month rolling average as of October 2009.

Finally, to assess whether borrowers are keeping up with their payments or starting to slip, we factored in what LPS calls the deterioration ratio, the percentage of loans that are descending further into delinquency to those that are improving. A deterioration ratio of 2.5, for example, means that for every loan that is becoming more current, there are 2.5 that are falling further behind on payments. In other words, the lower the deterioration ratio, the higher the city’s ranking.

The full list of the cities best equipped to emerge from the real estate crisis was determined by averaging the rankings for each of these measures for each city.

Lower Volatility, Easier Recovery
What all of the markets in the top 20% of our rankings have in common is where they are not. Of all the country’s foreclosures, nearly half are concentrated in California, Florida, Nevada and Arizona. None of these states are represented in our top 20.

Foreclosures were distributed more broadly across the Northeast, Midwest and Southern states. Therefore, metros like Knoxville, Tenn., (fifth on our list) and Raleigh, N.C., (sixth) have had fewer foreclosures all along–and should resurface with stronger real-estate markets because of it.

“It’s really a low-volatility list,” says Fratantoni. “These cities really aren’t the centers of foreclosure activity.”

Housing in most coastal cities has proved volatile because these areas offer limited room for growth or new construction, supply that can’t meet demand and housing prices driven by factors other than inflation and building costs. But some places on the coast, like Portland, Ore., No. 14 on our list, have vibrant enough economies that foreclosures never flooded the market. Only 1.6% of loans there are in foreclosure–better than three-fourths of the metros we surveyed.

“Portland is really a beneficiary of a huge demographic boom,” says Fratantoni. “It’s trendy for young adults and others to go there because it’s become a tech center.”

The Blue-Collar Effect
It may seem odd that cities with relatively low-income families, like 10th-place Wichita, Kan., with a median household income of only $40,101 (compare that with $75,035 in San Diego and $71,361 in Honolulu), seem to be bucking foreclosures. But delinquencies and foreclosures have crept into higher-priced markets, while affordable housing is benefiting from government stimulus and recovering faster.

“You may have first-time home buyers entering the market at the low end,” says Fratantoni. “Also, you have extremely low mortgage rates, the First Time Homebuyer Tax Credit and a number of factors really benefiting the lower-priced market.”

While the cities on this list provide a snapshot of the metros that have best dodged foreclosures, more importantly, because these are some of the cities least touched by housing inflation and the subsequent bust, they give a clue as to the underlying health of the economy–separate from the wild card the housing crisis threw in.

“These are good markets to look at,” says Jadlos. “They represent a cross-section of the United States, in my book.”

In Depth: Cities Recovering From The Foreclosure Crisis

Full Ranking: Recovering Cities

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Short sales, bank-owned homes are bargains but tricky to buy.

Forbes: Welcome, gentlemen, to another discussion of the economy, real estate and housing markets.

To begin, I just want a baseline check of your moods. Are houses a good bargain and in your view is the market now heading upward? Or are we still in an overpriced market with plenty of downside?

Spencer Rascoff, Zillow: Unfortunately I think the housing bulls are getting ahead of themselves. I’m still seeing a lot of worrying signs based on high levels of negative equity (meaning owners whose homes are worth less than they paid for them, representing around 25% of all mortgage holders), millions more foreclosures that haven’t yet come onto the market (over 1.2 million owners are 90 or more days overdue on their mortgages but aren’t yet in foreclosure) and likely higher mortgage rates in 2010. I remain a dispassionate, sober housing bear.

Michael Feder, Radar Logic: Spencer is correct, but there is evidence, as I’ve said, that those (factors he mentioned), like most elements of real estate, may depend very much on location.

There is some real evidence that markets have stabilized. For the most part, buying activity is up and the only price declines we are seeing are those we would expect seasonally. The wild card is, of course, inventory and more specifically, foreclosures. But that’s not a simple equation. Yes, foreclosures are looming, but they appear to be impacting the lower-end markets and the overbuilt states most aggressively.

So, on the one hand, if a set of measures can be undertaken to “fix” the distress, then the effect of distressed mortgages may be contained and all the signs are positive. On the other hand, continued arrival of distressed supply may be concentrated in some, as opposed to all, markets and even in those in certain price ranges.

Pat Lashinsky, ZIPRealty: We are starting to see some signs of stabilization–lower inventory levels, homes selling for closer to their asking prices and fewer reductions being taken by sellers. And in most markets we don’t see a lot of support for saying the market is overpriced. So we are probably at a point where there may be a little more pressure on prices coming, but volumes should stay strong as long as there is not an interest-rate spike, and we should kind of bounce along the bottom in the near-term.

Donald Trump Jr., Trump Organization: I like prices today if I am looking at it as a true investor and not for the fast flip. There are few deals today that I wouldn’t be happy with in 10 to 20 years, so the real analysis is the opportunity cost of one deal versus the next.

Forbes: Doesn’t seem like any of us are hugely optimistic about the short term.

Don, when you’re looking at values, what are you comparing house prices to? The underlying rents? Future rents? Or are you comparing home prices with stuff like the buying power of purchasers, which would be affected by income and mortgage rates?

Trump: It really depends on the asset. (It can be) sales prices to future underlying rents or even future sales prices. It really depends on your business model and what you are most comfortable with as an investor.

Lashinsky: I think that the key to Spencer’s point will be whether the current/new tax credit is enough to help spur activity to get through many of these issues, and then what happens when the program expires. That’s the real question to me.

One thing that has me hopeful is that a number of banks have programs to try and sell more homes as short sales rather then full-on foreclosures, or REOs (sales of homes by banks following a foreclosure).

Forbes: REO is for “real estate owned,” if I recall correctly. And a short sale is where the bank decides not to foreclose, but rather to allow the homeowner to sell the property for less than the outstanding amount owed on the mortgage.

Lashinsky: Yes. Homes that are sold as REOs generally go for a greater discount than traditional listings or short sales. A pure foreclosure sale is likely to weigh on the values of surrounding homes. So opting for more short-sales would be beneficial for the banks and for the market.

Forbes: That’s pretty important, because the Wall Street Journal ran a story on its front page just before Thanksgiving about how one in four Americans is “underwater” now–that means their home is worth less than the outstanding amount they owe to the banks. It’s particularly bad in some states. Nevada and Arizona are the worst, with 65% and 48% of homeowners there, respectively, underwater. It’s 35% in California. Does anybody want to dispute the Wall Street Journal’s figures, which come from First American CoreLogic?

Feder: It’s not about disputing figures. It’s about looking into them. If you dig into those numbers a little you find that they are somewhat concentrated in states like Nevada and that the degree to which homes are under water varies based on the price range. The recession has hit some people and places harder than others. It’s those concentrations that drive the averages. In general, the story is not a new one and the article might have tried harder to push beyond the headline.

Rascoff: Zillow’s numbers on negative equity foot very closely with the First American data: “21% of all owners of single-family homes with mortgages were underwater at the end of Q3, compared to 23% at the end of Q2.”

Forbes: What do you guys think about Pat’s point, that the important thing is that banks are increasingly happy to allow homes that are underwater to trade in short sales, which preserve value, rather than foreclose and sell them at auction? Should our readers look at short sales first when they shop for homes? And should our government try to encourage more banks to pursue short sales rather than pump up the housing market by expanding the Making Home Affordable plan?

Rascoff: The problem is that short sales can be very complicated and frustrating to buyers. Pat knows this better than I, but short sales are usually best for patient, sophisticated buyers.

Trump: Agreed.

Lashinsky: Spencer is absolutely right, short sales in their current form are the most frustrating for buyers. The prices have not been agreed upon, and if there is a secondary lien holder, the deals rarely get done.

The banks, however, are working to create programs where they will pre-agree to what they will take, and in some cases they are even paying the current homeowners a small fee to work with them to get the home sold and to leave with minimal cost.

If I were looking for a home and wanted a deal, I would start by looking at REOs, then look at short sales, then traditional listings. I probably would end up buying a traditional or short-sale listing. I’d expect to see the biggest discount (and most risk) with REOs; short sales more complicated and longer process (than traditional sales); traditional sales a smoother process but probably paying a little more.

Forbes: Pat, I’ll bet some of your agents are becoming expert in these. It strikes me that a buyer would have to depend heavily on an agent in a short sale. We can’t all be Don Trump Jr. when we buy real estate, unfortunately.

Lashinsky: Realistically, most buyers absolutely need to work with an agent to successfully get through the short-sale process. Our experts have had to become very good at this just because of current conditions. Knowing what the bank wants and needs in its package, being able to present how you came up with the price you are offering, and general market condition overviews are all important when it comes to getting a short sale accepted and closed. And you are right, there are less then a handful of Don Trump Jr.’s out there!

Trump: Thanks, after this last cycle even we need a bit of an ego boost.

Forbes: Pat, have you considered offering short-sale assistance as a premium service?

Lashinsky: We offer short-sale assistance as part of our normal service offering. It definitely takes more work and effort on the agent’s part to make this work and to bring deals together, but we do a fair number of short-sale deals every month

Forbes: OK, so short sales are a good thing. Could falling prices also be a good thing? I’ve been studying prices in 10 cities around the country and I’m startled by how expensive housing still seems, compared to underlying rents, particularly in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

How many people who talk with your agents say they would buy if prices fell a little more? Could falling prices in a few of the really expensive markets help? Or would that just scare off sellers and keep them in Spencer’s “shadow inventory” category?

Lashinsky: Believe it or not, right now for many of our clients they would buy if they could get an offer accepted or find the right property at the price they are currently seeking. We see pretty good buyer confidence right now that prices are near the bottom. Affordability right now is already so good–prices are down 20% to 40%, interest rates at near all-time lows, plus rents and incomes that have not fallen as fast as home prices.

Feder: That’s the set of forces we’ve been seeing in the numbers since late August. The market is about levels of agreement between buyers and sellers and we’ve seen a lot more of that lately. Remember the season. If these views hold, we could see some real strength in the Spring.

Lashinsky: And if prices do fall more, it will keep more sellers on the sidelines for as long as possible, and they are already waiting. The number only matters to the homeowners who would like to sell their homes right now. Just like paper stock profits or losses, they only matter when you redeem them.

Trump: Except it they (homeowners) paid too much to begin with and are hemorrhaging cash. The gains and losses are tabulated at the sale, but no one can bleed forever.

Forbes: Economist Robert Shiller would remind us that the loss in paper value on a house is an important factor in homeowners’ psychology. If a consumer knows he’s underwater or losing equity value in his home, it has a much stronger effect on his confidence than if, say, the value of his retirement accounts and stocks begins to plunge.

Feder: Well that’s one point on which we agree with Dr. Shiller.

Forbes: What about government? You guys have talked passionately about how the economy needs the backing of a strong housing market. Should the government be stepping in to boost the market? Would it do any good?

Rascoff: The tax credit already has been extended, and expanded, until mid-2010. But even the most optimistic estimates expect it will generate 300,000 to 400,000 incremental transactions, which is still a drop in the bucket considering that most experts predict 3 million new foreclosures in 2010.

Forbes: So it is a fait accompli that the tax credit will endure through 2010?

Lashinsky: The credit was signed and extended until April 30, 2010 with a closing date on June 30, 2010.

Rascoff: Regarding the tax credit, an important question is how many first time buyers it will bring into the market, versus trade-up buyers. The original tax credit, which expired in the fall of 2009, only helped first-timers. The new one also applies to existing homeowners who have been in their homes for five or more years. The problem with applying the credit to existing homeowners is that those people have to sell their houses in order to buy. So even if it does stimulate existing owners to go out and buy, it also results in new inventory coming onto the market. That was the beauty of the original tax credit–since it only applied to first-time buyers, it didn’t cause new inventory to enter the market.

Forbes: Last question: Is it wise to shop for a home between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day?

Feder: Why not? If you find a home you love that you can afford, why not buy it now? Personally, I think people should buy homes whenever they have the means. The trouble comes when they start buying houses as investments.

Trump: It’s typically a dead time. Most buyers will not be getting offers, so if you find the right deal, it may be the only offer a seller will see for weeks, if not months.

Lashinsky: If you’re looking for a home, it’s a great time to keep looking. If you find a house that meets your needs and desires, it’s a great time to buy. Home sellers on the market at this time of year are motivated, there are fewer buyers to compete with and being in a new home is a great way to start the new year.

Rascoff: The pros are that there are fewer other buyers and motivated sellers. The con is there’s less time for Christmas shopping

Forbes: Well, these days we may need less time for that. But thanks, guys, for another great talk. If you’re a reader who’d like to ask our panel a question, feel free to email me or to post your question to the comments section.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/07/real-estate-advisor-personal-finance-housing-buy.html

Stephane Fitch, 12.07.09, 05:33 PM EST

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Tracking of Consumer Confidence

Consumer Confidence continued to soften during the month of October. The reasons for the continued softening are as follows:

• Concern over job security
• Consumers do not have the means to increase spending for big ticket items: cars, houses and major appliances
• Tight credit
• Teenage unemployment at 52%
• Unemployment continues to rise

Consumers who are not worried about job loss or finding a new job are embracing frugal spending behavior.

Remember to share with the consumer that it is the absolute perfect time to buy or sell a property. Home prices and home sales are increasing. Interest rates are inching upward very slowly. They are encouraged to act on the opportunity that is in front of them. Remember there is still around 90% of the workforce that is employed and we need to help them with their housing needs.

Recent Gross Domestic Product numbers are in for the quarter ending in September. The GDP is being reported to be up 3.5% for the first time in 8 quarters. This is the first quarter moving the nation in the direction of an economic recovery. The GDP is made up of three parts of the economy: consumer spending, corporate investment for expansion and Government spending. Consumer spending softened slightly, corporate investment is flat and will be for the next quarter; however, government spending was up substantially. The downside on the government spending is that the funds were borrowed. Also, the current level of government spending cannot be sustained for the long term and therefore the consumer spending and corporate investment will need to begin to grow in order to sustain the increase in GDP as government spending will begin to subside.

There are still many positive indicators for our economy:

• Stock market will move up and down in the near term; however, long term the market will continue upwards for the near future
• The value of the dollar may have reached its floor and will begin to strengthen
• China may have been reporting the growth in their economy falsely thereby highlighting the strength of the U.S. economy
• Interest rates may increase near the end of the second quarter 2010 as inflation begins kicking in
• Banks continue to grow stronger due to earnings of 3% on the margin received when loaning capital on borrowed federal funds
• Appraisals may become more realistic as Congress modifies regulations relaxing the current restrictive policy
• Cost of a barrel of oil still in the normal range and there is nothing near term that will cause a quick run-up in the price
• Unit number of housing sales continue to grow
• Extension of the first time homebuyers tax credit is a possibility

The public is returning to the marketplace for housing but is still concerned about the future of our economy. Let’s assure them that now is a great time to buy the home of their dreams. Go out there and meet someone you have never met before and tell them the great news about buying or selling! Folks need your help to make that decision, we encourage you to help them with their decision to either buy or sell.

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Many of my clients are currently recruiting 10 agents per month!

 It’s “recruiting season” and agents are on the move.

This “webinar recording” will provide you with the key recruiting strategies to have a great start in 2010!


Click here to hear listen to Richs’ webinar:

Rich Rector

1-800-925-0168
www.RectorRecruiting.com

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The MBA wants to split up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Perhaps it’s time.

The catalyst for such doom talk comes in the form of recommendations from the Mortgage Bankers Association. The MBA has proposed that the two behemoths be split into three smaller, private companies, called Mortgage Credit-Guarantor Entities (MCGEs). Like Fannie and Freddie these new entities would enjoy some government backstopping, but would ultimately own the loans underlying the government-guaranteed securities they issue. Should there be a foreclosure the MCGEs would own the real estate collateral. Specifically the MBA seeks to create a new type of mortgage backed security that works in two parts. In the first part the MCGEs would provide loan-level guarantees. In the second part the government would issue an explicit guarantee based on the credit risk in these securities.

So, yes, the government is still involved in the business of backing loans, but on the face of it these new MCGEs would privatize some of the risk. Today, with Fannie and Freddie in conservatorship all the risk, implicit and explicit, is assumed by the government.

The MBA speaks of a strong regulator to rule over these new entities, one funded through the government-guaranteed insurance premiums. But even remedial students of Fannie and Freddie know that they too have their own regulator, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, which was shown to be ineffectual at keeping the firms on the straight and narrow. Also it should be noted that the MBA is not making this proposal simply to be nice. It is trying to kick-start the secondary mortgage market. “It’s now been more than two years since the secondary mortgage market collapsed,” Michael Berman, MBA’s vice-chairman said in a public statement. “Rebuilding the secondary market is critical to restoring liquidity and confidence. The government has an important, limited role to play to ensure a stable flow of funds for mortgages.”

Although this last point will surely be debated, it is indisputable that the government’s rescue of Fannie and Freddie ensured a stable flow of funds to the two firm’s shareholders in 2009. Though shares collapsed on late 2008 those who bought at the start of the new year have profited handsomely, as Fannie is up 90.8% and Freddie is up 141.1%. Even so, Fannie Mae ( FNM - news - people ) was down 7.6% Wednesday, and Freddie Mac ( FRE - news - people ) is down 10.5%, meaning that the MBA’s proposal is scaring away some thrill seekers.

Shareholder volatility is just one problem plaguing Fannie and Freddie. Hilary Kramer, chief investment officer of A&G Capital Research, consulted with the firms from 2004 through 2006, and says that the firms owe the U.S. government $100 billion, and pay the government massive dividends each year.

“Fannie and Freddie’s value is zero because (they) could never produce enough profit to pay back that $100 billion,” she says. As a result she says the two firms really are functioning as bubbles, with investors in a frenzy to get in. As a result of this frenzy trading volume is skyrocketing, with over 1 billion shares trading hands on August 24.

Who really benefits from this frenzy? The same people who always seem to win on Wall Street, the banks and brokerages. On just that one day they generated over $30 million in trading fees, just for processing the trades related to Fannie and Freddie. So Goldman Sachs ( GS - news - people ), JPMorgan Chase ( JPM - news - people ) and Citigroup ( C - news - people ) continue to find new and interesting ways to make money from the bailouts.

Kramer adds that Fannie and Freddie would be in even more dire straits were it not for the actions of the Federal Reserve. Even as 421 troubled banks are on the verge of failing the Fed continues to prop up these firms. “The Fed is stepping in and buying, buying, buying and supporting the mortgage-backed market,” she says. “The government has spent over $200 billion just in … trying to keep mortgage rates at a 5% level or less.”

Worse, she says, there’s no sense of this reality in the executive suite. The suits continue to collect their bonuses, even as 1.8 million homes are at risk of foreclosure. Still, she says Fannie and Freddie only got in this position at the behest of the policy wielders in Washington and Wall Street firms looking to securitize everything they could get their hands on.

One thing that doomed Fannie and Freddie was faulty projections into how the housing market would continually work. Their models were based on assumptions that home prices would grow 5% a year based on immigration. But now that the U.S. economy has tanked immigration has started to work the other way. Kramer attests that some white collar execs she knows are fleeing the U.S. because their home nations offer better health care, whereas in the U.S. if you lose your job it gets very expensive, very fast.

Brett Hammond, chief investment strategist at TIAA-CREF, agrees that despite Fannie and Freddie’s sad state of affairs, this tragedy isn’t really of their own making. “It isn’t Fannie and Freddie’s fault, it’s that they’re subject to public policy. And the public policy was, for decades, to get more people into housing and not think ‘what kind of flexibility do we need?’”

Marc Lowlicht, the head of the wealth management division at Further Lane Asset Management, puts it this way: “I’m going to give you one sentence: politicians shouldn’t go into economics.”

While that might sound pithy it’s already too late for that with Fannie and Freddie. And if this latest MBA proposal gathers momentum it might be a good idea to think twice before trying to ride this bubble.

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   In April of this year Realty Executives International announced a groundbreaking partnership with Market Leader and their RealtyGenerator product. Since then over 144 Realty Executives brokerages across the country have signed up to use RealtyGenerator. Over 90 of these offices are now up and running with the system and are seeing tremendous success. Since April alone, RealtyGenerator has produced over 19.3 million Google impressions, 160,000 visitors, and nearly 12,500 registered leads for Executives across the country.

   Here in the Southeastern United States, RealtyGenerator is being used by 16 Realty Executives offices with another 11 websites just about to go live. In the Southeastern region alone, RealtyGenerator has generated over 4,000 registered leads, with approximately 36 closed transactions reported since April 1st. RealtyGenerator is proving to be a successful lead generation and lead management tool and we are all very excited about this product. As Jim Browning of Realty Executives in Port Charlotte put it, “Realty Generator allowed me to recruit and grow my business. I added 11 Executives and one new office because of this product”. His office has reported over 134 closed transactions with the RealtyGenerator system, in just over a year and a half.

   We are excited to announce that Realty Generator has agreed to be a major sponsor and presenter at the Savannah Conference coming up October 15-17th! They will be hosting both our annual first-night reception and a special break-out session for offices that are using the product. This will be a great opportunity for existing users to participate in a best practices discussion with RealtyGenerator representatives and current users. Those who have not yet seen RealtyGenerator will have an opportunity to see a live product demonstration. Now is a great time to make your plans to attend and be a part of this very special event!

   For those interested in getting started now, RealtyGenerator is offering a special incentive exclusively for Realty Executives brokers. Here are the details:

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Waived 2 months system fees (value $3,000)

Reduced monthly system fees of $1,200

Shortened contract term of 8 months (usually 12) 

   If you have been on the fence, now is the time to contact Chris Avery by phone at (888) 239-2560 or by email at chrisa@marketleader.com.

If we can help you at the Regional Office, please call (888) 540-5300.

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