By Peter Ricci Zillow has completed its fourth major acquisition in just 18 months, purchasing the real estate shopping website Buyfolio for an undisclosed sum. A fun, streamlined approach to online home shopping, Buyfolio is a New York City-based

By Peter Ricci Here’s an eye-opening stat for you: according to the latest studies by Forrester, a prominent research firm based in Cambridge, Mass., text messages increased 14 percent from 2010 to 2011, and in 2011, more than two trillion texts

By Peter Ricci Yesterday, we looked at how real estate agents can establish themselves as neighborhood experts by creating custom maps in the Google Maps function. Today, in the second part of our neighborhood expert series, we’ll take a

By Peter Ricci Residential construction spending increased modestly in September, rising 2.8 percent from August’s revised totals to an annual rate of $285.9 billion, according to the latest numbers from the Census Bureau. After four years of precipitous declines,

By Peter Ricci Real estate news feeds, including Crain’s and Inman News, reported yesterday that Naperville-based tech firm Cartavi has completed a successful Series A round of venture capital funding, with such investors as I2A Fund, Firestarter, OCA Ventures

By Peter Ricci The Internet has been a double-edged sword for real estate agents. On one hand, the Internet is great, because it allows you to market your business to a bevy of potential homebuyers; but on the other,

By Peter Ricci Housing construction has been posting some of its best numbers in years the last couple months, but some analysts are worrying that mounting building costs could threaten the industry’s momentum. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported,

By Peter Ricci This is Halloween, the day when pumpkins scream in the dead of night, children trick or treat until the neighbors die of fright and real estate agents sell property with all their might! Alright, that may

By Natalie Terchek The real estate market place Zillow introduced pre-market inventory to its home search experience. Shoppers are now able to search for and find information on 1.2 million pre-foreclosures and foreclosed properties, for free. These homes are not yet

By Peter Ricci One of the more interesting real estate surveys out there is the HousingPulse Tracking Survey from Campbell Surveys and Inside Mortgage Finance, a broad look at the real estate markets and the preeminent issues and trends on agents

By Peter Ricci Chicago home prices increased 0.7 percent from July to August in the latest Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, the economic measure from Standard & Poor’s (S&P) that is considered the authority on home prices in the U.S.

By Peter Ricci The mortgage markets have been bracing themselves for new regulations ever since the passing of the Dodd-Frank regulatory bill in 2010, and a new study from the American Action Forum on the qualified mortgage rule, Basel

By Peter Ricci “Boomerang buyers” are just like any other prospective homebuyer, except with one key difference – as the clever name would suggest, they are returning to the homeownership market after going through a foreclosure during the housing

By Peter Ricci According to a new survey jointly conducted by the Department of Psychology at the University of Central Florida (UCF) and technology firm Merge, 64 percent of agents said they update clients weekly or several times weekly. But this communications

Fifth Third Mortgage Company, a subsidiary of Fifth Third Bank, and the 13th largest originator in the country (Inside Mortgage Finance, Second Quarter 2012) continues to outpace the industry in permanent modifications in the government’s Home Affordable Modification Program

By Peter Ricci Real estate syndication site Zillow is making headlines with its decision to list 1.2 million “pre-market inventory” foreclosure properties on its site, a decision that is simultaneously satisfying the data needs of potential homebuyers and riling