By Peter Ricci Home prices increased 5 percent year-over-year in the CoreLogic Home Price Index, which is the biggest increase in more than six years for the index and the seventh straight month of yearly increases. On a month-to-month

By Peter Ricci Consumer sentiment towards the housing market has been gradually improving in Fannie Mae’s National Housing Surveys, and a new FindLaw survey has found that the situation is improving other notable ways. According to the FindLaw survey, which

By Peter Ricci Embattled GSE Freddie Mac reported a monster third quarter in its latest financial report, with a net income of $2.9 billion that will allow the firm to avoid drawing additional funds from the U.S. Treasury. It

By Peter Ricci The National Association of Realtors spends quite a bit of money advocating Realtor issues, and nowhere are its expenses more prominent than in the realm of politics. In 2012 alone, NAR contributed $2.92 million to political

By Peter Ricci Asking prices increased 0.7 percent from September to October in the latest Trulia Price Monitor, a survey of all the listings featured on the real estate syndication site. In addition, prices rose 2.9 percent from October

By Peter Ricci Today’s real estate agents should always be thinking of ways to utilize technology to better communicate with their clients and potential homebuyers, and instant messaging programs, which can be incorporated into agent’s real estate websites, are

By Peter Ricci Today is the day: Election Day! Now that the election is finally upon us, we can breathe a sigh of relief that we won’t be seeing anymore campaign ads anymore and, more importantly, revisit what is

By Stephanie Sims If you know your target market, your message will be well-received. Even though real estate is about selling, knowing stats about your clients, and homebuyers in general, can only help you and your

By Peter Ricci RealtyTrac, the oft-quoted real estate research firm based in Irvine, California, generated considerable buzz a couple weeks back when it published a stinging study arguing that nearly every available housing metric had worsened under President Obama’s watch. With

By Peter Ricci The latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which looked at the U.S. economy in the third quarter, was good but unspectacular – a 2 percent annual rate of growth, up from 1.3 percent in

Here’s more data that shows that the market is coming back: total transactions and closings have increased 24.50 and 23.05 percent, respectively, from 2011 to 2012, and the average days on market and average sale price decreased 1.22 percent

By Tara Steele, AGBeat According to newly released data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a measure of contract signings, rose 0.3 percent in September from August, barely cause for any noise.

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 Anne Hartnett I am in real estate media. I eat, sleep and live the topic. It’s what people corner me about at dinner parties, the gym and the dog park. Because of my work, I track several high-tech

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 Natalie Terchek Today, Related Midwest held a ceremony commemorating the re-start of the construction of 111 West Wacker Drive. The site will become a 60-story tower with 504 luxury apartments and ground-level retail. The Silver LEED designed development