By Ian McKendry One company is trying to fight fraud and offer peace of mind with software and data that helps monitor risk and vets closing agents. Secure Settlements, Inc. announced its launch in August and says their risk

By Peter Ricci It’s one of the cardinal rules in real estate: do not allow your clients to appear in MLS photos! Though we love rebels as much as the next democratically-active spirit, sometimes rules have a very good

By Peter Ricci Distressed sales accounted for 23 percent of all residential housing sales in the second quarter, according to RealtyTrac’s Q2 2012 U.S. Foreclosure Sales Report. That total is up from a 22 percent share in the first quarter

By Peter Ricci Now this is interesting – after a solid month of rising interest rates impacting the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey, fixed mortgage rates fell in Freddie Mac’s latest survey; yet, mortgage applications in

Glencoe School District 35 was rated the fourth most attractive school district in the nation by real estate website Trulia in a study of how the nation’s school districts impacted the decisions of prospective homebuyers. Trulia’s methodology was simple

By Peter Ricci Bidding wars are normally the ultimate sign of a hot real estate market, that demand for real estate is so stratospheric that prospective homebuyers are nearly falling over themselves with offers for the homes. Sadly, bidding

By Peter Ricci It’s a narrative that many real estate professionals are all too aware of – a distressed property appears in a certain market, where it sits for months and negatively impacts the selling prices of the surrounding

By Stephanie Sims Interested in what prospective clients think of the market? Redfin’s latest quarterly homebuyer survey answers could help you better reach and help your clients. Less than two weeks ago, Redfin collected data from 829 people across

By Peter Ricci The multifamily housing sector has been a true anomaly; while housing construction has bounced along on a largely sideways path for most of 2012, multifamily housing has been booming, with multifamily housing starts up 30 percent

By Peter Ricci The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator of home sales based on contract signings, rose 2.4 percent from June to July and reached its highest level in more than two years, or, since the expiration

By Peter Ricci The Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which we wrote about earlier today, is undoubtedly the most influential monitor for the nation’s home prices in the current market. But such enthusiasm, as Inman News has demonstrated in the past,

By Peter Ricci The National Association of Realtors’ new real estate TV ad is garnering quite a bit of attention in the real estate community, and not all of it good. Titled “Moving Pictures,” the ad plays from the

By Carlo Calma Founder and Chairman of Sho-Deen, Inc. Kent Shodeen has made the announcement that Craig Shodeen has recently rejoined the company, and will serve as president of ShoDeen Residential. Craig is no stranger to the Sho-Deen, Inc.

Real estate appraisals are among the more consistent topics that we cover here at Chicago Agent, and for good reason – though real estate, after a prolonged slumber, has been posting some of its best numbers in years, the most

For the second month in a row, Chicago home prices rose strongly in the Case-Shiller Home Price Indices from Standard & Poor’s, rising 4.6 percent from May to June. Chicago was the talk of the real estate community last month, when

By Peter Ricci Instagram, the free photo-sharing social network that allows users to snap photographs with their mobile devices and share them with fellow Instagram users, is the latest darling on the technological scene, and naturally, users are beginning