Topic:  Newsletter Articles

Appraisal Subcommittee (ASC) Executive Director Ben Henson told a panel discussion at the Association of Appraiser Regulatory Officials (AARO) last month that prior to 2003, the ASC had warned six states about their appraiser licensing and certification programs, but in the past 18 months alone, 10 jurisdictions have been warned about some aspect of their regulatory program being out of compliance with a potential to affect ASC recognition.   Read more...

A lot of buzz in the media and in the halls came out of our booth at the 91st annual Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) Conference & Expo in San Francisco October 24-26 with our announcement that in conjunction with Wave Systems, we're bringing digital signature technology to small and medium sized mortgage brokers and lenders in December.   Read more...

Last month, retail banking giant Bank of America (BoA) announced its plans to layoff 4,500 employees as part of its ongoing FleetBoston Financial integration. It already had plans to lay off 12,500 employees as a result of the merger completed April 1, which hailed to "bring unrivaled convenience and advantage to more than 35 million households and businesses across the country."   Read more...

Unable to find a buyer for its mortgage business, Cendant Corp. recently spun off its PHH Corp. mortgage and fleet management operations to its shareholders to better focus on its travel and residential real estate sectors. Cendant's mortgage business, operating as Cendant Mortgage, is the sixth largest retail originator of residential mortgage loans in the United States.   Read more...

As a real estate agent, you know that by marketing your services daily you stay on the minds of your current clients, build relationships with new prospects - and, of course, grow your business. But between showings, listing presentations and closings and daily administrative duties, many agents don't have the time or money to dedicate to a full-time marketing department and crucial lead generating e-mails and print campaigns often become last on the agent's to do list.   Read more...

Vault 3.0 is here, and you're invited to upgrade your existing Vault service for free (as is always the case with our upgrades) by visiting our upgrade page. Your upgrade will include an Instant Customer Update (ICU) mechanism such as we use with WinTOTAL, so you'll automatically be delivered future updates without having to visit any page or download any files.   Read more...

Women are no longer waiting to find "the man of their dreams" before investing in their future as the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) reports that single women now make up 21 percent of all home buyers - that's 1.7 million. That makes them the second largest home buying category next to married couples.   Read more...

Pittsburgh-based General American Corp. (GAC), one of the nation's largest mortgage vendor management companies, recently completed a custom plugin for our XSite Order Manager (formerly Mercury Desktop) product for our nationwide roster of real estate appraisers.   Read more...

More and more people are recognizing REALTORS'® expertise in the real estate market and are choosing them for help in buying and selling their homes, according to a National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) survey that measured the effectiveness of the seventh season of the group's public awareness campaign.   Read more...

…Or would be if Alan Dalton, the President of the company that owns and operates REALTOR.com®, had it his way.   Read more...