Topic:  Newsletter Articles

LandSafe announced it was revising its policy, implemented with the official introduction of the new Fannie Mae forms, requiring a cost approach analysis on all reports.   Read more...

The Bush administration moved after the President's State of the Union address, which only briefly touched on housing in the context of rebuilding the New Orleans area, to re-introduce FHA proposals that would make more people eligible for insured mortgages.   Read more...

This week we're releasing a new feature, Listings Publisher, on your real estate XSite websites that will allow your listings to get more exposure than they you ever could using just an MLS.   Read more...

Viral marketing refers to any strategy that encourages people to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for growth in the message's exposure and influence. There are examples of viral marketing all over the web. If you have a Hotmail e-mail account, you unwittingly infect the recipient with the footer message included in each e-mail. Hallmark.com offers free e-cards for you to send to a friend, who will have to watch a short advertisement for Hallmark before reading your message.   Read more...

When shopping for a lender, 61 percent of recent borrowers asked their friends family members, their REALTOR® or other personal acquaintances for recommendations on choosing a mortgage company, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2005 Primary Mortgage Origination Study. Additionally, more than 40 percent of borrowers indicate they utilize the Internet as a resource for gathering information during their lender shopping process.   Read more...

XSite Order Manager/Mercury Desktop users who have installed Aurora form filling software have been using the Tracking PowerView to see and update everything about the status of an assignment and a report. In the coming weeks, the Tracking PowerView will be merged into a new Files PowerView.   Read more...

Our second annual Winter Convention in Las Vegas January 16-18 was an incredible success. Click here for a roundup. We want to thank all attendees, all the exhibitors, VIPs like former HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo, 2005 National Association of REALTORS® President Al Mansell, "visiting professors" like Henry Harrison, who taught an acclaimed seminar on the new Fannie Mae forms, and Jeff Jones, whose network security classes are favorites, the staff of the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, and everyone else who made the event so great.   Read more...

Tim Vining, the Washington state appraiser who won a $50,000 settlement from a client for copyright infringement, was cheered when introduced as the first appraiser to successfully defend his intellectual property rights at a panel discussion of appraisal advocacy issues at our second annual Winter Convention. His story riveted the hundreds gathered at lunch to hear about issues like copyrighting, false advertising of appraisal alternatives, AVMs and lender pressure.   Read more...

Generation X - those born roughly between 1965 and 1979 - have become the most prominent home buyer group today. In fact, National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) research on consumer preferences indicates that 37 percent of Gen-Xers and 27 percent of echo boomers (those born after 1979) intend to buy homes in the next two years, compared to just 13 percent of baby boomers and 6 percent of seniors.   Read more...

If you're like many website owners, you're constantly making changes and updating the pages of your site so search engines index them - thereby allowing you to generate more traffic. The problem is most search engines keep methods of indexing web pages a secret, so you don't always know how or when anyone will find them or the changes you've made.   Read more...