Maureen Mengel Blog

B... )--ExxonMobil today announced that Mobil JetTM Oil 387, a synthetic High Performance Capability turbine engine oil, has been approved by GE Aviation for use in its CF6 ... )--On July 31, 2018, the Clough Global Opportunities Fund , a closed-end fund, paid a monthly distribution on its common stock of $0.1016 per share... )--On July 31, 2018, the Clough Global Dividend and Income Fund , a closed-end fund, paid a monthly distribution on its common stock of $0.1138 per... )--On July 31, 2018, the Clough Global Equity Fund , a closed-end fund, paid a monthly distribution on its common stock of $0.1278 per share to sha... )--Abode Properties a subsidiary of Transcontinental Realty Investors Inc., a Dallas-based real estate investment company, is pleased to announce leasing has begun... )--The Board of Directors for The Independent Order of Foresters has approved a dividend of ... (more) Press release distribution, EDGAR filing, XBRL, regulatory filings curated from Real Estate News ...

In part one of the study, Housing 1998-2018: A Look At Markets Utterly Broken By The Crash , we examined the string of real estate markets dealt irreparable damage by the housing crash in 2006-2007 and its fallout. In part two, we're looking at the most expensive zip codes in the United States over the long-term, from June 1998 to June 2018. Introduced in 1963, zip codes are used by the United States Postal Service (USPS) to designate delivery points within the U.S. Over time, zip codes became part of everyday speech,  transcending their functional origins — the epitome of which occurred in 1990, when "Beverly Hills, 90210" debuted on Fox that October. Since zip codes denote mail delivery points, in time they coincide with developing housing markets. They therefore become useful in real estate, where they can be used to break towns and neighborhoods down into smaller units of property. 1998 vs. 2018: Similarities And  Déjà Vu When...

"Life of the Party"; 1 star: Take a look at "Life of the Party" to see how bad Melissa McCarthy can be when the role she is playing is uninspired, uninteresting and underwhelming. A trip to take her daughter back to college goes sour for Deanna as she's abruptly told by her husband that he wants a divorce. New on DVD: a Life of the Party,a a Riverdalea look to make education entertaining curated from Real Estate News

Entrepreneur and former marine Rye Barcott understands that veterans, with their dedication, real-world experience and deep need to serve their country, are the perfect solution to the political divide. Listen in as he explains why at Inman Connect. WATCH: How veterans can help bridge our political divides curated from Inman

RealGrader is a platform empowering real estate professionals to measure, manage and maximize their online reputation on all relevant real estate marketing websites and social media platforms. How do you show up on Google? Your reputation is everything. RealGrader makes you a proud real estate professional when customers Google your name. We have developed a new technology to build, manage and measure your digital identity. We are the creators of stress free technology that expand your digital footprint while you cultivate the business of real estate. Would you like to know your Grade? We developed a grade like a credit score for how well you show up online: We analyze your online presence across relevant marketing sites and social media platforms. Our proprietary algorithm reveals strengths and weaknesses. Our technology ranks your digital identity strength on sites including Realtor.com, Zillow.com, Homes.com, Facebook, Google, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, your office ...

RealKey provides end-to-end transaction management for the entire homebuying and mortgage ecosystem. RealKey is a browser based transaction management system, which brings all the parties of buying a house and getting a mortgage into a single unified portal where all communication, updates, information, and documentation collection is automated through and intuitive UI and robust algorithms built by the nation’s top mortgage originator and Intuit’s CTO/GM of Innovation. RealKey is the universal way to apply for a mortgage, buy a house, and store all your pertinent information for future access. The RealKey ID attached to each consumer and/or property can be shared to buy or refinance with any lender or realtor via an open API, containing all the data needed from a consumer to buy or finance a home. Documentation and info gathering has been automated through integrations like Intuit, ADP/Paychex, and Mint to help users buy a house and get a mortgage in as little as a single day, re...

Katie Clancy of William Raveis’ The Cape House wants to make sure real estate agents are positioned to thrive in the future as leaders, not lemmings. Article image credited to Credit: Scott Chernis/Inman WATCH: The 3 keys to being a leader, not a lemming curated from Inman

Watch Doniece Sandoval’s Inman Connect San Francisco talk to hear how she used her skills as a marketing executive to bring mobile showers and toilets on wheels to the streets of San Francisco. Article image credited to Scott Chernis/Inman WATCH: How ‘radical hospitality’ changes lives for the better curated from Inman

Boost by HomeSpotter lets your agents become advertising experts without lifting a finger. Boost allows you to advertise your listings and open houses on Facebook, Instagram, Waze, and all across the web with a system tuned to deliver results. Boost empowers large brokers who need to help their agents win listings and generate leads but also don’t have the time to keep up with the latest trends in advertising. Most successful agents have found that spending time on their computers is taking them away from the important work of being with their clients, customers, and generally in their community. While at the same time, having a strong advertising strategy is important to their businesses and to prospective sellers. Boost automatically creates, targets, and reports on listing and open house ads that run on Facebook, Instagram, Waze, and all across the web. All of this is done for your agents in a customizable way that allows your company’s brand and voice to shine through. Als...

Backstory: A buyer was referred to Stambone by her real estate agent to discuss financing options for a potential home purchase. She currently owned a small condominium in Danbury and obtained a job promotion that required her to commute to New York City. Buyer qualifies using rental income for condo purchase curated from Real Estate News

Bob and his wife Ann purchased a home in Little Town, USA. Before purchasing the home, they inspected the home and the sellers assured them that there were no problems in the home – both cosmetically and structurally. The house met their expectations, according to the seller’s representation of the home. After Bob and Ann moved into the house, they discovered that when it rains, there is a terrible leak in the roof. They additionally found out that the seller had repaired the issue, but the repairmen had just simply patched up the hole and painted over the ceiling stains. The result? A seven year law-suit against the seller. What type of disclosures should the seller make? The best advice to follow is when in doubt, disclose. In order not to wind up like the seller of Bob and Ann’s home, it’s important to make the buyer aware of everything. In the above example, the seller should have warned the buyer's about the repair. A seller should disclose ANY minor or major proble...

Beverly Hills-based boutique brokerage The Agency announced its plans to open an office in Miami by the end of the year, in an interview with  The Real Deal  on Tuesday. If all goes according to plan for the Miami office, The Agency will be operating in 20 markets. Mauricio Umansky The Agency co-founder Mauricio Umansky told  TRD that the brokerage has yet to determine the finer details, such as the office’s location, who will lead the Miami branch and which agents will join the team. “As long as everything keeps going in the right direction, that is the plan,” Umansky told TRD . “But we are not done yet.” One thing is clear, the firm wants to keep its boutique feel as it moves into new markets, so it caps the number of agent teams at all locations. In 2017, The Agency went on an expansion spree in California, adding Pacific Palisades, Calabasas, Sherman Oaks, San Francisco, Palm Desert, Palm Springs and Danville to its list of markets. And in 2018,...

RealSavvy is an all-in-one software platform for real estate agents, teams and brokerages that is innovating how homebuyers stay connected to their agents. Using a “Pinterest-style” collaborative home search RealSavvy’s social IDX keeps agents and homebuyers collaborating in real time with instant SMS and email alerts, while their fully-integrated, predictive CRM provides agents and brokers with lead routing, lead management and important client search analytics. RealSavvy’s sleek website designs have built-in lead capture, a solid SEO foundation, and a propriety Sitebuilder that allows users to easily edit their websites and create marketing pages for lead capture without incurring developer fees. All the above features are built into a stand-alone app that is fully branded to agents and brokers and is searchable in the App Store or Google Play Store. Get RealSavvy today! Key Integrations: RealSavvy’s open APIs integrate with FollowupBoss, Salesforce, and an endless number of...

If you live in San Jose or Washington, DC, chances are you’re not far from a very generous bank, according to a new study. Homebuyers in San Jose wield the most borrowing power in the United States, with the ability to reel in homes valued at a whopping $660,884 based on the city’s annual median household income. Washington D.C., San Francisco, Boston and Seattle rounded out the top five, according to a Real House Price Index report by title insurance provider First American Financial Corporation. “House-buying power, how much one can buy based on household income and the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage rate, has benefited from a declining rate environment, and slow, but steady household income growth,” said First American Chief Economist Mark Fleming in a prepared statement. Nationwide, borrowing power has grown by 23.6 percent since 2011, according to the study. Assuming that a third of one’s income goes toward paying a mortgage, the average American family could aff...

Offerpad cofounder Jerry Coleman is stepping down from his role as one of the two co-chief executive offers (co-CEOs) of the homebuying startup, leaving his partner and fellow cofounder Brian Bair as the company’s sole CEO. Offerpad announced the change abruptly on Tuesday morning in a press release touting other new hires to its leadership team. Coleman will stay on as a board member and “will focus on capital raising and high-level initiatives and relationships,” according to the release. Offerpad co-founder Jerry Coleman. Credit: Offerpad “The company is evolving quickly at every level. I’m excited to expand our leadership team to continue providing our customers with the best way to buy and sell a home,” Bair said in a statement. “New additions, along with adjustments to our current structure, will further enhance Offerpad’s capabilities and facilitate company growth.” When asked why Coleman stepped down as co-CEO, Offerpad spokeswoman Cortney Read told Inman: “We’ve made...

No other service combines speed, affordability and ease-of-use like RICOH Tours agent mobile virtual tour solution. RICOH Tours puts virtual tour creation in the hands of every agent.  Create professional looking 360° tours in minutes with any mobile device and the RICOH Theta camera. Once complete, tours can be immediately posted to your listing services or shared on social media. RICOH Tours addresses challenges for real estate agents by adding simplicity to their jobs and affordable professionalism to their virtual tours. Time is tight, especially for agents looking to grow their portfolio. RICOH Tours offers the assurance and confidence that they can get it done, get it done right and right now. Advantages of RICOH Tours: Get customer engagement metrics not readily available on other platforms. Market yourself and your properties with interactive 360° tours. For the flat rate of $45 per month, subscribers will benefit from unlimited active immersive tours, agent mobi...

America’s only major insurance coverage program for homeowners suffering flood damage is safe… for now. The Senate voted 86-12 on Tuesday to extend the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) for four months, mere hours before the program’s deadline for expiration. “We applaud lawmakers for taking this needed action to prevent disruptions to closings in thousands of communities across the country,” said NAR President Elizabeth Mendenhall in a statement to Inman. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) joined other trade organizations in July to fight for an extension to the NFIP in the interim. It’s also lobbied for reforms to program. “Although the National Flood Insurance Program will be extended through November 30 when signed into law, the NFIP is in desperate need of reforms that will make it solvent and sustainable in the long term,” said Mendenhall. “The National Association of Realtors will continue fighting for these reforms as the next NFIP reauthorization discussion...

Notarize has partnered with Title Resources to allow the title insurance underwriter to offer online closings to homebuyers and sellers.  Article image credited to Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash Notarize partners with Title Resources to support digital closings curated from Inman

It was the smell that tipped them off. Having just closed on a Central Florida home for $200,000, newlyweds Daniel McKay and Katherine Pulker noticed a strong odor of cat urine when they went in to prepare the house for move-in day earlier this month. In a lawsuit first uncovered by the Tampa Bay Times , the couple accuses their Realtor, Debbie Clark of Link Realty, of using the property to house nearly 25 feral cats for her animal nonprofit and then masking the strong odor before selling them the home. Failing to disclose potential problems in a property is one of the most  common ways for real estate agents to get sued by their buyers, according to real estate experts. “Ms. Clark engaged in a scheme to conceal the damage done to the property, and the noxious odors emanating from the property by, but not limited to, installing new carpet, replacing baseboards, painting over urine saturated drywall and insulation, and through the use of masking deodorizers […],...

Annual home price growth was flat in May 2018, unchanged from the April’s 6.4 percent , according to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price NSA Index , announced Tuesday — one of the industry’s most trusted metrics. Also, the month-over-month growth from April 2018 to May 2018 was only 0.4 percent, seasonally adjusted. The good news for buyers: the rate at which home prices are rising, year-over-year and month-over-month, seems to have largely stabilized, for now. The bad news: homes are not getting any cheaper, anytime soon. “Not only are prices rising consistently, they are doing so across the country,” said David Blitzer, Managing Director & Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices in a press release. Once again,  Seattle , Las Vegas , and San Francisco reported the highest year-over-year gains, according to the report. Seattle had the strongest gains with a 13.6 percent year-over-year increase, followed b...

A file photo of Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, while addressing a 2011 meeting in Greenwich, Conn. A file photo of Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, while addressing a 2011 meeting in Greenwich, Conn. Start the conversation, or Read more at Westport News. Northeast leads nation in pending home sales in Q2 curated from Real Estate News

The head of Pacific Sotheby’s International Realty berated the U.S. CEO of low-fee brokerage Purplebricks over the company’s flat-fee model. WATCH: CEO slams Purplebricks over flat-fee commission model curated from Inman

Mortgage-backed securities giant Freddie Mac posted a comprehensive income of $2.4 billion in the second quarter of 2018, up from the $2.2 billion the government-sponsored, publicly traded company posted in the first quarter of 2018 and $2 billion it posted in the second quarter of 2017. “Freddie Mac’s transformation continued in the second quarter, with good business results and similarly good financial performance,” said Freddie Mac CEO Donald Layton in a prepared statement. “In business operations, our guarantee book grew significantly, credit quality was high, and we are generating a consistent stream of new innovations for our customers.” Freddie Mac guaranteed $84 billion in new single-family loan originations – with purchase volume up 29 percent year-over-year – and $16 billion in new multi-family loan originations, up 13 percent year-over-year, according to the release. Single-family delinquency rates dropped to 0.82 percent – the lowest level since early 2008 — and mult...

Email is still a powerful tool in the hands of today’s small and growing real estate investors and agents. Done right, it can be one of the most effective and high-return forms of marketing, lead generation and sales. These seven tips will help even the greenest entrepreneurs and brokers leverage email for more conversions, sales and profit. The Need For Email Email marketing may not be as trendy as Facebook chatbots, in-store beacons or retargeting ads. Yet, it is as important as ever. Many consumers still aren’t big on social media, leaving email as one of the only ways to consistently and efficiently market to them. The automation capabilities this medium provides also makes it one of the most affordable and high-return methods of connecting with new leads, generating repeat and referral business and developing strong brand loyalty. When used in tandem with other channels, both can see elevated marketing return on investment. While they may be strong Instagrammers or direct ...