Real Estate News

We had to go all the way to India to find this item, but we found it. The India Times reported yesterday that U.S. real estate agents are using blogging to target and develop real estate clients. The article says that four agents spoke about this trend at the Bloggers Connect Program at the Real Estate Connect conference in San Francisco.

Pennsylvania Real Estate Investment Trust had been expected to post profits of about $0.85 per share according to RTTNews, but it turned out they took a loss of $0.08 per share, one more sign that the real estate crisis has a way to go before it starts to see daylight. Also reporting losses, this time on the lending side, was American Mortgage Acceptance Corporation which lost $4.01 per share over the past six months.

An article appearing today at Bloomberg.com claims that overall housing inventories must fall at least 50% before prices will "stabilize." The article quotes MIT economics professor Will Wheaton to that effect and provides details about how hard the housing recession is hitting home builders.

With real estate sales suffering, brokers and agents are being faced with more sellers asking for reductions in the standard 6% selling fees, and Consumer Reports says they're getting them. In an article from their September 2008 issue, they reported the following:

Most of the real estate industry has been suffering from poor sales and a disheartened base. However, there's a niche in the industry that is doing well. Biomed Realty Trust filed 2nd quarter financial reports which showed their company is improving compared to one year ago. Company earnings increase by nearly 10%.

Reuters is reporting that the credit crunch is hitting the commercial real estate industry particularly hard. They cite two of the biggest real estate service companies, CB Richard Ellis Group Inc and Jones Lang LaSalle Inc as experiencing plummeting sales volume.

James M. Weichert, president and founder of Weichert Realtors, cheered Congress today for passing legislation giving a tax credit to home buyers in order to stimulate the housing market. Marketwatch reported Weichert saying, "I was particularly pleased to see that this bill included a tax credit for homebuyers.