From left: Kanye West, rendering of new housing scheme designed for low-income residents. (Credit from left: TRD, Instagram via Jalil Peraza)

The rapper's new architecture studio released its first renderings this week

Forget about albums, Kanye West now drops renderings.

The rapper turned designer, entrepreneur and now developer revealed his newly-formed architecture studio’s first project, a prefabricated affordable housing scheme, via one of his collaborator’s Instagram account this week, according to the Architect’s Newspaper.

The public release of the renderings come weeks after West filmed an interview where he spoke about his plans to build a real estate empire. In a len...

By Dennis Lynch | June 07, 2018 08:45AM

(Credit: Public Domain Pictures, Pixabay, Money via Flickr)

Home flipping rates hit 6-year high nationwide: report
The quick turnaround strategy was most prevalent in NY but dropped in Miami in Q1 Start your post here...

Flipping houses, always a risk-reward proposition, is still very popular in the U.S. post-recession.

The rate of house flips hit a six-year high as a share of sales in the first quarter of 2018, according to a report in ATTOM Data Solutions. New York City saw a 20 percent increase in home flipping year over year, while Chicago saw a 7 percent increase. But there were stark differences around the country.

Tight markets made it hard for specu...

At FTC workshop, industry grapples with the sacred cow of commissions

Gov't intervention would quash real estate competition: NAR
By E.B. Solomont | June 06, 2018 07:00AM

Katie Johnson and Trelora CEO Josh Hunt (Credit: National Association of Realtors and Trelora)

Despite having access to a wealth of real estate data online, buyers and sellers can still be clueless about how commission fees work.

But have traditional brokerages intentionally kept consumers in the dark in an attempt to maintain their rates? That was a key point of contention at a “workshop” convened Tuesday by the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice.

The workshop, titled “What’s New in Resi...

By E.B. Solomont | Research by Ashley McHugh-Chiappone
June 06, 2018 10:00AM

(Illustration by Kolchoz)

They won the listings — but can they sell them?

That’s a question New York’s top residential agents have been grappling with for the past few years, with buyers calling the shots in a slow-moving market. Amid tax-reform jitters in 2017 and a pileup of new condo inventory, an affirmative answer often boils down to one thing: price.

This month, in addition to ranking Manhattan’s top agents by their closed deals, The Real Deal tallied their total dollar volume of listings — which offers a window into who’s locking down exclusives and teeing up the most busines...

By Katherine Kallergis | May 24, 2018 05:30PM

Miami-Dade homes (Credit: indmiamibeachrealestate.com)

Residential sales rose in all three counties in April to more than 8,700 closings – a 7.85 percent year-over-year increase – according to reports from the Florida Realtors. Miami-Dade experienced the biggest surge with a nearly 13 percent increase in closings compared to the previous year.

The increases follow a slower first quarter, where sales only rose in Palm Beach County.

Miami-Dade

Condo sales rose 24.6 percent last month to 1,384 closings, while home sales were up only 2.1 percent to 1,217, according to the Miami Association of Realtors.

In all, residential closings totaled 2,60...

Single family homes

More homeowners think now is the perfect time to sell than they have in the past 26 years. But that positive sentiment has done nothing to boost listing inventory and alleviate the tight housing market.

In early May, 39 percent of respondents in a survey conducted by the University of Michigan said conditions for selling a home were optimal because of favorable prices, Bloomberg News reported.

That was the highest share of homeowners who had a positive view on the market since late 1992.

But even though a greater share of homeowners think now is the best time to sell than they did during the peak of the house-flipping cycle in mid-2005, when the figure stood at 30 percent, t...

Here’s how much the world’s billionaires park in real estate.

Results are in from the annual census of the super-wealthy

By Erin Hudson | May 20, 2018 11:15AM

(Credit: Pixabay)

Property investment ticked up last year among the global elite, according to a census of the ultra-wealthy.

Of the world’s 7.6 billion people, 2,754 of them are billionaires who have cumulatively amassed $9.2 trillion worth of assets, according to Wealth-X’s annual census, and about 3 percent of that wealth is parked in real estate and other luxury goods. Last year, billionaires’ average wealth in real estate and other luxury assets only valued a total of 2.3 percent.

Among the wealthiest indiv...

Real estate agent safety isn’t a new or uncommon topic in industry conversation, but it’s definitely one that bears repeating. On a regular basis, real estate agents interact with new clients, oftentimes in unfamiliar environments. Therefore, they need to be constantly aware of their surroundings and client intentions.

It all boils down to situational awareness, safety and self-defense – three key concepts needed to protect your personal safety. If you’re a real estate agent, it’s important to know how to prevent yourself from entering unsafe situations, and should the need arise, knowing how to defend yourself.

You don’t need to be a master in martial arts...

When you’re marketing your real estate agency, what are the most important factors you promote?

Your listings? The number of sales your agency completed last year? The fact that you have the best agents in the area all under one roof?

These things sound nice, but they’re not going to help you sell homes (especially if all you’re pushing are listings).

Everyone already knows what a real estate agent can do. They know you have listings. They know you’re there to help in the buying or selling of a property.

What they don’t know – and what they need to know – is how you can help them better than any other agent.

The Three Components of Real Estate Marketing...

This will be great for all luxury markets alike and hopefully do away with the

headaches of the traditional way of financing of hurry up and wait!

After all-cash deals dominated about a third of home sales last year, the takeaway for lenders and banks was they needed to expedite mortgage applications — before a competitor did.

Bank of America began allowing buyers to access loans worth up to 80 percent of their home following an all-cash purchase, and Better Mortgage Corp. started testing on a system to allow them to underwrite mortgages within a day.

Now, a Colorado-based and operated company, Eave, is going a step further launching a new software that automates mortgage applications and...