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by RMLS Communication Department | Aug 4, 2010
Attention all Realtors®
Numerous Realtors® have reported receiving emails and phone calls from a person out-of country who claims to need assistance with an all-cash real estate purchase. The caller may also insist on the need to retain a lawyer with a trust account, and requests a referral. The Realtor® or referred lawyer soon receives a substantial check (reports are from $150,000 to $500,000) to be deposited into broker trust account or lawyer trust account. Soon thereafter another call is received from a person purporting to be the attorney for the scammer in his home country. The foreign attorney says that the funds were sent out of country without appropriate government authority and must be immediately returned in order to avoid sanctions and penalties. Holder of the funds is pressed to wire the money without delay. Needless to say, the purchaser and the check are a fraud.
If you receive questionable requests for service or referrals, be cautious and inquire further.
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by RMLS Communication Department | Aug 3, 2010
This August, take advantage of FREE RMLSweb training
Here’s a quick rundown of upcoming real estate events & education for August in Oregon & Southern Washington. If you have an event that is not listed here, please let us know by commenting below. For future events, please send an e-mail to communications (at) rmls (dot) com.
Events around the Region:
–August 3-8: Home Builders Association of Metropolitan Portland hosts Green Week @ The Street.
-August 5: W & R Studios presents Cloud CMA Workshops at the RMLS™ Portland office. Register for the morning or afternoon class.
-August 12: Eugene Association of Realtors® offers the “Know Your Sidings!” course.
-August 19: Vancouver Fine Homes Group presents the Vancouver Fine Homes Group August Tour.
-August 20: Portland Metropolitan Association of Realtors® is holding auditions for its talent show, PMAR’s Got Talent. Live auditions are at the Portland RMLS™ office on August 20.
-August 27: This month’s Portland Real Estate Industry Social will be held at Atwater Penthouse on Friday, August 27.
In addition to these events, RMLS™ is offering a new training course called CMA & Statistics. Here is a brief description about the class:
Want to be the expert in your market area? Want to better explain pricing to your clients? In this class we’ll show you how to get the statistical and comparable data you need to do just that. We’ll use the RMLSweb Statistical module to examine MLS Areas for trends and the CMA (Comparative Market Analysis) module to search for comps to create a customized report that stands apart from the rest.
Also, if you’re an RMLS™ subscriber, we have lots of FREE opportunities for continuing education credit at a location near you; click the link for your area to view the August Training Calendar:
– Coos County
– Eastern Oregon
– Eugene
– Florence
– Gresham
– Hood River
– Portland
– Roseburg
– Salem
– Vancouver
by RMLS Communication Department | Aug 2, 2010
Activity dips for both Washington and Oregon
When comparing the week of July 19 – July 25 with the week prior, the number of times an RMLS™ subscriber opened a Supra lockbox decreased 10.5% in Washington and 5.2% in Oregon.
Archive
View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.
by RMLS Communication Department | Jul 26, 2010
Both states see activity gains from previous week
When comparing the week of July 12 – July 18 with the week prior, the number of times an RMLS™ subscriber opened a Supra lockbox increased 7.1% in Washington and 12.2% in Oregon.
Archive
View an archive of the Supra lockbox statistical reports on Flickr.
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by RMLS Communication Department | Jul 23, 2010
Terms like “short sales” and “bank-owned” are on many people’s tongues and minds in the real estate industry. The recent addition of the Short Sale and Bank Owned fields on RMLSweb now allow us to look at data for these listings individually.
Before there was a short sale field on RMLSweb, there was only a “3rd Party to Transaction” field. As you may know, “3rd Party to Transaction” listings are not always short sales. They may also be estate sales or relocations. In order for you to identify short sales more efficiently, the RMLS™ Board voted to add these new fields, a change that occurred July 29, 2009. This also helps the other types of properties that require 3rd Party approval to get fair attention. RMLS™ has added the following fields regarding short sales:
Short Sale Yes/No – will be required when entering a listing and 3rd Party to Transaction will be automatically checked when Yes is selected.
Short Sale Offer (Seller Accepted; Submitted for Approval) Yes/No– The rules will be revised to require updating this field when an offer is made.
In a blog post last year, we compared 3rd Party to Transaction sales to the total active listings on the market. Now, with the recent addition of these new fields, we can look at short sale data and bank owned data more specifically and also compare them to the market as a whole. The graph below shows you the total number of active listings in RMLSweb as of today July 23, 2010, compared to the number of active listings that are checked Short Sale Yes, and also compared to those that are marked Bank Owned. The number of active short sales in comparison to the total number of active listings is approximately 11.7%, while the number of active bank owned properties in comparison to the total number of active listings is about 5.4%.
As you can see from the above graph, the number of active short sales and bank owned properties is a small fraction of the number of total active listings. There were 31,762 total active listings, 3,731 total active short sales and 1,715 total active bank owned listings.
Now that we’ve looked at active listings, let’s compare total pending sales in the market with pending short sales and pending bank owned properties. The graph below depicts this comparison using data from RMLSweb on July 23rd, 2010:
There were 5,094 total pending listings, 877 pending short sales and 913 pending bank owned properties.
Last, let’s take a look at sold listings. The graph below shows that there were 17,751 total sold listings from the period of January 1, 2010 to June 30th, 2010. The number of sold short sales was 1,620, just 9.1% of total sold listings. Bank owned listings sold at a higher rate with 3,422 sales, which is approximately 19.3% of total sold listings.
Visit the National Association of Realtors® website for more information on short sales and bank owned properties.
Also, stay tuned for future blog posts that will compare prices and the number of days on market for short sales and bank owned properties, to the market as a whole.
