MBA Application Survey for April 21, 2010: Rates Soon to Rise?

[By Sold at the Top]

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) publishes the results of a weekly applications survey that covers roughly 50 percent of all residential mortgage originations and tracks the average interest rate for 30 year and 15 year fixed rate mortgages, 1 year ARMs as well as application volume for both purchase and refinance applications.

The purchase application index has been highlighted as a particularly important data series as it very broadly captures the demand side of residential real estate for both new and existing home purchases.

The latest data is showing that the average rate for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage declined 13 basis points since the last week to 5.04% while the purchase application volume increased 10.10% and the refinance application volume jumped 15.80% over the same period.

It’s important to recognize that now that the Federal Reserve’s mortgage related “quantitative easing” measures are complete, rates could soon be on the rise.

If rates continue to trend upward, purchase activity will slow despite the efforts of the federal government to incentivize home buying.

The following chart shows how the principle and interest cost and estimated annual income required to cover the PITI (using the 29% “rule of thumb”) on a $400,000 loan has changed since November 2006.

 [Click to enlarge]

The following chart shows the average interest rate for 30 year and 15 year fixed rate mortgages over the last number of weeks.

The following charts show the Purchase Index, Refinance Index and Market Composite Index since November 2006.

Office Space Search Engine Recognized in Top 15 Percent of All Webby Nominations for Outstanding Site Content, Functionality and Overall Excellence

 [Alex Change CEO  roost.com takes Rofo.com on a tour through his company's office space in an executive suite building at 4th and Folsom in San Francisco California]

Marketwire The leading international Webby Awards honoring excellence on the Internet, selected Rofo.com the first search engine dedicated solely to matching small businesses with office space, as an Official Honoree of the 2010 Webby Awards in the Real Estate Category. This prestigious honoree recognition credits Rofo as being in the top 15 percent of nearly 10,000 Webby entries received from more than 60 countries for its remarkable work and innovative approach to the online commercial real estate market.

Founded by a team of commercial real estate and technology experts, Rofo is the only search engine provider focusing solely on helping small businesses and entrepreneurs locate office space. Smaller office spaces, ranging from 2-5,000 square feet, most suitable for small businesses, are not easy to find. Given that the lease values are lower than larger office spaces, they are traditionally passed over by commercial real estate brokers and larger commercial real estate websites, or the listings are buried in general-purpose classified sites. Rofo addresses these challenges by dramatically simplifying the search phase of the moving process -- which enables small business owners to remain productive and sane.

With its comprehensive search results, robust real estate inventory, and easy-to-use search interface, Rofo gives small business owners a one-stop office space search solution by matching them with properties that meet their specific business needs. At the same time, commercial real estate brokers and landlords are provided an online marketplace to post their properties and instantly connect with local businesses on the move.

"We are thrilled to be chosen as a Webby Award Honoree in the Real Estate category, as it reinforces our mission of connecting small business tenants with landlords and brokers in the online commercial real estate marketplace,". "With our core focus on smaller office space and one-stop-searching, Rofo is meeting a market need that remains unfulfilled on the Web and in the off-line world and this honorary mention certainly helps validate our service."Alan Bernier, chief executive officer of Rofo

The Webby Awards judges evaluated nearly 10,000 entries from all 50 states and more than 60 countries, where less than 15 percent were awarded the status of Official Honoree. Entries for Website companies were judged on criteria such as content, structure, navigation, visual design, functionality, interactivity and overall experience. Webby Award winners will be announced during New York's Internet Week on June 13, 2010.

About Rofo
Founded in 2007 and based in San Francisco, California, Rofo (www.rofo.com) is a free commercial real estate search engine that specializes in helping small businesses and entrepreneurs locate hard-to-find, smaller (under 5,000 square feet) office spaces to meet their growing business demands. Rofo efficiently connects commercial real estate brokers and landlords to local businesses on the move through matching criteria such as city, type of business, neighborhood, space type and business requirements. The privately-held company displays listings from local landlords, regional and national brokerage firms, and institutional landlords such as Hines. To learn more about Rofo or to search for your perfect office space, please visit www.rofo.com.

Current Standings on 21/04/10 of US Real Estate Sites

 Trulia.com update - Wed, Apr 21, 2010

Trulia Home Price Reduction Report - Levels Drop 26 Percent Year Over Year

[More Articles on the webby Awards]

[RE/MAX to deploy World’s Leading Real Estate Technology Platform in India]

RE/MAX – The World’s leading Real Estate Network, is going to deploy one of the world’s most advanced Integrated Real Estate Management platforms for its Indian Operations. This technology would be sourced from Canadian Firm – GryphTech – a leading provider of enterprise software applications, solutions and services.

RE/MAX India will implement the multi-lingual, multi-site solution across the entire network over the next two months. Specifically designed for regional real estate franchise networks, the flexible platform is comprised of a series of administrative, sales and marketing, operational and recruitment tools to optimize productivity; manage performance and maximize organizational growth.

This technology is major step up ,as it boasts of many unprecedented features for Listing Management, Buyer & Property Match, Referrals & Contact Management etc. Besides these, it will also have a suite of office and agent management system which will allow managers to establish unit goals, monitor performance, manage recruitment and report their performance.

Every agent in the RE/MAX network would access this technology and could help his/her clients with buying / selling / leasing property in any of the 120 regions and 80 countries where RE/MAX is present.

After a contract signing held on March 29th 2010, – “GryphTech’s extensive Real Estate domain expertise, stellar reputation with other franchise-based real estate companies around the world and their proven track record in more than 35 countries in Europe and North & South America, within similar start-up organizations, played a key role in our final decision”, he further added – ” With the advent of this technology the profiling of the real estate agents would also undergo a shift; the real estate agents of tomorrow will be Tech Savvy, Highly Professional, Entrepreneurial and Growth Oriented.”Mr. Samir Chopra – Executive Director, RE/MAX India

“At GryphTech we pride ourselves on our ability to help start-up real estate management organizations get up and running as quickly and as efficiently as possible,” . “Our flexible, multilingual Real Estate Management platform can be easily configured to deliver the unique tools, systems and processes required by franchise based organizations like RE/MAX India.”Carlos Matias, Managing Director at GryphTech

About RE/MAX India

 [ Video - Sam Chopra, chairman of RE Max India, feels this is the right time to invest and have long term views in real estate]

 RE/MAX India, the 73rd country in the global network of RE/MAX international is an initiative of the husband-wife duo of Mr. Samir Chopra & Mrs. Saloni Chopra to bring the best in the trade to the country. RE/MAX has played a pioneering role in organizing the unorganized Real Estate markets in various countries and the Indian franchisee also intends to do the same.

Mr. Samir Chopra is a national board member of NAR (National Association of Realtors) India and has been an active member of various Councils and Committees of the Confederation of Indian Industry like the Services’ Council, the Associations’ Council and the National Committee on Real Estate & Housing besides being the immediate Past President of the Business Process Industry Association of India. Sam is a global board member of IAPA and is also the Regional Director of IAPA for the Australasia region.

RE/MAX works on a unique franchising model which blends the administrative skills of its franchisees and the salesmanship skills of its real estate agents. Currently the company is aggressively expanding its network in India by appointing Franchisees and Real Estate Agents across the country. For more information, visit www.remax.in or www.remax.com.

About GryphTech

Founded in 1997, GryphTech is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, a Blackberry Alliance Partner and a leading provider of enterprise softwareapplications, solutions and services. Through a unique combination of application development, innovative design and domain expertise, GryphTech offers a full suite of IT services including packaged technologysolutions, custom software development, mobile applications, hosting and site design. The company’s proven multilingual, multi-site and multicurrency Real Estate, Retail and Mobile solutions support 25 languages and have been deployed by over sixty customers in fifty countries around the globe. For more information, visit www.gryphtech.com.

[More Articles on Indian property websites]

StreetAdvisor.com Launches “Location Reviews Platform” for Real Estate Portals, Powers New realestate.com.au Social Site

StreetAdvisor.com ,the world’s first online community for “real-life” street, neighborhood and city reviews today launched its “What The Locals Think” location reviews platform enabling real estate portals, hyperlocal news and government websites to integrate StreetAdvisor’s patented scoring, reviews and ratings within their own applications.

The “What The Locals Think” location reviews platform enables real estate portals to offer reviews for any street, neighborhood, town or city within the USA, alongside a detailed rating and rank for over 22 “quality of life” factors including neighborly spirit, noise, crime, schools, parks, shopping and medical facilities. Reviews can be integrated within property listings and search results pages.

The platform has recently been adopted by realestate.com.au, one of the world’s largest real estate portals (6 million unique visitors Feb 2010) in conjunction with a custom white-label website. The rebranded “Local Voices” portal provides home buyers, owners, renters and real estate agents with place to create, share and find local information about streets and neighborhoods throughout Australia.

StreetAdvisor.com Co-Founder, “Location based content is incredibly valuable to the real estate selection process and to date, neighborhood information has been limited to demographic statistics, what we bring is the human element, reviews and ratings written by locals”.Jason Spencer

The “What The Locals Think” platform provides various integration options ranging from data syndication via an API to stand alone custom white-labeling and widgets.

“It’s all about giving buyers and renters the best tools to help find the perfect place to call home”, said StreetAdvisor.com Co-Founder, Adam Spencer. “

“And with ratings and reviews so important to showing off the neighborhood, our location reviews platform provides the fastest way to get street, neighborhood and city reviews onto your real estate site.”[On March 29, StreetAdvisor.com turned 3 years  - a belated happy birth day from 1property1.com ;-) ]

 Read More

[StreetAdvisor.com on Union St, San Francisco, part 1 ]

[StreetAdvisor.com on Union St, San Francisco, part 2 ]

For more information on the “What The Locals Think” location reviews platform email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

About StreetAdvisor.com
Founded in 2007, StreetAdvisor.com helps people learn more about their communities while helping others make better decisions about where they want to live. With coverage across millions of streets, neighborhoods and towns, the site includes services to facilitate online conversations at the street level, while creating a forum where professionals and consumers can participate in bringing their street and neighbors online, in a public forum. The company has representatives in San Francisco and Australia.prweb ©

[More Articles on Real Estate Social Media Platforms]

(Front Page/Articles)

02/03/10 Today Roost.com a leading real estate a real estate technology companying in the US SF, launched The Social Real Estate Platform on facebook.  Roost's free Real Estate tab adds ...

IEIF France and European Property Prices

[ By Sold at the Top ]

As I have noted before, one of the most interesting and damming bits of evidence that tipped many off to the existence of a significant real estate bubble during the early 2000s was the fact that dramatically increasing property prices were occurring in most industrialized nations.

The U.S., U.K., France, Ireland, most of continental Europe, Canada, Australia and elsewhere were all simultaneously experiencing significant property booms thereby thwarting, more or less, many of the “limited supply” and “Superstar Cities” arguments that sought to justify individual regions explosive appreciation.

Today we know that this massive boom in real estate was more a function of financialization and credit availability rather than fundamentals.

One of the better outcomes of this period is that there is now much more attention being directed to property markets demanding better analysis and sponsoring a host of new and novel data for tracking individual property markets.

On that note, the Institut de l'Epargne Immobilière et Foncière (IEIF), a French research and analysis firm, has introduced a new catalog of daily and monthly property prices indices for France, Europe and the Eurozone.

As you can see from the chart, the early 2000s was an exception period of property price appreciation culminating in a “blow-off” peak in early 2007 as the leading edge of the sub-prime crisis ripped through the credit markets.

Similarly with the U.S. and U.K. markets, the France and Europe indices indicate that the initial vicious price slide hit a low in early 2009 and since have trended up.

It will be interesting to see how each region now trends as the U.S. has clearly started to weaken in recent months and the U.K. appears to be following suit.

(Click to enlarge dynamic version)

[More Articles by Sold at the Top]