Entries from Searchlight Crusade tagged with 'transparency'
Yield Spread is a Beneficial Tool That Can Be Misused
If you read the papers and the congressional record on the housing crisis, you might think yield spread is the central culprit for the entire meltdown. You would be wrong. Yield spread is a beneficial tool, offered voluntarily by lenders,...
How to Avoid A Repeat of the Housing Market Mess
Scapegoating mortgage brokers or anyone else is not the answer, nor is prohibiting yield spread. We've been here before (in the early 1990s), congress did something remarkably similar except a little bit more sane. It didn't work then. Why would...
Real Estate: Giving Someone a Monopoly Does Not Encourage Top Performance
From an e-mail I've been talking to agents lately and I ask them about the things I've learned about from your site. I thought I would say things like "I want to apply for a backup loan" and they would...
The Future of Real Estate Agency is Expert Consultants, Not Controlling Market Access
Expertise and attitude, not control of an informational chokepoint, is the way that things are going. Let's analyze this from both sides of the problem. The current owner looking to sell really needs a marketer. For better or worse, most...
Full Service Agent For Discount Price? Demand Specifics!
There is no such thing as a free lunch, but lots of people will pretend there is. It seems to me that many people consider compensation earned by real estate agents as paying some kind of toll. They think of...
Beware Agendas in Your Financial Reading
Figures don't lie, but liars sure to figure - and filter, and slant, and just about anything else you can think of. Someone sent me a link to this article in the Wall Street Journal of all places. It...
New Good Faith Estimate and HUD 1 Form Approved
HUD has announced a new Federal Good Faith Estimate and HUD 1 form. The regulations have been finalized, but as I write this, they have not yet been published, at least in their final form. They appear much superior...
Saving the Real Estate Agency Profession in the Era of Free Information
I try not to do a lot of "business of real estate" posts. That's not what I'm about. But I figure that we (as agents) have got about a year to save the profession from the traditional brokerages that control...
Real Estate: Giving Someone a Monopoly Does Not Encourage Top Performance
From an e-mail I've been talking to agents lately and I ask them about the things I've learned about from your site. I thought I would say things like "I want to apply for a backup loan" and they would...
The Future of Real Estate Agency: Expert Consultants, Not Market Access
Expertise and attitude, not control of an informational chokepoint, is the way that things are going. Let's analyze this from both sides of the problem. The current owner looking to sell really needs a marketer. For better or worse, most...
Bundling Agent Services: What Services Do You Want and Need?
There is no such thing as a free lunch, but lots of people will pretend there is. It seems to me that many people consider compensation earned by real estate agents as paying some kind of toll. They think of...
Yield Spread is a Beneficial Tool That Can Be Misused
If you read the papers and the congressional record on the current housing crisis, you might think yield spread is the central culprit for the entire meltdown. You would be wrong. Yield spread is a beneficial tool, offered voluntarily by...
Links and Minifeatures 12 12 Wednesday
Carnival of the Capitalists ********** U.S. refuses `Any Wounded Soldier' mail "Are we going to forget our soldiers because we are running in fear?" Fena D'Ottavio asked. The suburban Chicago woman was using her blog to encourage friends to...
How to Avoid A Repeat of the Housing Market Mess
HR 3915 is not the answer. We've been here before (in the early 1990s), congress did something remarkably similar except a little bit more sane. It didn't work then. Why would we expect it to work this time? Among many...
Problems with Exclusive Listings
There's been a great deal of jawboning in the real estate community recently over "divorcing the commissions", changing the current practice of the seller paying the commission of the buyer's agent. Well, I've said my piece on that, why I...
Transparency, National Security and Shield Laws
Asymmetric Information has an excellent article on what journalistic ethics are and are not, much to the chagrin of Juan Cole. As I stated a few days ago, I would not make it illegal for the press to publish anything,...
Links and Minifeatures 01 17 Tuesday
Carnival of Liberty. Recommended: The Picket Line, Different River ********** The ACLU has sued to stop the government from wiretapping. I love the list of co-complainants - may Allah forbid we actually prevent any terrorist assaults! This has officially gone...
Surveillance - Should it be Illegal?
Balloon Juice has a piece on how you can get anyone's phone records for just over $100. And this evidently surprises not only him but the place he got it. Since the 1970s, the technology has existed to monitor...
Privacy Concerns in Real Estate Transactions
Every once in a while I get someone who is unhappy with required paperwork for privacy reasons. There are three forms that are the driving force behind this. The first is the standard form for a mortgage loan application, known...
Links and Minifeatures 11 27 Sunday
Here's the website: http://evolution.berkeley.edu/ Here's the news story: Couple Sues Operators of Evolution Site Three words: Get. Over. It. Evolution may not be scientific fact, but it is a scientific theory supported by as much evidence as relativity or quantum...
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