What a difference a Rate Cut Makes
After taking the oath of office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order instructing the Federal Housing Authority to cancel it’s planned rate cut to premiums paid for insurance on FHA back mortgages that was set to go into effect on Jan 27th 2017.
Brokers and Agents working with first time homebuyers in the outer boroughs should anticipate the order remaining in effect since officials stated the Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund is just 18% higher than the required legal minimum balance needed in the event of another government bailout.
Zillow is Remaking the Real Estate Agent in its Own Image
Zillow is making a new kind of agent. Their kind of agent. A Zillow Premier Agent whose fed online leads and increasingly dependent on the Zillow brand and Zillow software.
Proof that their plans are exceeding expectations were found in remarks made by Zillow Group’s CEO Spencer Rascoff in the company’s 2016 3rd quarter earnings call with investors last November;
“… we’ve been focusing on upleveling our Premier Agents and by extension upleveling the real estate industry overall, focusing on great agents. And, as I’ve mentioned, great agents are gaining share from hobbyists and Zillow Group is a big contributor to that. So, getting more of our leads in the hands of agents that already perform high lead conversion is the single best thing we can do to improve our overall lead conversion.”
While Zillow’s is seeing tremendous revenue growth from their Premier Agent program, at least one agent shares a different result from his experience as a Zillow Premier Agent.
Your Emails Are Killing Your Business
Top Producer, a leading CRM software, is popular among brokers and agents for its DRIP email campaign feature. And its landing agents emails straight into their recipients SPAM folder.
Why? According to Mailchimp, a leading email marketing software, your email subject line titles are the problem.
Jessica Sweeney goes on to explain why this post is a must read for brokers and agents on the importance of sending the right message to the right real estate customer.
Agency Joins Fair Housing as Required Continuing Education For License Renewal in NYS
Beginning January 1st 2017, New York State requires all real estate licensees to take at least 1 hour of law of agency course for Brokers and 2 hours for salesperson who are in the first 2 years of their real estate license.
Those who don’t comply with the new continuing education requirement will be in danger of losing their license.
Airbnb Becomes Profitable For The First Time
In spite of push back by housing advocates, the hotel industry and government officials, Airbnb finally turned a profit in the 2nd half of last year and is poised to answer Wall Street’s call to issue an initial public offering.
After raising an additional $850 million in 2016, the company’s value was pushed up to $30 billion and is a bigger threat to the real estate industry across the country, ushering in a wave tech based investment plays in the space intended to disrupt the traditional broker/agent real estate business model.
Thanks for reading our first edition of THE STREET.
Make sure you follow us on Linkedin and Twitter to join the discussion and stay informed about upcoming events New York Realty Professionals are sponsoring.
