After only two hours of deliberation yesterday, the jury unanimously vindicated a buyer's agent accused by his clients of failing to disclose that two other homes in the neighborhood sold for less than what they paid. As a trial court case, this decision in Ummel v. Little is binding on the parties to the case, but has no binding authority for other cases. Moreover, the buyers may file an appeal.

New real estate wiki for real estate industry is launched. 

History of wikis in real estate
BiggerPockets (launched in 2006) claims to be the first real estate wiki but it unfortunately closed down in May 2007 due to lack of sufficient content.  Introduced shortly therafter, and still going strong, is InmanWiki (part of InmanNews, InmanTV and InmanBlog).  

America's Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced today that they are investigating 14 financial and mortgage companies for insider dealing and fraud as part of a criminal inquiry into the sub-prime crisis. The FBI suspects that the house price boom, once seemingly endless, encouraged mortgage lenders to take increasingly large risks, making loans to people with weaker and weaker credit histories as they sought new customers. 

Read the complete article here.

Syndication is all the buzz but what really happens when you place your listing data on sites other than your local mls and your own corporate or broker websites? What are you giving them permission to do with your seller's listing data? Are they reconfiguring it? Manipulating it for sales of leads back to the agent population? Find out.

Interesting New York Times article sent to me by a friend.

By DAVID STREITFELD
Published: January 22, 2008

CARLSBAD, Calif. — Marty Ummel feels she paid too much for her house. So do millions of other people who bought at the peak of the housing boom.
What makes Ms. Ummel different is that she is suing her agent, saying it was all his fault.
Ms. Ummel claims that the agent hid the information that similar homes in the neighborhood were selling for less because he feared she would back out and he would lose his $30,000 commission.   Read the entire article>

The panel judges from the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that US District Court Judge Percy Anderson's financial interest in AOL should have disqualified him from the conviction and sentencing of former Homestore CEO Stuart Wolff. Wolff had been convicted of charges of conspiracy, filing false statements, fraudulent insider trading and falsification of corporate records. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, a $5 million fine and $8.64 million in restitution.  Although under home detention, Wolff today, 7 years after the irregularities, is still a free man.

Read previous update here.

Read original blog here.

Every year the RealSure team surveys the residential industry, seeks out any changes, analyzes new business models, interview hundreds of industry leaders, researches and reads thousands of articles and send out tens of surveys. Well the survey is currently underway and your opinions and comments will help provide a more accurate assessment of certain paradigm shifts that are currently occurring in the real estate industry.

Click Here to participate.

RealSure, Inc., publishers of the Swanepoel TRENDS Report is offering a bonus 10% savings as a thank you for participating in the quick 6- 10 question survey, depending on whether you are a broker or an agent. This is over and above the currently available 20% pre-publication discount for early purchasers.

I’m going to advance a notion that some people may find controversial, but I believe it to the bottom of my soul: Business is about relationships. Let’s say you’re a local banker getting ready to lend money to Frank. You know you’re going to see him at church, at the Kiwanis Club and at the Chamber of Commerce meeting. If you sell him something that doesn’t work for him, those encounters will become very uncomfortable.

When the job of selling mortgages got separated from the jobs of underwriting and servicing those loans, it was just a matter of time until we faced a crisis.

If you haven't tried it out yet click here Street View.

Everyday some new technology amazes us. One has to wonder how much of it is really meaningful and helpful and how much is superfluous or even harmful. Google has only done a few major cities so far, but clearly having billions of dollars goes a long way in paying for time, gas and food while someone is cruising America with a camera.

The challenge with this cool new innovation is that you don't know when Google is clicking or what might be captured when they click. For example some strange sights forever caught on digital camera include fender benders, sun bathers and cops chasing bad guys.This has now led to the birth of new websites being created to showcase these "bloopers" ' for example"?check out"?Streetviewr where over 400 Google Street Views are already showcased.

And the benefits for real estate agents are'

Lets blog.

Nine people were arrested in Houston yesterday for loan fraud. There are roughly six schemes we've been able to define. This one involved phony appraisals and loan apps., and overpriced mobile homes. I just got notice of another indictment a few minutes ago of a sales agent who sold several units to one buyer, allegedly tied to a New Orleans (Katrina refugee) with false loan information. I was also consulted on a listing broker who was indicted in another State for "turning a blind eye" to a real estate fraud involving her client/seller who sold their property to"?a buyer who was engaged in a loan fraud transaction.

Apparently the FBI is now geared up to start prosecuting in"?a big way.

I think the mortgage industry brought this on themselves by extremely sloppy approval and due diligence procedures. What do you think? Lets blog.