According to Texas A&M’s RECON newsletter, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is going to increase monthly insurance premiums starting with mortgage transactions created after October 4, so lock in your lower monthly insurance premium on FHA loans before the rates go up. After October 4th, we can expect to see monthly insurance premiums on FHA loans increase by over 63 percent.

How will this effect a new homebuyer? If you have a $193,000 FHA mortgage that requires insurance before October 4th you would only pay an insurance premium of $88.46 per month. After October 4th, that same loan’s insurance premium would jump to $148.01. That’s an increase of $59.55 taken out of your monthly income.

Original Source: >> Texas A&M’s RECON – Real Estate Center Online News – e-newsletter – August 31, 2010

Source Realtor.com

Working in real estate has its share of dangers.  Real estate agents need to keep personal safety in mind when working with the public since almost everyone agents come in contact with is a complete stranger.  Worst of all, you’re all alone with this person, in unoccupied houses, in your car and in many other places where an evil client can hide a dead real estate agent body.  It’s happened before.   Here’s how you can stay on guard and protect yourself.

Read original articles:  >>> http://www.realtor.org/rmosales_and_marketing/articles/2010/1009_safety_everydaydangers

A career in real estate can be as flexible or as demanding as you wish. You can also do it in your spare time if you’re looking for a flexible second job. While that may work well for the agent, it doesn’t bode well for the unfortunate homeowner that is paying full price for a part-time service. Part-time agents don’t perform as well as agents that devote their entire careers towards real estate. They simply don’t have the time to devote to selling your house like a full-time agent would. So, when you interview your next real estate agent, make sure that this agent does real estate full-time. If you don’t, your house may sit on the market for a long time.

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Many thanks to Mary Umberger for a great article.

This article gives a little background on what we’re trying to accomplish with Really Rotten Realty and AgentHarvest’s blogs.  Plus, it’s a fun read and well written.

http://www.inman.com/news/2010/08/16/meet-maker-really-rotten-realty?utm_source=Twttrfd&utm_medium=Twttr&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+inmannews+%28Inman+News+-+Headlines%29

Shortly after launching our Really Rotten Realty website last month, we were reminded of the difference between Realtors and real estate agents.  That reminder came in the form of a friendly request from the National Association of Realtors’ legal department about the correct use of their trademark.  Without thinking, we interchanged the word Realtor for real estate agent in a couple of sentences scattered throughout our site that described AgentHarvest’s real estate agent finder services.  Even though the term Realtor was used positively to describe quality agents, it’s still a trademark violation nonetheless.  It was an oversight on my part that was promptly corrected and I want to thank The National Association of Realtors for bringing that oversight to my attention in the kind manner in which it was relayed.  The Trademark Administrator for NAR, Mary Newill also provided me with lots of information regarding the correct usage of the word Realtor.  Apparently she said that this misuse is quite common, even for Realtors.  Case in point since I misused the term and I’m also a Realtor.  Seeing as this is such a common problem, I decided to share the information she relayed to me.
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