The Kallhoff Team

Friday, August 2, 2013

Industry Cracks Down on Listing Scraping

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | FRIDAY, AUGUST 02, 2013

The real estate industry is taking steps to prevent scraping — or data piracy — of online real estate listings.

Realtor.com said earlier this year that it is making efforts to block automated bots from trying to scrape listing data from its more than 1 million pages per day.

“Scraping happens everyday, and it’s something that’s surprisingly inexpensive for cybercriminals to do,” Amit Kulkarni, Move’s creative director, said in a blog post detailing realtor.com’s efforts to curb scraping.

The latest company to step in and join anti-scraping efforts: Distil Networks, a technology company, that says it will be developing an “industrywide intelligence network” for the real estate industry to identify those who scrape real estate listing data without permission, Inman News reports.

To date, 12 MLSs have signed on with the Distil service on their public Web sites and 23 are reportedly considering using the company soon. The program helps to identify scrapers among the legitimate traffic to your site. According to Distil officials, every site that has used its program has discovered scraping of its data.

“I think that anyone that doesn’t feel they have a scraping problem — unless they have the best technology people on staff — is living in a fool’s paradise,” says Rosemary Scardina, CEO of East Bay Regional Data Inc., which became the first MLS to try Distil in beta testing in February. “It wasn’t a matter of if I had a scraping problem, it was a matter of how bad the scraping problem was.” By blocking scrapers from the site, Distill officials say the site was then able to load twice as fast and improved the visitors’ experience.

Clareity Consulting, a real estate consulting firm which approached Distill about creating anti-scraping software for the real estate industry, has also helped to create a new nonprofit organization dedicated to protect the intellectual property rights of multiple listing services and brokerages. One of the main missions of REDPLAN Inc. — Real Estate Data Protection Legal Association Network — is to inform those who scrape MLS data without permission that MLSs will enforce their intellectual property rights. It serves as a network of industry officials that alert one another about data thefts and serves as a legal clearinghouse to decide which cases to actively pursue.

Source: “Coordinated Effort to Target Real Estate Scrapers Underway,” Inman News (Aug.1, 2013)

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REALTOR.com Cracks Down on Listing 'Scraping'

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2013/08/02/industry-cracks-down-listing-scraping

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Thursday, August 1, 2013

Survey: Rising Rates Getting Sellers Nervous

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | THURSDAY, AUGUST 01, 2013

Home sellers are becoming increasingly worried about rising interest rates and their impact on home-buying demand, according to a new Redfin survey of nearly 1,500 home owners across the country.

Forty-seven percent of survey respondents said they are concerned that rising rates could lower demand before they get their homes on the market. That's more than double the percentage from the previous quarter.

"Of course home sellers are worried about interest rates, but the reality is that many buyers believe that rates will continue to go up," said Eric Tan, a Redfin Los Angeles real estate professional. "They know if they don't move now, they might be kicking themselves all over again in three months."

Eighty-five percent of respondents said they believe home prices will rise in their areas within the next year. Seventeen percent said they expect the rise to be "a lot."

"Results from our seller survey point to growing confidence in the U.S. economy and recognition that broad economic gains could erode sellers' advantages in the housing market as mortgage rates rise," said Ellen Haberle, a Redfin economist.

Home owners identified a "life event" as their top reason for selling, followed by "rising prices," according to the survey.

Source: Redfin

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2013/08/01/survey-rising-rates-getting-sellers-nervous

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Wednesday, July 31, 2013

Crowdfunding: New Way to Fight Foreclosures?

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | WEDNESDAY, JULY 31, 2013

If the bank or government can’t save a person from foreclosure, can a crowd? “Crowdfunding” sites are on the rise as desperate home owners turn to trying to raise money from friends, family, and strangers to try to stay current with their mortgage payments.

“Listings asking donors to ‘Help save my children's home’ and ‘Help avoid foreclosure’ are popping up across dozens of fundraising Web sites like GoFundMe, Indiegogo, FundRazr, and GiveForward,” CBS reports.

The sites were created as a way to help people fundraise for specific causes, such as medical bills, youth sports, education, or now saving a home. The sites will take a portion of the donations collected, about 4 to 10 percent.

Foreclosures are sometimes viewed as an “avoidable crisis,” so troubled home owners are having mixed luck on the sites so far, CBS reports. For example, CBS notes that in about 100 campaigns on GoFundMe, less than 1 percent have been able to raise enough to save the home. However, one couple has been able to raise on GoFundMe more than $7,500 of the $15,000 they need to save their home from foreclosure.

Source: “Home Owners Fight Foreclosure Through Crowdfunding,” CBS (July 30, 2013)

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Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Survey: Buyers Will Pay More for Good Schools

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | TUESDAY, JULY 30, 2013

More than 44 percent of home buyers who plan to buy a home within the next two years said they would be willing to go over their budget by up to 10 percent in order to buy in their preferred school boundaries, according to a new survey by realtor.com®.

Three out of five home buyers surveyed said that school boundaries greatly impact their home purchasing decision. Nearly 9 percent of buyers indicated that they’d be willing to pay 11 to 20 percent above their budget to get a home in a desirable school district, the survey found. About 17 percent of buyers said they want to live within a mile of a school so their children can walk there.

Some home buyers said they’d even be willing to trade certain home amenities for good schools: About 62 percent said they’d give up a pool or spa, 50 percent would give up accessibility to shopping, and nearly 44 percent would pass on a bonus room.

“Our survey demonstrates the large impact school boundaries have on those looking to purchase a home,” says Barbara O’Connor, chief marketing officer at Move Inc.

The survey comes after realtor.com® launched a new mobile school search tool in April, allowing buyers to search for listings in specific school and district boundaries.

Source: realtor.com®

http://realtormag.realtor.org/daily-news/2013/07/30/survey-buyers-will-pay-more-for-good-schools