Homescopes

With due apologies to my civilian readers, my content over the next few days will be heavy on the geeky-technology-side of real estate — you know, with the Inman conference starting tomorrow and all. Tonight’s back-to-back pre-conference events were sponsored by Zillow and Trulia at bars only a few blocks apart.  T-shirts, free alcohol, and bloggers [...]

I’m not a big TV watcher, but this review of the new program “Flipping Out” on the Bravo network put it on my “must TiVo” list. “Jeff Lewis is a very scary man, and he isn’t scary solely because he treats his employees like dust mites or consults a psychic to assist him in the running [...]

This whole subprime / mortgage industry meltdown hullaballoo is getting a little surreal, so forgive the Star Wars reference. This article in today’s New York Times reports that trading in shares of American Home Mortgage never opened yesterday, after the company announced following the market close on Friday that “it would suspend its dividend and was facing [...]

After a wonderfully fun — and occasionally frustrating — evening of hacking around, I’m please to present this mashup of Bay Area housing price trends. The graphs are from our friends at Altos Research, and the Google Maps were created using Zeemaps from Zeesource. For a larger map, click here. Tags: Altos Research, Consumer, Google, [...]

Gina Gena Riede of Sacramento Real Estate Voices hosts this week carnival. Her theme was the game of Monopoly, and while she did not call out one specific winner, there were some true gems there. My own personal “Carnival of Real Estate Carnival Winners” Winner is the incomparable Kris Berg, who weighs in with yet [...]

A real estate-related item to brighten up your Saturday… Marin County (of George Bush Senior’s famous “hot-tubbing liberals” fame) agent Mark Lomas explores the similarities between finding that perfect person on the Internet and finding that perfect home. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out the trackback url, so you’ll have to go here, then scroll about halfway [...]

Deluged by a flood of business and personal obligations, I alas had to delay judging of the Carnival of Real Estate, Consumer Edition, until today. Apologies… Many of the entrants this week had mortgage-related topics. The clear, unapologetic winner this week is from … Phoenix (who would have thunk it?) It’s Jay Thompson waxing loquacious [...]

As I’m still reeling in shock from today’s developments in the Tour de Farce, I found this uplifting article in the NewYork Times (online edition of course): Top Lender Sees Mortgage Woes for ‘Good’ Risks It looks like I was uncannily correct in my forecast of rough lending seas ahead for home buyers, as Countrywide [...]

A big “thank you” to all of you who commented, sent emails, and voted for my last post “Realtors and Technology - Who Benefits?” from last week. I have also received a number of requests for the sequel, alluded to at the end of my last post. And so we go . . . Technology for [...]

Sorry for the delay, folks, but my judging of the Carnival of Real Estate, Consumer Edition, will have to wait till tomorrow.  A number of business and personal things have come up that has made it impossible for me to do so today. Tags: Carnival of real estate, Industry