Borrowing costs have fallen over the last two months. Mortgage rates are ringing in the new year much lower than their near-8% peak this past fall. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has decreased for the past nine weeks, though breaking for a slight uptick this week to reach 6.62%, Freddie Mac reports. “The overall trajectory of …
Category: News
Jan 15
Web Battles Raise Uncertainties
Privacy, accessibility, pay-to-play—engaging home buyers and sellers online is getting complicated. The World Wide Web is no longer the Wild West. Changing rules on data privacy, accessibility for disabled people, and net neutrality are throwing hurdles in your efforts to reach customers online. In May, a European Union law took effect that is changing what’s …
Jan 12
Trademarked Places and Your Marketing
Incorporating a community name into your marketing can put you at risk. Imagine you’re a real estate agent in Cold Mountain, N.C., using the tagline “Your Cold Mountain Real Estate Connection” to market your services. You receive a cease and desist letter from an enterprising developer who’s registered a federal trademark for the term “Cold …
Jan 11
MLS Copyright Saga
After months of NAR fighting for the right for multiple listing services to obtain copyright for their databases, the U.S. Copyright Office appears poised to accept listing databases as copyrightable if they’re sufficiently creative. The association created materials, which were reviewed and approved by the agency, to help MLSs demonstrate that creativity. In a tentative …
Jan 10
You Could Be the Fall Guy for Your Seller’s Lies
When clients deceptively skirt their responsibility to disclose property defects, it could spell trouble for you, too. When Kristen Martinez and her family bought a home in the Seattle area two years ago, she specifically asked about the electrical wiring. “We had been told [by the seller] when we bought the house that there was …
Jan 09
Avoid Lawsuits From Negligent Referrals
If you give clients a list of inspectors to contact, be sure all of those inspectors are qualified. Your buyer and the seller have a signed contract and now the inspection process begins. You tell your buyer she needs a general property inspection and her first question is, “Whom do you recommend?” It’s a good …
Jan 08
How the 20% Business Income Deduction Applies to You
Changes stemming from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 allow agents and brokers who earn income as independent contractors or from pass-through businesses to take a significant deduction on that income. One of the biggest wins for REALTORS® in last year’s tax reform bill is the new 20 percent business income deduction, also …
Jan 05
Can You Change That Contract?
It’s easier than you’d expect to get tangled in the unauthorized practice of law. In a 2017 Wyoming case, a real estate agent was found to have engaged in the unauthorized practice of law for merely removing inapplicable provisions of a state association’s form. As evidenced in this case, and depending on state law, even …
Jan 04
Be Clear on Co-signing Perils
If it looks like a jointly held mortgage will be the answer to getting the transaction done, don’t sugarcoat the facts. Younger customers frequently look to parents or grandparents to help them get into a first home. As rising home prices and interest rates present even greater challenges for first-time buyers these days, you may …
Jan 03
The Code That Grows
Global business and state laws are among the issues that our evolving Code of Ethics addresses. Our industry is changing. Technology brings new business models and the skill set of REALTORS® keeps evolving. You might be wondering where that leaves our venerable Code of Ethics. The National Association of REALTORS® adopted its Code of Ethics …
Jan 02
Get your New Year Started off Right…
Call me Directly: Anthony DiDonatoABR, AHWD, RECS, SRES, SFRAssociate BrokerREALTOR®CENTURY 21 All-Elite Inc.3900 Edgmont Ave, Brookhaven, PA 19015Office Number: (610) 872-1600 Ext. 124 Cell Number: (610) 659-3999 {Smart Phones Click to Call} Direct Number: (610) 353-5366 {Smart Phones Click to Call} Fax: (610) 771-4480Email: anthony@anthonydidonato.com Licensed in PA, DE and NJ
