Date Archives May 2005

The times they are a changin’

More than 100 sportsmen went to a Culpeper supervisors committee meeting this week to voice their displeasure…. During the meeting, shouts of “this is not Fairfax County” could be heard coming from the crowd.This should prove to be an interesting fight. As Northern Virginia extends further beyond its boundaries, the former rural, now bedroom-community Town/County of Culpeper is facing more and more changes.

Read More

Buying in a “Boom Town”

RealEstateJournal | Sales Trends:Investors are helping to drive the hot housing market, according to a recent report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Though 9% of U.S. mortgages last year were taken out by investors, in some booming markets investors accounted for 19% of new mortgage applications. The federal bank-insurance agency defines boom as an area where home prices increased at least 30% from three years earlier.The Central Virginia/Charlottesville area is not technically a “boom” area, but the market remains extraordinarily strong.

Read More

More on the pending NAR/DOJ suits

From the WP – Uncle Sam Buys Online Realty:The “issue boils down to whether a listing agent can effectively claim ownership rights to a home listing, deciding where and when it can be displayed on the Internet, for the duration of the listing contract, which usually runs between 60 and 90 days,” The Post reported. “The Realtors’ group argues that agents work hard to get listings and so should be entitled to choose whether a home can also be displayed on a competitor’s Web site…. Janik also told the paper that it wasn’t about targeting online brokerages specifically.I expect we will be reading and writing much more about this in the near future.

Read More