Here are a few highlights of what speakers had to say from the Federal Reserve’s REO summit this week as they sought to get a handle on solving our housing crisis. The summit focused on community strategies to cope with mounting foreclosures and the negative impact they have on neighborhoods.
Mark Zandi, chief economist, Moody’s: “There [...]

The latest edition of REO Insider is out, with our cover story on the Freddie Mac HomeSteps REO sales program.
The feature is a Q&A with supplier services manager Sharon Bartlett, who heads the team responsible for hiring, training and monitoring performance of the HomeSteps REO listing brokers.
Bartlett, along with her boss, HomeSteps director of operations [...]

Skip Schenker has added Rona Graf, an interior designer with Grace Blu Design as a co-host on his latest “Hot Dog of the Week” video series about REO properties listed for sale on the market.
Only this one isn’t really that much of a dog. It’s in a great neighborhood in Costa Mesa, Calif., with great [...]

T.L. “Thom” Holmes and I have been talking a lot over the past few weeks. I sat down with him at the National Association of Real Estate Brokers (NAREB) 63rd annual convention in Fort Worth, Texas. The history of this organization of black real estate agents is pretty fascinating. Check out this video made back [...]

REO brokers and agents see short sales as a way to diversify and grow their real estate businesses as competition heats up and inventories dry up in REO.
In an REO Insider readership poll, 33% said REO will always be their primary business with short and traditional sales secondary, but nearly as many, 30% said short [...]

After reading about how the recent housing market troubles have cut business for some real estate agents by as much as 65%, one REO broker said even though business is down, she’s still being asked to pay fees for the few listings that are out there.
“It’s true, so many full time Realtors are seeing such [...]

We struck a nerve — maybe more like a raw wound — when we posted “Where was my real estate agent?” on our blog Aug. 23.
The blog post recapped comments made by three marketing managers at Lender Processing Services about real estate brokers and agents who had, er, messed up.
The three, who supervise asset [...]

Neighborhood stabilization during the foreclosure crisis will be the focus of a Sept. 1-2 national summit sponsored by the Federal Reserve System.
The forum will showcase findings from Federal Reserve research and policy efforts, including the release of the publication “REO and Vacant Properties: Strategies for Neighborhood Stabilization.”
The summit will examine strategies to mitigate the impact [...]

Inc. magazine released its fourth annual ranking of the country’s 5,000 fastest growing private companies. To qualify, companies must have been founded and generating revenue by the first week of 2005, and able to show four full calendar years of sales. REO Insider dug through the list to find players in the REO business.
129. Platinum [...]

Skip Schenker with REOLenders.com is at it again. Since we profiled Skip’s new video series about turning REO doghouses into dream homes, he’s come out with three more. The latest features a home in Irvine, Calif. We’d like to give you a sneak peak.
In this video, Skip interviews Sheldon Weinstein, the West Coast representative of [...]