November 8, 2016 Election Day 2016. Thank goodness it is finally here. No, not because I am a political wonk, but because I am tired of hearing about it.  Regardless of your candidate of choice, I think we all agree that it will  be a bit more enjoyable to not be inundated with “coverage” from the 24/7 news outlets or rantings on social media from our “friends”.   While I admire people’s passions and advocacy, I

Thieves have hit the real estate transaction market. Yeah, no surprise there, is it? Given that we are all exposed to some degree in today’s “e”-world, every online interaction we participate in is at risk of being spammed, phished, trolled or spoofed. But, it is easy to not realize how prevalent the risk of identity theft is during a real estate transaction. So buyer, seller, REALTOR, lender, attorney, settlement agent, appraiser, home inspector, title examiner

Tax Day Fraud Good afternoon all, Happy Tax Day……well not exactly. As I am sure you are all aware, Federal taxes are not due this year until Monday, April 18th. Why was the due date moved this year you ask? Well, today is a holiday for public employees in Washington DC. They celebrate Emancipation Day on April 16th each year which is the day that Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act, which effectively ended

Rising Rates 2016 Rising interest rates have already occurred, starting with the Federal Reserve’s 25 basis point increase in December. Conventional wisdom says that another increase will likely happen early this year. Certainly, this tightening by the Fed could put a dampening on the lending business, since, banks will pass along those higher rates to its borrowers. And yes, that sequence of events has already started, as banks increased their prime lending rate just after

Greetings all; I recently attended the 25th annual Real Estate Trends conference organized and hosted by the VCU School of Business in Richmond. This was my first time attending and I found that the speakers were informative and provided useful information regarding national real estate trends, government sponsored programs to support housing initiatives, and the movement towards using social media in real estate. I thought I would share with you the top takeaways from the