Spring and Summer Market Outlook

Those in the housing industry don’t want to get their hopes up too much about this year’s spring buying and selling season. But it’s hard to deny that the market is looking less dire this year, as recent indicators show a pickup in sales.

“Conditions are coming together to encourage people to want to buy homes,” said Doug Duncan, vice president and chief economist of Fannie Mae, in a news release. “Americans’ rental price expectations for the next year continue to rise, reaching their record high level for our survey this month. With an increasing share of consumers expecting higher mortgage rates and home prices over the next 12 months, some may feel that renting is becoming more costly and that homeownership is a more compelling housing choice.”

Nearly half of consumers polled in Fannie Mae’s National Housing Survey in March expect higher rental prices in the year ahead. And 33% expect home prices to rise in the year, the highest percentage recorded in more than a year. Forty-four percent think their personal finances will get better over the next year.

As a result, 73% of the 1,000 Americans polled think it’s a good time to buy a home.

Some industry watchers have stopped trying to guess how the housing market will perform in the future, since this market has been down so long and so many predictions have been wrong in the past. But the conditions may be right for the housing market to finally start looking a little bit brighter this year.

The Phoenix market, one of the hardest hit during the nation’s housing bust, is now starting to gain some steam. 

The rebound is “driven by strong economic growth, once in a generation affordability levels, and a surge in investment activity that far surpasses the levels during the housing boom,” according to a report from John Burns Real Estate Consulting. 

Prices fell 57% from 2006 through mid-2011, according to the report. Around the middle of last year conditions started to improve, due to a combination of more investors and foreign buyers in the market, a shrinking for-sale inventory and strong job growth. 

“Months of supply is now at a very low 2.4 months, down from nearly 5 months just one year ago and over 12 months in early 2008. Months of supply has not been this low in Phoenix since late 2005 when sales activity was at feverish levels,” the report read. 

It’s worth mentioning that there’s a seasonality to Phoenix. Snowbirds flock here during the winter and the MLB Cactus League’s Spring Training is a highlight in March. Visitors may have seen real-estate opportunities in Phoenix during their trip this year, according to the report. 

“The true test of Phoenix housing-market strength will be this summer, when these favorable elements subside and the housing market will stand more on its own,” the report said. 

Source: MarketWatch — Amy Hoak 

Premier Real Estate Event to Raise Funds for Valley Teen’s Funeral and Medical Expenses

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:

Chelsea Pietz

Marketing Department, Fidelity National Title

480.214.4500     

chelsea.peitz@fnf.com

Premier Real Estate Event to Raise Funds for Valley Teen’s Funeral and Medical Expenses 

Tempe, AZ (April 25, 20120)- A recent tragedy claimed the life of Desert Ridge High School motocross rider, Jake Barville. At just 15 years of age, Jake lost his life while participating in one of his most beloved activities. His accident caused serious spinal & brain trauma, ultimately claiming his life after a short battle on March 3rd. Jake is survived by his parent, Dan and Leanne Barville and older brother, Wade. Jake’s father, Dan Barville, remembers his son by saying “I don’t know if he loved school, but he sure loved being here. I know a lot of adults may think kids don’t know what life is all about- Jake did.  He loved people, he wanted to be around people, and he wanted to do anything he could, for anyone who needed it. That was the way he was.” 

In turn, Jake’s mother, Leanne Barville, shares how her love for her son will help her eventually learn to be happy again one day.  She says “Jake loved life, and I am going to make Jake proud- and I will have my moments, and there’s going to be lots and lots of tough days but I’m not going to lose my love of life and my ability to have fun because that’s what Jake would have wanted.” 

Leanne Barville works in the real estate community which has banded together to help in her family’s time of need. Three of the top real estate agents in the Valley have joined forces to raise money for Jake’s funeral and medical costs by providing a seminar with valuable information and one-on-one interaction. Head sponsor, Fidelity National Title’s SVP, Steve de Laveaga says “this event is about more than giving people valuable real estate information. It’s a way for us to come together as a community and support a family who has lost an irreplaceable part of their lives.” 

The “Do More Business Now” Event will feature three of the most visible real estate agents in the state: Jesse Herfel-Keller Williams, Russell Shaw-Realty One Group and Brett Tanner- Keller Williams. This conference will consist of a consultative panel of Q & A discussion in which panelists will speak on topics such as: Creating your own inventory, overcoming challenges in today’s marketplace, effective consumer marketing, strategic ways to locate buyers & sellers, transitioning your business in a changing environment, and how to streamline your short sale file processes. Additionally, these panelists will be sharing samples of their very own process templates, short sale packages and checklists and success marketing plans with attendees. Agents will be able to benefit from over 40 years of local real estate experience with experts who have closed over 1600 transactions in the 2011 totaling over $100 million dollars in real estate.

The “Do More Business Now” event will take place on Thursday, May 3rd from 9am-12pm at SEVRAR, 1363 South Vineyard Rd. Mesa, AZ 85210. The cost of the event is $39.99, all proceeds to benefit the Barville family. To register go to http://thebarvillefamilybenefit.eventbrite.com

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Congrats to Bernie Espinosa, Our April 2012 Employee in the Spotlight

Warm temperatures have arrived. We call it Spring in the Valley of the Sun, and the second quarter begins!

Meet Bernie Espinosa, one of our esteemed Sales Executives.  Vivacious, energetic, thoughtful, and caring are just a few words that describe our co-worker.

Bernie was born in San Francisco to parents who both immigrated to the United States from Nicaragua. Interestingly, even though Bernie’s mom and dad came to the United States from the same country, they did not know each other in Nicaragua. They met through mutual friends in San Francisco. Bernie is, as she says, first generation. She attributes her work ethic and her appreciation for life to the lessons she learned from her parents who worked so hard for their family.

Bernie has one older brother, David, who is a policeman (on the SWAT Team) in San Francisco, and one younger sister, Janel, who lives in San Diego and who also works in sales. Bernie went to school at the San Diego Fashion Institute. She moved to the Phoenix area in 2000 to take a position in a technology firm as Vice President of Marketing. After a very successful term with the company and completing her business goals, Bernie spent some time traveling to Europe and South America.

Bernie Espinosa, FNT Sales Executive

Wanting to grow professionally and move on to new challenges, Bernie entered the world of title and escrow. With a referral from a loan officer friend, Bernie obtained positions with Equity Title and Magnus Title. In August of 2007, Bernie worked for Ticor Title and came to Fidelity National Title by way of the Ticor Title merger in May of 2008. Bernie says that the longest time she has ever worked for a company is with Fidelity and she loves her job.

Here are a few things you may or may not know about our April 2012 Employee in the Spotlight:

Bernie…

§  Is an artist and loves vibrant colors

§  Loves being outside (hiking especially)

§  Loves to cook – she makes a great chicken piccata

§  Loves to learn, read, and travel

§  Loves spending time with her rescue dog, Lucky

§  Enjoys life and loves helping others

§  Loves the San Francisco Giants

§  Was born on February 14^th (Valentine’s Day) which may account for her love of “sweets”

When asked about any special life lessons she wanted to share, Bernie said that many of the lessons she has learned from others are things she would not want to emulate. Sometimes learning what not to do is a valuable lesson, too. Bernie’s best “life advice”? Work hard, be grateful, cherish your family and friends, sow a seed, help others, and be present in the now.

Congratulations to Bernadette Espinosa on being selected the FNTA- Maricopa April 2012 Employee in the Spotlight. It has been said that the real secret to success is enthusiasm, and Bernie certainly demonstrates that quality to all of us. We thank you for bringing your unique gifts and talents to our Fidelity team, Bernie. You are appreciated!

Realty Executives Fiesta May 2

We are pleased to be sponsoring the annual Realty Executives Executive Event, “Fiesta”, May 2^nd, 2012 at Doubletree Paradise Valley Resort in Scottsdale. This is an incredible day of education, networking, vendor expo, and the Executive Awards presentation.

The partner and vendor expo runs most of the day, from 8:30a through 2:30p. Also scheduled throughout the day:

9:00a – 10:00a: REALTOR.com training – Brett Barlows will discuss the Control Panel, education, and provide some relevant updates.

10:00a – 10:45a: 2011 Executive Awards presentation – With Realty Executives Phoenix Brokers, Prospect Mortgage, and Fidelity National Title Agency.

11:00a – 12:00p: Todd Sumney, V.P. Marketing Realty Executives International will present your new “Executive Access”.

12:00p – 12:30p: Lunch and networking

12:30p – 4:00p: Bill Gray will present AAR Contract Addenda, New & Revised, providing 3 hours of Contract Law C.E. credit.

Admission to this great event is free for all Realty Executive “Phoenix” – Phoenix, Yuma, and ERN. For all other guests, there’s a $20.00 fee for the C.E. class, and $10.00 for lunch.

Register at http://executiveevent.eventbrite.com/.

Pinterest Best Practices

What is all the buzz about Pinterest??

We’ve heard it countless times, folks that have created a Pinterest account, dabbled a bit by pinning a few items and then forgot about it… until the recent tsunami of interest flared up. Now it’s become almost impossible to escape tweets and status updates that mention Pinterest. There’s quite a frenzy around this new player on the social media scene. And the number of people who openly claim to be addicted to pinning is rising at alarming numbers.

Pinterest is growing rapidly from unexpected demographics and changing the rules of social media engagement. It’s a new way of interacting, the interest-graph, and is not prominent on Facebook and LinkedIn. It provides a new opportunity for public companies with strong brands and highly visual products to reach a captive audience that is more than willing to advocate on the company's behalf.

It is a virtual pinboard (or you can also look at it as a social bookmarking site) that focuses on images. It allows you to share images and videos you find anywhere on the web and link it back to the original content -so it’s great for generating links and SEO.

You can look around other people’s pinboards to discover things from people who might share common interests. You can organize your images by subject or however works for you by putting them in different boards. People can choose to follow all of your boards or any individual boards. As well, you’re able to like, repin and comment on other people’s content. Just like Twitter, Pinterest is an open network so anyone can follow you and you can follow anyone.

Why should you consider using Pinterest? With nearly five million users, and rapidly growing, nearly 1.5 million unique users visit Pinterest daily, spending an average of 15 minutes a day on the site. Think those inspiring vision boards don’t result in referral traffic to websites and blogs? Think again. In January 2012, Pinterest drove greater traffic to websites than LinkedIn, Google Plus, Reddit, and Youtube — combined.

While lots of folks are flapping their jaws about the impressive statistics of Pinterest, some companies are quietly using this fabulous new tool to pin their way to better customer engagement and a visually interesting, personally appealing brand. Some tips for beginners:

• Make sure you feature your business name on your profile for maximum exposure. Use your business name as your username, or change your profile name to your business name after your profile is set up.

• Add a paragraph about who you are and what you’re interested in to the “About” section on your Pinterest profile. It will show up right under your photo, and will be one way that users can find out more about you.

• Connect your account with your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Not only will it help you gain followers, but making this connection adds social media icons under your profile picture that link to your Facebook and Twitter profiles.

• Don’t forget to add your website URL in your profile, too!

• Pin lots of stuff. Pin content steadily, instead of in huge bursts, to maximize your exposure and engagement.

• Come up with creative and interesting board names. They get shared whenever you pin something, so make them enticing. But be creative — you need to keep your board names short. There isn’t a lot of room for long descriptive titles.

• Tag other Pinterest users in your pins by using “@username” in your descriptions. Network with other professionals and vendors in your field by using this feature. Not many people are doing this yet, so it’s a great way to build your following and stand out.

• Comment on other people’s pins. Just like with tagging, this feature hasn’t really caught on yet, so use it regularly to really engage with other users. Obviously, use the same good manners and common sense you would when commenting on a blog or other social media site.

• “Like” other people’s pins to give a thumbs-up when you want to recognize great content.

• Pin from lots of different sources, instead of just from one or two sites. Variety is important on Pinterest.

• Mix pinning your own unique finds with doing lots of “repinning,” which is repeating someone else’s pin to your followers (just like a Retweet on Twitter). The person whose image you repin gets notified via email, and they also get a credit on your pin, which increases their following.

• Feel free to pin your own blog posts, but don’t over-promote. Follow the usual etiquette rules of any other social media site, and don’t be the boorish one at the party who only talks about himself.

• Pin videos! Pinterest has a special section just for pinned videos, and there are far fewer videos than images on Pinterest at this point, so use them to distinguish yourself. Any YouTube video is easy to pin.

• When you pin an image, add a description under it. Be smart about these descriptions — a good description will stay with an image as it gets repinned all over the Pinterest world. If the image is something from your own site, definitely use your business name in the description.

• After you pin a new image using the very handy Pinterest browser bookmarklet (a great tool in its own right,) use its built-in social media prompts to re-share your pin on Twitter and Facebook, too.

• Use Pinterest’s embed option to publish pins as content in your blog posts and website pages. Note: As Pinterest is catching on, you may need to tell your users that they need to click on a Pinterest image to get to the original source. When I tried this last week, a reader wrote to me and asked, “Is there more to that Pin thing? Or is it just a pretty image?”

• Get the Pinterest iPhone app, so you can repin on the go, pin from your camera and add a location to your pins so others can find your images.

• Optimize your website content for Pinterest sharing (Part One): Use images in every single post you write, so your post can be shared on Pinterest. When you find yourself getting lazy about this, remember –- not using an image in your post means no one will pin it. And remember — the prettier the picture is, the more it will get pinned. The images that appeal to Pinterest members are powerful and emotive, so keep that in mind when choosing your pictures. That combination tends to work well for your blog readers, too.

• Optimize your website content for Pinterest sharing (Part Two): Consider watermarking your images, or adding text to them. If you’re using your own images on Pinterest, one of the best ways to help your image stand out is by adding a clear description to the image itself, or adding a watermark with your business name. Make sure it’s clear, but that it doesn’t block out the main subject of the photo.

• Create seasonal or holiday boards that relate to your brand. Example: New Year’s Resolutions, Fourth of July, etc. Users love these.

• Add a prominent Follow Me on Pinterest button to your website to advertise that you’re a pinner!

Source: Beth Hayden

Phoenix Wealth Builders Event

We are pleased to be hosting another great seminar by Phoenix Wealth Builders at our Hayden Ferry training room on April 25, 2012, 2:00 to 3:00PM.

Whether you are a first-time investor or a seasoned professional, Arizona real estate represents the best opportunity for appreciation and CASHFLOW. Why invest in Arizona real estate?

• With a diversified economy, an educated workforce, and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, Arizona is a magnet for corporations and workers alike.
• 2010 Census data reveals that Arizona’s population grew 24.6% from 2000 to 2010, and boasts a comfy population density of about 56 persons per square mile.
• There is a real estate investment opportunity just waiting to be snatched – vacant land, foreclosed homes, short-sales, discounted condos and flips are just a few prospects.

The Phoenix Wealth Builders team, Eddie Rosefield and Justin Colby will present their services:

• Full service, one stop shop, solution to your cash flow property buyers
• We take your investor and find them a property, rehab the property, fill it with a well qualified tenant, and place our property management company on top
• We effectively handle EVERY aspect of the ENTIRE process from start to finish.
• Investor sits back and collects a monthly check
• Through our resources of non-profits, asset managers, and other investors & wholesalers in town, we have the inventory that you may not have access to
• And YOU still make your 3% Commission!!!

This is an Invitation only event. Contact your Fidelity representative should you wish to attend.

Source: Phoenix Wealth Builders

Ready for National Open House Weekend? We Can Help!

Have you started preparing for the National Association of REALTORS® 2012 Nationwide Open House Weekend, April 28 and 29? State and local REALTOR® associations across the nation join NAR in hosting the nation’s largest open house campaign.

Open houses open doors to buying opportunities! So what could be better than a weekend full of open houses, encouraging people to tour homes? This coast to coast event brings value to both buyers and seller offering buyers a stress-free way to tour homes. For sellers, the weekend provides a high-visibility effort to promote traffic and drive home sales. It provides real estate agents a tremendous opportunity to promote the benefits of home ownership and have open dialogue with consumers about housing issues that matter most to them.

As your partner in your success, Fidelity has promotional materials and resources available to ensure your open house stands out.

Our Realtor Advantage Package for $69.00 maximizes your value by reducing costs and time with an all-in-one listing package that includes:

50 Full color flyers on your new listing

HighRes Media or AZ Imaging HD VIRTUAL TOUR- Tours are posted to Realtor. com, Homes.com, Google & Yahoo.com included

“Custom listing website” to showcase your new listing. Advertise on 9 Different Sites!

Online Print Ship Login-Quick, Easy and Affordable Printing with 24/7 Access!

Our Luxury Package:

The best rates for your luxury virtual tours and flyers. A savings of $300 exclusively through Fidelity National Title

HighRes Media Virtual Tour - daylight or twilight package available daylight package :$249 (regularly $539.45)

Twilight package: up to 5,000 sf $390 (reg $724) over 5,000 sf $490 (reg $825)

Tours posted to Realtor.com, MSN, Google, Trulia, Zillow, Yahoo, Top Producer, Frontdoor, VisualTour, UniqueGlobalEstates.com, craigslist.org, Vast, Overstock, oodle, The Real Estate Book, &LuxuryHomeVideosOnline.com.

50 Premium Flyers 8.5 x 11 (2-sided, Full-bleed Color, UV Coated Front/Back, 111# Gloss Cover Stock)

100 Jumbo Postcards 8.5 x 5.5 mailed to 100 properties surrounding the properties. (2-sided, Full Color, UV Coated Front, 16pt Cover Stock) MAILED FOR YOU!

30% discount on full page advertising with Luxury Home Magazine

Ala carte pricing: Daylight Tour Only: $150
Twilight Tour Only (under 5000sf): $250
Twilight Tour Only (over 5000sf): $350

A host of other open house tools are also available, including Fidelity Data Shop and Premiere Leads. Contact your Sales Representative today to make sure YOUR open house shines!