RE/MAX Adds Brazil to International Roster

RISMEDIA, June 3, 2009-RE/MAX International Inc., recently welcomed the Federative Republic of Brazil to its expanding list of international regions. Four region owners, who originate from Brazil and Portugal, have purchased master franchise rights for RE/MAX Brazil and plan to open offices throughout the largest country in South America.

In 2008, RE/MAX sold more than 700 franchises and surpassed the 70 country milestone, an international presence greater than any of its competitors. Brazil is only the eighth country to join the RE/MAX Network in the last six months, preceded by Albania, Bahamas, Ecuador, India, Macedonia, Singapore and Uruguay.

“Brazil is a country of great international stature because of its economic viability and we’re thrilled to have a presence there,” said William Soteroff, senior vice president of International Development at RE/MAX International. “The new region owners have a vision to use the RE/MAX Network to bring a new level of professionalism and education to the real estate industry. Brazilians will certainly benefit from an internationally-recognized name brand with a reputation for outstanding customer service.”

RE/MAX Brazil Region Owners Luis Juliao, Jose Luiz Monteis, Renato Teixeira and Paolo Toledo average more than 20 years of real estate experience and have been operating an independent firm in Brazil with more than 800 agents.

Full story: http://rismedia.com/2009-06-02/remax-adds-brazil-to-international-roster/

Long Island homeowners are warned about foreclosure rescue ‘scams”

With an increased in foreclosures federal officials in Long Island, NY announced back in April that the FTC is cracking down on companies that promise to modify loans who are in default for a fee. Some homeowners still are facing foreclosure after trying to do workouts thru some of these companies. Read the full article here.

NEW REFERRAL PROGRAM FOR BILINGUAL REAL ESTATE AGENTS

RealEstateLatino.com (REL) is currently expanding its online services in your area and would like you to join our fast growing nationwide network.

For a limited time only, if you sign up for our system you will receive your leads on a referral basis, which means that you will not pay per lead, rather a low referral fee when the lead buys or sells a home using your real estate services. Only two bilingual agents will have the opportunity to sign up for our exclusive referral network.

If you are interested in hearing more about our program please call us at 888-934-9779 or e-mail us at info@realestatelatino.com

Don't miss out on this great opportunity to expand your online network, once the first two agents sign up in your area, we will closed our network membership for that area, as they will be the exclusive agents in your territory.

Minority HomeOwnership Is Declining.

Here is an article that covers how much minority home-ownership is declining due primordially by the mortgage meltdown. In my opinion, the entire industry is no doing enough to ensured first time home buyers have new opportunities to owned of the American dream.

Mortgage rates are in the record low, and home prices are declining in many markets, so why is it that the gap of home-ownership between minorities and whites still represent a negative impact in our industry? Thanks for your comments.

Senator Martinez Announces First-Time Homebuyer Forum in Jacksonville

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEWednesday, May 6, 2009

Martinez Announces First-Time Homebuyer Forum in JacksonvilleRepresentatives from Senator Martinez’s Office, HUD, housing counseling agencies and lenders will assist First-Time Homebuyers

WASHINGTON –U.S. Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) today announced a First-Time Homebuyer Forum Saturday, June 6th from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. to be held at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, FL. The workshop will provide information about first-time homebuyer programs, applying for a FHA loan, first-time homebuyer tax credits, and credit counseling.

“Members of my staff, representatives from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in addition to housing counseling agencies and lenders will be available to assist current or potential homebuyers with any questions they may have,” Martinez said. “Countless Floridians have been hit by the current housing crisis, we want ensure that homebuyers are educated about the programs and resources available to them so they can achieve the American dream of homeownership.”

The Office of Senator Mel Martinez as well as the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development will be hosting this housing workshop to provide assistance to help first-time homebuyers. Participants will include: City of Jacksonville Housing and Neighborhoods Department, Mortgage Bankers Association of Jacksonville, Northeast Florida Association of Realtors, Catholic Charities Bureau, Family Foundations of Northeast Florida, Inc., Housing Partnership of Northeast Florida, Jacksonville Area Legal Aid, Inc., Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America and Second Chance Help Center. Lenders also participating include Bank of America, BB&T, Compass Bank, Everbank, Jacksonville Federal Credit Union, Mercantile Bank, Regions Bank, SunTrust, Wachovia, and Wells Fargo Bank. This forum is open to the public.

* An RSVP is required to attend the workshop due to limited space.

Please call 904-398-8586 or email rsvpevent@martinez.senate.gov.

WHAT: First-Time Homebuyer Forum

DATE: Saturday, June 6thTIME: 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

LOCATION: University of North Florida
University Center
12000 Alumni Drive
Jacksonville, FL 32224

New America Alliance Applauds Administration on the Nomination of Rosie Rios for U.S. Treasurer

DALLAS, May 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The New America Alliance (NAA) applauds the nomination of Rosa "Rosie" Gumataotao Rios for United States Treasurer. As the premier advocate for increasing Latino access to economic capital, the NAA, along with other national Latino organizations such as the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, strongly supported the nomination of Rios.

"We commend the Administration for this appointment to this key Treasury Department post," said Carlos Loumiet, NAA Chair of the Board. "Rios' strong financial services expertise and background will make her a valuable contributor in helping solve the economic difficulties we are all currently experiencing. Just as important in the long run, as her appointment evidences, the President continues to identify and appoint outstanding young Latinos and Latinas who want and will be able to serve our country for decades to come."

With more than 21 years of real estate and urban development experience, Rios is Managing Director of Investments for MacFarlane Partners, one of the leading real estate investment management firms in the U.S. She serves as the primary liaison with the firms' real estate and capital partners to facilitate investments located in urban and high-density suburban markets and recently closed on over $345 million worth of equity commitments. Recently, Rios served as a member of the Treasury/Federal Reserve Transition Team on behalf of the Obama Administration.

Prior to joining MacFarlane Partners, Rios was a Principal with Red River Associates, a consulting firm specializing in providing development, project management, and executive management services for municipalities. Previously, she served as the director of the Redevelopment and Economic Development departments for the City of Oakland. Rios has a long track record in California economic development with municipal governments in the cities of Fremont, San Leandro, and Union City. She serves as a Trustee of the Alameda County Employees' Retirement Association (ACERA) and is a board member of the California Association of Local Economic Development (CALED) and the Fruitvale Spanish-Speaking Unity Council. A graduate of Harvard University, she is also a Fellow with the Royal Society of the Arts.

The New America Alliance (NAA) is a national organization comprised of prominent Latino business leaders united to lead the process of American Latino economic empowerment and wealth-building through economic capital, leadership development, strategic philanthropy, and public policy advocacy.

www.naaonline.org

Why Is It That The Internet Is Becoming “The Place” For Most Buyers When They Are Looking For Home?

By Bill Arce (Real Estate Professional)

The quick answered is convenience, the privacy of the Internet offers home buyers, especially those who are first timer, the opportunity to access information about a home without the need to disclose his or hers information to an agent.

According to a recent data released by the National Association of Realtors, it shows how the Internet continues to grow as one of the most popular means for buyer to search properties for sale. NAR data for the year 2008 shows that 32 percent of home buyers first looked at home they purchased online-up from an insignificant 8 percent on 2001. The same study reveals that the percentage of home buyers finding their dream home from a Realtor dropped from 41 in 2001 to just 34 percent in 2008, making traditional real estate not as popular as it once was.

Latinos are not exempt from this and they are too turning to the internet to look for resources including real estate. In my Blog , I make a reference to how the online Latino presence hit an all time high 20.3 million in 2008, up 6 percent from 2007. Hispanos, now accounts for 11% of the total U.S. online market creating many opportunities for bilingual real estate professionals to expand theirs business on a new whole way.

Here are some tips that you should consider if you are really serious about doing real estate business with Latinos online, which by the way are considered for some experts to be the next driving force in real estate, as the baby boomers did.

If you don’t have a website, you should get one: A website is considered one of the agent’s best tools. In today’s real estate market a website is more than just an appealing graphic display, it is your 24/7 virtual office. Your website is the place where you can interact with potential clients, while at the same time you are offering valuable information without asking for anything in return. A bilingual real estate agent should have a website that targets both (Ingles y Español) clients.

A dynamic website has tools allowing the agent to interact with his or her virtual visitors, for example, a section where visitor can have their questions answered, to request a customized list of available property for sale and of course it should offers listings. An agent should take advantage of IDX and display the entire local MLS on their site showcasing his or her contact information. Just remember one thing, use your site as a place of free information and resource for your potential clients, avoid doing the hard sale on your self or your service, it wont’ work, show your visitors that you are there for them, shall they want to contact you.

Ok, you got a bilingual website, now what? Well, is time to let the world know that you have a website, ok, maybe not the whole world, just your local market. First, get 2 domain names one for each language, this way you will be able to direct your marketing materials more efficiently to your Latino and non-Latinos clients. Add your website to all your printing materials like, business cards, flyers, first time homebuyer presentations, etc.

It is also important that you optimized your site so, when potential clients are doing a search for real estate in your area, your site is among the top findings. If your budget allows it create PayPerClick campaigns in Google or Yahoo, this way you can have some assurance to be listed among the top search result on the search engines. You can also direct organic traffic to your site, organic meanings free of charge, by posting ads in online social networks and local forums where Latinos area active, places like Univision.com, Terra.com and QuePasa.com. I also like to ad posts to other non-Latino, but very popular forums like Craiglist.com and Backpage.com.

Free is good: If you are a new agent or simply don’t have the budget required to maintain a website online, you need a plan B. Create your own Blog and begin writing about what you know best, real estate. With the assistance of the current free technology, like Blogger.com, Wordpress.com and other you can set up a Blog in just a few minutes. Blogs are a great alternative to website, although it will never replace it, a Blog can give you the edge you need to facilitate your online presence and position yourself as the local bilingual real estate expert.

There are too many ways for a real estate agent to interact with potential clients online some works better than other, but you can only find out if you try them, who knows maybe your next closing is from a buyer surfing the net looking for an honest real estate advice.

2007 American Housing Survey Metropolitan Data

The American Housing Survey (AHS) is the most detailed, regular national housing sample survey in the United States. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development directs the Census Bureau to conduct the AHS to obtain up-to-date statistics on the housing stock of the nation and selected large metropolitan areas.

Metropolitan area surveys are conducted for 21 metropolitan areas, where householders are interviewed every 6 years. The results for areas surveyed in 2007 are now available for the following: o Baltimore, Maryland; o Boston, Massachusetts; o Houston, Texas; o Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota; o Tampa-St. Petersburg, Florida; o Washington, DC-Maryland-Virginia; and o Miami-Ft. Lauderdale. Current and previous metropolitan data are available from HUD USER in SAS, ASCII, and ZIP formats at http://www.huduser.org/datasets/ahs/ahsdata07.html, while the Census Bureau offers reports in PDF format at http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/ahs/metropolitandata.html.

REL Guiding Principles “Impeccable, Ethical, Behavior”

By RealEstateLatino.com

Homeownership is the primary means by which households in the United States achieve financial security and communities remain stable. Many Latinos in the United States have taken many opportunities of becoming homeowners. While long-term sustainable homeownership is key for building family wealth, and stronger community, achieving the dream of homeownership can sometimes become a challenge due to many barriers to homeownership.

Since its launched on 2004, REL has made its main priority take down all major barriers to homeownership facing the Latino community. Among other innovations, REL had developed a comprehensive bilingual online library called, InfoCenter, to help educate consumers wanting to make educated financial decisions. The InfoCenter serves as a primarily point of counseling for consumers with the option to ask questions and/or add comments on each article.

Under the slogan of “Impeccable, Ethical, Behavior,” REL pledged its commitment of maintaining a highest level of customer service when assistance consumers or working with industry partners. Every day, REL touches many consumers seeking to buy or sell a piece of real estate; this is why its founder, Bill Arce, believe that by continuing doing business with our slogan in mind, will increase the numbers of new referrals coming to REL from past-trusted clients.

U.S. Latino Online Audience Is Growing Fast, How This Can Benefit Your Real Estate Business

By Bill Arce http://www.realestatelatino.com/

On a recent study published by conScore, shows that online Latino audience grew 50% faster than the overall Latino population on 2008. In February, the Latino online audience surfing the Internet hit 20.3 million, up 6 percent from a year ago. Hispanos, now accounts for 11% of the total U.S. online market creating many opportunities for bilingual real estate professionals to expand theirs business on a new whole way.

If you still believe on the myth that Latinos are not online or that Latino don’t own computers, here are some facts that will help you better understand this segment of the online real estate market.

Latinos outpaced the general Internet population grows in total minutes spent while surfing the net, total pages view and total unique visits.

Latinos are embracing the Internet very quickly, with 78% users going online 3-5 times per week
According to the first annual U.S. Hispanic Cyberstudy, Latinos spend 43% more time online at work (13.5 hours) and 13% more time online at home (9.5 hours) than the overall online population
Real estate agencies looking to expand their market share are looking at the Internet as the ideal place to meet potential clients

There very simple tools that a bilingual real estate professional can add to his or her arsenal that will help them effectively market Latinos online, here are some of the tools that I have used over the years with success.

1-bilingual real estate website: Studies shown that Latinos prefer to communicate in Spanish when they are transacting important business like buying or selling real estate, especially those who are first generation of immigrants, having a bilingual site, can help you accomplish this.

Allow your site visitors to interact with you without disclosing much of their personal information. You can accomplish this by creating tools like Q&A section, comments on your informative articles and videos; have downloadable educational guides, etc

2-ve a blog in Spanish: Blogs are great sources of information; it allows you the opportunity to demonstrate to your Spanish speaking readers that you are a real estate expert. Google “Spanish Real Estate Blogs” in your area to see how many they are, I can assure you that not many if any will come out on your search.

If you like to set up your own blog, you can use some easy formats for free like Blogger.com and Wordpress.org. Just follow the instruction and you could be blogging tonight.
Social Media En Español:

3- you are already a member of Facebook or LinkedIn this is great but it probably won’t help you interact with potential Latino clients, for that you must socialize where la “pachanga” is. Check out Univision.com and QuePasa.com these sites along with Yahoo En Español and Telemundo.com could help you mingle with Latino.

It is important that you DO NOT sell your services, instead offer your professional experience and answer as many questions as your time allows, this strategy should produce results very soon.

When you are promoting your brand online, do it from the hart do not try any hard sale, as the online market place can help you build reputation and leverage more business, it also can ruin your real estate career. If you are there helping others, business will come soon enough, you’ll see.
If you have any comment or question feel free to drop me a line @ bill.arce@realestatelatino.com

Foreclosure, Some New Facts:

By:www.RealEstateLatino.com

Foreclosures are touching literally everybody in our country, either you are one of the “unlucky one” who are facing foreclosure, or you know of a friend or family member in that situation or your home’s value was affected by a nearby-foreclosed property, the reality is that, foreclosures are part of our daily life and it seams that is going to be like this for a while.

After researching the market, I found some facts that I wanted to share with you.

Here are some facts that I was able to find:

*US Foreclosure Filings In February Up 30% On Year –RealtyTrac

*Slightly more than 290,000 properties- one in every 440 housing units - were slapped with a foreclosure filing in February, up nearly 30% from a year earlier
*Foreclosure cases rise on Long Island to a new higher level of 54% last month

*In Florida 8,450 existing homes sold, up 24 percent from the 6,810 homes sold in January 2008, according to FAR

*6% increase from January, was the third-highest monthly total - following those in August and December 2008

*Filings spike after moratoriums expire this month
Jacksonville, Fl Forbes’s prediction to become US foreclosure capital rank number 25 on the 100 top metro area list

*In Florida, one in every 188 homes faced foreclosure

*In Jacksonville, there were 2,107 foreclosures, or one for every 278 homes. That’s up 14 percent from January and up 29 percent from February of last year

*Jacksonville is number 5 amount Florida’s mayor cities facing foreclosure

*After a 45-day voluntary moratorium in Florida ended at the end of January, foreclosure activity increased 14% from a month earlier

*New York proceedings delayed by a 90-day extension appear to have hit the system in February, boosting foreclosure activity by 23%

*Thousands of Alt-A and option-arm loans worth $60 billion to $70 billion are due to reset starting in the second quarter

*One in every 440 homes nationwide was hit with a foreclosure filing

*Much of the foreclosure is rippling across former bubble markets

*In Las Vegas, one in every 60 units received a filing, giving the city the nation's highest rate among metro areas with a population of at least 200,000 and a rate more than seven times higher than the national average

*One in every 440 homes nationwide was hit with a foreclosure filing

*In Florida, one in every 188 homes faced foreclosure

*The Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., area came in next, with one in every 65 getting a filing from default notices to bank repossessions

*Phoenix ranks ninth with one in every 110 units

*Nationwide, 290,631 properties had foreclosure filings, 46,391 of which were in Florida

I am sure this facts list could go on and on, but we will stop here…for now.