Dave Thurman's Real Estate Blog

Home prices fell in November for the first time in seven months, according to a industry report released Tuesday.

The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index recorded a decline of 0.2% from October. Prices were down 5.3% compared with 12 months ago. Read more from CNN.com…

I recently had a client asking about referral fees and/or gifts from licensed real estate agents. You might think this is a very simple question, but it is not!!! Here is some information from the California Association of Realtors web site.

Question:

I am a REALTOR® and I want to give a gift to a friend for referring a client to me.  Is that legal?

Answer:

The answer depends on several factors.  First, what type of property is involved in the resulting transaction? Second, is your “friend” a real estate licensee, an unlicensed person, or an employee of a company providing special services such as title insurance or pest control work?

There is a legal article, Referral Fee Chart, that illustrates when you can or cannot give a “gift” (any amount of money or any other type of consideration).  In addition, there is a detailed legal article on the same topic, Referral Arrangements.

If you deal with residential one-to-four properties and your friend is a non-licensee unaffiliated with any type of special service company, then federal law–RESPA–generally forbids the giving of a referral fee (any type of gift) to your friend.  The term “generally” is used because RESPA does not forbid a referral fee if the buyer purchases the property using all cash or a loan from an individual who doesn’t typically loan money to borrrowers.

If you deal with residential five or more properties or commercial or industrial or agricultural property, then you may give a referral fee to a non-licensee who is not affiliated with a provider of special services.

Finally, the same rules apply regardless of what you call the “gift”:   a referral fee or a finder’s fee.

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Interest rates continue to remain near their historic lows. Thirty-year, fixed-mortgage interest rates averaged 4.88 percent during November 2009, compared with 6.09 percent in November 2008, according to Freddie Mac.

Adjustable-mortgage interest rates averaged 4.41 percent in November 2009, compared with 5.26 percent in November 2008.

Platinum Home Mortgage Corporation

Realty World Corporate Update.

Last week we signed a one-year deal with Zillow.com to feature your listings on their website above your competitors. What this means is that when buyers and sellers are searching properties on Zillow, all Realty World listings show up first. This delivers five times the amount of buyer traffic for your listings and huge exposure. We already feature your listings on Trulia.com, and with this new Zillow contract, you have the highest amount of exposure for your listings on two of the biggest real estate sites in the world.

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• Trulia Also Experiences Record Growth, Shift Towards Mobile in 2009  searchenginewatch.com)
• Zillow Wants a Home on Wall Street  gigaom.com)

Good Faith Estimate form effective January 1st.

Under the new rules, lenders and mortgage brokers are required to give consumers the standard estimate form within three days of receiving a loan application. The Good Faith Estimate form requires lenders to combine all of the bank’s fees into one “origination charge,” enabling consumers to compare one lender’s fees with another’s. Lenders also are prohibited from increasing the origination fee from the estimate.

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• The new standardized mortgage estimate  blogs.reuters.com)
• New and improved mortgage forms  money.cnn.com)
• Home Buyer says dealing with the new Good Faith Estimate is “Close to Living Hell”  raincityguide.com)
• New Rules Help Home Buyers Understand Loan Costs  abcnews.go.com)