When real estate agents are offered swanky incentives by developers and other agents — which, as mentioned yesterday, can include gift cards, cars and more — does it create a conflict of interest? It’s a tricky issue — and one that’s playing out in the industry as declining home sales make developers and agents more and more anxious to sell. The National Association of Realtors’ Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice states that "REALTORS®, in attempting to secure a listing, shall not deliberately mislead the owner as to market value." But there isn’t a law that prevents agents from…

With today’s waning home sales, reports of real estate agents and developers offering unusual incentives aren’t uncommon. But what is unusual is that, in some cases, they’re not offering the incentives to the buyer — but instead to each other. Take, for example, a recent Wall Street Journal article that featured examples including a builder offering a $5,000 American Express gift card to agents as a thank-you for selling a Long Island City, N.Y., condominium and a fully paid lease on a BMW for an agent who brought in a buyer for a New York City penthouse. It may seem…

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave a speech Monday on the Fed’s recent and future moves — and current take on the economy. Some highlights of his talk, given to the New York Economic Club: The housing decline isn’t over and will likely continue through 2008, dragging down growth. The mortgage sector still has room for improvement. We’re not sure yet if rising credit costs will affect consumer spending. Bernanke viewed mid-August as a low point for the financial markets. U.S. economic performance so far this year has been "reasonably good." So what’s next? It’s unclear if the Fed will…

Last week, the Federal Funds loan rate — which determines banks’ overnight lending rates — was lowered to 4.75 percent. The rate drop was designed to bolster the economy. Although consumer spending has remained relatively stable this year — despite a credit crisis and continued housing decline — banks aren’t so sure it will stay that way. Plus mortgage defaults have risen, making banks leery about loaning to each other. All that nail-biting nervousness is bound to seriously affect consumer attitude at some point, which is obviously a concern. Just look at the near collapse of Northern Rock, Britain’s 5th-largest…

Last week, we discussed some of the reasons the housing crisis seems set to continue through the next year. Many in the industry are waiting to see what the Fed announces tomorrow in regard to the interest rate: The federal funds rate has been kept at 5.25 percent for months. There’s speculation it will be lowered Tuesday. If the Fed does lower the rate, it’s not going to fix things immediately. And if the Fed doesn’t, well — it might be time to start looking at what we can do to correct our industry. But what can we do? Some…

Perhaps you’ve noticed recently that many residential industry insiders have started saying that they’re expecting the current housing slump — which already seems like it’s been going on forever — to last through a good chunk of 2008. Not long ago, many of those same sources were expressing hope the crisis would start a turnaround later this year — and true, it’s September, but there’s still time (and room) for improvement, right? Read the news — and the numbers — and you might think otherwise. There are quite a few reasons why the housing industry is now looking toward 2008…

This year has not been a good one for most U.S. residential construction markets. Kansas new home projects were 50 percent lower in June than they were a year ago. In Ohio’s Dayton area, residential contracts dropped by 38 percent in July. Northwest Arkansas saw a drop in residential building permits in the second quarter of 2007 — 56 percent less than in 2006,  according to the Arkansas Business. Yet, as different parts of the country report weakening housing markets, news of New York’s strong residential sales continues to spread. New York City will reach its highest construction spending mark…

The long weekend is over — and we’re moving from Labor Day to bad labor news, if you’re a member of the residential building workforce. The Commerce Department announced today that residential housing spending again declined in July, falling 1.4 percent — the sharpest drop since January. Residential spending has now fallen 15.6 percent from July 2006 to 2007 — a situation that is even more serious considering that residential spending had actually fallen consistently before that period, for a record 17 consecutive months, according to Forbes. And … it’s widely expected to decline further before the year ends. Yet…

I was reading an article in the Community Times today about a new shopping center in Maryland that will be built with green design when something caught my eye. The actual project details weren’t anything too out of the ordinary for green building — the structure will include use of natural light, a high efficiency HVAC system and possibly a green roof. What stuck out to me was one sentence — "Eldersburg will get the first green shopping center in the mid-Atlantic region with the addition of Main Street Eldersburg, a 90,000-square-foot shopping center on 12.5 acres on Londontown Boulevard…

The Commerce Department released its report on housing starts and building permits in July today, and it isn’t good news. The report said that construction starts hit their lowest point in a decade in July, and that the year-and-a-half housing recession is nowhere near over. Construction is down 21 percent from July 2006; housing starts dropped even more than expected from June to July. But that’s not all. Things to note from the report, courtesy of Bloomberg: Construction of single-family homes fell 7.3 percent in July. Multifamily home starts decreased 1.6 percent. Regionally, construction starts fell 11 percent in South,…