It's a tough market for homebuyers. Prices are high and supply of available homes is low. And while the Federal Reserve's rate hike could make home buying more expensive, house hunters shouldn't start panicking yet. The Fed increased its benchmark interest rate by one-quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday. The Fed doesn't directly set mortgage rates, but its actions can affect the housing market. Mortgage rates tend to move with the government's 10-year Treasury note, which serves as a benchmark for many forms of credit, including mortgages. Interest rates on the notes have already risen since Donald Trump was elected president and on signals the Fed would continue to tighten monetary policy. But Wednesday's hike was widely expected, meaning the markets had already priced it in. So many experts don't see rates moving much higher in the coming weeks. "The last couple of times the Fed made a move, the rates firmed up in advance of the decision, and when it happened they kind of faded," said Keith Gumbinger , vice president of HSH.com. The Fed has now raised rates three times since the end of 2015. Following the first hike in December 2015, mortgage rates started 2016 with a drop for the first few weeks.
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I am a Christian of Arab descent. I grew up in Jerusalem together with my Muslim neighbors and friends. It infuriates me to witness the bigotry of a large number of politicians, particularly Republicans, toward Islam, the Syrian refugees, and the Sharia law.
The leading Republican presidential candidate has gone mad. Donald Trump has called for surveillance of U.S. mosques, the creation of a database of Syrian refugees and would not rule out creating a registry for all American Muslims. Trump also called for deporting the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in America and building a large wall along the border with Mexico.
Dr. Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon, presumably a smart man, who trails only slightly Trump among Republicans, insisted in a CNN interview that for a Muslim to become a U.S. president he or she has “to reject the tenets of Islam.” He also said he “would not advocate putting a Muslim in charge of this nation.”
On Nov. 19, the U.S. House passed a bill, with 289 members supporting it, including Democrats, that seeks to enforce unreasonable security demands on the U.S. admission of Syrian refugees – people who are fleeing a war-torn country and a brutal, inhuman and a savage terrorist group – ISIS. These refugees are part of the largest wave of refugees since World War II.
To add insult to injury, some 32 mostly-Republican governors signed off on orders saying that they would refuse to cooperate with federal efforts to resettle Syrian refugees fleeing the barbaric Islamic State group, known as ISIS.
Sadly, America has done this before, and we have not learned from our mistakes. During last century’s two World Wars, we did it to the Italians, the Germans and the Japanese. And, in peacetime, we persecuted Blacks (take note Dr. Carson), Jews, Asians and Latinos.
The First Amendment’s fundamental religious freedom guarantee and Article VI of the Constitution forbid religious tests for any government office.
This past week, the Democratic National Committee fired back. The DNC launched an ad titled “Inciting fear isn’t presidential.” The ad shows clips of an unlikely figure, President George W. Bush, saying, “We do not fight against Islam. We fight against terrorism. That’s not what Islam is about. Islam is peace.”
Between 1989 and 2006, the United States welcomed with open arms, as it should have, 325,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union countries. Are Jews human beings while Muslims are savages and terrorists?
All of us, except Native Indians, are immigrants to this country. The parents of Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are first generation immigrants and look at what their sons have achieved. They are members of the U.S. Senate. Why are then these two self-righteous bigots opposed to legalizing the status of illegal immigrants in this country (who are mostly Latinos) and not welcoming refugees from Syria?
Americans of Arab heritage have contributed greatly to this country. Apple founder Steve Jobs’ father was a Syrian immigrant. Professor Elias Corey won the 1990 Nobel Prize for chemistry. George Mitchell was the Senate Majority Leader. Candace Lightner founded MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving); and Danny Thomas founded St. Jude’s Research Hospital.
ISIS does not represent Islam, nor are they practicing Muslims. They are a bunch of thugs, murderers and rapists who commit their crimes in the name of Islam. The Quran only permits fighting in self-defense or to protect “churches, synagogues, temples, and mosques.” Any wars committed in the name of Islam have nothing to do with Islam. They are politically motivated.
Bishara A. Bahbah is a Scottsdale resident. He taught at Harvard University and serves on the national board of directors of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.
While Palm Beach’s biggest firms have significantly less agents than those in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, their hooks remain the same: competitive commission splits, technology and in-house tools and training.
The Real Deal ranked real estate firms in Palm Beach County by the number of actively licensed agents and spoke to executives about recruiting strategies, commissions and top sales for the year.
Here are the top five:
#1 Keyes Company | 526 agents
Keyes has 11 offices and four satellites in Palm Beach County, president Mike Pappas said. The family-owned and operated firm targets a mix of newly licensed and experienced agents. Keyes is on track to reach $4.3 billion in sales this year, and hires more than 1,100 agents a year statewide.
While most of its agents are in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, Keyes leads the ranking in Palm Beach. The brokerage also has an in-house corporate relocation program, based in West Palm Beach.
Keyes has recently refinished or relocated up to eight offices in Palm Beach County. “We think facilities still matter,” Pappas said.
Steve Reibel, vice president of recruiting, previously said that commission splits between the agent and company vary from 60 percent to nearly 90 percent, “pending the level of production.”
Pappas has said the firm is “very aggression on splits.”
#2 Coldwell Banker | 466 agents
Coldwell Banker has 10 offices in Palm Beach County, including Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Jupiter Beach, Wellington, Palm Beach Gardens, West Palm Beach and Boynton Beach.
Duff Rubin, regional senior vice president, would not disclose the company’s commission split policy but said, “We as a company try to be more of a value-proposition brokerage,” including Coldwell Banker’s tools, management and support. “Commission splits are typically based on production. You’re only as good as your production,” he said.
The top sale in Palm Beach County was a single-family home at 600 Northeast Fifith Avenue in Boca Raton. Jonathan Postma had the listing for the property, which sold for $8.3 million.
Rich Fleischer, regional vice president of Coldwell Banker east central region of Florida, said sales are split evenly between condos and single-family homes. “We do not focus solely on one type of property or one specific price point. Our overall goal is to ensure that the customer has the best real estate experience possible, regardless of property type,” Fleischer said.
The company hires about 225 agents, a mix of experienced and newly licensed, in the county on an annual basis.
#3 Illustrated Properties | 435 agents
Illustrated Properties has 23 offices in Florida. The firm offers online marketing tools, a lead generation program, training classes and mentoring programs, according to its website.
The company also provides in-house marketing.
Debbie Zuloaga, director of recruiting, could not be reached for comment.
#4 ERA Home Run Real Estate | 373 agents
Home Run Real Estate hires about 50 agents a year, owner Debbie Smith said. The company has three offices in Palm Beach, including Palm Beach Gardens, Royal Palm Beach and Lake Worth.
Smith said she doesn’t pay for recruiting, and that ERA’s technology brings the majority of her agents. Home Run offers services like a seller security program, a Palm Beach County auction department and a Zap platform for its agents. Smith also provides a real estate boot camp, which takes agents from contract to closing.
Home Run, which was founded in 2003 and affiliated with ERA in July, does not charge its agents monthly fees. Smith would not disclose its commission split policy. It’s closed about $200 million in transactions this year, Smith said.
#5 United Realty Group | 356 agents
United Realty Group offers 100 percent commissions with a flat per-transaction fee. The firm has four branches in Palm Beach County, according to Melanie Brownell, director of recruitment. It hires on average 20 agents a month.
The majority of sales in the county come from single-family homes, she said.
United Realty, which is in the tri-county area and Orlando, doesn’t charge its agents desk or franchise fees or provide training. It offers a 100 percent commission with a $299 transaction fee.
Year-to-date, United Realty has $810.3 million in sales. The firm has 13 offices with two additional locations opening early next year. Top sales this year include a commercial sale in West Palm Beach in August for $4.8 million.
North Palm Beach-based Bankrate Inc. has agreed to pay $15 million to settle accounting fraud charges, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Tuesday.
Bankrate agreed to pay the multimillion-dollar penalty without admitting to or denying the SEC’s findings.
"Bankrate...today announced a final settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission that concludes the company’s part in its investigation related to its historical financial reporting for the quarter ended June 30, 2012," the company said in a statement. "The accounting entries encompassed by this settlement were addressed as part of the restatement that Bankrate previously disclosed in its FORM 10-K filed on June 18, 2015."
The financial news company (NYSE: RATE) was investigated by the SEC and U.S. Department of Justice for earnings reports issued in 2011, 2012 and 2013. The SEC alleges that Bankrate’s Q2 earnings were knowingly overstated.
Three former Bankrate executives were also charged in the case: then-CFO Edward DiMaria, then-director of accounting Matthew Gamsey, and then-vice president of finance Hyunjin Lerner. The SEC alleges that the three took part in a scheme to fabricate revenues and avoid booking expenses to meet analyst estimates, resulting in an overstated Q2 2012 net income and inflated stock prices.
DiMaria allegedly decided to arbitrarily increase Bankrate’s revenue to meet certain key metrics, according to the SEC order. Bankrate’s Insurance and Credit Cards division were then improperly instructed to add additional revenues to the books of $300,000 and $500,000, respectively, without any support, according to the order.
When the company’s outside auditor asked for an explanation of the Insurance department’s revenue, “Lerner sent a misleading, generic explanation…an explanation that was reviewed and approved by DiMaria and Gamsey,” the order states.
Accountants from the Credit Cards department only recorded $176,000 of the additional $500,000 in revenue as directed by DiMaria, which infuriated the then-CFO, according to the order. DiMaria insisted that an approximate difference be recorded as revenue of Bankrate’s mortgage business, Bankrate Core.
In addition, DiMaria directed a Bankrate Core accountant to reduce the accrual for certain expenses by $400,000, and Bankrate did not book approximately $99,000 in accounting expenses in Q2, according to the order.
It's a tough market for homebuyers. Prices are high and supply of available homes is low.And while the Federal Reserve's rate hike could make home buying more expensive, house hunters shouldn't start panicking yet.The Fed increased its benchmark interest rate by one-quarter of a percentage point on Wednesday.The Fed doesn't directly set mortgage rates, but its actions can affect the housing market.Mortgage rates tend to move with the government's 10-year Treasury note, which serves as a benchmark for many forms of credit, including mortgages. Interest rates on the notes have already risen since Donald Trump was elected president and on signals the Fed would continue to tighten monetary policy.But Wednesday's hike was widely expected, meaning the markets had already priced it in. So many experts don't see rates moving much higher in the coming weeks."The last couple of times the Fed made a move, the rates firmed up in advance of the decision, and when it happened they kind of faded," said Keith Gumbinger , vice president of HSH.com.The Fed has now raised rates three times since the end of 2015. Following the first hike in December 2015, mortgage rates started 2016 with a drop for the first few weeks.
Find your listing .. Visit Our Sites USA Lending And Realty .. and The World For Sale
Visit Our Site For “Your full service mortgage and loan pros” … USA Lending Inc
To Search in Arabic .. Please Visit Istithmar USA
To Search in Spanish … Please visit propiedad para laventa
Visit the Miami Bright Education Foundation pages and read About it and its articles ….
Donald Trump was most famous for being a real estate developer before he became a reality TV star and then wound up Leader of the Free World. So it may not be a huge shock to find out that home builders have been on fire since he was inaugurated.Pulte (PHM), DR Horton (DHI) and Lennar are all up more than 10% in the past two months and are among the top 25 stocks in the S&P 500 since President Trump took office.Even though mortgage rates could climb if the economy continues to pick up steam (with or without a Trump stimulus package this year) and as the Federal Reserve hikes short-term interest rates, builders are confident more people will be buying homes.Stuart Miller, the CEO of Lennar (LEN), said in the company's earnings release this week that there was an "improving macroeconomic environment following last year's election."He pointed to "renewed optimism, wage and job growth, and consumer confidence." Miller added that "as a result, our homebuilding operations have gone from slow and steady to a faster than expected sales pace throughout our first quarter."The hope is that the economy, which already had started to pick up some steam in the past year before Trump's victory, will continue to gain momentum.If that happens, prospective homebuyers may not be scared off by higher rates because their wages are also going up.
Keyes has 11 offices and four satellites in Palm Beach County, president Mike Pappas said.The family-owned and operated firm targets a mix of newly licensed and experienced agents. Keyes is on track to reach $4.3 billion in sales this year, and hires more than 1,100 agents a year statewide.
Rich Fleischer, regional vice president of Coldwell Banker east central region of Florida, said sales are split evenly between condos and single-family homes. “We do not focus solely on one type of property or one specific price point. Our overall goal is to ensure that the customer has the best real estate experience possible, regardless of property type,”Fleischer said.
Smith said she doesn’t pay for recruiting, and that ERA’s technology brings the majority of her agents. Home Run offers services like a seller security program, a Palm Beach County auction department and a Zap platform for its agents.Smith also provides a real estate boot camp, which takes agents from contract to closing.