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Fred’s adopts shareholder rights plan after ‘unusual and substantial’ activity in its shares

Fred’s Inc. said Tuesday its board has unanimously approved a shareholder rights plan, following “unusual and substantial” activity in its shares. The rights plan, also known as a poison pill, is designed to prevent a hostile takeover of the company and to avoid certain default provisions of its credit facilities from being triggered. The plan will give shareholders one right for each share owned and will have a 10% ownership trigger. Last week, the stock had its biggest one-day gain after news the retailer was acquiring 865 Rite Aid stores in a move that could propel the company into the Top 3 in the drugstore game. Shares were not yet active premarket, but have gained 23% in the year so far, while the S&P 500 has gained 11%.

Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.

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From:: Stock Market News

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CMBS Delinquency Dips But Expected to Worsen

An improvement was recorded in the performance of securitized commercial real estate loans, though deterioration is forecasted for next year.

As of Nov. 30 of this year, delinquency of at least 30 days on loans that are included in commercial mortgage-backed securities was 2.98 percent.

The 30-day rate moved down 5 basis points compared to the end of the previous month, when delinquency had moved higher by 13 basis points.

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From:: Financing

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Peering into the Future of Housing: Predictions for 2017

By Susanne Dwyer

WalletHub recently announced its 10 financial predictions for 2017, forecasting several economic to-bes in the coming year. Many have implications for housing, including:

Two Rate Hikes
WalletHub is seeing double in 2017, pegging the Federal Reserve to raise the key rate twice—a quarter point each—to bring the target rate to 1.00-1.25 percent. Interest rates, including for mortgages, will follow suit. (Case in point: credit card interest rates went up 24 basis points in the beginning of 2016, after the Fed raised the key rate 25 basis points in December 2015.)

…but Higher Home Sales
WalletHub forecasts existing-home sales to hit 6 million next year, fueled by—wait for it—rising rates.

“If interest rates rise slowly, we may see a nice bump in home sales and mortgage availability as buyers see low interest rates slowly fading and banks have higher rates to buffer against risk,” Dr. Robert Eyler, director of the Center for Regional Economic Analysis at Sonoma State University, told WalletHub.

WalletHub’s estimate is more optimistic than the 5.52 million offered by the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR).

More Time for the CFPB
WalletHub senses the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which was ruled unconstitutional by a federal appeals court this fall, won’t get the boot, even with the “You’re fired” administration taking office.

“[The CFPB’s] good work will be undercut by some politicians, even further than it already has been,” Jeffrey Frankel, professor at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, told WalletHub. “I hope and guess that it will not be abolished outright.”

…and for Credit Scores to Improve
WalletHub has a sunny outlook for credit scores, anticipating the average score to rise to 675 from 668 next year. The reason? Millions of homeowners will see foreclosures and short sales—black marks from the crash—drop off their credit reports, helping their case for a new mortgage.

To learn what else WalletHub sees in its crystal ball, click here.

Source: WalletHub

For the latest real estate news and trends, bookmark RISMedia.com.

The post Peering into the Future of Housing: Predictions for 2017 appeared first on RISMedia.

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From:: Finance and Economy

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Peering into the Future of Housing: Predictions for 2017

By Susanne Dwyer

WalletHub recently announced its 10 financial predictions for 2017, forecasting several economic to-bes in the coming year. Many have implications for housing, including:

Two Rate Hikes
WalletHub is seeing double in 2017, pegging the Federal Reserve to raise the key rate twice—a quarter point each—to bring the target rate to 1.00-1.25 percent. Interest rates, including for mortgages, will follow suit. (Case in point: credit card interest rates went up 24 basis points in the beginning of 2016, after the Fed raised the key rate 25 basis points in December 2015.)

…but Higher Home Sales
WalletHub forecasts existing-home sales to hit 6 million next year, fueled by—wait for it—rising rates.

“If interest rates rise slowly, we may see a nice bump in home sales and mortgage availability as buyers see low interest rates slowly fading and banks have higher rates to buffer against risk,” Dr. Robert Eyler, director of the Center for Regional Economic Analysis at Sonoma State University, told WalletHub.

WalletHub’s estimate is more optimistic than the 5.52 million offered by the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR).

More Time for the CFPB
WalletHub senses the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which was ruled unconstitutional by a federal appeals court this fall, won’t get the boot, even with the “You’re fired” administration taking office.

“[The CFPB’s] good work will be undercut by some politicians, even further than it already has been,” Jeffrey Frankel, professor at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, told WalletHub. “I hope and guess that it will not be abolished outright.”

…and for Credit Scores to Improve
WalletHub has a sunny outlook for credit scores, anticipating the average score to rise to 675 from 668 next year. The reason? Millions of homeowners will see foreclosures and short sales—black marks from the crash—drop off their credit reports, helping their case for a new mortgage.

To learn what else WalletHub sees in its crystal ball, click here.

Source: WalletHub

For the latest real estate news and trends, bookmark RISMedia.com.

The post Peering into the Future of Housing: Predictions for 2017 appeared first on RISMedia.

…read more

From:: Real Estate News

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Building and Branding Team Business

By Susanne Dwyer

chris_peggy_lyn_speicher

In the following interview, Chris Speicher of Long & Foster Real Estate in Bethesda, Md., discusses the growth of his team with wife Peggy Lyn, and their approach to agent education and training.

Years in Real Estate: Chris: 6; Peggy Lyn: 26
Region Served: Washington, D.C., metropolitan area
Team Members: 12 agents (buying and selling), 5 admin/marketing support, 5 inbound and outbound client care

You have an award-winning agent team, The Speicher Group, at Long & Foster in the Washington, D.C., area. Please explain how you’ve grown your team from where it began with Peggy Lyn as a single practitioner six years ago to where it stands today.
Chris Speicher: When I joined my wife in 2010, we did six transactions a year. Wanting to grow, we worked at putting together a business foundation. My wife and I are CEOs of a multimillion-dollar sales operation that just happens to be real estate. For growth and structure, we needed systems and procedures in place. I started with a plan to generate immediate income by picking the best partners to help us grow for the future, providing the best bang for our buck. That turned out to be with first-time homebuyers on Zillow. We then partnered with Tom Ferry, and four years ago with BoomTown for our back-end. We track and measure everything. Every lead goes into a single system. Not only is it a winning system for our team, but it helped us take off.

What is your belief when it comes to training and education?
CS: Training and education are critical. We have a team meeting every other Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. that begins with a single gratitude from each agent. The following Tuesday, Peggy Lyn runs a one-hour meeting on scripts, dialogues and role-play, with the goal of making sure every agent can turn a lead into a sale. And every Wednesday is a role-play situation. You have to build a culture of winners. In today’s real estate world, the challenge is staying ahead of the consumer who has access to so much information online. We combat this by reinforcing our value proposition through training and education.

What sets you apart from the competition?
CS: Everything. Our unique selling proposition as a team begins when a client first comes in by matching them with an agent via personality type. And it all goes from that point of matching like personalities. We’re set up as a team so that at each point in the transaction, there’s always an expert there to carry it forward. We’ve spent a lot of time building the right culture, and we come at everything from abundance.

Talk about the benefits of being a husband and wife team.
CS: We love it. Peggy Lyn and I have been married for eight years. We weren’t looking for love when we found each other. We’re so in love, and for us to be able to work together and grow something together is amazing. It’s also one of the reasons we got into coaching. Our golden rule is that we …read more

From:: Real Estate News

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Building and Branding Team Business

By Susanne Dwyer

chris_peggy_lyn_speicher

In the following interview, Chris Speicher of Long & Foster Real Estate in Bethesda, Md., discusses the growth of his team with wife Peggy Lyn, and their approach to agent education and training.

Years in Real Estate: Chris: 6; Peggy Lyn: 26
Region Served: Washington, D.C., metropolitan area
Team Members: 12 agents (buying and selling), 5 admin/marketing support, 5 inbound and outbound client care

You have an award-winning agent team, The Speicher Group, at Long & Foster in the Washington, D.C., area. Please explain how you’ve grown your team from where it began with Peggy Lyn as a single practitioner six years ago to where it stands today.
Chris Speicher: When I joined my wife in 2010, we did six transactions a year. Wanting to grow, we worked at putting together a business foundation. My wife and I are CEOs of a multimillion-dollar sales operation that just happens to be real estate. For growth and structure, we needed systems and procedures in place. I started with a plan to generate immediate income by picking the best partners to help us grow for the future, providing the best bang for our buck. That turned out to be with first-time homebuyers on Zillow. We then partnered with Tom Ferry, and four years ago with BoomTown for our back-end. We track and measure everything. Every lead goes into a single system. Not only is it a winning system for our team, but it helped us take off.

What is your belief when it comes to training and education?
CS: Training and education are critical. We have a team meeting every other Tuesday at 11:00 a.m. that begins with a single gratitude from each agent. The following Tuesday, Peggy Lyn runs a one-hour meeting on scripts, dialogues and role-play, with the goal of making sure every agent can turn a lead into a sale. And every Wednesday is a role-play situation. You have to build a culture of winners. In today’s real estate world, the challenge is staying ahead of the consumer who has access to so much information online. We combat this by reinforcing our value proposition through training and education.

What sets you apart from the competition?
CS: Everything. Our unique selling proposition as a team begins when a client first comes in by matching them with an agent via personality type. And it all goes from that point of matching like personalities. We’re set up as a team so that at each point in the transaction, there’s always an expert there to carry it forward. We’ve spent a lot of time building the right culture, and we come at everything from abundance.

Talk about the benefits of being a husband and wife team.
CS: We love it. Peggy Lyn and I have been married for eight years. We weren’t looking for love when we found each other. We’re so in love, and for us to be able to work together and grow something together is amazing. It’s also one of the reasons we got into coaching. Our golden rule is that we …read more

From:: Real Estate News

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Thorough Planning: The Secret to Success

By Susanne Dwyer

marie_mark_hischier

In the following interview, Marie and Mark Hischier, broker/owners of HomeSmart Professional Partners Realty in Monrovia, Calif., discuss the real estate industry, both from a business and consumer standpoint, as well as the benefits of the HomeSmart system.

Region Served: Los Angeles County/San Gabriel Valley
Years in Real Estate: 16
Number of Offices: 2
Number of Agents: 100
Top Tip for Staying Organized: Use a contact management system and time-block.

What factor has the largest influence on the real estate industry today?
Knowledge. As a real estate professional, you need to be well-versed on the contracts and addendums your clients are signing. Buyers and sellers are very savvy and can look for homes online and even post pictures of their homes on miscellaneous websites for marketing exposure. As agents, we need to guide them through the process. At the same time, we need to understand the technology available to the public and be able to utilize and maximize it to benefit our clients and our business. The process of buying and selling a home is often very emotional, so we need to remain empathetic and professional. This isn’t always easy, but our clients rely on us to help them make an educated decision, not an emotional mistake. To be successful, you need to continuously educate yourself in all facets: technology, contracts, marketing, relationship-building, etc. It’s not a matter of reinventing the wheel, but staying focused on the positive aspects of that wheel and knowing when to replace it with a new, unworn wheel.

What is the most unique way you have marketed a new listing?
Consumers are all over the internet looking for homes, so we do our best to park our clients’ homes on the busiest corner of the internet. Our HomeSmart system automatically creates personal websites and YouTube videos for each property, blasting our listings out to over 1,000 websites worldwide. We utilize QR codes and direct call capture information on every listing, enabling us to follow up with potential buyers promptly and professionally. One of my favorite stories was experienced while marketing an open house. We were walking the neighborhood, handing out invitations, and this young child saw us coming his way, so he ran up the driveway yelling, “Mommy, Mommy, the REALTORS® are coming, the REALTORS® are coming!” It sounded like a bad horror movie!

Describe the current consumer confidence climate in your area.
Consumers are confident that real estate continues to be a stable investment for both the owner-occupied buyer and the investor. Sellers are receiving multiple offers, but finding that they need to be fair in their pricing and present a nice home to take advantage of the low inventory market. Sellers are investing in minor updates and upgrades and reaping the benefits of presenting a move-in ready home by receiving multiple offers exceeding the cost of those upgrades. Buyers are purchasing for long-term investment, creating a stable community that benefits everyone living in the area. Overall, the market is solid, appreciating reasonably, and consumers are finding nice homes to call their own.

Which HomeSmart system …read more

From:: Real Estate News

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Midwest Leads Gain in New Home Sales

A sharp month-over-month increase in new home sales in the Midwest region was out front of an improvement on a national basis.

The sale of new single-family houses that were sold during the entire month of November 2016 came to a preliminary 41,000 units.

New home sales slowed from the previous month, when the number was 45,000, and an upwardly revised 36,000 a year previous.

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From:: Financing

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NAR Power Broker Roundtable: Passing the Gavel – A Look at the Year Ahead

By Susanne Dwyer

Introducing Robert Bailey, incoming 2017 liaison for Large Residential Firms Relations for the National Association of REALTORS®, in this month’s Power Broker Roundtable

Moderator:
Nicholas (Nick) D’Ambrosia
Broker of Record, The Long & Foster Companies, Chantilly, Va.; outgoing Liaison for Large Residential Firms Relations, NAR

Participant:
Robert Bailey
Broker and Co-Founder, Bailey Properties Inc., Santa Cruz, Calif.; incoming Liaison for Large Residential Firms Relations, NAR

Nick D’Ambrosia: When I took over as Liaison a year ago, we faced limited inventory, mortgage financing issues, and newly enacted TRID regulations that were bogging down our closings. As I hand over the gavel today, inventory remains problematic, but financing issues are beginning to ease, and most of us have figured out how best to ward off closing delays. And the best news, according to recent reports from NAR, is not just that home sales are on the rise, but that sales to first-time buyers are at a high we haven’t seen in four years. With the uncertainty of the election now behind us, we see opportunity ahead, and it’s a good time to welcome a new Liaison. I’m delighted to hand the NAR Power Broker Roundtable gavel to a guy I’ve known for 15-plus years—Northern California broker Robert Bailey, whose Bailey Properties, Inc. has been a force in the Santa Cruz area for more than 40 years. Over the years, he has served on numerous NAR committees, and as president of the California Association of REALTORS®, which presented him with the Honorary Director for Life Award. Robert, it’s a pleasure to welcome you.

Robert Bailey: Thanks, Nick. I look forward to the opportunity.

ND’A: Every year this business brings its trials and rewards, but the best part of this job is working with brokers around the country—listening to their ideas and challenges, and working together to come up with meaningful direction for improving service, growing successful agents, and increasing the bottom line.

RB: You mentioned housing inventory, which is still a problem in most regions of the country. There’s lots of data out there on why sellers are staying in their homes. I’d like to kick around some ideas for bringing them back into the market…and I want us to talk about first-time buyers, millennials and others, who, according to most sources, are expected to make up more than half of next year’s homebuyers. I look forward to zooming in on how we can meet the needs of this specialized group.

ND’A: Incoming NAR President Bill Brown has some thought-provoking interests, as well.

RB: You’re right about that—improving the homeownership rate, protecting the tax status of residential real estate, adapting business practices to serve the most tech-savvy consumers—and issues affecting REALTORS® themselves, like financial solvency, building wealth, and creating practical exit strategies.

ND’A: We’ve only scratched the surface on how the power of the internet is changing the face of our business…

RB: I know. Consumers are “touring” homes without ever dirtying the carpets. On the up side, though, the latest NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers says 92 percent of those consumers turn to an …read more

From:: Real Estate News

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Halliburton to settle investor class-action lawsuit for $100 million

Halliburton Co. said late Friday it settled a 14-year-old class action lawsuit that had gone to the U.S. Supreme Court. Halliburton said it will contribute $54 million to a $100 million settlement fund in its lawsuit with the Erica P. John Fund, with the company’s insurer contributing the rest. The legal fight was considered a test of the right of investors to file a class-action lawsuit based on public misrepresentations. Shares of Halliburton declined 0.1% to $54.77 after hours.

Market Pulse Stories are Rapid-fire, short news bursts on stocks and markets as they move. Visit MarketWatch.com for more information on this news.

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From:: Stock Market News