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to listen to our Podcasts
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Real Time Advice: FNF's Ethan Powsner on What Title Agents Must Do To Navigate the Current Market
Rising mortgage interest rates, a looming recession, and sagging consumer confidence are all the ingredients for an extremely challenging real estate market in the year ahead. Title agents who are prepared will not only survive, but can thrive as competitors who don't adapt will find themselves cutting staff and profits.
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Investors Eye American Farmland
Many of the newcomers in the soon-to-be $4 trillion farmland market have historically shunned this asset class. Yet during times of economic uncertainty, farmland has long been regarded as an excellent store of value.
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Business email compromise sucks billions out of housing sector
In mid-November, the Federal Bureau of Investigations released its 2022 Congressional report on business email compromise (BEC) and real estate wire fraud. According to the report, in 2021, the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) received BEC-related complaints with claimed losses exceeding $2.4 billion, far higher than the $360 million in claimed losses recorded in 2016.
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Freddie and Fannie Backstop High-Dollar Mortgages
In response to the rapid appreciation of US home prices over the past few years, the Federal Housing Finance Agency announced that it will backstop mortgages of more than $1 million in some markets. Beginning in 2023, loan limits for both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae will rise from $970,800 to $1,089,300 in roughly 100 counties designated as “high-cost markets.”
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Distressed Note Sales: A Strategy for Buyers and Sellers
A wave of distressed real estate and distressed loans is likely to materialize as borrowers and lenders alike seek a quicker exit from loan default situations or are interested in reducing their overall risk exposure to real estate-related investments. This may create opportunities for savvy investors seeking yield and/or opportunities to acquire valuable assets at less than historical market values and/or less than the cost to construct a new project.
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L.A.’s rich are already scheming ways to avoid new ‘mansion tax’
Just weeks after Los Angeles voters backed a new measure that puts a one-time transfer tax on property sales above $5 million to generate money for affordable housing and homelessness prevention, the city’s affluent homeowners are exploring potential ways of avoiding the tax.
Read more [Contributed by Bill Collins, Frontier Abstract]
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The Good, the Bad and the Ethical: Mortgage Fraud on the Rise?
In a matter of months, several well-known individuals in real estate have been convicted of and/or charged with fraud or similar crimes relating to the theft of client funds. The summary below highlights a few of those cases with some extraordinary damages, but questions remain: Is this a harbinger of what’s to come? Or are the sentences harsh enough to act as a deterrent?
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Potential Changes on the Horizon to Ohio Lien Law
The Ohio General Assembly is considering a revision to Ohio private lien law to make it clearer when projects start and end and enable title to be clear on lien rights. Under 1311.04, a Notice of Commencement (NOC) is to be recorded before a project commences and remains in place for six years (1311.04(S)). That long time period made it more difficult for buyers and lenders, who purchased or refinanced property less than six years following the recording of an NOC, from knowing the impact of the NOC.
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When 2 Minus 1 Still Equals 2: Combining Lots in a Planned Community
Owners of adjoining lots in subdivisions often decide to combine them for a variety of reasons. But, in a planned community governed by an owners' association, the owner may have to obtain consent to combine lots, and a lot combination may not have the desired effect. Moreover, combining lots may affect an owner's compliance with other dimensional or setback restrictions on the land.
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Liens and Wage Garnishment for Medical Debt Outlawed in New York
Nonprofit hospitals, nursing homes and other care providers are now prohibited from placing liens on patient homes or garnishing patient wages to collect medical debts in New York. Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the law abolishing the two tactics frequently used to satisfy judgments in medical debt lawsuits. According to Hochul’s office, more than 50,000 New Yorkers have been sued for medical debt over the past five years.
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Law of the Land - Real Estate Litigation Newsletter - Volume I, Issue XV
The Massachusetts Superior Court held that a commercial landlord could not evict a tenant who breached his lease by repeatedly failing to pay rent on time and maintain the premises in good condition and in accordance with the building code. The Court held that the tenant’s breaches were neither material to the lease nor sufficiently significant to warrant or permit enforcement of the lease’s default provisions.
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Choosing the Right Entity for Real Estate Holdings
Real Estate Attorneys, David A. Adams and Scott C. Frissell discuss the number one investment you can make when purchasing a piece of Real Estate.
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N.L. real estate agents, lawyers say they're facing a 'tsunami' of Crown Lands disputes [Canada]
A Catalina couple fighting to gain title to the land where they lived for 40 years aren't alone in their plight, according to real estate experts who say more people in Newfoundland and Labrador could soon have similar difficulties.
Chris O'Dea, owner of O'Dea's Realty and Auction Room, said a "tsunami" of people will soon discover they don't have clear title to their land.
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Luxury hotel that helped launch mass tourism in Fiji now abandoned ruin
What is it about the fascination of rundown abandoned hotels? The planet is riddled with these eerie vestiges of relaxation.
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What to Do When a Phishing Attack Happens to You | |
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Please join Consumer Financial Services Partner Chris Willis and his colleagues Privacy + Cyber Associate Sadia Mirza and Privacy + Cyber Partner Kamran Salour as they discuss phishing. Kamran and Sadia break down what phishing is, the major security risk it poses for companies, and how to handle a phishing attack.
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One Man's Trash Is Another Man's...House?! | |
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Would you live in a house made of recycled plastic water bottles? A Los-Angeles based tech start up is trying to make that a reality by using three-dimensional (“3D”) printing technology. Azure Printed Homes wants to change the construction industry using 3D printing technology and harnessing the power of recycled plastic to prefabricate backyard studios, offices, and homes 70% faster and 20-30% less expensive than existing construction methods.
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Secrets of the Christmas Tree Trade
Turf wars. Protection money. Scientology. And my boss, a man who's half-convinced he is really Santa.
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Title Agents Take Business to the Next Level | |
We're here to make the process simple and profitable for agents interested in growing their business by expanding into multiple states. We offer you one point of contact to streamline your options and solutions.
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‘A gentle calm’: France’s streets once again echo to sound of working horses
The clip-clop of hooves marked the start of the morning rubbish collection in the Brittany town of Hennebont, as Dispar, a Breton draft horse, pulled a small cart towards the waste bins on a central street.
“This job is so much nicer with an animal,” said Julien, 38, who usually worked emptying bins on to a motorised rubbish-truck in another town but was training in horse-drawn techniques.
Read more [Contributed by Bill Collins, Frontier Abstract]
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Bison spread as Native American tribes reclaim stewardship
Perched atop a fence at Badlands National Park, Troy Heinert peered from beneath his wide-brimmed hat into a corral where 100 wild bison awaited transfer to the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Descendants of bison that once roamed North America's Great Plains by the tens of millions, the animals would soon thunder up a chute, take a truck ride across South Dakota and join one of many burgeoning herds Heinert has helped reestablish on Native American lands.
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Tumbleweed Snowman
ALBUQUERQUE IS KNOWN FOR A lot of things, but heaps of snow is not one of them. So every year, to celebrate the holiday season, the Albuquerque Metropolitan Arroyo Flood Control Authority builds an enormous snowman out of the city’s ever-present tumbleweeds.
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A Brief History of Creepy Victorian Christmas Cards
If you browse the holiday cards stuffing your mailbox today, you’ll likely find photos of smiling families, serene woodland scenes, or evergreen trees wrapped with twinkling lights. But if you received a Christmas card in the late 19th century, there’s a good chance you’d find yourself looking at an image of a dead bird.
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Chonky dog turned into Google Maps landmark, receives glowing reviews
This dog is so big, she’s on Google Maps. A chonky dog named Watermelon has become such a sensation in Georgia that she’s been immortalized as a local landmark on Google Maps.
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The Bollard that Eats Cars
This is a dangerous post! Not for any particular reason, but this post has claimed a lot of victims. A four-foot tall bollard in a Walmart parking lot in Auburn, Maine, attracts automobiles into its clutches far more often than probability would predict. They've tried painting it different colors, they've tried changing the traffic flow, but people keep ramming into the bollard
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