Two years after enduring the devastating financial impacts of Covid-19, the U.S. economy has made an impressive comeback, in large part due to a booming housing market. But as Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of Realtors explains, there are significant questions regarding the sector’s direction over the coming months.

Whether they're looking for long-term rentals or to make a quick flip, investors like Invitation Homes, the owner of 83,000 properties, and mom & pop operations, are making it harder for people to compete when looking to buy in their own neighborhoods. Investors bought 33% of US homes on the market in January alone, the highest percentage in at least a decade, according to John Burns Real Estate Consulting, a housing research and consulting firm.

On April 29, 2022, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) announced the renewal and expansion of Geographic Targeting Orders (GTOs) that require U.S. title insurance companies to identify the natural persons behind shell companies used in all-cash purchases of residential real estate. FinCEN renewed the GTOs for certain major U.S. metropolitan areas AND expanded the geographic coverage of the GTOs to parts of the District of Columbia, Northern Virginia, and Maryland (DMV) metropolitan area.

Washington Supreme Court Orders Physical Removal of Racially Restrictive Covenant from Public Records

Week Ending February 25, 2022

This is the fourth episode in our new video series covering easements. The prior episode covers the written documents used to create an easement between benefitting and burdened properties. This episode covers the requirements for establishing an implied easement without any prior agreement between the grantor and the grantee.

In January, Miller Canfield reported on Lowry v. Southfield Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative (In re Lowry)[1], an opinion from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. Lowry held that a taxpayer in bankruptcy could challenge a Michigan tax foreclosure sale under federal bankruptcy fraudulent transfer law. The property at issue in Lowry was allegedly worth far more than the unpaid taxes. The taxing authority acquired the property for the taxes owed and had effectively retained the surplus.

The Fourth Amendment protects against illegal searches and seizures. In general, government officials must secure a search warrant based on probable cause before searching an area unless the owner gives consent. However, the Fourth Amendment’s protection accorded to “persons, houses, papers and effects,” does not extend to all open areas contiguous to a person’s home, but rather only to the home itself and its surrounding “curtilage” – the area immediately surrounding and associated with the defendant’s home.

Water is essential to life therefore it is essential to where you live. When you buy property in Nevada be sure you understand Nevada laws, policies, and procedures as they relate to water. Nevada is known for having the best western water law in the nation. It is based on the public trust doctrine which gives ownership to all water in the state, to the state. The public trust doctrine also gives the state of Nevada ownership of the land beneath all water in the state.

Title Nerds co-hosts Michael R. O’Donnell and Bethany A. Abele welcomed two partners from our Environmental Practice In Episode 9, Alexa Richman-La Londe and Steven T. Senior. Alexa and Steve discussed the hot real estate market in New Jersey for commercial/industrial properties, which are frequently environmentally impaired and require remediation.

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In 2021, an investment firm bought 2,000 acres of real estate for about US$4 million. Normally this would not make headlines, but in this case the land was virtual. It existed only in a metaverse platform called The Sandbox. By buying 792 non-fungible tokens on the Ethereum blockchain, the firm then owned the equivalent of 1,200 city blocks.

Read More [Contributed by Bill Collins, Frontier Abstract]

The Great Resignation and lack of available labor has been a hot topic in the general media for some time now. It’s significantly impacting the title insurance industry now and will only become more prominent as the boomer workforce continues with retirement plans.

In the next installment of our series on legal issues effecting development sites, Real Estate Partner Owen McKenna considers the concept of “adverse possession”, where sites have no documentary title to the whole, or part, of the land within the physical boundary.

The Queensland's Department of Resources (which is the governing authority for the Queensland Titles Registry) is currently undertaking a six weeks consultation on a new Land Title Regulation that will mandate electronic conveyancing for certain transactions in Queensland by early 2023.

Like a page out of the hit HBO series “Succession,” members of a prominent New Jersey family dynasty worth billions are being pitted against one another over real estate assets totaling hundreds of millions.

As if it wasn’t challenging enough to buy a house in the Los Angeles area, between the high costs and competitive market, now aspiring homeowners need to be wary of scams as well. On Monday, Adolfo Schoneke, 44, of Torrance, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a multimillion-dollar scheme involving fake open houses and not-for-sale homes. Schoneke’s sister, Bianca Gonzalez, 39, pleaded guilty to the same crime a month earlier.

For agents interested in growing their business by expanding into multiple states, we’re here to make the process simple and profitable. We offer you one point of contact to streamline your options and solutions.

Miles of old roads that have been designated as abandoned or discontinued wind through every town and county in rural Maine, tracing worn lines across the woods and former farm fields. But although the legal designation means that municipalities no longer have to maintain, plow or care for them, it doesn’t mean the roads aren’t in use.

Hawaii 2 (previously Birch Island) is a six-acre (2.4 ha) private island in Liberty, Maine's St. George Lake. Previously used as de facto public land, in 2014 the island was purchased by Cards Against Humanity LLC as part of a fundraiser for the Sunlight Foundation. After licensing the island for use by those who contributed to the campaign, the town of Liberty threatened the games company with hundreds-of-millions in fines for code violations.

Read More [Contributed by Bob Treuber, New York State Land Title Association]

If you wanted to capture over 55% of the global population inside a circle with a 4,000km radius, which city would you place at its epicenter?

Read More [Contributed by Bill Collins, Frontier Abstract]

The house sits on the northeast corner of Willoughby Avenue at Nostrand Avenue, seemingly empty, sprawling behind a chain link fence. It’s on a large lot, and the house itself, a golden brick and limestone French Gothic pile, is totally incongruous with the much more modest brownstone neighbors on the block.

In 1911, a teenaged socialite named Madeleine Talmage Force rose from relative obscurity to land one of the greatest eligible bachelors of her era: a newly divorced Colonel John Jacob Astor IV, who was widely regarded as one of the richest men in the world.