Top-ranked Realtors and other residential real-estate features

Use freshly released data to offer readers an update on the housing market. Photo by Dreamstime

It’s midsummer, and home sellers who’ve failed to strike a deal this season may be starting to despair as Labor Day draws near; buyers, for example, often want to close deals and get moved in before the start of a new school year.

As pages fly off the calendar, you might want to think about a housing update – especially with the National Association of Realtor’s monthly existing home sales report due out next Thursday, along with other key housing data.

Some possible angles include:

An update on lender settlements.  It was announced Wednesday that Wells Fargo has agreed to pay $175 million to settle claims it discriminated against minority buyers.  Late last  year, Bank of America reached a similar settlement to the tune of $335 million.  And in March the Justice Department announced that a handful of mortgage servicers would pay $25 billion to consumers, state and local governments in response to alleged foreclosure abuse, robo-signing and other aspects of the mortgage market meltdown.

What’s up with these cases; has anyone in your market received a share of the remuneration?  The Justice Department site refers consumers to their state attorney general; you might want to check in there for an update.

A feature on top-selling real estate agents.  This Minneapolis Star-Tribune article, “Who sells the most real estate in Minnesota?” caught my eye the other day.  The newspaper tapped an interesting report by the REAL Trends market research; based on nationwide surveys the report ranks the top 250 agents (by dollar volume) nationwide.  (Several other reports on the site also slice and dice agents and firms using different metrics.)

Notably, the people who make the list are in affluent areas — how else would No. 1 agent Kenneth DeLeon of Palo Alto, Calif., move more than $274 million worth of homes last year?  But even if you don’t live near venues like Winnetka, Ill., Southamption, New York or Boca Raton, Fla., you can try the same twist for your market; perhaps the local real estate board and/or multiple listing services will run the numbers.  Or, if you can’t pin it down scientifically, identify a handful of top sellers anecdotally by asking firms to name their top producers or talking with local mortgage lenders about who generates business.

Once you have a few names, shoot for a Q&A or panel discussion-style story that gets their take on the local market, which neighborhoods are hot and which are not, the biggest obstacles sellers face, what mistakes sellers make in prepping or pricing their properties, and other info that could be useful to readers whose “For sale” signs aren’t getting many bites.   Also ask what they’re seeing in terms of financing; how many pending sales are quashed because loan rules are tighter?

The condo market.  Condos have been the bane of a bad real estate market, with their complicated ownership rules, special FHA lending rules, problems boards have had collecting maintenance fees and other idiosyncrasies of this type of real estate.  But a number of reports from markets nationwide suggest that condominium demand is rebounding in places from  Boston to Seattle.  You might want to focus a feature on this sector; the portal Condo.com offers state-by-state stats – and while I’m not vouching for their data the numbers are an interesting starting point for local inquiries.