Real Estate News From Around the Web

The last month or so has seen a lot of interesting developments in Real Estate Land. We've been posting about much of it over on the HouseLens Facebook page. For those of you who haven't yet liked our Facebook page, I thought I'd gather some of the highlights in a blog post. (And you should definitely like us on Facebook--lots of fun and helpful information being posted over there.)

The biggest news of the last month was probably brokerage giant Re/Max's IPO. Inman News reported that the IPO raised $225 million after expenses. Re/Max used just under $150 million of those funds to buy out shareholder Weston Presidio and reacquire two U.S. franchises. Fortunately for those of us who make our livings in real estate, Re/Max's IPO success is just the latest of several like it. Zillow, Trulia, and Realogy have all had banner IPOs in the last couple of years.

Just this week, Laura Monroe of Inman Next posted about a soon-to-be-released real estate app called Go Connect. The mobile-only, customizable app helps real estate agents organize listings, contacts, email campaigns, and more with just a few swipes. Go Connect is currently in beta, which means you can sign up to test it in the field!

Last month, Zillow announced a new search feature for its website. Thanks to a partnership with popular and respected website GreatSchools, parents can now narrow down home searches based on school rankings. The new feature will allow parents to conduct searches for elementary, middle, and high schools in a given area.

Yahoo Finance's Destination Home recently interviewed HGTV's Sabrina Soto about renovation projects that can lower a home's value. This is great information to share with clients who are considering renovations, or who are planning to buy a fixer-upper. By the way, the number one offender was converting existing bedrooms into other spaces. So tell your sellers to turn that man cave back into a guest room, at least for staging purposes.

Don't want to miss out on great real estate info? Check us out on Facebook! We post news, useful info you can share with clients, and some fun stuff, too.