Fannie Mae CEO offers suggestions to unleash housing demand.

In a speech to Annual Chamber of Commerce "State of American Business" Conference, CEO Daniel Mudd offered suggestions to help unleash the “latent demand for housing.”

He offered three groups of potential buyers the industry should try and reach;

New Americans. Mr. Mudd commented that there have been over 8 million new Americans in the last 10 years and that this is the fastest growing population. Even if a small percent of those “new Americans” purchased a home it would help boost the housing market.

Veterans. His thoughts are that the VA home buying programmed should be “beefed up” to make it easier for the men and women of our armed forces to purchase a home.

Minority families and communities. The minority home ownership gap must be closed.

Mr. Mudd has made several good points. It is my opinion that real estate agents and realty companies individually and as a group, have not taken full advantage of the opportunity to address the critical need of educating, assisting and promoting the benefits of home ownership to those groups. This would seem to be an obvious win-win for everyone.

From a purely selfish standpoint, the increase of buyers would go a long way to offset the challenges now facing real estate agents throughout Florida and most of the country. It appears that some of us ignored the slow dwindling of buyers in the market place due to the amazing appreciation of home values over the past several years. With the demand side of the real estate market shrinking for some, it was ignored or masked as we watched our profits rise by the sheer increase of volume.

What better way to restore the health of the industry and help thousands of Americans enjoy home ownership at the same time than to implement changes to our our model as suggested by Mr. Mudd.

Daniel Mudd’s entire speech can be found by visiting here.

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- Greg Staker - Watson Realty Corp. - 407-304-0255

Realtor.com survey

I just finished a survey that was emailed to me on behalf of Realtor.com. The questions centered around online marketing and lead generating programs. I came away after finishing it with the feeling that Realtor.com may be looking to offer something similar to the Lending Trees & Homegains of the online world to Realtors. Pay for leads. I've never used Realtor.com for any listing advertising more than the 1 free picture ad all Realtors receive free for being members. I cannot recall the price for increased exposure, but my feelings are that it is quite high.

I do think Realtors should be the first avenue of lead collecting. It is our business after all. I preach at sales meetings the importance of our associates obtaining an online presence. However, much to the delight of the commercial online lead generating companies, Realtors seem to spend more money and energy learning about and buying the newest cell phone with more bells and whistles that they need than they ever do developing a solid, customer oriented online presence.. When asked about their personal websites, the responses range from "don't have one" or "mine never brings me any business".

I'm not going to pay for leads. It does not matter who is selling them. I'm going to continue to develop sites that are customer oriented, provides valuable and current information and the leads will come. If you search Deland real estate, you will find me and not some major commercial lead generating company, I like to think that is what the customer expects from their online search results. A local Realtor to assist them immediately.


Related Florida real estate views:

Imagine an entire real estate office blogging

The future of real estate advertisement

Is there a difference between buying an airline ticket and a home online?


- Greg Staker Watson Realty Corp. 407-304-0255