From Inman News Service
What really mattered in real estate in 2003? Here’s our annual list of the year’s top 10 most important and compelling news stories:
The housing market posted new records for median home prices and home sales volume. Existing-home sales were on target toward a record 6.07 million this year, a 9 percent jump over last year’s record 5.57 million sales. The residential real estate bubble–if there was or is one–didn’t pop in 2003.
Homeowners shut the spigot on home loan refinancing in the second half of the year, when interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages climbed above the rock-bottom 5.25 and 5.5 percent level of mid-summer. The end of the equity party left mortgage brokers and lenders looking for a ride home with their old friends,real estate agents and purchase-money borrowers.
Freddie Mac forgot to report more than $5 billion in revenues on several prior-year financial statements. The accounting scandal led to multiple management reorganizations, a Securities Exchange Commission investigation and Congressional hearings on why federal regulators were asleep at the audit.
The National Association of Realtors finally adopted a policy to govern how MLSs should enable brokers to implement virtual office Web sites. The policy included the controversial blanket and selective opt-out mechanisms that permit brokers to withhold all or some of their listings from all or some of their competitors’ Web sites.
NAR’s new VOW policy (as implemented or not) indirectly triggered a couple of local-level MLS skirmishes and a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into whether the policy is legal.
Barry Diller’s Interactive Corp. binged on acquisitions, beginning with its $700 million purchase of online mortgage marketplace LendingTree, which then bought GetSmart and certain RealEstate.com assets that Primedia had put on the block. Diller-watchers are wondering what Interactive or LendingTree will buy next.
The homeowner insurance crisis that was front and center in January 2003 gradually evaporated, as toxic mold became less about fear and more about disclosure, realty agents and buyers became accustomed to higher insurance premiums, and insurers’ stock portfolios returned to profitability.
The SEC and U.S. Justice Department hooked a number of former Homestore employees who plead guilty to various schemes and crimes, but the company’s former biggest fish are still swimming through the government investigations triggered by the dot-com’s historical accounting misdeeds.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development finally sent its Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act proposal to the White House Office of Management and Budget for review with President Bush’s blessing. HUD’s forward progress on RESPA came just as the agency lost its chief to higher political aspirations. Meanwhile, realty service providers pushed ahead with their own bundled packages of mortgage and settlement products.
Homestore CEO Mike Long navigated a turnaround at the troubled dot-com company that operates the Realtor.com Web site for the National Association of Realtors. One year ago, Homestore’s stock sold for less than $1 per share, the firm was entangled in multiple lawsuits, and the balance sheet was upside down. Today the stock price has soared to $4.50 per share, giving the NAR-sponsored online listing service a $500 million market capitalization lift. Long settled disputes with AOL and Cendant Corp. resolved a contentious shareholder lawsuit and righted a near-capsized ship.