Friday Facts January 7, 2011

FRIDAY FACTS
January 7, 2011

Nick Lonegrove reveals a disconnect in his article in Inman News: “Ask any real estate agent what they want their real estate website to be about and they will tell you that it has to reflect their track record, their successes, communicating their area knowledge, their expertise and that certain “je ne sais quoi” that makes them special … Ask buyers and sellers what they are looking for, and they will tell you that it really boils down to two things: the actives and the solds.”

Here’s the bad and the good news from a recent Zillow report: Homes are expected to lose $1.7 trillion in value in 2010. The second half of the year saw the largest decline. The loss in 2009 was $1.1 trillion. Since market peak in June of 2006, homes have lost $9 trillion in value, and Inman News notes that is equivalent to the cost of 12 Iraq wars. The good news is that among the 20 largest markets, only 3 saw an increase, the highest being Boston.

Facebook has 500 million active viewers – 250 million in the US. U.S. Facebook.com generates almost 1 in 4 page views in the US, 4X that of second ranked YouTube. Facebook represented 10% of US Internet visits in mid-November compared with 7% for search engine Google.

Think Big Work Small reports that Freddie Mac had a calculator on their website that spit out the wrong answers when determining whether it was a better option for a consumer to rent or buy. Calculations were based on the assumption that real estate prices would never go down