Image via Wikipedia Buying leads shouldn’t mean you close down your marketing department. Even more dangerous is turning a deaf ear to the consumer market. Granted lead providers are expert Internet marketers, but like most companies they have risks in making adjustments. If they have a marketing approach that is…

We talk a lot about yielding big results with simple Web tools here on Lenderama.com. I thought I would take the message to an even bigger audience in my latest article in The Scotsman Guide . Look Inside > > August 2009 Residential Edition I would love to have…

Each Monday, The Simple Dollar opens up the reader mailbags and answers ten to twenty simple questions offered up by the readers on personal finance topics and many other things. Got a question? Ask it in the comments. You might also enjoy the archive of earlier reader mailbags .…

Here is a collection of real estate and economic graphs for data released in July … Note: Click on graphs for larger image in new window. For more info, click on link below graph to original post. ******************** New Home Sales in June (NSA) The first graph shows monthly new…

First, lifted from the comments on Corus: “Too toxic to fail.” by Rob Dawg On shadow inventory from Reuters: “Shadow” inventory lurks over U.S. housing recovery (ht Denny) [A] massive supply of unsold homes is waiting in the wings and could easily swamp the recovery before it can gather speed.…

From Becky Yerak at the Chicago Tribune: Corus Bankshares Inc. on cusp of crisis (ht Walt) [A] major hurdle for the [FDIC] is that $7.07 billion-asset Corus, with only 14 offices in the Chicago area, has operated more like a real estate investment company than a traditional bank. As a…

Santa Ana-based First American Corp. reported today that requests for title insurance policies increased 9 percent in the second quarter of the year, but that payments per policy fell. The change reflects the housing market overall, which saw home sales soar this year as prices dropped. Net income for…

The Wall Street Journal reports Bank of America Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis told investors last week he plans to reduce the company’s 6,100-nationwide branch network by about 10%. It’s not clear how many branch cuts would be in Orange County. Bank of America is one of the largest, if…

Steve Thomas at Altera Real Estate in Aliso Viejo reports that the number of O.C. distressed properties (homes listed by agents as foreclosures or short sales) was 2,616 last week, -150 vs. two weeks earlier or a -5% change. Some more facts: As a percent of all listed homes…

The Federal Reserve is considering a restriction on how mortgage brokers are paid, National Mortgage News reported yesterday. The rule would not allow banks to pay brokers differently based upon the rate or term of a loan — pay would be tied solely to loan amount. Consumer advocates have…