Christina Sindle

The California Association of Realtors announced a new TV, Web, radio and print ad campaign today that highlights the positive impact its 155,000 members have on the state's economy.

Two 30-second TV spots, featuring the "ripple" effect that the facilitation of home buying and selling has on the economy and families, will air on the ABC network in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco from today through June 16. In addition, on April 17, a spot will air during the network's hit show "Modern Family" in the three markets.

A national multiple listing service run by the National Association of Realtors should be ready by late summer, the large trade association announced today.

NAR has been working for the last decade to put all of the nation's agent-represented homes for sale into one database, consolidating the 800-plus multiple listing services in the U.S. in the process.

"Everybody has been on board with the national MLS idea for a long time and we've been working on it for the last decade," the trade group said in a press release.

On the first day of April each year, communities, businesses and news outlets come up with stories intended to fool, amuse, and, sometimes, satirize. Here's a roundup of the posts

The National Association of Realtors will launch its tech-conference tour this month, the trade group announced today. The first event of the tour will be held on April 12 in Fairfax, Va., and others will follow in different locations throughout the summer and fall

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A new study published in the journal Housing Policy Debate may have identified another contributing factor to the financial crisis: neighborhood zoning

A price quote means nothing until it is properly locked with the lender. A rate lock, as it is commonly called, is the lender's commitment that it will make the specified loan at the specified price within a specified future period. The price includes not only the interest rate but also points, which are upfront charges expressed as a percent of the loan; fixed-dollar charges; and (if the loan is adjustable-rate) the margin and maximum rate.

It's always hard to predict how long it will take to find a home to buy. Given the current low-inventory environment, it may take you longer than it would in a balanced market that has enough homes for sale to satisfy the current buyer demand.

Patience needs to be a key component of your home search mentality. Even if a home you like a lot comes along quickly in your search, other buyers may have the same idea. You could end up in competition. If you aren't the winning bidder, don't let disappointment immobilize you.

Inman News announces that applications for Inman Incubator, a real estate startup accelerator program, are now open.

The Inman Incubators program is a yearlong mentorship, advisory and promotional program to help up to 25 new companies in the real estate industry succeed. The program is open to technology startups, brokerages, agents, service providers, and others in the real estate industry with new, innovative products and business models.

Are you still stuck in "E" rather than moving forward into "V"?

If so, it's time to shift from email, E-cards, email newsletters, blogs, and autoresponders to the next generation of communication: vmail, vcards, vresponders, viewsletters, and vlogs.

For a while it seemed that anyone with a lot of money, from Hollywood stars to business moguls, wanted a piece -- make that a very large piece of -- America, and they came west looking to buy their own ranches. Many, following the lead of flamboyant media entrepreneur, Ted Turner, looked to acquire in Montana.

During the bubble years, investors couldn't acquire Montana ranches fast enough.

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Redfin launched a redesigned website this week and Inman News caught up with the Seattle-based brokerage's CEO, Glenn Kelman, to talk about its new features.

The site's new design and features include more prominent Redfin branding, increased white space, larger property images on property detail pages and a new way for users to monitor homes they may want to tour.

Carrington Property Services has joined forces with financial services company LendingXpress to offer small lenders Carrington's asset management services to handle their inventory of bank-owned homes.

San Antonio, Texas-based LendingXpress, a Southwest Business Corp. (SWBC) company, will market the services to the credit unions and community banks in its customer base, offering them a new approach to managing REO (real estate-owned) inventories based on best practices of major lenders, the companies said in an announcement.

Trading everywhere has ceased for Passover, Good Friday, and Easter, but next week brings a flood of brand-new information for March, capped on Friday by employment data. Thus a good time to reflect.

I do not recall a moment in which so many economic elements at the same time have been at points of inflection. In the old days (five years ago) nothing much mattered except U.S. data. In global markets the world is more important than the U.S.

Fraud by building contractors is a distressingly common occurrence.

How's this for a nightmare scenario: You agree to pay a contractor $400,000 to tear down part of your house and put in an addition. While the work is going on, you, your spouse, and five children stay with the wife's parents. The contractor tells you that the work is progressing according to schedule and you make multiple payments.