REW Real Estate Websites

“Build” A Foundation - REW Real Estate Websites 
Today's most successful Realtors have already realized that consumers are using search engines to buy and sell real estate. Our technology and websites, from the front end display to the extremely 

Capture” Your Audience - REW Custom IDX 
The only true "built in" custom IDX solution is a Real Estate Webmasters IDX solution. Search engine friendly URL's allow Google and other search engines to spider your listings. And our exclusive listings match snippet technology allows for seamless integration of your local community content and MLS listings. Google Map based home searching standard

Dominate” Your Local Market - Real Estate SEO 
Chances are you found Real Estate Webmasters in one of two ways. Either you typed in keywords like "real estate websites" or "realtor web design" into a search engine such as Google, or you went to Google or another search engine and started searching competitive real estate related terms to find out who was providing their search engine optimization services. Our results speak for themselves in either case. 


Custom IDX / MLS Solutions
Real Estate Webmasters is a nationally recognized custom IDX vendor. We service MLS boards from California to Florida, providing the most advanced integrated MLS solutions on the web.

All custom REW IDX solutions begin with our CORE install. This is a fully functioning IDX platform (out of the box) with all the bells and whistles including Google mapping, CRM / Analytics, drip email functionality and much more. 

REW CORE IDX Features:
REW CRM Analytics - Lets you know exactly what searches your users have performed, which properties they viewed, and which ones they added as favorites. 
Spiderable (search-engine-friendly) listings and details pages, increasing traffic to your listings. 
Search by city, MLS#, zip code and Google map. 
Google® Web Analytics compatible 
Understanding True Custom IDX
REW IDX is a true custom IDX. This means that aside from the four limitations listed below, you can have the REW team customize / change absolutely any feature within our platform to suit your specific needs.

Increase conversion and user signups while establishing a unique brand in your local market. That is REW IDX. 

Your imagination – As long as you play by the MLS board rules, as long as we have the data in the feed, and if you can afford it, the only limitation to custom IDX is your imagination. 
Your budget – Customization takes time (design and programming) – it is not uncommon to use 50 hours or more for high-end search solutions. Our billable rate for programming and design is $100 USD per hour. 
Custom IDX vendors (as with all IDX vendors) are obligated to follow the rules and regulations stipulated by the MLS board. We sign a contract stating that we will only use the data in acceptable ways as deemed by the MLS board. This typically means that we must post a board approved disclaimer anywhere that MLS data is displayed, follow the rules of broker reciprocity and anything else the board requires for compliance. 
Custom IDX vendors can only query against data in the feed – If it is not in the feed, there is no way to display it in the solution. (Some MLS's do not provide a flag for "short sale" for instance, so there is no way for the vendor to filter properties that are "short sale" – there is no way to locate them in the data.) 
If you are a market-leading agent or are looking to become one, or represent a progressive brokerage that understands the need for effective customizable technology, we encourage you 

Limited Edition Custom" - REW LEC 
If you would like to have the highest end Realtor website in your market, avoid having to pay hourly rates for it's development, and have guaranteed conversion and search engine performance - perhaps you should explore the REW LEC. 

LEC's are exclusive (one per market) contact us to check availability and see if you qualify. 

Real Estate Agent Website Solutions
Below you will find a summary of the available website options for real estate agents. Real Estate Webmasters offers search engine friendly template websites for new agents and complete custom designs for more established agents with the budget to take their web presence to the next level. Check out the options below, decide which option is right for you and click the "read more" links for additional details. 

Template Websites For Agents 
New agents typically do not have the budget to engage a full blown custom website design but that does not mean that they don't deserve a quality website. REW Template websites are easy for you to update yourself with content and listings, and they are the best looking template websites in the real estate industry. Read More…

 An REW Template is exactly what I need — sign me up

Limited Edition Custom Websites For Agents 
An LEC website is the best dollar-for-dollar real estate site you can find -- we take our experience and knowledge and pour it into a fully custom site that is then made available on a one per market basis. LEC sites focus on providing great IDX search functionality and the utmost in Lead capture... all for a set price. Read More…

 I need that LEC custom site & functionality for a great price— get me started



Custom Websites For Agents 
A custom website from Real Estate Webmasters shows the world (and your clients) that you mean serious business. Unique creations that focus on search engine performance and more importantly conversion of visitors to leads, an REW custom website is the best tool available to Realtors®. Read More…

 I am a top producing agent and only a custom website will do — let's get started 

If you are a broker / owner or are responsible for a brokerage website - check out our 

Rental prices dropping, says real estate company

Rental prices are dropping as cash-strapped tenants downsize, crowd in with flatmates, or shift back home.

First National Real Estate says there is an oversupply of rental properties nationwide, reducing rent prices by an average of 3.5 per cent across the country. Its quarterly survey shows there is plenty of accommodation available, but not all of it is desirable.

The hardest places for landlords to get tenants are Waiheke Island, where one in five rental properties are vacant, followed by Ashburton and Whangamata.

Particularly difficult to fill this winter have been colder and older homes.

Property managers also say university flats are remaining empty as the recession bites, with many students either ceasing their studies or going to live with their parents.

ReprintPrint Email Font Resize San Jose couple suspected of real estate loan fraud arrested in Canada

A San Jose couple suspected of operating a fraudulent real estate home loan modification business have been arrested in Toronto following a six-month investigation.

San Jose police say Amir Rashidifar, 25, and Mary Delvecchio, 28, opened their business, Legal Support Services, in September and offered to modify real estate loans for homeowners facing default and foreclosure.

Police say the pair ran an elaborate operation and charged victims $3,000 to $4,000 to modify a loan, but the loans were not modified. So far, San Jose police have identified 129 victims.

The investigation started in late January after employees of Legal Support Services and 15 victims told police that Rashidifar and Delvecchio had been operating a fraudulent home loan business. Rashidifar and Delvecchio convinced victims that Legal Support Services was working in tandem with knowledgeable and experienced real estate attorneys in the loan modification business, according to officer Jermaine Thomas, a police spokesman.

A police investigation into Legal Support Services, at 2055 Junction Ave., revealed that Rashidifar and Delvecchio were not working with licensed attorneys, Thomas said.

In February, Rashidifar and Delvecchio fled the South Bay after learning of the police investigation, according to Thomas. Police determined that Rashidifar and Delvecchio went to Canada on May 26 and opened a new, fraudulent real estate loan modification business using false

Real estate paperwork for dummies not legally lazy

Newly designed real estate documents have been created by the Real Estate Institute to simplify the forms involved in the house sale process.

But chief executive Christine le Cren said while the forms are simplified, they are not dumbed down to the point of losing either their legal standing or meaning.

‘We realise there will always be some tension between the relative safety of using precedent documents and terminology, and their plain English equivalents,” Mrs Le Cren said. “However ... the expectation is actually quite the opposite."

A lawyer who presented a paper at the 2008 international Plain English conference Clarity said there are no recorded instances of plain English contracts causing a legal dispute due to the phrasing.

Executive members of the Property Law Section of the New Zealand Law Society reviewed and commented on the drafts and Hamilton lawyer Barry Gunson gave his seal of approval.

“The overriding consideration has been to make sure they are legally sound and suitable for the current real estate environment,” Mr Gunson said.

Wellington-based plain English specialists Write Litd re-wrote the forms, with 50 drafts to perfect them.

“[They] are designed to do away with ambiguity and complexity,” Mrs Le Cren said.

“People who are buying or selling a property have a right to understand the implications of what they are signing.”

The forms were designed and laid out by Optimal Usability, with bold headings and open text taking the place of small print for a clearer reading experience.

“We believe the forms will be overwhelmingly popular with the public who need to have absolute confidence when making an important life decision,” Mrs Le Cren said.

Real estate career rewards tenacity

Photograph by: Jonathan Ernst, REUTERS
It's not that long ago that some people figured they could make a fair amount of money by just selling a few houses. Many who had retired early from a long career in another industry or profession were tempted by a new opportunity to be their own boss and put in as many hours as they felt like working to reap nice rewards.

It doesn't work that way. It's still a job that can provide lots of personal satisfaction both in pride in helping others find their dream home as well as earning a good living. But today's realtor must be a qualified professional who is willing to work hard over long hours to achieve any amount of success in providing an essential service.

There are still people who get into real estate as a second or third career but Ron Stanners, broker at Maxwell South Star, cautions that to get into the profession today takes a lot of study, a big financial commitment and probably a good length of time before efforts are rewarded.

A realtor for 28 years, Stanners is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the founding of his own company that now has a complement of 115 realtors in his office in the professional building of Heritage Hill. He is still actively recruiting for others to join him but says that while last year he was accepting about one new person per month, there have only been three or four this year.

He says some people, after making a decision to become a realtor, rush into investing time and money in the appropriate courses before understanding all that the job entails.

Stanners prefers to sit down with prospects and discuss the rewards but also to try to determine if they are suited to the job. To obtain the necessary licence means taking a 12-week course and an outlay of around $4,200 and after paying licensing fees, initiation fees and dues that is closer to $7,000. So it's best to understand that real estate is not the cake walk some believe it to be.

To sell real estate in Calgary, one has to take a Real Estate Associates Program, either through the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB) or at Mount Royal College. Candidates can either take an intensive classroom course, an evening/Saturday course, or distance learning.

Then before the successful certificate holders can join the other 5,400 members of the CREB in securing listings and finding buyers, they must be licensed through a broker like Stanners in order to work within the MLS system.

He says that many do not realize that even after all of this training and a keen determination to succeed, it usually takes a few months before a sale is made. So real estate is not for the impatient or faint-hearted. Rather, it is a career where self-discipline is essential in going out every day to find a new customer; otherwise a realtor is unemployed.

Stanners adds that the real work begins after the sale is made and the paperwork begins.

Yet he is quick to promote real estate as a meaningful and rewarding career and upon completing courses, newcomers are well-qualified to support and protect clients. Although some realtors have found it tough slogging over the past year, he says his office sales were four per cent higher this past June than a year ago and prices are only $10,000 below last year's median.

Last month his team finalized 10 sales over a million dollars and one of over $2 million--an indication that higher priced homes are selling well in the Calgary area--and Stanners is convinced that come, September sales will be higher than 2008. A good time for the right people to think about a career in real estate.

Don't let reports of downsizing at the city and university put you off still looking at those two institutions. The city has no job fairs scheduled but there are still jobs being listed on its website although I don't appear to be qualified for the long list of responsibilities and qualifications listed for most of them. One for a passenger agent says you must be able to maintain patience for extended periods of time while providing information to some of its 90 million annual customers.

U.K., Asian Real Estate Markets Are Recovering, DTZ Chief Says

July 21 (Bloomberg) -- The British and some Asian commercial real estate markets are starting to revive, according to Paul Idzik, chief executive officer of London-based property broker DTZ Holdings Plc.

Property in continental Europe will take longer to bounce back because markets lag behind the U.K. and prices are still falling, Idzik, 48, who took over as head of the company in November, said in an interview today.

“We are seeing all the stimulus that has been put into parts of the Asian market bearing fruit,” Idzik said after DTZ reported a wider annual loss. “Selected parts of the U.K. are starting to show signs of life.”

Commercial real estate markets have been hit by the global financial crisis, forcing some property companies to raise cash from shareholders and others to cede ownership of offices and stores to their bankers to cover loans they can’t repay.

DTZ, whose revenue slumped 18 percent to 364 million pounds ($597 million) in the year to April 30, is counting on lenders selling those property holdings and spurring the market. DTZ has offices in 162 cities in 45 countries around the world.

“We are hopeful that we will start to see U.K. and continental banks start to take action on many of their loans related to commercial property,” said Idzik. “We haven’t seen much working out taking place at all.”

Seeking Buyers

Lenders including Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Lloyds Banking Group Plc have been saddled with losses on billions of pounds of real estate loans. They have been affected by the slump in commercial property values, which have fallen 44 percent in the U.K. since peaking in June 2007.

“Even if they start taking these things out at lower prices the issue for the market is the lack of willingness on the buy side,” said Idzik.

DTZ’s loss for the fiscal year ended April 30 widened to 87.3 million pounds, or 82.75 pence a share, from 4.26 million pounds, or 7.65 pence, a year earlier, the company said in a statement earlier today.

One-time charges accounted for 44.6 million pounds of the loss, including the cost of reducing its workforce and a loss on the sale of its 50 percent stake in a U.S. business. The broker cut 1,500 jobs, or 21 percent of its directly employed staff, during the year.

In addition to previously announced annualized cost savings of 30 million pounds, DTZ said it had identified 20 million pounds of cuts that it will make this year.

SAS Saint George Participation, the French investor that bought a majority stake in DTZ in January, has provided 15 million pounds of credit since the fiscal year ended, allowing DTZ to renegotiate banking agreements, the broker said.

DTZ shares were unchanged at 43.75 pence at 12:28 p.m. in London trading, giving the company a market value of 116 million pounds. The shares have surged 62 percent this year.

Fed's Bernanke: Carefully Watching Commercial Real Estate Mkt

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday the central bank is closely monitoring the commercial real estate market, given the difficulty borrowers are having to refinance those loans.

The commercial real estate market could suffer from the same foreclosure troubles that have inflicted the residential market, Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee. He said borrowers are having trouble refinancing the loans either through banks or the securitization market.

Thus, the Fed is urging banks to help creditworthy borrowers refinance, while the central bank is trying to jumpstart the securitization market by accepting new and legacy commercial mortgage-backed bonds as collateral in its Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, or TALF.

"We hope to open up the mortgage-backed securities market, which is an important source of funding and finance for the CRE market," he said.

Ranking committee member Spencer Bachus, R-Ala. said the CRE market "may be the wild card" in the ongoing financial crisis, saying recent reports from banks that raised concerns about the market, Bachus said.

Italy real estate to grow at end 2010-Beni Stabili

MILAN, July 21 (Reuters) - The Italian real estate market has stabilised but growth will have to wait until the end of 2010 at the earliest, the chief executive of Italy's Beni Stabili (BNSI.MI) Aldo Mazzocco said on Tuesday.

"We are playing in defence but we're glad to do that since most of our European competitors are playing (behind) the goal (line)," Mazzocco said speaking at an analyst presentation.

Mazzocco said he expects conditions on the Italian property market to remain tough in the coming months, adding he sees the second half of the year in line with the first half with the same kind of buyer - families and private investors.

But if the market has perhaps steadied "we won't see the first signs of growth before the end of 2010, early 2011", he said.

Mazzocco said he does not see any big portfolio acquisitions ahead for Beni Stabili but rather selective acquisitions of single assets.

"Our strong asset base and management stability will allow us to seize the right opportunities," he said, adding the company's loan-to-value ratio (percentage of the property's value that is mortgaged) is 49 percent "but could easily rise to 70 percent".

Beni Stabili, Italy's biggest real estate company in terms of market capitalisation, said on Monday its first half net profit fell 93 percent to 4.3 million euros due to writedowns on property values. (Reporting by Claudia Cristoferi, writing by Stephen Jewkes)

UPDATE 1-Sorouh Real Estate Q2 profit falls 75.5 pct

ABU DHABI, July 22 (Reuters) - Sorouh Real Estate SOR.AD posted a second-quarter net profit of 150.98 million dirhams ($41.08 million), down 75.5 percent from the year-earlier period, driving shares lower.

Abu Dhabi's second-largest property developer by market value said it earned net profit of 281.42 million dirhams in the first half of the year, compared with 977.61 million dirhams a year earlier, the firm said in a statement on Wednesday.

Sorouh reported a net profit of 687.04 million dirhams in the second quarter of 2008.

Revenues for the half of 2009 fell to 1.3 billion dirhams, compared to 1.69 billion dirhams in 2008. Second quarter revenues were down to 978 million dirhams from 1.1 billion dirhams in the same period last year.

The company said results were in line with its expectations and reflected its strategy to focus on "cash conservation" and "management of operating costs".

The company said its Abu Dhabi developments remained on schedule and expected to see a "gradual quarter-on-quarter improvement" on the back of unit sales and rental income from a number of its projects.

Developers across the United Arab Emirates have suffered the impact of the global financial crisis which put an end to a six-year construction boom.

The downturn resulted in the cancellation of hundreds of billions of dollars worth of projects in the recent months while valuations and sales fell.

Merrill's Asian real estate investment biz on block : report

New Delhi based PE firm Red Fort Capital Advisors Pvt Ltd is also said to be in the race.

Top notch investment firms including New York based Blackstone Group LP, Apollo Investment Management LP are on the race to buy stake in Bank of America Merrill Lynch Asian real estate investment business.

The bid which also includes the $4 billion Merrill Lynch Asian Real Estate Opportunity Fund is expected to close before the end of this year, adds the report.

Also in the race are companies like Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, part of Japan based Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Corp and New Delhi based private-equity firm Red Fort Capital Advisors Pvt Ltd.

The report suugests that talks are at an early stage. Bank of America made the decision to sell the management of the Asian real-estate businesses due to the global market meltdown and after the US government's stress tests earlier in the year.

Experts say that the decision has been enhanced after Timothy J Grady, who was managing the fund, parted the company in March this year.

According to the report, the fund, which closed in October after raising $2.65 billion, is currently headed by Martin Seol, formerly the fund's chief administrative officer. Total assets in debt and equity equal about $4 billion and the fund employs 60 professionals in Asia.

Merrill invested $700 million of the $2.65 billion raised by the fund and isn't seeking to sell its stake. Most of the fund, which is fully invested, has been invested in South Korea, Japan, China and India.

In a letter to investors in May, Merrill Lynch said that it had made a decision to transfer management of the Asia real-estate fund to 'a recognized asset manager' but it would 'continue to own a substantial stake in its limited partnership interest and would stay committed and aligned with the interest of the fund.'

Merrill Lynch has been investing in the Indian realestate for quite some time now. It has invested Rs 1,481 crore or $377 million in its seven housing projects. Merrill Lynch had also picked up stake in BPTP's IT Park in Gurgaon for Rs 112 crore.

ICICI Venture to Launch 1,000Cr Real Estate Fund

ICICI Venture is launching a Rs 1,000Cr real estate fund, which will focus on commitments from domestic investors. Amidst a series of departures of senior officials, India’s leading private equity firm ICICI Venture Funds Management Co. Ltd is in the process of launching a relatively smaller Rs 1,000 crore real estate fund, according to two sources close to the development. The plan for the scaled down real estate fund comes at a time when the firm is facing hurdles in raising commitments from investors for some of the fund initiatives it announced earlier which included a $1-1.5 billion real estate fund.

The firm, which manages more than $2 billion currently, had been in the news with its long time MD and Chief Executive Renuka Ramnath quitting in April. Ramnath was replaced by banker Vishakha Mulye, who was till then an Executive Director of ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company. The change at the top deck of ICICI Venture has reportedly raised concerns among many investors – mainly foreign – and that is considered one of the reasons for the firm’s plans to launch a smaller fund.The fund plans to mobilise 90% of the target corpus from domestic investors, both institutional and high-networth individuals (HNIs), sources told VCCircle. Most PE firm have been raising capital abroad, while ICICI Venture is turning to domestic investors so that it can use ICICI Bank’s distribution muscle to reach out to the local investors.

This fund will also be an initiative from scratch by the new leadership. Sources said that a successful launch of the real estate fund will help infuse confidence in foreign investors after which it can go in for a larger general private equity fund, probably with a target corpus of $1 billion, sources added. The fund is about to be launched and will hit the roads in coming weeks.