January, 2010Archive

Signed up for the digest yet? Why not?

January 28th, 2010 | Blog updates, announcements | 2 comments

Yes, the latest blog digest was sent out to happy subscribers this morning and we at the Arkansas Realtors® Association are curious — if you’re not already receiving our digests, why not sign up for free and hop on the bandwagon?
Every two weeks we send out an email that covers the latest posts here at [...]

ARPAC tax credit forms available

January 27th, 2010 | announcements | No comments

The state of Arkansas has made its political contributions credit form available.
To get a copy of that handy document — AR1800 — just click here.
That’s the form Arkansas Realtors who contributed to the Arkansas Realtors Political Action Committee need to use in order to get credit for their contributions. Individuals can claim a credit of [...]

Free stuff from the NAR

January 27th, 2010 | announcements | No comments

A few weeks ago, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) announced it was expanding its “Right Tools, Right Now” program to 2010.
Now, the NAR is sending out emails to Realtors who haven’t taken advantage of the program to Realtors around the nation. The NAR is giving out free stuff to its members, so why not [...]

Arkansas Auctioneers offering continuing education course in February

January 26th, 2010 | News you can use, announcements | No comments

The Arkansas Auctioneers Association (AAA) is offering a seminar offering real estate continuing education credits.
The cost to attend the event is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 20 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Hilton Little Rock Metro Center and costs $75 for AAA members and $95 for non-members.
Want to attend and take care of [...]

In the news…

January 26th, 2010 | announcements | No comments

Ever since we released the November and December Arkansas housing market reports last week, we’ve seen a lot of real estate news here in the state.
Kim Souza had an article in the Northwest Arkansas Times on Sunday about changes the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) has announced for its loan program. FHA loans are a big [...]

IRS releases guidance for exisiting home buyer tax credit

January 25th, 2010 | News you can use, announcements | No comments

Yes, we’ve had plenty of guidance from the IRS about the first-time home buyer tax credit for a couple of years.
However, there’s not been a whole lot of guidance regarding the existing home owner tax credit since it was signed into law back in November. Well, the IRS has plenty of instructions now and we [...]

This just in – Berry retiring

January 25th, 2010 | News you can use | No comments

First it was Vic Snyder announcing his retirement, now another Democrat — Marion Berry — said he won’t seek another term in Congress.
That’s pretty big news in Arkansas as both Senators and all but one of our Congressman — Republican John Boozman from the Third District — are Democrats. In fact, Marion was so secure [...]

Arkansas average/median list prices, inventories for Jan. 25

January 25th, 2010 | Housing Market Statistics | No comments

Since the first of the year, inventories — the number of homes for sale — have been increasing and average list prices have been climbing in housing markets around Arkansas.
For the latest inventories and average/median list prices report from the Arkansas Realtors® Association, click here for the Excel file, here for the PDF and here [...]

Hendrix opens $26 million high-tech student life center

January 25th, 2010 | News you can use | No comments

KTHV headed up to Conway last week and put together a story about the high-technology student center Hendrix College opened.
You can watch the video by clicking here and you’ll find the news story about the facility here.
Why is this story deemed significant? We’ve become somewhat familiar with accusations that Arkansas is more than a bit [...]

Arkanas unemployment up in December

January 24th, 2010 | News you can use | No comments

The Arkansas unemployment numbers are out in December and they’re not exactly what we had hoped.
According to a press release from the Arkansas Department of Workforce Services, unemployment in the Natural State stood at 7.7 percent in December. That’s well below the national average of 10 percent, but quite a bit higher than the 5.7 [...]

‘Zero down’ loans?

January 24th, 2010 | House to House | No comments

We’ve heard it time and time again over the past couple of years – if you want to take out a mortgage, you’d better be ready to come up with a down payment.
To an extent, that’s certainly true. Conventional lenders generally want a down payment as do banks writing mortgages insured by the Federal Housing [...]

Political News – Stay Active in 2010

January 23rd, 2010 | Jan 2010, The Arkansas Realtor - print edition | No comments

Here we are ringing in a new year. Mullenix & Associates looks forward to another year of working with all of you to promote the Realtor® industry in Arkansas.
This year, undoubtedly, will have its share of challenges – let’s look at those as opportunities to accomplish more for the Arkansas Realtors® Association (ARA) than ever [...]

ARA President Mike Henry on KARK

January 22nd, 2010 | News you can use, announcements | No comments

Bob Clausen at KARK — the NBC affiliate in Little Rock — called the palatial Arkansas Realtors® Association (ARA) offices yesterday after he got a copy of the latest Arkansas housing market reports.
Clausen wanted to run a story about the solid housing market reports. Luckily, ARA President Mike Henry of Fayetteville was in town and [...]

Update from the Arkansas Real Estate Commission — looking back on 2009

January 22nd, 2010 | Jan 2010, The Arkansas Realtor - print edition | No comments

Another year has flown by at the Commission.
As of December 2009 we have 11,292 licensees that have renewed their licenses for 2010. That total includes 9,145 active licensees and 2,147 inactive licensees. The 2010 licenses have been mailed so make sure that all active real estate agents in your office have a 2010 license. If [...]

Fantasy baseball? Oh, yeah…

January 22nd, 2010 | announcements | No comments

So I went and sent out a survey earlier this week asking our members if they’d be interested in participating in an Arkansas Realtors® Association fantasy baseball league this year.
So far, 284 people have answered that survey. Of those, 228 people (80.3 percent) said they’re not interested in participating in a fantasy baseball league, 21 [...]