Cody

It’s official.  The first time homebuyer tax credit has been extended - President Obama has now signed the bill into law! 

First time homebuyers are eligible for the $8,000 tax credit if they sign a contract by April 30 and close by June 30.  In addition, this new bill extends the credit beyond first time buyers.  Those who are buying a new home and have lived in their current home at least 5 years are eligible for up to a $6,500 tax credit.

To see all the fine print about eligibility, restrictions, etc, click here.

Learn more about today’s signing from CNN.com here.

Cody

Today, The House approved the measure to extend the $8,000 first-time homebuyer tax credit by a 403-12 vote.  President Obama is expected to sign the bill into law tomorrow morning.

This legislation will extend the tax credit to contracts signed by April 30 and closed by June 30.  In addition, it also creates a $6,500 credit for those who buy a home after living in their current house for at least five years. 

You can learn more details at CNN.com here.  And find specifics on the extenstion and addition to the tax credit bill from the National Association of Realtors’ Government Affairs Division here.

Cody

At least 50 lucky individuals will be driving the economic road to recovery in style this Christmas - in the 2010 Jaguar XJ Supercharged Neiman Marcus Edition.  It took only four hours and four minutes for Neiman’s to sell out of the 50 vehicles that were produced for their 2009 Christmas Book.  Did we mention this cool cat had a price tag of $105,000, including destination charge?

How could this relate to real estate?  At the Fall 2009 Luxury Market Update hosted by Ellen Terry Associate and Sr. Vice President Lynn Gardner Collins, David Chance, Sr. Loan Consultant with The Lending Partners LTD said:

“The most influential thing that’s going to happen to make people buy jumbo properties is the recovery in their own portfolios, which affects their access and their comfort level to come up with the down payment.  They are getting their latest statements, and their net month-to-month is actually increasing and has been for the last few months, which is a good thing and that’s what is going to increase comfort levels and encourage people to buy.”

If you would like to see more expert opinions fromt he Fall 2009 Luxury Market update, click here. 

To learn more about the 2010 Jaguar XJ Supercharged Neiman Marcus Edition and the quick sell-out, Autoweek.com has all the details here.

Cody

This morning, Ebby Associate John C. Weber of the Hickman + Weber Group served on a top agent panel discussion, “What Do Agents Value in a Brokerage Firm Today?”, at the 2009 REAL Trends Innovation Conference.  John cited reputation, education and training as the reasons he chose Ebby Halliday and said he remains with the company for those same reasons as well as the support at both the office and corporate level. 

“We have a dynamic office environment – I love the ability to share knowledge and even to gain business from being in our office.  In fact, that’s how I got my very first lead when I started in the business – one of our top producers at the time had both sides of a transaction and approached me in the office to represent the buyer.  I did and that lead actually produced two additional transactions via referrals.” 

He also stated that even in this “different” market, the Hickman + Weber Group is on track to have their best year ever by going back to basics, making a solid business plan and following through with that plan.

Held at the beautiful Four Seasons Resort & Club in Las Colinas, the conference was attended by broker/owners, CEOs, presidents, COOs, senior managers, marketing directors and technology directors from the leading residential real estate firms, association executives, senior managers of the national real estate franchise firms, relocation companies and referral networks and mortgage and title companies.   

Pictured above from this morning’s closing session are Paul Boomsma, president of Luxury Portfolio Fine Property Collection and executive vice president of marketing for The Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, John C. Weber and Randall Graham, vice president & director of marketing for The Ebby Halliday Companies.

Cody

What’s the best real estate website around?  It’s Ebby.com according to the Web Marketing Association!  The winners of the 2009 WebAwards, which are presented by the Web Marketing Association, were recently announced and Ebby.com was honored with a Standard of Excellence Award.

The WebAward recognizes the standard of excellence for which all Web sites should strive and the competition is the premier award recognition program for Web developers and marketers worldwide.  In its 13th year, the Web Marketing Association has set the standard for achieving excellence in Internet marketing and website development.  The awards were judged by a panel of independent Internet experts on various criteria including design, interactivity, technology, content, innovation, copywriting and ease of use to the target audience. 

See the award winning website for yourself and find your perfect home at Ebby.com.

Mary Frances

First-time home buyers still have time to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit, but time is running out.

To qualify for the tax credit, a home sale must close before December 1, 2009.

The last week of November will be extremely busy for title companies. With Thursday, November 26th and Friday the 27th being Thanksgiving holidays, that entire week and Monday the 30th may be grid-locked with last minute closings.

Many loans now take a minimum of 30 days to process because of new lending requirements and appraisal issues, and some can take longer.

This means first-time buyers wanting the $8,000 tax credit must have applied for their loan, finalized their contract, and have it at the title company by the last week in October to ensure enough time to process and close their transaction before the deadline.

If you would like to take advantage of the tax credit or know someone who may be interested in a first-time purchase, encourage them to act soon.

The next six weeks will pass quickly - don’t miss out!

Cody

Luxury Portfolio Fine Property Collection continues to have the largest property inventory of any single luxury broker network - check out the statistics above (click to enlarge). 

The Ebby Halliday Companies are proud to be an advisory board member of this fine organization, which is the luxury face of Leading Real Estate Comapnies of the World.  In fact, Ebby herself was one of the three founding members of RELO, which is know known as LeadingRE. 

See the original ad from Luxury Portfolio here.

Cody

According to Forbes Magazine, Dallas is the best city in which to earn a living.  And the Lone Star State was well represented on the list - Houston was ranked #2 and Austin came in at #4.  One of the biggest reasons for the decision was the fact that 38 top-ranked companies are headquartered in Dallas.  Rankings were also determined by median income, cost of living, job growth and the quality of the business environment. 

You can read the entire article at Forbes.com here.

Cody

Each month, Luxury Portfolio releases their web traffic statistics via their proprietary LuxeAnalytics reports and once again, the luxury listings of The Ebby Halliday Companies have received an abundance of national and international exposure.  In fact, Ebby Halliday Realtors, Ellen Terry Realtors and Dave Perry-Miller & Associates are consistently in the Top 5 for members with the most web traffic on this award-winning site.  Since the beginning of the year, our luxury homes have received almost 400,000 property impressions with visitors from 120 countries who have translated the property descriptions into almost a dozen languages. 

To help put this accomplishment into perspective, here are some basic statistics for LuxuryPortfolio.com:  the site averages 102,000 visitors per month and 1.2 million high-net-worth visitors per year.  It also has the greatest overall market share of luxury properties, both nationally and globally, as well as more U.S. listings priced at $1 million and above than Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Coldwell Banker Previews, etc.

And be sure to check out the beautiful new home page design which debuted this past month.  In fact, the remarkable Santa Barbara-style estate on White Rock Lake, listed by Brett Gray of Dave Perry-Miller & Associates, is one of the featured homes on the home page this month.

Bottom line - when you list a luxury property with an Ebby Halliday Company, you can be assured it will be marketed to the world through the best luxury afilliation around - Luxury Portfolio.  How many other companies can claim that?

Cody

Luxury Portfolio, the luxury face of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World, is featuring the beautiful $18 million University Park property of Ellen Terry Associate Patricia Massey in their online advertising campaign.  This property appears in a banner ad on The Wall Street Journal’s website, which receives approximately 1 million visitors per month. 

The successful marketing of luxury homes requires far more than local exposure, that’s why The Ebby Halliday Companies have formed strategic partnerships with some of the leading luxury property marketing programs to bring our properties both national and international exposure.

Thank you to our friends at Luxury Portfolio for another great opportunity!