| Some real estate pros take aim at anti-piracy legislation and RPost provides mobile e-signature, registered email services |
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CORRECTIONS: The original version of this article contained errors. The original article misidentified broker Jim Duncan's market area. Duncan works in the Charlottesville, Va., area. Also, Duncan's comments were clarified to note that he believes it would be difficult to verify compliance under the proposed new laws of all of the information that he links to from his website. Also, Eric Post is principal of Better Homes and Gardens Realty Partners Inc. in Clackamas, Ore.Some real estate practitioners and technologists have taken a stance against federal anti-piracy legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives (SOPA) and the Senate (PIPA), worried that it could restrict the legitimate sharing of real estate information online. [Read the full article] A new discount-brokerage firm, spyRealty, has launched in New York and Massachusetts, offering homebuyers a 2 percent refund off of the purchase price of a home.Ben Chudnovskiy, managing partner of spyRealty, which currently has seven agents, was not a spy in his former life (at least, he's not saying so if he was) -- he's just a normal, New York guy and Massachusetts-licensed real estate broker -- but he's looking to follow large online broker Redfin's model, which originated as a discount real estate service for tech-savvy homebuyers.And competition is enormous, said Chudnovskiy, which prompted the idea in the first place. "With 45,000 licensed real estate agents in Massachusetts, I thought, 'How can we compete?' One way is to be first."While spyRealty isn't the first brokerage to experiment with this model, Chudnovskiy believes it's among the only companies in the region offering a 2 percent brokerage fee refund. [Read the full article] Editor's note: This list, based on data compiled by Zillow, represents the top 10 metro areas ranked by steepest year-over-year percentage drop in average listing price during 2011 compared to the previous year. Median home values listed in the charts are based on the Zillow Home Value Index.Metro areas in Michigan and the Southeast experienced the most substantial cuts in for-sale home prices listed on Zillow.com in 2011 compared to 2010. Flint, Mich., and Detroit topped the list at No. 1 and No. 2, respectively, experiencing 13.21 percent and 12 percent price drops on average home listing prices, respectively.The rest of the top 10 spanned from No. 3 Bakersfield, Calif., with a 9.85 percent price drop in listing price, to No. 10 Gainesville, Ga., at a 9.6 percent drop.Following the most recent housing market turmoil geographic trends, all of the top 10 metro areas were clustered in north-central Florida, Georgia, Michigan and California. [Read the full article] 
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