AgentGenius Rocks

Today, Inman News announced their 11th Annual Innovator Awards finalists.

In the category of Blogging the finalists were;

Blog
1000Watt Blog
AgentGenius
Big Picture Blog
FBS Blog
Homegain Real Estate Blog

It is not amazing to me that Benn Rosales and Lani Anglin-Rosales achieved such recognition so rapidly, nor that Inman recognized the quality of the writers at AgentGenius. It does however amaze me that they managed to achieve such recognition with me as a contributor. Thanks to all of the other Geniuses for not letting me slow you down!

The People who Live in My Computer

I just told you recently about my new blog http://www.rereflections.com/ so I though I would show you where it was going in terms of themes. We started out with Finding My Voice a post that explained my struggle to find relevance in my writing efforts.

The second Post, Living in The Internet is an effort to bring some clarity to the Social Media from my own fledging experiences.

Hope you visit them and enjoy them!.

A New Place for Me to Write

I just started a New Blog called REreflections . In that blog I intend to spend mort time talking about running a real estate business, real estate news, industry issues, and of course, some personal reflections.

It is my intention to continue to maintain the MovePhilly blog, and to concentrate on those issues revolving around real estate , Philadelphia, and all things local.

And I'll probably keep some reflections for here too!

Title Insurance, Another Philadelphia First

A little while ago I wrote a post about the Greater Philadelphia Association of REALTORS, one of the charter members of the National Association of REALTORS, both of which are celebrating their 100th Anniversary this year.

Even earlier I wrote another Philadelphia based post, talking about some of the Historical Firsts in our city, discussing the first Savings & Loan, their first mortgage, and possibly the first defaulted loan in the country. I enjoyed that so much, that I decided that this would be a great theme for GPAR's 100th year, so here is the second installment in that group of bogs. Hope you enjoy these random facts as much as I do.

In keeping with the theme of the blog, let's talk about the first Title Insurance Company in the United States which was founded here in 1876. Through successor companies, that firm ,known as Commonwealth Land Title (now owned by LandAmerica) still issues title insurance today!

Title Insurance is used to assure buyers that the title of their home is free and clear of liens and encumbrances at the time of purchase. During a re-finance, title insurance will often be required by the lender to protect their interest, assuring that they are the primary lien on the property.

The need for title insurance arose historically from the fact that traditional methods of conveying real property did not provide adequate safety to the parties involved. Until the 19th century, transferring title to real estate was handled primarily by conveyancers, who were responsible for all aspects of the transaction. The conveyancer conducted a title search to determine the ownership rights of the seller and any other rights, interests, liens or encumbrances that might exist with respect to the property, and, based on its search, provide a signed abstract (or description) of the status of the title. Although the conveyancer was generally not a lawyer, that individual was recognized as an authority on real estate law. The conveyancer only provided limited protection to the purchaser of real property.

In 1868, a lawsuit was filed was filed in Pennsylvania that would change the levels of protection the buyer expected in a real estate transaction.. In that case, a conveyancer named Muirhead, had searched and abstracted a title for a buyer named Watson. Muirhead chose to ignore certain recorded judgments (after consulting with an attorney) reporting the title as good and unencumbered. On the basis of that title abstract, Watson bought the property, but lwas later complelled to pay the liens that Muirhead had concluded were not a problem.


Feeling somewhat ill-used, Watson sued Muirhead , but the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that there was no negligence on the conveyancer's part and dismissed the case. Watson, an innocent buyer had no protection.

The case of Watson v. Muirhead demonstrated that the conveyancing system could not provide safety to buyers ,so shortly after that court decision, the legislature passed an act "to provide for the incorporation and regulation of title insurance companies."

Since then, the title insurance industry has grown to become an essential component in the majority of real estate transactions in this country. Title services vary somewhat from one area of the country to the other, but the essential purpose is to assure a buyer that their transaction can be completed with efficiency, security and safety.

And it all started here in Philadelphia!

Philadelphia's Phinancial Health

I subscribe to a number of publications on line. Mostly real estate and business stuff to help me keep abreast of what's going on across the country. I am also interested in what new programs or systems might have some application in buying, selling and owning real estate in Philadelphia.

I notice that there are lots and lots of lists. AOL loves lists as does Forbes Magazine . So I get to know "The 10 Best Airports", "The 10 Worst Airports" (which of course include the three that I use the most - Philadelphia International, LAX, and O'Hare in Chicago), "The 10 Best Places to Retire","The 10 Best Places to Live", "The 10 Most Expensive Areas to Live", etc. etc. I guess this makes for a few reasons. . Forbes is a business magazine and these are all concerns of businesspeople. Lists are visual, and every list can provide a slide show of 10 city views along with a paragraph on why the city made the list, and of course there can be a cool map of graph to go with the data,

Where I do not expect to get my financial is Men's Health Magazine. I mean that's the place to learn about how to get a rock hard ab. Or how to eat well, and exercise properly without hurting yourself. Nonetheless, Men's Health was the source of a recent article entitled, "Is your City a Debt Trap?". In this article the magazine analyzed which Cities in the United States are the unhealthiest places to live financially.

Not Surprisingly, Las Vegas came in as the most debt ridden City in the United States, at Number 100. For the overall ranking, a lower ranking is better. That is, a city ranked No. 17 has less personal debt than one ranked No. 89. So the next thing I did was look at Philadelphia's ranking. Our fair city was ranked #77! Well, at least we aren't in the worst 10, but 75% of the cities in the Survey had less personal debt then we do.

For the individual criteria, a higher ranking is better. So a city ranked No. 92 for foreclosure has a lower foreclosure rate than a city ranked No. 3. Therefore our Credit Score(59) rating, Foreclosure rating (60) and Bankruptcy Rating(43) were all pretty decent.

Where we seem to have a problem is not in losing our housing or in being so debt burdened that we have to seek the protection of the courts from our creditor, but in Credit Usage(25), Credit Debt (28), and Housing Costs (26). The housing costs include rental expense, and it is these categories that weigh us in and weigh down our overall rating in this survey.

Housing Costs? I have a really hard time with that. Our real estate is, and has always been extremely affordable. I often travel to different parts of the country for meetings about the real estate industry, and in comparison with other major metropolitan areas, we seem to fare pretty well. We have a large stock of affordable row housing, semi-detached (Twin) homes. Even adding in pricier areas of the city and suburbs, I struggled here.

Then I looked at the 5 most affordable areas. Sioux Falls South Dakota, Fargo, North Dakota, Charleston West Virginia, Montgomery Alabama - With all due respect, these are not cities to compare to Philadelphia. While I'm sure that they have much to recommend them, I think that this is a survey that might have been better served if it was broken into different classes of cities. But its my fault - after all I am gettig my financial advice from Men's health.

But the bad news is that Philadelphians carry more debt then they should, and much of it is credit card debt or non-mortgage debt. A University of Pennsylvania study found that when a person's limit rises by $1,000, so does his debt--by an average of 13 percent a year. Even using less then half of your available credit can increase your debt substantially.

The good news is that we're not losing our homes or declaring bankruptcy. In other words, we borrow too much , but we're still doing OK making the payments. Maybe we just need to wait a little more before we make a purchase instead of seeking the instant gratification that a credit card can provide.