About 885 million mortgage documents dating back to 2003 have been exposed by a data breach within First American Financial Corp., a title insurance provider, the KrebsOnSecurity news site reports.The breach exposed bank account numbers and statements, mortgage and tax records, Social Security numbers, wire transaction receipts, and drivers license images online, the security site reported.“On May 24th, First American learned of a design defect
You can make any listing picture-perfect with virtual staging tools, which can do everything from manipulating the appearance of skies in photos to making empty properties look like modern spaces with fancy fixtures. But there is such a thing as going too far—and it could land you in hot water.When virtual staging changes listing photos drastically from their original appearance, it can be misleading and give buyers a false impression of a prop
A Texas board is concerned appraisals could inflate following a potential breach in home price data to a county’s appraisal district. The Austin Board of REALTORS® is accusing the vendor of its MLS—CoreLogic—of selling home-sold data to a local appraisal organization and enabling “unauthorized exploitation” of MLS home price data in 2018.CoreLogic runs ABoR’s multiple listing service. ABoR claims that CoreLogic “inappropriatel
Short-term housing rental companies are allowing property owners to turn their homes into investment properties. They’re giving hotels some serious competition.But these short-term renters have specific amenities they’re seeking. IPX1031, a firm that provides exchange services, surveyed 2,000 consumers to ask about what they look for when they rent an Airbnb.Some of the top factors that consumers said prompted them to choose an Airbnb ov
Buyers are showing more interest in technological home features, with 46% of new and prospective homeowners saying, for example, that they want a security camera on the premises, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ latest annual survey, What Home Buyers Really Want.Three of the four most-wanted tech features are related to security, with surveillance cameras leading the pack, the survey shows. Buyers also reported high
Monday is Earth Day, and your clients can do their part to protect the environment and save on utility bills. Going green can also make a difference at resale: 69 percent of real estate professionals say promoting energy efficiency in listings is “very” or “somewhat valuable” in a home sale, according to the latest REALTORS® & Sustainability Report.Ply Gem, an exterior building product firm, outlines the following six-step
This week’s fire at Paris’ Cathedral of Notre Dame is bringing a realization that historic buildings may be prone to such tragedies. The fire spread through the wooden attic, bringing down its 300-foot spire and engulfing two-thirds of the roof, and occurred over just an hour.Building the cathedral attic required the wood of more than 1,300 trees. Attics tend to be dry spaces and, when dust and debris accumulate, they can be even more flammab
As sea levels rise, architects are brainstorming ways to make homes more resilient to flooding. A floating unit is being singled out as a living solution for coastal areas.Oceanix, a nonprofit that designs and builds floating cities, and the MIT Center for Ocean Engineering are showing off a futuristic concept of a floating city. The floating communities can expand, contract, and combine to form cities in prefabricated hexagonal islands of 4
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) -- a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration -- was designed to capture images of a black hole.Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.This breakthrough was announced in a series of
Samsung debuted its most extensive new lineup of smartphones, taking on Apple amid a slowing market with new low-end and premium models, 3-D cameras, an in-screen fingerprint scanner and faster 5G connectivity.At simultaneous launch events in San Francisco and London on Wednesday, the South Korean technology giant introduced four new phones: the Galaxy S10, S10+, S10e, and S10 5G. The S10 and S10+ are direct successors to last year's S9 and S9+,
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