RISMEDIA, July 24, 2010—(MCT)—The outdoor kitchen is rapidly becoming the social hub of the home, much as the indoor kitchen is the favorite gathering place for family and friends. The trend is especially strong in areas where the climate favors outdoor living almost year-round.

“It’s a hot item,” said Scott Redmon, owner of Alfresco Living in Maitland, Fla. “And the outdoor kitchen is becoming a lot more than a grill…

RISMEDIA, July 23, 2010—(MCT)—With a broad smile and the stroke of a pen, President Barack Obama capped a contentious 18-month struggle and signed into law the broadest revamp of financial regulation since the Great Depression.

“Passing this bill was no easy task. To get there, we had to overcome the furious lobbying of an array of powerful interest groups and a partisan minority determined to block change,” Obama said in…

RISMEDIA, July 22, 2010—Single-family housing starts were virtually unchanged from the previous month at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 454,000 units in June 2010, according to newly-released figures by the U.S. Commerce Department. Meanwhile, a 21.5% decline on the more volatile multifamily side weighed down the overall housing production number, which fell 5% to a 549,000-unit rate.

“As our most recent member surveys have indicated, builders remain very…

RISMEDIA, July 20, 2010—In order to find success in today’s real estate market, real estate professionals must not be content with simply having great content. Instead, they need to go one step further and focus on how they distribute that content and how quickly they get it to their intended audience. Industry experts L.P. Finn III and Thomas Skiffington discuss how to raise the value of information in today’s real…

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RISMEDIA, July 19, 2010—“Homeowners and buyers who are sitting on the sidelines should get moving today, unless they want to get blindsided by the impact of a new law,” said Gibran Nicholas, Chairman of the CMPS Institute, an organization that trains and certifies mortgage bankers and brokers. “The massive financial reform law that just passed Congress has two main components that could very negatively impact homeowners and home buyers in…

RISMEDIA, July 14, 2010—(MCT)—Courtney Zinter doesn’t have a big house with rooms full of stuff, a fancy car or a manicure habit. But she still has it all. Just not how the Joneses next door would define it. With a well-paying job, Zinter had no problem paying the mortgage on her 1,600-square-foot townhouse in Chaska, outside Minneapolis. But at 29, she sold it and moved to a 0-a-month studio apartment…

In today’s real estate environment Lenders are doing more and more due diligence and scrutinizing the majority of short sale deals to try to save money. Listen in as we discuss what you should NOT do in order to stay off their BLACK BALL List! On this week’s Friday Coffee Break we also cover where the future of the short sale business is going, where to find out if…