Connecting both personally and professionally is key as we continue to work and live in these challenging and uncharted times. REALM™ takes high-powered global networking to a new level by marrying patented technology and personal connections to luxury real estate brokers through its proprietary platform.
REALM was founded in 2019 by Julie Faupel, owner of Jackson Hole Real Estate Associates, a past winner of Christie’s International Real Estate Affiliate of the Year award. REALM is a fully vetted membership-based global luxury platform-based community. “Top brokers are always looking to how they can add value for their clients, especially today,” Faupel, REALM’S CEO explains. Today there are over 200 REALM members representing almost 15,000 clients.
Working with a team of global real estate and technology leaders, investors, and visionary futurists, Faupel asked Silicon Valley engineers to create, unique curated luxury lifestyle software. The result—a platform that uses Artificial Intelligence which aggregates and secures data allowing members to share and match listings to client lifestyles. with the highest degree of security and privacy. “Customizable content is a key aspect of the value of membership in REALM. Each story will be sharable,” says Faupel.
REALM is the first-ever collaborative, lifestyle-matching venture in real estate thanks to the power of data. Personal connections through REALM’s technology are powerful. REALM founding partner, Gary Gold of Hilton & Hyland, recently sold Chartwell, California’s most expensive home, listed at $198 million in Bel-Air. “To be able to manage all the opportunities we have is the biggest challenge of any real estate agent who is successful,” says Gold. “Besides my own sphere of influence, I get more business from agents than any other source. REALM has given me a new tool to meet the people I don’t know. When you take REALM’s Artificial Intelligence and then apply human intelligence to that, there is money to be made.”
Ruth Kennedy Sudduth a REALM founding partner with LandVest in Boston was approached by a client, the head of a major money management firm there who had been looking at a property in Wyoming. The feeling was the advice they were getting from the local broker might not be benefiting them. Kennedy Sudduth connected her client with Realm CEO, Faupel, and her husband, Matt, to help them navigate the complexities of a potential conservation purchase.
In turn, Sudduth, reached out to Brennan Buckley, a fellow REALM founding partner in Iowa, for a recommendation for a good Kansas City real estate company for her friend’s son, who was looking to buy. Brennan connected Sudduth with the CEO of Reese Nichols, the market leader in Kansas City, who matched the perfect agent to the buyer. “The essence of REALM is creating real relationships between people with the help of AI and big data,” Sudduth notes.
Early adopters and collaborators with REALM include real estate professionals and industry leaders from across the U.S. led by agents from Brown Harris Stevens, Strand Hill Properties, Richardson Properties, Hilton & Hyland, Slifer Smith, and Frampton, Landvest and Compass.
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
