Nevada REALTORS General Counsel Tiffany Banks has been selected as the opening speaker for the Association for Corporate Counsel Foundation's Global Women in Law and Leadership Symposium in June.
The symposium is geared toward the empowerment and advancement of women in the legal profession, celebrating the global rise of women, and their contributions in law and business. Banks program Leveraging Our Stories to Build Our Strength will be the lead off program of the two-day event featuring three esteemed corporate counsel colleagues.
The culmination of the program will take place in Washington, D.C. at the United States Institute of Peace followed by a signature honors dinner featuring women leaders with stories from women-in-house counsel and corporate leaders. Banks has been an attorney in Nevada for nearly 10 years, and more than eight of those years with Nevada Realtors. A Northern Nevada native, she is a graduate of Arizona State University and the Thomas Jefferson School of Law.
Governor Sisolak announced that he will end the statewide emergency on May 20th. Most measures, including mask mandates and business restrictions have already been lifted. Real Estate has been deemed essential since the beginning of the pandemic. As many of you remember, the restrictions on open houses and in-person showings have been lifted for some time now, so REALTORS® will not be impacted either way on May 20.
Ashley Stinton, Second Century Ventures' head of marketing
The metaverse and blockchain technology could have a significant impact on the future of real estate, according to experts at the 2022 REALTORS® Legislative Meetings. Several hundred Realtors® attended Wednesday's Emerging Business Issues and Technology Forum, which provided insight into the top emerging tech trends that are expected to have the biggest impact on the real estate industry in the coming years.
Jane Dzielski, Google's principal analytical lead, kicked off the session with a presentation on data trends in the real estate sector. She said that prior to the pandemic, only one in 10 households moved each year. Dzielski said that while internet searches for buying a second home dropped in the first half of 2020 (-9%), they have surged since then (+23%). According to Google's data, the top reasons that homeowners cited for purchasing a second home were to diversify their investments, earn money renting, and use as a vacation home.
Ashley Stinton, Second Century Ventures' head of marketing, discussed the recent rise in investment in real estate technology companies, explaining that over $31 billion was invested in 2021. Click here to read all about the forum.
Work is underway on multiple fronts to quash bias in the appraisal process. If you see an issue, you can speak up, too
Lee Davenport became a real estate professional in 2008. Since then, she says, not a year has gone by when racial bias in an appraisal wasn't suspected by one of her clients or one of the agents she coaches. Multiple news stories have examined potential bias in appraisals, reporting cases in which Black homeowners' valuation came in low, only to increase in a second appraisal after all personally identifiable photos and cultural items were removed.
In September 2021, a Freddie Mac report found that appraisal values are more likely to fall below the contracted sales price in Black and Latino neighborhoods than in predominantly White areas. An evaluation of 12 million appraisals found that 12.5% of properties in Black census tracts and 15.4% in predominantly Latino areas received appraisal values lower than the contract price, compared to 7.4% for those in White neighborhoods.
Then, in December, the Federal Housing Finance Agency released a report, after examining millions of agency property valuations, that found thousands of potential bias cases related to neighborhood descriptions written by appraisers. Click here to link to the full article.
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