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92 CALIFORNIA Top 10 Housing Markets Where Home Prices Have Recovered Most Since the Great Recession, home prices have been fighting their way back to peak levels reached prior to the crisis and some markets' home prices have more than recovered. In the midst of tight supply, height- ened competition for buyers, and unpredict- able financial markets, U.S. home prices continued to rise in the fourth quarter. e Federal Housing Finance Agency's (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI) shows that home prices rose 5.8 percent year-over- year in the fourth quarter of 2015. Prices increased 1.4 percent from the third quarter of 2015, marking the 18 consecutive quarterly price increase in the purchase-only, seasonally ad- justed index. Home prices were up 0.4 percent month-over-month for December. "Instability in financial markets did not seem to put much of a drag on home prices in the fourth quarter," said Andrew Leventis, FHFA Supervisory Economist. e 1.4 percent rise in home prices "was in line with the extremely steady—but historically elevated— appreciation rates we have been observing for several years now." Using the FHFA HPI data, HSH.com's Home Price Recovery Index determined which housing markets have fully recovered (or more) and which markets still lag behind the housing recovery. e HSH.com data covers the time pe- riod from 1991 through the fourth quarter of 2015. According to the report, the Denver hous- ing market has recovered the most in terms of home prices, now at a current value of $403,230, up 45.29 percent from both its peak value of $277,530 and bottom value of $257,130. e San Francisco, California; Austin, Texas; Nashville, Tennessee; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma markets wrapped up the top five most-recovered markets in terms of home prices. On the downside, HSH.com noted that the Fort Lauderdale, Florida housing market has recovered the least from its peak in terms of home prices, down 28.03 percent from its peak of $352,700 and currently at $275,490. Cape Coral, Florida; Tucson, Arizona; Orlando, Florida; and Riverside, California markets wrapped up the top five metros that have recovered least. "It is important to note that many markets, even the 10 that have recovered the least, have made significant price recoveries since hitting their bottom values," HSH.com stated. "Like- wise, home prices in areas like Las Vegas may have been inflated to such a degree that even when they return to a "normal" value they may still be well below their latest price peak." Ten-X Launches End-to-End Online Transaction Platform Online real estate marketplace, Ten-X (for- merly Auction.com), recently announced its new transaction platform created especially for buying and selling move-in ready homes. Ten-X Homes was rolled out at the South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival. According to an announcement from Ten- X, the new platform provides consumers and real estate professionals with enhanced flexibil- ity, control and simplicity, and is optimized for use on desktops, tablets, and smartphones. Ten-X Homes will allow consumers–on their own, or with the help of a real estate agent–to do everything involved in the process of buying and selling a home. Users will be able to search for homes, or easily create their own property listings, negotiate prices and terms, manage offers, and complete sales transactions all online. Hundreds of homes will be available for purchase nationally from a wide range of sellers including banks, investors, institutions, home builders, and realtors–all of which will be listed by an agent and offer a broker's co-op. Ad- ditionally, home owners will be able to create their own listings on the Ten-X Homes plat- form initially in four markets: Dallas, Miami, Phoenix, and Denver. "Real estate is moving online. Over ninety percent of home purchases include searches on websites like Zillow and Trulia," said Jason Allnutt, General Manager of Ten-X's resi- dential real estate business unit. "Ten-X works with those companies to offer the only true end-to-end online transaction process – from the listing and searching phase through the close of escrow – empowering buyers, sellers and their agents with a safe, simple transparent way to buy and sell real estate." Ten-X Homes streamlines the negotiation process by enabling buyers and sellers to sub- mit, accept, and reject counteroffers easily and with complete transparency. At any given time, a buyer, seller, agent, title or escrow officer, or lender can securely log in and use Ten-X's proprietary Transaction Manager feature to complete their tasks online and see when the sale is expected to close. "ere is an enormous opportunity to garner a significant share of the $1.1 Trillion residential real estate market by delivering an easier, more transparent, complete end-to-end online solution that appeals to the consumer market," said Ten-XCEO Tim Morse. "Ten- X offers a proven platform, a simplified process, and the information and tools needed for everyone to confidently buy and sell real estate online – whenever they want to and from wherever they are." Ten-X Homes allows sellers, or their agents to: » List their home anytime, on any device using a Self List tool that walks them through the process step by step to add in amenities, photos, descriptions and listing terms » Set their preferred list terms » Easily view and compare offers side-by-side on a Seller Dashboard » Negotiate with a buyer completely online utilizing Ten-X Negotiator, using all of the key terms required to consummate a contract » Complete all transaction tasks online–and see exactly where the sale is in the process and what still needs to be done using Ten- X Transaction Manager Ten-X Homes allows buyers to: » Browse properties from all over the U.S. by state and city » Submit offers directly to the seller online » Easily track offers, listing updates and new homes that meet their criteria using a Buyer Dashboard » Complete all transaction tasks online – and see exactly where the sale is in the process and what still needs to be done using Ten- X Transaction Manager IDAHO Docutech Hires New EVP of eStrategies Docutech, a provider of compliance and documentation technology, announced the addition of Harry Gardner as its new EVP of eStrategies. In this role, Gardner will lead the develop- ment of Docutech's corporate and product strategy toward fully integrated eClosing capabilities, as well as related advanced features and functionality using electronic documents and eSignatures.

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