A handful of local Prudential Connecticut Realty offices have singled out ten agents as top listing and/or sales agents for the month of August.

If you weren’t listening closely to President Obama’s speech recently, you might have missed his new plan to help millions of homeowners.

Why do listings expire? Normally it’s because they are overpriced. Learning to prospect this important part of the market can keep your business running strong for years to come.

With a rate of one filing for every 1,010 households in the state in August, Connecticut ranked 28th nationwide for the month in terms of foreclosure filing rate, according to a recent report from California-based tracking firm RealtyTrac.

Pike International has purchased the Imperial Apartments, a 72-unit complex in New Haven, for $4.25 million, according to industry sources.

Some lenders today are rejecting 50 percent or more of their mortgage loan applicants after the applicants have paid for an appraisal, and in some cases after they have paid a nonrefundable upfront fee to the lender. While the rejection rate varies widely from lender to lender, the overall rate is far higher than it was before the financial crisis, when rejections late in the approval process were a rare occurrence.

Any offer to purchase a home will contain an element of risk. Even an all-cash offer can be problematic. For example, buyers who haven’t converted their equities to cash could come up short if the stock market drops between contract acceptance and closing.

Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage has acquired Farmington-based Prestige Properties in a move intended to shore up the company’s real estate-owned sales capabilities.

The federal Emergency Home Loans Program (ELHP) extended its application deadline last week and revised its qualification guidelines after having difficulties finding borrowers who met its criteria.

The Greater Hartford Association of Realtors (GHAR) has received a grant to hold two free, public foreclosure prevention forums in the Greater Hartford area, the first of which is scheduled for 11a.m. on Sept. 10 at GHAR headquarters at 433 S. Main St. in West Hartford.

The housing bubble of 2006 burst in large part due to lax lending practices that led up to the housing recession. The collateral damage from these practices hammered personal fortunes through foreclosures and investment losses.

Which is more important: recruiting new agents, or keeping the ones you already have? If you said “agent retention,” which is the obvious answer, I have a couple of questions for you: What are you doing about it? And how is it working for you?

Home prices in Connecticut declined 1.6 percent in July compared to the same period last year; but the Nutmeg State is faring better than most of its New England counterparts.

Candlewood Apartments, a 40-unit apartment complex in New Britain, has sold for $1.9 million.

Single-family home prices nationwide fell 4.5 percent from a year ago, better than expectations for a decline of 4.6 percent, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller composite index.