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SA's house prices are on the rise
RealEstateWeb - South Africa
Lightstone's repeat sales data shows house prices are moving up again

Although Lightstone's National Repeat Sales house price inflation is still slightly negative year on year, it appears that the House Price Index bottomed out at the beginning of 2009 and that house prices are actually now on a modest upward trend. Monthly house price inflation (which tracks the month on month house price trend) was up 0.24% from March to April.

This continues the positive trend we have been monitoring since January and appears to confirm that recent house price growth has moved out of negative into modest positive territory. Given the volatility of monthly house price inflation, we have been cautious to confirm this positive trend, but four consecutive
RealEstateWeb

Land Bank gains ground: New ways found to pursue developmental role
Business Day - South Africa
The financial turnaround that the Land Bank reported this week is welcome. As welcome as the way the bank is helping to reshape the government's approach to rural development and agricultural food production.

There were years' worth of fraud, corruption and general mismanagement to clear out when the National Treasury took the bank over from the Department of Agriculture, and Phakamani Hadebe, the former Treasury official who was installed as the Land Bank's interim CE last June, is clearly making progress. Various cases of crime and corruption have been referred to the relevant law enforcement agencies. Bad loans have been written off. And the bank's profit on continuing operations jumped to R369m for the year to March, up from R219m . Much has still to be done, but the Land Bank is no longer the dodgy place it once was.
Business Day

Shorter Law Firm Names -- the Debate Continues
Law.com - USA
Just recently, the issue about shorter law firm names came up in a listserv discussion hosted by the Legal Marketing Association. The interesting thing is that this issue has been coming up for years. In fact, I wrote an article in The Legal Intelligencer on March 12, 2003, addressing this very issue.

What I think most legal marketing experts have found who have been around the watercoolers for a stint is that firms should shorten their names -- but should do so strategically. Legal marketers know the countless marketing and PR reasons why -- and those reasons have been expanded exponentially with SEO (search engine optimization), SEM (search engine marketing) and social media engagement. However, it's important for marketers to provide solid reasons and solutions to law firms so that shortening a firm name makes sense.
Law.com