Housing Wire

MARCH 15, 2024

The National Association of Realtors has agreed to pay $418 million in damages to settle the commission lawsuits. The story was first reported by the New York Times. NAR’s legal counsel approved the settlement agreement early Friday morning. It has yet to be filed in court. Lawyers for the trade organization told the Times that they anticipate the settlement will be filed in the coming weeks, however it will still be subject to court approval.

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 30, 2024

All the housing market data for 2024 is in, and its fair to say that the housing market surprised us again! However, there are two big trends that stand out as we launch into 2025 affordability and sellers in the market. The elephant in the room is affordability. Home prices finished 2024 up a few percent nationally and mortgage rates are at their highest level in seven months back over 7% as we head into January.

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 30, 2024

Rising housing inventory levels in 2024 may not be the positive sign of market health that they appear to be. High inventory levels contribute to another problem as active listings are remaining unsold for longer periods. Although higher home prices , rising mortgage rates and other expenses are obvious factors, there may be more to the story. Rising supply is one of the housing market highlights of 2024, according to HousingWire Lead Analyst Logan Mohtashami , who said that housing inventory is

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 23, 2024

New home sales grew over last month in the latest Census report , but homebuilders are now facing a supply issue their inventory is building up. This is the reason why housing starts are at recession levels today. Monthly new home sales have been stagnant for the past two years. When mortgage rates decline, sales improve, but it becomes more challenging for builders and buyers when rates rise.

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 18, 2024

They say housing leads the economy in and out of a recession. Currently, housing starts are back at the levels seen during the COVID-19 recession in 2020. Interestingly, employment for residential construction workers typically one of the first areas to experience declines before a recession has not yet seen its usual downturn. Several factors have been keeping labor steady, such as working through a backlog of orders and long turnaround times to complete projects.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 15, 2024

Jerome Powell , the chair of the Federal Reserve , said on Thursday that the U.S. economy is “not sending any signals that we need to be in a hurry to lower rates.” The statement was enough to raise mortgage rates to an even higher level, a sharp departure from the optimism lenders experienced during the September rally, which now seems like a distant memory.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 28, 2024

After previously taking issue with some of the forms generated as a result of the terms of the National Association of Realtors ’ (NAR) nationwide commission lawsuit settlement agreement , University of Buffalo law professor Tanya Monestier is now objecting to NAR’s settlement. In a document filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City — less than a month before the NAR settlement is slated for its final approval hearing — Monestier took issue with the business practice changes, sayi

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 21, 2024

Since 2019, the state of Florida has built more than 77,000 new properties in areas with a high risk of flooding. This is the most among all states, according to an analysis by climate-modeling firm First Street Foundation on behalf of the The Wall Street Journal. The construction activity is likely to place the housing industry and its financing partners on a “collision course” with insurers, the outlet said.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 31, 2024

Over the last decade, real estate transactions have increasingly become a prime target for cybercrime. Far from slowing down, the scams are becoming more prevalent, sophisticated, and difficult to recognize as fraudulent. With October being Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it is important that the real estate industry and consumers speak up and spread the word about how to prevent these real estate cybercrimes.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 19, 2024

We heard a lot about the need for millions of new homes during the run-up to the election, so I can imagine how shocked some people are to see today’s report on housing starts and permits at recession levels. Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari recently stated that housing demand is high so the clearance rate (mortgage rates) should be higher.

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Speaker: Abdi Ali, Sr. Lease Accounting Consultant

Join this insightful webinar with industry expert Abdi Ali, who will discuss the challenges that can arise from managing lease accounting with spreadsheets! He will share real-world examples of errors, compliance issues, and risks that may be present within your spreadsheets. Learn how these tools, while useful, can sometimes lead to inefficiencies that affect your time, resources, and peace of mind.

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 19, 2024

The housing industry is getting an early Christmas gift. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that existing-home sales in November rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.15 million, a 4.8% increase over the revised October number and a 6.1% increase year over year. The annualized rate is the highest seen since the tally of 4.22 million in March 2024 , and its the highest year-over-year increase since a 23% gain in June 2021.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 14, 2024

The latest tumult in real estate feels like our world has been turned upside down yet again. But underneath all the frenzy, I see a genuine opportunity for us to turn this into a positive and come back even stronger than before. I often think of the term “Anti-fragile” from the book of the same name by Nassim Taleb. The principle is that people and organizations can build their success around being able to come back even stronger after a wallop, instead of just withstanding the impact.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 29, 2024

In the latest episode of the RealTrending podcast , Amy Stockberger — broker-owner of Amy Stockberger Real Estate — joins Tracey Velt for a tantalizing conversation that covers her teamerage’s unique “Lifetime Home Support” model and other ways that agents can provide value to home buyers and sellers. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 7, 2024

Climate change is increasing the intensity and severity of natural disasters. It’s resulting in calls to reimagine the costs of homeowners insurance (Image generated by AI in Midjourney) As the planet warms and extreme weather intensifies, the rising cost of homeowners insurance is stopping real estate deals in their tracks. In just the past two months, two major hurricanes battered Florida, inflicting physical and financial damage that is projected to exceed $100 billion.

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 19, 2024

Its late December so all the 2025 mortgage rate forecasts have been published. Unfortunately, all of them are already wrong. Most housing market analysts expect mortgage rates to spend the year with a 6 handle. The most optimistic predictions assume 2025 will see mostly low 6s for the 30-year fixed rate mortgage. And yet with pesky inflation data not falling as quickly or as far as expected, Fed chair Jerome Powell suddenly changed his language in the Fed meeting on Dec. 19.

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 21, 2024

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell played the Grinch last week for the housing market, sending mortgage rates higher after his remarks at the Fed presser on Wednesday. Despite this, we had positive data on existing home sales , purchase applications, and our weekly pending contract figures. Total active listings are experiencing their traditional seasonal decline, but with less than two weeks left in the year, its evident that there are ready homebuyers in America.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 15, 2024

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) — the regulatory body that oversees communications across a wide variety of media including radio, telephone and the internet — announced that new rules related to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) will go into effect in April 2025. The new guidelines are designed to make it easier for consumers to revoke consent for unwanted robocalls and texts.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 29, 2024

Is home-price growth finally cooling? That’s a question raised by the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index for August, which showed deceleration on a year-over-year basis and a slight dip relative to July. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the national home price index posted a 4.2% gain year over year, less than the 4.8% gain from July. The monthly index fell by 0.1%.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 15, 2024

Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp. has agreed to settle with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) over the regulators’ allegations of mortgage lending discrimination in majority-Black neighborhoods of the Birmingham, Alabama , metro area. The agreement, which was submitted for court approval, requires the Madison, Wisconsin-based mortgage lender to pay a $1.9 million civil penalty.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 18, 2024

What will the housing market look like in 2025? We already see many signals for what to expect, including last week’s data on inventory , new listings and price reductions, which I analyze below. For a more comprehensive look, read our 2025 Housing Market Forecast covering home prices, home sales volumes and more. Last week, there were 9% more newly pending home sales than the same week a year ago and home sales are ticking down for the season.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 18, 2024

California-based Provident Funding Associates LLC is getting out of the Florida condo lending business , it told broker partners on Friday. In an email sent Friday morning, Provident said that it would “no longer be accepting new applications for condominiums ” effective that day. Provident told broker partners that all loans in the pipeline must be locked by 11:59 p.m.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 21, 2024

Another regulator has sued Rocket Mortgage for allegedly discriminating against a Black homeowner by undervaluing her home during an appraisal in Colorado three years ago. And the Detroit-based lender believes it’s a “massive overreach.” On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice —following a move made by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) in July—filed a lawsuit against the lender, appraiser Maksym Mykhailyna and his company, Maverick Appraisal Group ,

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Speaker: Sarah Santa Ana, Real Estate Coach, Move4Free Realty

Networking is one of the crucial elements in every real estate organization's success. Both agents and real estate companies need to maintain robust networking links. This is why social media is essential for any real estate professional! Social media enables you to stay in touch with your present clients, maintain connections with your past clients, and engage potential customers and investors.

Agents

Housing Wire

DECEMBER 28, 2024

The most positive development in the housing market over 2024 has been the increase in active housing inventory , which is approaching the levels seen in 2019. Although those 2019 levels represent a five-decade low before COVID-19, the market was still functioning better than it did from 2020 to 2023. During the first few years of COVID-19 recovery, there was an unhealthy imbalance, with too many buyers competing for too few homes.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 25, 2024

Many renters think they’re saving money by renting, but long term, that might not be true. In some of the U.S.’s largest metros, a monthly mortgage payment is less expensive than the average rent. But there are many factors surrounding affordability—how do city dwellers make this decision? A new report from Zillow Home Loans outlines some key trends and factors for renters to consider when evaluating a home purchase.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 14, 2024

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) this week published a report assessing the performance of government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in reaching their single-family housing goals. The CBO found that the GSEs “met or exceeded” nearly all goals over a four-year period from 2018 to 2022. The CBO analyzed data from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) data in its report.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 22, 2024

As the U.S. housing market slowed down in the third quarter due to rising home prices and higher mortgage rates , investor purchases also ramped down, according to a new report by Redfin. The Seattle-based brokerage found that real estate investor purchases dropped by 2.3% year over year in Q3 2024, representing a small change after four years of fluctuations.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 24, 2024

anely Sandoval’s calling to be a pre-foreclosure peacemaker started when she was in high school. “My mom and stepdad went into pre-foreclosure,” said Sandoval, a real estate agent and investor who specializes in working in low-income, often Latino neighborhoods in Southern California. “I knew things were going down, but I didn’t know how bad it was until people started knocking on our door.

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 19, 2024

The COVID-19 pandemic turned previously sleepy cities into boomtowns.Expanded or permanent work-from-home policies gave people more flexibility in where to live, and those in uber-expensive markets like San Francisco and Manhattan took advantage by moving to areas where they could get more space for less money. This created incredibly competitive housing markets in smaller cities that pushed sales and prices sky high.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 24, 2024

Online real estate marketplace Auction.com released data this week showing that demand for distressed homes — including bank-owned properties and foreclosures — shrank for a second straight quarter. The company’s Auction Market Dispatch for third-quarter 2024 included a survey conducted in late September of more than 140 active buyers on the platform.

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 27, 2024

Theres no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to finding the right transaction management software for your real estate business. Whether youre running a large brokerage, managing a small team or working on your own, the right transaction management platform can take the worry out of compliance and lighten your workload. Your unique business needs will determine which transaction software is right for your business.

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Speaker: Trey Willard, Realtor/Team Leader at Keller Williams Realty, Inc.

In order to create continued success in today’s real estate market, realtors need to utilize an arsenal of technology that will increase their efficiency and presence on social media. Using technology to manage your prospects and tap into their needs through websites, social media, and other channels is critical for real estate success in 2022 and beyond.

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