The national housing shortage, the benefits of increased density, an ongoing shift in consumer tastes toward smaller homes closer to where the urban action is, and other factors have pushed state legislators to make it easier to build accessory dwelling units. In 2024 alone, Colorado, Arizona, Massachusetts, and Hawaii passed major ADU legislation, and California added several laws to open the doors wider for ADUs. Ultimately, though, local governments remain the key gatekeepers when it comes to ADU liberalization. While state-level ADU policies take aim at local rules that hamper ADU development, there’s still work to be done.But first, the good news. Colorado’s HB24-1152 and Arizona’s SB 1415 followed the main tenets of what’s become a standard approach to stoking ADU development. They made ADUs legal by right (meaning local governments can’t simply forbid them), did away with or minimized requirements for added parking requirements, banned municipalities from forcing more stringent ADU design requirements than on the primary dwelling, and eased or eliminated owner-occupancy requirements. Hawaii’s SB 3202 follows suit, though it doesn’t address parking requirements. The Massachusetts Affordable Homes Act, passed in August, allows ADUs under 900 square feet by right on single-family lots. State officials expect 8,000 to 10,000 ADUs to be built in the next five years thanks to the law. And in California, which passed its first ADU law back in 1982, five ADU-related laws passed: AB 976 made permanent a sunsetting ban on owner-occupancy requirements.AB 1033 allows the separate sale of an ADU from the main residence. AB 1332 requires all cities and municipalities to develop programs for the preapproval of ADU plans posted to the agency’s website, streamlining the review process. SB 1211 makes it easier to build ADUs on multifamily properties. SB 1210 requires utilities to post estimated fees and completion timeframes for typical service connections, including ADUs (ensuring that owners have an idea upfront about the cost and timing of utility hook-ups).As state legislatures continue to press municipalities to ease or remove ADU-related restrictions (13 and counting have done so), utility and other fees—collectively known as impact fees—move toward the center of pro-ADU policy discussions. That’s because impact fees can add up to more than enough to stifle ADU development.Take a couple of examples from Colorado, where the state and many municipalities are working hard to change the regulatory landscape that favors large single-family homes. The town of Lyons, near Boulder, is looking to boost density. But legacy regulations that favor sizable single-family homes mean the impact fees tacked to each door of a high-density single-unit development make it financially untenable. So, despite a tight community of ADUs aligning with Lyons’s community goals, it looks like the land will instead go to a developer of standard single-family homes.In Nederland, another town near Boulder, the impact fees to build an ADU – or any other home – add up to about $65,000. If you’re building a $2 million mansion, that’s perhaps a rounding error. But if you’re considering a $200,000 ADU, it’s a huge hit. To Nederland’s credit, they’re working on a water study and are intending to reduce those fees. The town is following a clear trend: Scarcely a week goes by when a municipality somewhere in the country isn’t liberalizing their ADU-related ordinances. Based on those and my own experience, a few things municipalities can do to help foster ADUs beyond those typically found in the new state mandates:Prorate impact fees based on building size, not just whether it’s a dwelling unit or not. A 750-square-foot ADU is not, from a utility’s perspective, the same as a 5,000-square-foot house.Consider a program to waive system-development charges, as Portland, Ore., does if the ADU is not intended as a short-term rental. Those charges can include transportation (for possible right-of-way improvements) water, sewer and stormwater, and parks and recreation.If historically single-family home is dominant, evaluate how zoning and permitting works (or doesn’t work) for multi-unit or small-unit developments.As California is doing with AB 1332, fast-track permitting when ADUs are to be built based on pre-engineered plans previously submitted by ADU builders.Finally, a broader consideration: Think about the long-term advantages of higher density, including higher sales-tax revenues and property tax revenues—and without the headaches that can come with multifamily buildings in terms of, for example, public safety.States and municipalities have come a long way in smoothing the paths forward for those who hope to add vital infill housing through ADUs. Ultimately, though, municipalities hold the keys to whether or not ADUs can open many more doors in tackling the persistent U.S. housing shortage.Mike Koenig is the President and founder of Studio Shed.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners.To contact the editor responsible for this piece: zeb@hwmedia.com.

Inventory, new listings, sales, and prices all dipped this week. The autumn seasonal decline is upon us. The election took up a lot of peoples’ lives last week, and that obviously delayed some listing and sales activity, plus we’ve had spiking mortgage rates. It’s actually not uncommon for housing activity to dip for the first week of November and rebound a bit in the following week. Given the confluence of trends right now, I do expect inventory and new listings to rebound again before the end of the month. I’m now looking forward to 2025 when the data comes in each week. I have questions on the future of both sales volume and home prices. We’ll release the HousingWire 2025 Forecast paper in the next week or so where we’ll lay out our expectations, scenarios, and data to track for the real estate market in the coming year. Let’s take a look at the data for the first full week of November 2024.Inventory growingRising interest rates create rising inventory. Rising rates slows demand for homes and when demand slows, inventory grows. This has been true all year long, starting in the fourth quarter of 2023. At that time, mortgage rates rose from 6.5% to 8% and inventory spiked. Those high rates and rising inventory trends persisted for most of 2024 with only a small reprieve in September.We’re also at the seasonal decline time for the housing market. It’s really hard for inventory to climb past Thanksgiving. We have two more weeks where I expect more inventory of unsold homes on the market.But this week, unsold, available single-family home inventory around the country declined by nearly 2% to 722,000. Election week delayed a bunch of new listings, a few sales completed, and there are a fairly high number of withdrawn listings — plus, the total homes on the market declined. Any new listings delayed are now listed, and that’s why we’ll see an inventory rebound next week. I’m expecting 728,000 or so next week. People only delayed listing for a few days, and buying conditions are worse than they have been recently. There are 28% more homes on the market than a year ago. Inventory was still growing each week in November of 2023. Remember that 2024 inventory had been as much as 40% above 2023, and now it’s 28%. New listings declinedWe counted 49,000 new listings of single-family homes this week, which was a big decline from recent trends. That’s probably a one-week dip due to the election. I expect a bit of a rebound next week back to maybe 55,000 or so. But for this week, that new listings count was down 20% in a week. There were fewer new sellers this week than last year for the first time in a while. While it’s a notable week, it’s just one week and will bounce back. This is not suddenly a trend of dramatically fewer sellers. We have two full more weeks before Thanksgiving, and it’ll be in December before we see the big dips for the holidays. We’re now looking into 2025, with expectations of continued growth in the seller volume. More sellers and greater inventory is a trend for 2025. New pendings dipThe sales rates dipped along with the new supply rate this week. We’re looking at the newly pending contracts here. We counted 51,000 new sales started this week for single family homes plus another 10,000 condo sales contracts. That pace is down notably from a week earlier. And in fact we counted 2% fewer sales started this week than the same week last year. The recent average is 58,000 single-family home sales started each week. That’s averaging 10% more than recent years in November. One poor showing breaks our 10-week streak of Year-over-year home sales growth, but it doesn’t yet reverse the trend. On the other hand, with mortgage rates shooting up, maybe this autumn is shifting back into low sales mode. We’ve been disappointed with fake recoveries over the last three years. A reversal of our sales growth trend is not off the table. While I still expect a rebound in the new pendings count for this week of November 10, If we don’t get one, that will be a clear signal from homebuyers.Even home prices dippedHome prices dipped with the market activity in the election week also. The median price of single family homes that started contracts this week – those 49,000 newly pending sales – dropped a couple percent this week. Like inventory and sale volume, I expect a rebound in the price next week. By this measure ,even including the big dip this week, home prices are 4% above last year at this time at $380,000. I expect prices to rebound next week with the bigger volume, but if that doesn’t happen, that will also be a signal that the this quarter’s steep jump in mortgage rates are taking their toll on homebuyer demand. Price reductions—you guessed it—ticked downWhile home prices ticked down this week, it’s probably due to the lower activity overall. One way to check that assumption is to look at the price reductions levels. If sellers are accelerating their price cuts, that would be a weakening signal. In fact, price reductions ticked down again this week. We’re down to 38.8% of the homes on the market with price cuts. That’s fewer than last week and fewer than last year. We use price reductions are a leading indicator of future sales prices. While 38.8% is still more than normal which tells us what we already know and that is that demand for homes is still weak, the trend nationally is for fewer price reductions this fall. Recently as homes have sold or been withdrawn from the market the percent of listings that have taken price cuts from the original list price is ticking lower. This tells us that the current expectations of buyers are sellers are lining up for continued price resiliency in 2025. There aren’t any signals in the data that show home prices falling dramatically. As we look into 2025, it seems we’re lined up for another year where affordability is difficult.  When you focus on affordability specifically, it’s hard to imagine how home prices can stay elevated. Homebuyers are stretched and as long as prices stay high, demand will be limited. There are some forecasters who use affordability as a guide for assuming home prices will fall in 2025 and 2026. At HousingWire, we’re about to publish our 2025 housing market forecast paper which covers all these perspectives. Mike Simonsen is the founder of Altos Research.

The headlines might suggest that National Association of Realtors (NAR) members are struggling to find common ground on many issues. But any hint of division was nowhere to be seen during Monday morning’s NAR Board of Directors meeting.According to NAR president Kevin Sears, 886 directors attended the meeting at the NAR NXT annual conference in person, with another 100 directors attending virtually.Although Sears has already acknowledged that 2025 may be a financially challenging year for NAR, the trade organization should be in good financial shape in the long term if the commission lawsuit settlement is approved later this month, said NAR treasurer Greg Hrabcak.He said the 2025 budget will maintain NAR’s current reserve level, and there are no dues increases scheduled for the year.“Through the budget reductions that were incorporated in the other proposal, there is minimal impact on our products, services and advocacy support,” Hrabcak said. “Nearly all areas of NAR contributed to the reductions, without any on area feel a disproportionate impact. The 2025 budget moves NAR forward on the path to settlement fulfillment in a very disciplined and responsible fashion.”The positive news about NAR’s budget comes from the fact that the trade association’s anticipated big drop in membership has not materialized — it had 1.526 million members at the end of October, the fourth-highest all-time. NAR is forecasting 1.4 million members in 2025, an 8% decline but not nearly as stark has many outside observers have anticipated.All three budget related proposals presented by Hrabcak easily passed with no discussion.NAR’s board also heard and voted on proposals presented by the trade group’s recently established Culture Transformation Commission (CTC), which was led by Ryan Davis and Christina Pappas.The CTC presented one item for vote to the Board, which was a new requirement for NAR volunteer members and staff to complete annual training on all the policies and procedures related to accountability. The requirement would go into place in 2026, and it would ensure NAR leaders and staff “understand” how to properly handle and process sexual harassment complaints, among other things. The Board approved the rule 858 to 47.Other votes:The board voted to amend the application for NAR elected and appointed office to include a question on whether the candidate has had a professional audit of their social media within the last three years. Additionally, candidates will have to agree to the NAR Leader’s social media guidelines and all elected and appointed officials will be subject to at least an annual audit of their social media. Candidates running for President-Elect, First Vice President and Treasurer will be subject to a “media audit.”In addition to this recommendation, the Board also approved a measure to extend the application submission period for NAR elected officials to run for four months from January 1 to April 1, beginning in 2026. Committee chair Leslie Rouda-Smith said this change would allow the trade group to properly vet potential candidates.The final measure brought before the board was an item presented by the Leadership Team to allow the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) a non-voting member on NAR’s leadership team. According to NAR leadership, CREA has offered NAR a similar seat on its leadership team. While the Board was not voting on the item, as it was being sent for further discussion and voting with the delegate body, the measure was contentious. Despite the objections, the Board voted 754 to 131 to send the motion back to the leadership team for further discussion.

While 2024 was certainly a challenging year for the real estate industry, 2025 may be a doozy if the Counselors of Real Estate’s (CRE) 2025 Top Ten Issues Affecting Real Estate report is to be believed. From price expectations to the impact of a Trump presidency, uncertainty is the main driver of today’s market. The 2024 global chair of CRE, Anthony DellaPelle, presented the report at the National Association of Realtors’ NXT conference in Boston on Sunday.CRE is a global organization consisting of roughly 1,000 members representing a wide swath of real estate professionals from agents and appraisers to urban planners, architects and economists. This is the thirteenth year the group has put together its “Top Ten” list.In order of least to most impactful, the 2025 list includes the price expectations gap, office vacancies and the tax base, sustainability, artificial intelligence, housing attainability, insurance costs, geopolitics and regional wars, loan maturities and debt repricing, the cost of financing and global and U.S. elections.Price expectations gapAccording to DellaPelle, real estate buyers and sellers are in a standoff when it comes to asset prices.“I am going to hopefully sell my single-family home in a very nice New Jersey suburb sometime early next year,” DellaPelle said. “I think the expectations that I have as a seller are probably different than the buyer, but the game there is smaller.”Despite the shrinking expectations gap and the fact that buyers are less often surprised by property prices, many consumers are still holding strong on their positions, with sellers waiting for an uptick in demand to list their property in order to get a better price and buyers sitting on the sidelines in hopes that prices may come down.Office vacancies and the tax baseAlthough it may not appear that office vacancies have much of an impact on the residential real estate sector, DellaPelle quickly dispelled that myth.“I have a client who recently bought a $32 million assessed office building and paid $8.5 million for it in a very strong suburban market. So, what happens when that kind of deal occurs? Well, obviously the buyer resets the market because they paid a fraction of what it had traded for a few years earlier,” DellaPelle said.As office vacancies increase, the value of commercial office buildings decreases, and if the properties are reassessed for much less than they were worth a few years ago, the town may see a dramatic decrease in property tax revenue. The town may then decide to pass on some of those financial challenges by taxing homeowners at a higher rate or by providing fewer town services, which may lead homeowners to leave the town, selling their properties, which could result in dropping home prices due to a rapid rise in inventory and a drop in demand.Additionally, DellaPelle noted that higher rate of office vacancies also impacts local small businesses such as dry cleaners and sandwich shops, as fewer people visit local businesses to take care of needs created by working in an office.SustainabilityMore so than prior generations, Millennials, many of which are entering their peak homebuying years, are focused on sustainability and whether a property they invest in can withstand the effects of climate change, while also maintaining a smaller carbon footprint. This combined with the increased occurrence of extreme weather events and a changing regulatory environment pushed sustainability to the No. 8 spot on CRE’s list.“Property owners are continuing to feel growing pressure to better understand their carbon footprints, to try to decarbonize their properties. The demand for more sustainable properties will continue,” DellaPelle said. “To make our building more resilient, the real estate industry has to embrace technology.”Artificial intelligenceWhen thinking about how the real estate industry must push into the future and embrace technology, the focus naturally goes to AI. While many in the real estate industry have lauded AI as a useful tool to help industry professionals improve the accuracy and speed at which they complete tasks, DellaPelle and CRE believe there are risks real estate professionals should be aware of when using the technology.Many real estate professionals have begun using AI to help them prepare comparative market analyses on a property. Although this may provide some time savings, DellaPelle noted that agents should always double check the accuracy of the AI-generated reports.“If you are looking at a comp data sheet, don’t trust it,” said DellaPelle. “Call whomever you need to verify the information is accurate, as the AI may not have understood the specific dynamics of the market or something as simple as the location. Does the AI know that the property—which is a multi-family building in an urban core with street level retail—is near mass transit and how that impacts the price?”Housing attainabilityHousing affordability challenges are certainly not new and not surprising, especially in an environment that has seen home values increase rapidly in recent years in tandem with rising mortgage rates.For DellaPelle, a large contributor to this issue is the lack of housing inventory, which he and CRE attribute to the changing nature of the population base.“I’m not going to sell my house as readily as I used to because, if you are my age (62) with no kids left in the house, you either don’t have a mortgage or what is remaining on that mortgage is going to be miniscule. Why would I sell my house and buy a new one, taking on a 7% mortgage to get a smaller house that is going to end up costing me more than my big house?” DellaPelle posited. “Inventory is diminished because there are fewer people selling than there used to be. On top of that, we are also living longer, so we are staying in our homes longer because we are healthier.”Additionally, DellaPelle said the market of buyers has also decreased, as many younger potential buyers are frustrated by the lack of affordable homes, and are instead choosing to rent for longer.In his view, this means that there needs to be more programs and initiatives to help first-time buyers and access the housing market.“We need to look for way in which the attainability of housing can be mitigated by public sector enhancement of private sector opportunities,” DellaPelle said.Insurance costsIn addition to the challenge of housing affordability, many homebuyers are also facing challenges related to rising insurance costs.“It affects the price of your home,” DellaPelle said. “Insurance companies are only in the business if they can make money, and they are only writing policies if they are confident in the level of risk. If you own real estate or help people to own real estate, you need to be very sensitive to this issue because it is going to be hard to predict what it might cost to insure properties going forward.”Geopolitics and regional warsAlthough it may seem far-fetched that a war in a distant corner of the globe may impact your local housing market, DellaPelle said the idea isn’t as strange as you may think.“All those conflicts affect us more today than they used to. The world has clearly become more uncertain and risky because of the geopolitical landscape and the way in which we are all connected with each other,” DellaPelle said. “The world has gotten smaller.”As DellaPelle pointed out, a conflict in a different country could easily impact the supply chain, leading to an increase in the cost of certain goods, which may impact consumers’ level of savings, hindering their ability to purchase real estate. Additionally, historically many foreign investors have chosen to store money in U.S. real estate when conflicts have occurred in their home countries, forcing U.S. homebuyers to compete with investors for properties.Loan maturities and debt repricingAt the end of 2026, an estimated $2.5 trillion in commercial loan debt is expected to come to maturity. For the majority of these loans, this will mark a rapid shift as they were written in a very different commercial real estate market and when interest rates were much lower.  “How does our economy get through that? What happens to real estate knowing that most of those loans are secured to properties that have a different set of value parameters than they did when they were cast?” DellaPelle asked.While this issue will primarily impact the commercial market, if it results in even stricter lending standards across the board, that could make things even more challenging for homebuyers trying to break into the housing market.Cost of financingIn a similar vein, DellaPelle and the CRE are also not expecting interest rates to cool down any time soon. Although the Federal Reserve has cut interest rates by 75-basis points over the past few months, DellaPelle said the days of what he calls “free money” are over.“Whether the Fed reduces rates four times, or two or three of five, rates are not going down to zero,” DellaPelle said. “I don’t think you’ll see people get mortgages under 3% for a long, long time, unless something weird happens, and I don’t wish that upon us.”Despite this, DellaPelle believes that rate cuts are a good indicator that monetary policy is beginning to normalize.“It is giving us hope that monetary policy is at a turning point, but it might take another couple of years before it irons out,” he said.Global and U.S. electionsPlaying a significant role in shaping future monetary policy is, of course, the results of elections. While many expect the election of Donald Trump as the U.S.’s 47th president to usher in a new era of business-friendly policies, DellaPelle stressed that no one really knows exactly how things will play out.“The policies, not only of our leadership in this country, but in other countries, is likely to evolve, especially with respect to things like monetary policy,” DellaPelle said. “The uncertainty that is attached to the fact that we have a lot of change politically is something you should think about. The decisions that are made by our elected leaders are very important to all of us and they will affect the real estate industry. You need to understand that the elections, not just here, but elsewhere will have impacts that you probably can’t even anticipate right now.”Although these issues may seem intimidating, DellaPelle told attendees the most important thing to consider, and follow are population demographics.“You have to anticipate where they [people] are going. Like Wayne Gretzky used to say you want to go where the puck is going, not where it was,” he said.

New York-based digital mortgage lender Better.com launched a streamline refinance loan product on Monday that aims to help military veterans and service members save money on long-term interest expenses and closing costs.Better is now offering the well-known Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan (IRRRL) through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The product is available to active-duty service members, veterans and surviving spouses. It includes no appraisal and no income documentation requirements.“The addition of VA IRRRL allows Better to give back to veterans and their families through mortgage offerings that make homeownership simpler and more affordable,” Vishal Garg, CEO of Better.com, said in a statement. “As we look ahead with optimism to a more favorable interest rate environment, we are proud to simplify the refinancing process for veterans, helping those who have served our country save money and secure their financial future.”The IRRRL option allows borrowers to receive funds faster through fewer eligibility requirements and less paperwork. The product has a lower funding fee (0.5% of the loan amount) compared to the VA’s purchase, construction and cash-out refi options. It also includes a fixed rate that may save on expenses for borrowers with an existing adjustable-rate mortgage.To qualify, borrowers must have a current VA loan that is in good standing and must have previously used their VA entitlement. The upfront closing costs can be rolled into monthly payments or waived, if a borrower has a qualifying disability.To further speed up the process, Better is encouraging prospective clients to use its AI loan assistant, Betsy, for 24/7 support on questions. The company introduced Betsy last month following two years of work with data partner Palantir.In September, Better rolled out a streamline refi product through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA).Kevin Ryan, Better’s chief financial officer, told HousingWire in September that the company was seeing more web traffic and lead volume immediately after the Federal Reserve’sdecision to cut benchmark rates by 50 basis points. The Fed trimmed rates by another 25 basis points on Wednesday. And further cuts could spark consumer action on the refi front.“Given our technology and the way people surface financial decisions now, there’s a fair amount of people starting to get out there,” Ryan said.But the forecast for refinance demand is changing as mortgage rates have skyrocketed in the past six weeks. The average rate for a 30-year conforming loan was 6.94% on Friday, according to HousingWire’s Mortgage Rates Center, up 63 bps since the Fed’s September meeting.Last month, Fannie Mae economists called for refi volumes to finish this year at $368 billion, which would represent a 66% increase from 2023. Looking ahead at 2025, they forecast rates to drop to 5.7%, which would spur a 70% rise in refi originations to $625 billion.

As a panel of real estate leaders gathered to discuss the future of the MLS at the National Association of Realtors‘ NXT conference in Boston, Errol Samuelson, Zillow‘s chief industry development officer, found himself and his company in a bit different standing than usual with the audience of several hundred agents and brokers.“The MLS is so incredibly pro-consumer. It lets buyers see all of their options,“ Samuelson said. “If you think about sellers, it enables them to see what their competition is, and it lets sellers come up with a strategy in terms of how they should work with their agent to sell their home. “The MLS is an unbiased, open marketplace where there is equal access to information. So, it is a fair, level playing field because everybody has the same opportunity to see the same data,” he added to widespread applause among the audience.Zillow has long been disliked, or merely tolerated, by many real estate professionals. But the company’s strong stance on data transparency and in providing equal access to listing information for both agents and consumers appears to have changed that.While the panelists did not explicitly discuss NAR’s increasingly controversial Clear Cooperation Policy (CCP), the rule, which requires listing brokers to enter listings into the MLS within 24 hours of marketing the property, was at the center of the panel’s discussion.Where to draw the line?The support shown toward comments made by Samuelson and California Regional MLS (CRMLS) CEO Art Carter during the panel discussion stood in stark contrast to the silence following remarks made by Compass founder and CEO Robert Reffkin.During Compass’ third-quarter 2024 earnings call with investors, Reffkin claimed that agents across the country are “infuriated” with CCP and their inability to give sellers a choice in listing their property on the MLS. But the cool response Reffkin received during the panel would suggest fewer agents than his brokerage believes are actually supportive of changing the policy.As he has previously stated, Reffkin highlighted data such as days on market and price drop history, which is typically displayed alongside all listings in the MLS, as being problematic and harmful to home sellers.“I think when we talk about consumers, we often talk a lot about buyers and not enough about sellers. I think in the future it will be more balanced,” Reffkin said. “I believe days on market is the killer of value. I believe price drop history is the killer of value. No homeowner wants it on their listing, but 40% of homes right now have a price drop history, which makes them look like damaged goods. “I think if buyers deserve to know days on market, then sellers should deserve to know how long a buyer has been looking and how many of their offers have been rejected.”While the other panelists agreed that several price declines or a high number of days on the market is not a flattering look for a property, they are concerned about where the line would be drawn if they began to withhold information about the listing from buyers.“It is hard from an MLS standpoint because days on market is a fact of marketing the property, and if you hide that, then at what level do you hide that information from a buyer? I have difficulty in that concept that because it disadvantages the seller. I don’t think you should hide that piece of information,” Carter said.In a session later in the day about educating sellers, Michael Soon Lee, the president of Seminars Unlimited, stressed to attendees that the more information their sellers are willing to disclose about a property — even if it is something unflattering — the better.“Every single thing that the seller discloses about the property takes the liability off their shoulders and puts it on the shoulders of the buyer,” Lee said. “As an agent, your job is to make sure your seller discloses everything that they need to disclose, which is anything that could be a problem in the future.”This suggests that despite Reffkin’s assertions, many in the industry still believe it is important for buyers to have access to as much information about a listing as possible.Panelist Kymber Lovett-Menkiti, the president of Washington, D.C.-based Keller Williams Capital Properties, acknowledged that while withholding certain listings from MLSs or creating a more fragmented view of the market may fuel competition among brokerages, it may not be the best thing for consumers.“If you are only seeing a partial view of what is available, we as an industry will find a solution for that and be competitive. But ultimately, if it is competitive at the brokerage level but a disservice to the consumer, is that really in our best interest?” Lovett-Menkiti said.When it comes to competition between brokerages and agents, Samuelson believes the competition should focus on individual skills.“I think the best agents win because of their expertise and their experience and their skills, not because of an information asymmetry,” Samuelson said. “I think that the information should be equally available and then the agents should compete on their skills.”Starting from scratch?During the panel, moderator Brian Donnellan, the president and CEO of Bright MLS, asked panelists what they believe would happen if the MLS went away.“We have 100 years of evolution in the MLS, and I think that if the legs were cut out from underneath the MLS and we had to start over, we would end up in a very frustrating environment because it took 100 years to get from the fractured environment we started with to the transparent marketplace we have now,” Carter said.But with offers of buyer broker compensation no longer being allowed on the MLS — and some, like Reffkin, advocating for the removal of the CCP — a world without the MLS may be closer to reality than some in the industry would like to admit. Due to this, many industry professionals believe cooperation among brokerages is even more important.“The MLS is the transparent marketplace. It is the one place I can go to find all of the listing content, all of the available properties in a certain area for my client, and for a lot of people, that is more important than anything else,” Carter said. “If you dig into it a little bit, by having that data in there, agents and consumers can rely on the fact that the property is really for sale and that it really has four bedrooms and three bathrooms.”Lovett-Menkiti also said it is important for consumers to have a platform like the MLS, where the information is presented both accurately and fairly.“They need a platform where they know that I didn’t pay extra to bump one listing to the top over others, but that there is a leveling of information out there for how buyers work and search,” she said.Not only did panelists wish to see their MLSs continue to exist and provide consumers with access to data, they also want to see the platforms improve to better serve brokers and agents.“If you feel like your MLS is not providing you with the services and products you need, you can advocate through your state or local association for that because, in some instances, our consumers have a better product in a listing portal than we do in the MLS,” Lovett-Menkiti said.  Especially in areas with several overlapping MLSs, Samuelson said that if data sharing agreements exist and MLSs can home in on solutions to agent pain points, they will be able to compete for agent business.“If those data shares happen, brokers would have a choice in the MLS they join,” he said. “You wouldn’t be choosing an MLS simply because they have some sort of exclusive access to certain listings. You’d have MLSs competing based on the cost and the services that are provided and the level of customer service.”While the MLS of the future may look a bit different — and may offer brokers and agents more services — it appears that the majority of Realtors present at NAR NXT would like to preserve the core function of the MLS by providing all consumers with equal access to accurate and transparent data.

Zillow is moving full speed ahead with an ambitious expansion of its mortgage business, leveraging its housing tech innovations to potentially reshape how modern homebuyers finance homes. In its third-quarter earnings report, Zillow Home Loans revealed an impressive data point: mortgage revenue increased 63% year over year in the third quarter to $39 million, which is primarily due to an 80% year-over-year increase in purchase loan origination volume to $812 million. That’s an annualized $3.2 billion in purchase mortgage business, not far off a top 50 spot on the mortgage leaderboard. And the company has been hiring loan officers at a good clip over the last year, according to NMLS data.The Zillow funnelEverything starts at the top of the funnel. In the third quarter, Zillow attracted an average of 233 million unique monthly users across its apps and websites, according to its own metrics, while analytics company Comscore reported 116 million average monthly visitors for the same period. No real estate platform in America gets more eyeballs. Not even close. But separating the serious buyers from the hundreds of millions of looky-loos has always been the challenge, particularly when the business focus was on advertising revenue from agents. To that end, Zillow is pushing serious shoppers further down the funnel with its “enhanced markets” initiative. Established in 2022, the program essentially combines a suite of tech tools, such as Flex, ShowingTime, Zillow Home Loans, Follow Up Boss, and Real Time Touring, to drive lead conversions alongside top agents. The Seattle juggernaut has been ramping up Enhanced Markets over the past year. It has now replaced Premier Agent in 43 markets, and according to Modex, much of its mortgage activity is clustered around Dallas, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Raleigh, and Portland, Ore.Through Flex, a successor to the longtime Premier Agent program, qualified agents get leads with higher chances of conversion success from Zillow’s team, all with no upfront cost. But there are some boxes to check and heavy costs to stomach: To remain in the Flex program, agents need to ensure they hit transaction targets, answer client questions, have communication monitored, and see that “60% of opted-in transfers engage with Zillow Home Loans.”If a deal closes, Zillow will collect 40% of the agent’s commission.The lead generation program is designed for top-producing agents and teams who spend thousands a month on Zillow leads. Zillow is hoping agents refer clients to Zillow Home Loans instead of their usual rotation of loan officers from outside mortgage companies. The company said that in “Enhanced Markets” they’ve been in for more than six months, customer adoption rates for Zillow Home Loans “are in the mid-teens, with newer markets trending similarly.”Zillow said they’re also seeing higher transaction conversion rates for agent partners working with customers who choose Zillow Home Loans, “as we help agents and loan officers together better serve customers when they’re ready to transact.”In the company’s earnings call this week, CEO Jeremy Wacksman said the potential in the mortgage space is enormous. “Forty percent of all home buyers start their home shopping journey looking for a mortgage, and more than 80% of those buyers don’t yet have an agent,” he said.

The seasonal housing inventory peaks and bottoms have happened later than usual in the past few years. Last week, we saw a noticeable decline in both active inventory and new listings, which isn’t abnormal, but we might have had an election variable here. In the past two years, starting in mid-November, mortgage rates have fallen, and we have seen positive, forward-looking housing demand data. Will that be the case again?Weekly housing inventory dataIf we have seen the peak for inventory, the best housing story in 2024 is that we have healthy enough inventory growth to handle demand if mortgage rates drop to 6% or below. Also, my model of healthy normal inventory growth — between 11,000 and 17,000 per week — has stayed consistent this year, as we haven’t seen one print over 17,000 in 2024 but a few prints between 11,000 and 17,000, which is something we couldn’t do at all last year. Weekly inventory change (Nov. 1-Nov. 8): Inventory fell from 735,718 to 721,576The same week last year (Nov. 3-Nov 10): Inventory rose from 566,882 to 566,941The all-time inventory bottom was in 2022 at 240,497The inventory peak for 2024 so far is 739,434For some context, active listings for this week in 2015 were 1,140,557New listings dataAnother positive story for 2024 has been the growth in new listings data. Yes, we didn’t hit my target level this year — we missed by 5,000 — but growth is growth. Remember all those years of stories by fake housing experts that we would see a flood of new listings due to the Silver Tsunami, Airbnb bust, and stressed-out home sellers? 2024 will be the second-lowest year for new listings ever. And last week, we had the lowest new listings data in history. New listings data can be very volatile week to week, and this last week was a big dive. Maybe some people decided to wait to list their house until after the election. However, it’s almost Thanksgiving and a seasonal decline in inventory at this point is common. Here’s the new listings data for last week over the past several years:   2024: 48,8632023: 55,3272022: 52,643Price-cut percentageIn an average year, one-third of all homes take a price cut — this is standard housing activity. When mortgage rates rise, the price-cut percentage grows. When rates go lower, and demand picks up, this data line can cool down, as it has recently. A few months ago, on the HousingWire Daily podcast, I predicted that price-growth data would cool down in the year’s second half. I have been wrong in this assessment, but our pending new price index finally had a seasonal decline last week.I was 100% surprised that pricing has stayed as firm as it has in our weekly data with our inventory levels. The price-cut percentage declined earlier in 2024 than in the two previous years; lower mortgage rates did their thing. However, as you can see, with more inventory in 2024, it’s a more modest move.Here are the price-cut percentages for last week over the previous few years:2024: 38.8%2023: 39%2022: 43%Purchase application dataHigher mortgage rates always impact the purchase application data, so the fact that the last four weeks have been trending negatively isn’t surprising. Purchase application data takes about 30-90 days to hit the sales data, so it would be around now that we see the hit.When mortgage rates were running higher earlier in the year (between 6.75%-7.50%), this is what the purchase application data looked like:14 negative prints2 flat prints2 positive printsWhen mortgage rates started falling in mid-June, here’s what purchase applications looked like:12 positive prints 5 negative prints1 flat print3 straight positive year-over-year growth printsWith mortgage rates up again, here is where we are:3 negative prints1 positive weekly prints4 straight weeks of positive year-over-year data, but the bar is low for this. Weekly pending salesBelow is the Altos Research weekly pending contract data to show real-time demand. This data line is very seasonal, as we can see in the chart below, and we should remember how high mortgage rates were at this time last year. We are now showing growth versus 2023 and 2022 data in this data line, but context is critical. 2022 sales had the fastest crash in sales ever, and 2023 home sales were at record low levels, so take the growth in context with those two truths. Higher mortgage rates are kicking into the weekly data of the pending contracts. I was surprised by the steady demand last week, but we can see a slowdown here in new listings data. Maybe there was an election delay previous week; if that’s the case we will see a small comeback in inventory next week.This is the weekly pending sales for last week over the previous few years: 2024: 336,6242023: 301,7682022: 314,27110-year yield and mortgage ratesMy 2024 forecast included:A range for mortgage rates between 7.25%-5.75%A range for the 10-year yield between 4.25%-3.21%The main thing about last week is that the 4.40% level held on the 10-year yield. It was a wild, whacky week with the election and the Fed meeting. However, the downtrend from 5% is still intact for now.After the election, things calmed down and even more so after the Fed meeting, to end the week at 4.31% .There has been some talk that President-elect Trump’s economic policies will create 8% plus mortgage rates. I encourage everyone to listen to this HousingWire Daily podcast we recorded after the election to try to bring some reality to the mortgage rate discussion going out for the next four years. Mortgage spreadsThe mortgage spread story has been positive in 2024, whereas it was negative in 2023. We have already seen a big move this year; mortgage rates would be much higher today without the spreads improving. Unfortunately, the spreads have worsened with the recent spike in mortgage rates. Still, if I took the worst spreads from last year, mortgage rates would be 0.65 % higher today. If mortgage spreads were back to normal, you would see mortgage rates lower by 0.78%—0.88%.The week ahead. Inflation week, retail sales and Fed speeches It’s inflation week again! We will also have retail sales and a few Fed presidents will be giving their take on the economy. After all the drama we had last week, I want to see how the bond market reacts to the inflation data and retail sales now, as bond yields are much higher than the day the Fed cut rates in September. Also, we always want to watch Fed president speeches and their terminology for clues on the future. Again, as always, it’s labor over inflation. Keep an eye out for jobless claims data each Thursday; that’s their extensive labor data line and the one the bond market will follow.

The newly-updated Fannie Mae Selling Guide for November has aimed to modernize special property eligibility and underwriting considerations for leasehold estates, and it has revised the government-sponsored enterprise (GSE)’s project review requirements for properties secured by manufactured homes.The Selling Guide has also updated requirements “related to the market area analysis of the appraisal report and add[ed] standardized definitions relevant to appraisal market areas to the glossary.” It also clarifies that sellers and servicers are “responsible for preventing, detecting, and reporting mortgage fraud.”Regarding the leasehold provisions, the GSE revised its eligibility requirements “to provide clarifications and update lease requirements, address scenarios related to leasehold estates in projects, and to include co-ops as eligible property types,” according to the update.This has included the addition of a “definitive list of eligible property types, definitions, and exceptions to the leasehold topic,” as well as clarification of leasehold provisions related to first-lien enforceability, appraisal and title insurance.The guide has also clarified that for manufactured homes located within a larger project, the homeowners association “must be the lessee.” And it updates certain lease requirements such as those for default notifications and options for the cure and merger of title. These provisions go into effect in March 2025.The guide has also added a project review for manufactured homes, including those on leasehold estates.“To facilitate lending for manufactured homes in projects, we clarified policy to resolve inconsistencies related to when a manufactured home requires submission to Project Eligibility Review Service (PERS),” the update reads. It emphasized that manufactured homes in co-op projects “remain ineligible project types and cannot be delivered to Fannie Mae.” This policy is effective immediately.There is also a section on appraisals. Fannie Mae is collaborating with fellow GSE Freddie Mac to update requirements related to ”the Market Area analysis of the appraisal report and implementing standardized definitions for the terms ‘Neighborhood’ and ‘Market Area.’” Fannie urges sellers to implement these changes immediately, but they must be in place starting in February 2025.Finally, the update aims to clarify responsibilities when cases of mortgage fraud are detected.“Sellers and servicers are responsible for preventing, detecting, and reporting mortgage fraud,” the update said. “Sellers and servicers are reminded to have policies and procedures in place to ensure the integrity of information and processes at every stage in the life of a mortgage, from application through servicing.”For any sellers or servicers not already complying with this requirement, compliance is encouraged immediately but must be completed by March 2025.

Ellington Financial, the parent company of top-five reverse mortgage lender and servicer Longbridge Financial, saw its net income attributable to common stockholders fall in the third quarter of 2024 to $16.2 million — down from $52.3 million in Q2 — but company leaders said that the proprietary reverse mortgage product line offered by Longbridge continues to show strength.Ellington presented its third-quarter earnings results in a conference call on Thursday following the close of the market. The company noted an increase in its adjusted distributable earnings (ADE), which it credited to Longbridge’s proprietary programs.Longbridge has offered its “Platinum” line of proprietary reverse mortgages with lending limits in excess of the Federal Housing Administration (FHA)’s Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program for years. Ellington CEO Laurence Penn noted that the lender’s ADE contribution has steadily increased each quarter in 2024.Longbridge performanceLongbridge had a net loss attributable to common stockholders of $2.5 million in Q3 2024, largely reversing a gain of $4.5 million in Q2. This was “driven by net losses on interest rate hedges, partially offset by positive results in originations,” the company explained.“We had a mark-to-market gain on our HMBS MSR equivalent, but this gain was muted by wider HMBS yield spreads, which resulted in a net loss on this position after taking into account the net losses on the interest rate hedges that we hold against this position,” it explained in a statement.Wider HMBS yield spreads impact the value of its HMBS mortgage servicing rights, since they lower projected servicing income that “stems from the right to fund and securitize future borrower draws.” The segment also recorded declines in HECM origination margins that were also driven by wider HMBS yield spreads.But the lender’s proprietary reverse originations saw net gains related to a July securitization work alongside “improved origination margins and higher volumes, [leading] to strong profits in that product line,” the company explained.“Our Longbridge segment represents about 12% of our equity capital allocation, so it’s great to see ADE having steadily improved in that segment,” Penn said during the earnings call. “I’ve been consistently highlighting our Longbridge segment as holding significant untapped potential for Ellington Financial. Even if Longbridge’s ADE can stabilize around $0.09 per share per quarter, we should be in excellent shape from a dividend coverage standpoint.”Net loss, with a catchJR Herlihy, Ellington’s chief financial officer, went deeper into the quarterly earnings of Longbridge, saying that the company had “strong results and originations” despite recording a GAAP net loss of $0.03 per share in Q3. But that loss needs to be qualified, he added.“This net loss was driven by interest rate hedges as rates fell during the quarter,” Herlihy said. “We had a mark-to-market gain on our HMBS MSR equivalent, but this gain was muted by wider HMBS yield spreads, so the gain didn’t keep pace with the net losses on interest rate hedges that we hold against this position.”While there was a decline in HECM origination margins driven by the wider HMBS yield spreads, this was “partially offset” by higher volumes, he added. But he reiterated the strong profit contribution of the lender’s proprietary reverse mortgage products.“In total, origination volume at Longbridge increased 16.5% sequentially even as industrywide volumes were down overall for the quarter,” Herlihy said. “Notably, Longbridge contributed $0.12 per share of ADE in the third quarter, driven by the strong quarter from proprietary reverse.”

Following the resounding election victory of Donald Trump this week and the retaking of the U.S. Senate by the Republican Party, retirement and tax policy could be significantly impacted following the transfer of power, according to the National Association of Plan Advisors (NAPA).A political majority in the U.S. House of Representatives remains unclear, but should the GOP also capture control there, then the Republican Party will have control over the executive and legislative branches of government, as well as the judicial branch that is likely to persist for decades.In terms of impacts on retirement policy, NAPA said the most immediate changes stemmed from incoming leadership to powerful Senate committees. Chairs of these committees have latitude to choose the legislative agenda for Congress. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) is poised to assume control of the Senate Finance Committee that oversees “the Internal Revenue Code, Social Security, tariff and trade issues, as well as healthcare related tax issues, among others,” NAPA wrote.The Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, currently led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), is likely to be helmed by Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).“The HELP Committee has primary jurisdiction over private retirement plans and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation through ERISA (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act),” NAPA explained. “But it does share jurisdiction with the Finance Committee, as it relates to tax policy and ERISA issues.”Crapo has a history of bipartisanship on retirement issues, including his role in passing the SECURE 2.0 legislation alongside Senate Democrats. He also helped pass the Senior Safe Act ”to increase protections for older investors from financial exploitation and abuse,” NAPA said.Cassidy is also a supporter of “collective investment trusts (CITs) in 403(b) plans, as well as legislation to establish an automatic re-enrollment safe harbor,” NAPA said. Cassidy has also sponsored legislation that would lower the minimum participation age “for ERISA-covered defined contribution (DC) plans from age 21 to age 18.” He opposes environmental, social and governance (ESG) investments.At the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA)’s Annual Convention and Expo in Denver last month, MBA executive Bill Killmer described that there would be something of a “tax super bowl” debate in Congress regarding the imminently expiring Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The TCJA is one of Trump’s signature legislative accomplishments during his first term in office.The debate on reauthorizing or expanding the law was thought to be particularly fraught if Democrats maintained congressional majorities and held onto the White House, but the likelihood that none of these will happen has risen significantly since Election Day. “The TCJA made some changes to the retirement tax system, but the roughly $1.5 trillion tax reform legislation delivered major tax relief to corporations, pass-through entities and individual filers, and simplified the system in numerous ways,” NAPA said.But the upcoming budget debate is still expected to be animated, considering that the majorities in the legislative branch will remain thin and the budget reconciliation process can only go so far.“During the campaign, President Trump discussed eliminating the taxation of Social Security benefits and the tax on tips, as well as implementing broad-based tariffs in exchange for additional tax cuts. That would presumably be part of this forthcoming budget debate,” NAPA said.

In the latest episode of the Power House podcast, host Diego Sanchez sits down for a group chat with Fobby Naghmi, senior vice president at Homecomings Mortgage & Equity, and Ginger Bell, founder of Edumarketing. The conversation covers Bell’s and Naghmi’s co-authored real estate and mortgage guidebook “Leadership Matters,” and the importance of communication and training for leadership development in the mortgage industry.This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. To start, Bell and Naghmi explore why leadership is important and their motivation for writing the book.Bell: Leadership is everything, honestly. Whether you are leading yourself, volunteers, your kid’s soccer team, an entire organization, a nonprofit or your company, everything begins with leadership. Naghmi: To echo Ginger, everyone has a voice. As leaders, we all have our own unique individual voices, even though we may be influenced by other people’s voices. When we have ideas and thoughts, it’s important to get them out there. I’ve been moved by the authors we’ve brought together since we started putting this together. Sanchez: You’ve got a lot of different voices that you’re sharing in this book. Ginger, why did you decide to go that route?Bell: I believe leadership is a collective. In our industry, we have so many different verticals. When we selected the authors to be a part of this collaborative, we specifically wanted to have individuals who could have a voice from those different areas.Sanchez: Ginger, how does a good leader manage his or her team and company through these tough times?Bell: There’s a chapter in the book by Keith Canter on ‘red pen’ culture. He specifically talked about managing and leading through change while giving people a collective voice to share their fears, and the importance of having a plan. Good leaders aren’t necessarily those that have a plan. Good leaders often ask, what is that plan? What does that look like? And how are we going to put this together? It’s about collaboration. The book has so many stories that lead through that. As an industry, we must come together and grow as leaders.Sanchez: Fobby, do you think there’s a leadership deficit in mortgage?Naghmi: I think there is a deficit based on how the mortgage industry itself is. You have a top producer in the branch. Inevitably he or she will become the manager. But maybe he or she isn’t guided for leadership, so we create the deficit. Just because you’re a top performer doesn’t mean you can lead, as we need to reframe ourselves. Bell: Just because you’re good in sales doesn’t necessarily mean you’re good in leadership. The deficit we have is preparing people to be leaders, and that’s why this book is so important.To end the conversation, Sanchez brings up a point on how positive daily habits affect the performance of a leader. Bell and Naghmi share their perspectives. Bell: Planning is the most important thing for me. Understanding the priorities, long-term projects, and then picking out little pieces of those long-term projects that can be added to the list for today.Naghmi: For my morning, the first hour and a half to two hours is meditation grounding prayers. After that, physical exercise or yoga follow, where I’m moving my body around. It has to start with me being grounded.

Praising tariffs as “the greatest thing ever invented“ is unusual — that title is typically reserved for for sliced bread — but Donald Trump has always been vocal about his trade policies.An impending return to the White House for Trump could raise U.S. homebuilding costs as his proposed tariffs would likely increase prices for essential construction materials. This echoes the impacts on housing costs from his previous term through higher tariffs on Canadian lumber.Under President Joe Biden’s administration, tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber have persisted and even doubled. This has led to mill closures and job losses in Canada along with higher costs for U.S. builders.Trump’s current proposals include a 10% or 20% tariff on all imports across the board, along with an additional tariff of 60% to 100% for products imported from China. On Nov. 4, the last day of campaigning, Trump also vowed to impose a 25% tariff on all Mexican goods “if they don’t stop this onslaught of criminals and drugs coming into our country.” Pantheon Macroeconomics forecasters estimate that a 10% universal tariff could raise inflation by roughly 0.8 percentage points next year, adding further strain on U.S. manufacturers. According to the Tax Foundation, a 20% tariff would increase taxes on U.S. households by an average of $2,045.“We don’t have enough details to put a fine point to it yet, but based upon the broad outlines that have been described, there’s the risk it could add to the cost of housing,” said Mike Fratantoni, chief economist at the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). “The most likely impact of tariffs would be to add to the cost of housing at a time that affordability is really a challenge.”The newest framing lumber price measure from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) indicates steady increases, with framing lumber up 2.9% for the week ending Nov. 1 and 17.2% higher than a year ago. Sawmill curtailments and closures in North America, especially in Canada, are impacting supply as companies like Western Forest Products and Canfor reduce production due to weak demand and high U.S. tariffs. It’s not just raw materials as items like garage doors, air conditioning units and dumpsters may also see price hikes. Trump’s previous tariffs included up to 30% levies on steel and aluminum, raising construction costs across the board, as reported by Voice Of America. Since the details of the tariffs aren’t set in stone, Fratantoni said there are a few avenues they could create.“If there’s just a tariff specific to one country, there’s always the potential to source those inputs from someone else for a similar cost,” he said. “If it’s the broad-base tariffs, that reduces the ability to find a lower-cost input, so that’s probably going to be more inflationary across the whole economy and adding more costs in the housing industry with more certainty.”During Trump’s first term, tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber led to a surge in costs for homebuilders. Back in 2018, the NAHB estimated that the tariffs added nearly $9,000 to the cost of constructing a single-family home. The impact on lumber prices was dramatic, with costs rising close to 80% year over year, in part due to the taxes.Per the Tax Foundation, the Trump administration implemented nearly $80 billion in new taxes on Americans by imposing tariffs on thousands of products value at roughly $380 billion in 2018 and 2019 — one of the largest tax hikes in decades. Ryan Tatro, owner of Connecticut-based RT Construction & Maintenance LLC, said that he’s optimistic about construction costs despite the looming news of tariffs. “During the Biden administration, my revenue dropped 21%,” Tatro said. “Costs have just gone up and there was a shortage of workers. Five years ago, interest [rates] were lower; materials were a lot lower. For example, a sheet of OSB plywood four years ago was $9, and it’s gotten up to almost $50.”Tatro said that he and his colleagues in construction have hope, but he admits he doesn’t know what could happen in the next year. “It’s really affected builders because you give a price on a job, and back in the day, you could give a customer a 60-day window. Now, you’re literally giving people five days because prices fluctuate so much,” he said.

Project 2025 refers to a series of proposals published by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation that would reshape many federal agencies and systems to more closely align with conservative ideology.Now that Donald Trump is once again the president-elect of the United States, and with several former Trump administration officials having contributed to the policy playbook, the likelihood has increased that the document could serve as guidance in the second Trump administration.One consistent, overarching element that persists across much of the 922 pages of the Project 2025 playbook is the desire to do away with career officials inside federal agencies and replace them with political appointees. This is highlighted in the playbook’s section dedicated to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), although there could be some legal and institutional roadblocks to getting this done immediately.But it should be a top priority for HUD, according to the document, driven by the desire to bring people aboard who are “motivated and aligned” with the aims of a new conservative administration.The HUD section of Project 2025, written by Ben Carson, the HUD secretary during the first Trump administration, calls for a “reset” of the department. This includes “a broad reversal of the Biden administration’s persistent implementation of corrosive progressive ideologies across the department’s programs.”This would include identification and removal of any non-citizens who are participating in federally-assisted housing, including “all mixed-status families.”The document also calls for an increase in the Federal Housing Administration‘s mortgage insurance premium (MIP) for all loans with terms longer than 20-year terms, while maintaining MIP levels for refinances and purchase loans with shorter terms. Shorter-duration mortgages, it states, can best encourage “wealth-building homeownership opportunities.”The document also takes aim at various longtime HUD policies extending back to the time of President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” programs. It calls for new political leadership at HUD to “reexamine the federal government’s role in housing markets across the nation and consider whether it is time for a ’reform, reinvention, and renewal’ that transfers department functions to separate federal agencies, states, and localities.”It also argues for the establishment of a task force that would seek to counter policies determined to be rooted in opposing ideologies. It calls for officials to review “all subregulatory guidance that has been instituted outside of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA),” and for a repeal of the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation. The first Trump administration rescinded that rule before it was restored by the Biden team.There are also a series of proposals aimed at “restrict[ing] program eligibility when admission would threaten the protection of the life and health of individuals and fail to encourage upward mobility and economic advancement through household self-sufficiency,” along with suspension of “all external research and evaluation grants in the Office of Policy Development and Research.”The document calls for moving the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) program “once again to its own special risk insurance fund,” and a revision of loan limit determinations and “statutory flexibility for shorter-term products that amortize principal earlier and faster.”Housing advocates who spoke with HousingWire prior to the election cast some doubt on whether the document’s priorities would be pursued. But this was also during a time when polls seemingly indicated a closer presidential race than it ended up being. The president-elect and his allies aimed to distance themselves from Project 2025 during the campaign.But now that the dust has settled and Trump is set to take office in January, some of his allies — including former White House adviser Steve Bannon — are indicating that it could have more sway over policy priorities than either Trump, his campaign or the Republican Party publicly indicated during the run-up to the election.

White-label brokerage Side keeps turning the screws on Official Partners and the Alexander brothers. Side filed a temporary restraining order on Wednesday against Tal and Oren Alexander, accusing the brothers of moving the underlying collateral on a loan that Side extended to Official Partners prior to the rape accusations against the Alexanders.The order requests that the Alexanders be prevented from “selling, transferring, dissipating, or otherwise disposing of any of Defendants’ real property or any of the collateral” on the loan.Side contends that good cause exists for the order because “the Alexanders have moved the collateral in violation of the Note and Security Agreement and refused to identify where the collateral is located, raising legitimate concerns that defendants are in the process of dissipating the assets constituting the collateral.”Details on what the collateral is and the nature of the loan are redacted in Side’s court filings.The filing is the latest turn in a lawsuit filed by Side in October against the brothers and Official Partners. Side claims the defendants have breached contracts between the two parties that were extended in August 2022.The complaint states that Official Partners and the brothers agreed to pay the principal sum and interest on the loan, and that Side should be paid additional damages related to legal fees and a jury trial.Official Partners and the Alexander brothers have been summoned to court but have yet to file anything in the case. The defendants couldn’t be immediately reached for comment. Side did not respond to requests for comment from HousingWire.Once considered superstars in the New York City real estate world, Official Partners and the Alexanders were hit with lawsuits in the spring that accused the brothers of sexually assaulting multiple women.In March, Rebecca Mandel and Kate Whiteman filed separate accusations of rape against twin brothers Oren and Alon Alexander twin brothers. Tal Alexander is not a defendant in these lawsuits.In July, Tal Alexander denied the allegations in a suit filed by Angelica Parker that accused him and younger brother Alon of drugging and raping Parker while Oren watched. The incident allegedly occurred in 2012.At the end of June, Tal and Oren Alexander took leaves of absence from Official Partners. Oren’s New York and Florida real estate licenses are no longer active.

After a monumental year of change, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) is looking to the past to find inspiration for the future. Kevin Sears took to the NAR NXT main stage at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center on Friday morning with a large iced coffee from Dunkin’ in hand. The NAR president and Massachusetts native then took NAR members on a walk down memory lane to explain the trade group’s priorities for 2025.“In case you didn’t know, it’s been quite a year,” Sears said. “We’ve gone through some leadership changes, some legal challenges and one of, if not the largest, industry shifts of our lifetime. And while there may be many challenges in front of us, we have a lot of work still to do.”While 2024 has certainly been full of challenges, Sears said it also presented the trade association and its members with plenty of opportunities to show leadership. But in order to successfully lead through these opportunities and best prioritize the trade group’s goals, Sears feels that members need to understand the history of organized real estate.Real estate entities and professionals first organized in 1891 by forming the National Real Estate Association, which was created with the goal of making homeownership “simpler and safer for consumers,” Sears said.“From day one, we sought to protect the consumer,” he added.The entity that would eventually become NAR began in 1907, when a group of seven local boards of Realtors in the Midwest came together to discuss common issues. The following year, the group decided to invite the other 38 known local Realtor boards, forming what is now NAR.“Our origins are steeped in two things: protecting the consumers and working together to protect those consumers, and I think it sounds like we stick true to who we are,” Sears said. “So, as I look to 2025 and where we want to go, it is to stick to the basics. Let’s protect the consumer; let’s work together.”Sears cited the trade group’s efforts in advocating for changes in VA loan procedures. Those utilizing mortgages from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs can still use their loan benefit when working with a buyer’s agent regardless of how their agent is being compensated. This is an example of how NAR works to protect consumers, Sears said.“We protect consumers when we educate decision-makers about issues about inventory. We actively support legislation that reduces the tax implications for long-term owners selling their homes,” he said. “And we protect consumers when we provide data and perspective on legislation that incentivizes the conversion of commercial space into affordable residential housing.”It is this message of consumer protection that Sears and his leadership team have sought to drive home in their conversations with the Department of Justice (DOJ).“We are working diligently with them to explore any kind of common ground,” Sears said. “That is their ask of us, but that is also our ask of them. This is something that we are striving for and working toward.”While Sears said he other NAR leaders are hopeful to be able to work with the DOJ to iron out their issues, he acknowledges that peace cannot be achieved overnight.“Please understand, it is a slow process and your patience is appreciated,” Sears said. “After all, we are most effective by working together for the betterment of our industry.”In this vein, Sears said it is imperative for NAR members to continue supporting their state and local Realtor associations. These organizations empower Realtors to work together and to better understand and serve the unique needs of consumers, he said.Looking at the difficulties that lie ahead in 2025, Sears said it is important for Realtors and Realtor organizations to continue to work together. NAR will have to navigate some financial hardships if its commission lawsuit settlement agreement is granted final approval at the end of this month.“If the settlement is granted, the first payment is due nine days later,” Sears said. “So, what exactly does that mean? It means that in 2025, NAR is going to be leaner. It is going to be meaner. We’ll be leaner in how we operate. We’ve scrutinized the budget for expenses that don’t directly contribute to member value. But we will still be a trusted partner in delivering the value Realtors need to thrive in their businesses while being the leading voice that propel the real estate industry forward.“Everything that we do must be driven by the question: how do we help our members be more successful?”

Realtors are not the only ones gathering in Boston this week for the National Association of Realtors‘ NXT conference. On Thursday, MLS leaders took center stage at several conference sessions, including discussions of the business practice changes driven by the NAR commission lawsuit settlement and how the role of the MLS — and the MLS-broker relationship — has evolved as a result.“I know that this year, to say the least, has been quite a memorable year,” said Charlie Lee, NAR’s senior counsel and director of legal affairs. “And I know that it has required tireless work from all of you in all of your endeavors, and ensuring that our members are equipped with the right information, tools and resources, so that they can avoid those unintended risks and be able to do what they do best, which is serving in the consumers’ best interest.“But while MLSs have, for the most part, successfully helped their members navigate the business practice changes, it appears that many in the real estate community do not see value in the MLS.According to a survey conducted by the WAV Group that was cited on stage by co-founder Marilyn Wilson, 55% of respondents believe MLSs are less valuable to real estate professionals now that offers of buyer broker compensation are no longer allowed to be shared there.“I think a lot of it is that people are mad right now, especially those in the $2 billion club, and I can’t blame them. If I had to hand someone a check for $65 million, I’d be mad too,” Wilson said. “But I think, what is most important, is that we have to remind ourselves and our members that we are a whole lot more than compensation. Yes, it was a meaningful component, but in fact, the MLS is really the center of how the industry operates.”’We can’t go backward’NextHome CEO James Dwiggins believes the negative attitude toward the MLS is one of the main things fueling opposition to NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy, which requires listing brokers to list a property on the MLS within 24 hours of public marketing efforts.“We as an industry have spent 30 to 40 years building the greatest marketplace ever in the world of real estate for home buyers and sellers,” Dwiggins said. “We have a responsibility in this room to continue to build that system and that marketplace to the degree that it is today and even more, so that down the road, we can’t go backward.”Additionally, Dwiggins believes that MLSs have not done a good job of late in articulating their value to a growing group of new real estate professionals. Instead, they have been focused on other things such as helping agents navigate the post-pandemic housing boom and the commission lawsuits.“You have to constantly articulate your value and reinforce it because people that are just getting into the business don’t have that historical perspective,” Dwiggins said. “I remember when my parents would get an MLS once a month and they would be so excited to find out what was for sale, but even then, some of those properties were no longer available because they were already sold. We’ve come a long way since then.”With the business practice changes having been implemented a few months ago, MLS leaders believe it is time to return the focus on helping brokers and agents solve everyday pain points.“We have to recognize that people are cranky,” Wilson said. “One of the things I would suggest you do is to start with the broker. Brokers are the ones dealing with the agents and the consumers and all their problems while trying to keep themselves calm, while handing over millions of dollars as part of a settlement and figuring out how to sell real estate in today’s market. Start with them and understand what they are most challenged with, and make them your partner.”Additionally, many in the MLS space believe it is time for the platforms themselves to evolve. This could mean that more MLSs will sign data sharing agreements, ensuring that data is comparable and compatible across different companies. They may also need to embrace new technology.“Everyone has been so head down and focused on implementing the business practice changes, and now we are a little tired, but we got through it,” said Denee Evans, CEO of the Council of MLSs (CMLS).“But now I’m hearing so many executives say they are finally looking up and saying, ‘Let’s get back to the business of growing, evolving and running our MLS,’ and there are a lot of things we need to do.“Evans said she has been concerned that so many in the industry were “not looking where the puck is going” and planning for future. Now that the industry is past the initial phase of implementing the business practice changes, she believes that will change.Data sharing solutionsOne way in which many MLS executives are looking to evolve is through data sharing agreements.“MLS organizations that do data sharing told us that they do it because their customers’ borders are different than their borders, and their brokers sometimes are in multiple markets and multiple states, and both consumers and agents want access to better information,” said Sam DeBord, CEO of the Real Estate Standards Organization (RESO).“They want access to the information they can get from outside technology organizations, but they want to get it directly from their MLS organization.”These agreements can also help MLSs clean up their existing data, said Michael Wurzer, CEO of Financial Business Systems.“One of the easiest problems to solve with a data share is for overlapping MLSs where you may have duplicate membership and duplicate listing entries,” Wurzer said. “Sometimes you see where there is an overlap in some markets and you change the price in one MLS but not in another, then the portals don’t know what the list price is. These are real problems that are relatively easy to solve with data sharing.”Brad Bjelke, CEO of UtahRealEstate.com, also believes MLSs need to be more open to sharing at least some of their data with entities outside the MLS and brokerage space.“I think a cooperative approach with some of the entities trying to solve big problems like affordable housing is the right way to do things,” Bjelke said. “The mindset across the country is that we can’t share our data or make our data available, and I think that has to change. “I think there are certain parts of our database that are confidential and private, but there are other pieces that can help solve big problems. And I think it’s time to be a good partner, not just with your brokers and agents, but with other organizations in your communities to help make some change.”In order to share data, MLSs need to ensure that it is compatible and comparable. While comparing datasets and displays are a good way to see if MLSs are compatible for sharing purposes, DeBord also believes this is a great way for MLSs to gain insights into other types of data they could provide to agents.As the MLSs begin to look to the future and better serve brokers through added value, Dwiggins believes that different datasets are a great place to start.“The MLS has been a utility,” Dwiggins said. “I think there is a tremendous opportunity for the MLS to shift. As an example, we should have a buy-side MLS — it shouldn’t just be listings. What about a reverse prospecting system, where you can find out what a buyer is looking for to see if you have a listing that matches? What about creating a database of every single active buyer who is working with an agent, so if you are getting leads, you can immediately check to see if they are worth pursuing or if the buyer is already working with someone else? “There are tons of opportunities that we could explore as an industry to reinvent the MLS, so that the broker and agent go, ‘I can’t do business without this service.’ We have to reinvent the MLS to be something bigger.”

Vetted by HousingWire  |  Our editors independently review the products we recommend. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission.Direct mail can help you stand out among cold callers and social media influencers. It’s an effective strategy to amplify your other prospecting activities. This article shares nine effective real estate prospecting letter templates you can copy to your clipboard and paste into your favorite notecards, postcards and letters. Coach Ashley Harwood shares her favorite wording (that actually works) to help you make an impression in your neighborhood or zip code. We also provide a checklist for sending the most effective prospecting letters.SummaryDownload These 9 Effective Prospecting Letter TemplatesThe Hyper-Local Agent LetterThe Just-Sold LetterThe Just-Listed LetterThe Golden LetterThe For Sale by Owner (FSBO) letterThe Expired Listing LetterThe Tenant or Renter LetterThe Investor LetterThe Open House Neighbor Preview LetterOur Real Estate Prospecting Letter Checklist9 Effective Real Estate Prospecting Letter TemplatesDo you remember the last time you received a handwritten letter in the mail that was hand-addressed to you? People remember snail mail simply because we no longer receive much of it. Emails are easily forgotten, end up in the spam folder, or are never opened at all — but a letter in the mail ensures you occupy your audience’s mindshare for much longer. Copy these proven real estate prospecting letter templates to your clipboard and start building your business systematically with this old-school but effective direct mail strategy.The Just-Sold LetterAudience: Homeowners around a property you recently soldFormat: Postcard or typed letter in an envelopeWise Pelican’s ‘Just-Sold Brochure’" data-medium-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png?w=1024" tabindex="0" role="button" class="wp-image-491869" src="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png" alt="Just Sold Brochure 1200x675 2" srcset="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png 1200w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png?resize=150,84 150w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png?resize=768,432 768w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png?resize=1024,576 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Wise Pelican’s Just-Sold BrochureWise Pelican’s ‘Just-Sold Brochure’" data-medium-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_19a76f29-2f9a-489f-b410-276dce54328b.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_19a76f29-2f9a-489f-b410-276dce54328b.png?w=1024" tabindex="0" role="button" class="wp-image-491876" src="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_19a76f29-2f9a-489f-b410-276dce54328b.png" alt="Just Sold Brochure 1200x675 1" srcset="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_19a76f29-2f9a-489f-b410-276dce54328b.png 1200w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_19a76f29-2f9a-489f-b410-276dce54328b.png?resize=150,84 150w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_19a76f29-2f9a-489f-b410-276dce54328b.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_19a76f29-2f9a-489f-b410-276dce54328b.png?resize=768,432 768w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_19a76f29-2f9a-489f-b410-276dce54328b.png?resize=1024,576 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Wise Pelican’s Just-Sold BrochureWise Pelican’s ‘Just Sold’ Neighbors Home Postcard Templates" data-medium-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_d01eca2b-f35c-4a86-8dc1-961ad3f428ad.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_d01eca2b-f35c-4a86-8dc1-961ad3f428ad.png?w=1024" tabindex="0" role="button" class="wp-image-491877" src="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_d01eca2b-f35c-4a86-8dc1-961ad3f428ad.png" alt="I just sold your neighbors home Postcard 1200x675 1" srcset="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_d01eca2b-f35c-4a86-8dc1-961ad3f428ad.png 1200w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_d01eca2b-f35c-4a86-8dc1-961ad3f428ad.png?resize=150,84 150w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_d01eca2b-f35c-4a86-8dc1-961ad3f428ad.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_d01eca2b-f35c-4a86-8dc1-961ad3f428ad.png?resize=768,432 768w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_d01eca2b-f35c-4a86-8dc1-961ad3f428ad.png?resize=1024,576 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Wise Pelican’s Just-Sold PostcardWise Pelican’s ‘Just-Sold Brochure’" data-medium-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png?w=1024" tabindex="0" role="button" class="wp-image-491869" src="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png" alt="Just Sold Brochure 1200x675 2" srcset="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png 1200w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png?resize=150,84 150w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png?resize=768,432 768w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_db6631aa-9f4d-4cfb-bc4f-de0fdc39f668.png?resize=1024,576 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Wise Pelican’s ‘Just Sold’ Luxury Postcard Templates" data-medium-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_337ad7ae-9d5f-4119-a094-8b8fecd52d60.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_337ad7ae-9d5f-4119-a094-8b8fecd52d60.png?w=1024" tabindex="0" role="button" class="wp-image-491885" src="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_337ad7ae-9d5f-4119-a094-8b8fecd52d60.png" alt="Luxury Postcard 1200x675 5" srcset="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_337ad7ae-9d5f-4119-a094-8b8fecd52d60.png 1200w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_337ad7ae-9d5f-4119-a094-8b8fecd52d60.png?resize=150,84 150w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_337ad7ae-9d5f-4119-a094-8b8fecd52d60.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_337ad7ae-9d5f-4119-a094-8b8fecd52d60.png?resize=768,432 768w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_337ad7ae-9d5f-4119-a094-8b8fecd52d60.png?resize=1024,576 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Wise Pelican’s Luxury Just-Sold PostcardThe just-sold letter is a spin on the traditional just-sold postcard, which is a format I still suggest. I’d suggest A/B testing both formats and tracking which one yields more responses. With Wise Pelican, you can try both — it’s a fantastic resource for beautifully designed postcards and letters. All postcards are high-gloss and printed in full color on both sides on oversized [6-inch x 9-inch] heavy card stock. Wise Pelican pricing varies by quantity, but 500 printed postcards shipped to you will cost 46 cents each. The same quantity of printed, inserted, stamped and mailed letters are just $1.38 each.Try Wise PelicanTypically, you’d mail the just-sold letter to homeowners who live around a property you just helped your client to sell. However, you can get creative with these. You can absolutely send this type of mailer to homeowners around a recently sold property that someone else sold — but make sure you adjust the language and ensure it’s clear you were not the listing agent. Better yet, get permission from the listing agent to do a mailer around their sold listing, if possible.For postcards, use the best exterior photo of the property if you were the listing agent or take your own photo of the property from the street if you were not the agent. You’ll want to include the list price, sale price, and days on market. If there were multiple offers, you may also want to include how many were received. Always include your contact information and a call to action, such as an offer for a free home valuation.For just-sold letters, use the script below: Dear [first name],I’m [your name], a real estate professional with [brokerage]. Great news! Your neighborhood is hot! Your neighbors at [address] just sold their property for [sale price]. It was listed at [list price] and sold well above the asking price. We negotiated to get the sellers the highest price possible.There are still plenty of buyers interested in this area. In fact, we had [number] offers, which means there are still ready, willing, and qualified buyers eager to make an offer! Are you or any of our neighbors thinking about selling?Even if you’re months or even years away from moving, a seller’s prep session is one of the services I offer homeowners. In this complimentary meeting, we’ll go through your property, and I’ll give you my expert recommendations on repairs to make, renovations that’ll provide the best return, and, of course, a current market valuation of your property.If this would be helpful to you, give me a call or send me a text, and we’ll schedule it!Sincerely,[your name][your brokerage][your phone number][your email]The Just-Listed LetterAudience: Homeowners around a property you recently listedFormat: Postcard or typed letter in an envelopeLuxury Just Listed Postcard for real estate prospecting" data-medium-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_7832cb00-a7c2-4178-acba-2fb3589e9c04.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_7832cb00-a7c2-4178-acba-2fb3589e9c04.png?w=1024" tabindex="0" role="button" class="wp-image-491878" src="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_7832cb00-a7c2-4178-acba-2fb3589e9c04.png" alt="Luxury Just Listed Postcard for real estate prospecting" srcset="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_7832cb00-a7c2-4178-acba-2fb3589e9c04.png 1200w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_7832cb00-a7c2-4178-acba-2fb3589e9c04.png?resize=150,84 150w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_7832cb00-a7c2-4178-acba-2fb3589e9c04.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_7832cb00-a7c2-4178-acba-2fb3589e9c04.png?resize=768,432 768w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_7832cb00-a7c2-4178-acba-2fb3589e9c04.png?resize=1024,576 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Wise Pelican’s Just-Listed PostcardLuxury Just-Listed Letter from Wise Pelican" data-medium-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?w=1024" tabindex="0" role="button" class="wp-image-491879" src="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png" alt="Just Listed Letter for real estate prospecting" srcset="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png 1200w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?resize=150,84 150w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?resize=768,432 768w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?resize=1024,576 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Wise Pelican Just-Listed Letter Like the just-sold mailers, “just listed” letters or postcards are sent to homeowners around a recently listed property. The goal of this type of prospecting letter is to promote a new listing in the neighborhood, to position yourself as the expert by providing information about the listing, and to find more business. Homeowners may know someone who could be a buyer, or they could be impressed with your proactive marketing approach and decide to talk to you about listing their home.You can use other agents’ listings here, but be careful not to imply that you’re the agent. I recommend getting permission from the listing agent first.A postcard works fine here, yet a letter in an envelope is more impactful. Wise Pelican can help with postcards and letters for these mailers, too. Dear [first name],I’m [your name], a local real estate professional with [brokerage]. I’m sure you’ve seen the for sale sign in the yard at [address]. This property is currently listed for [asking price] and came on the market on [listing date].You have a very cool and unique opportunity to choose your new neighbors! Who in your life might be looking for a new home? Who would you like to have as your neighbor?If anyone comes to mind, please call or text me right away at [phone number]. Properties in this area are selling very quickly, so I wouldn’t want your friend or family member to miss out.Sincerely,[your name][your brokerage][your phone number][your email]Try Wise PelicanThe Hyper-Local Agent LetterAudience: Your own neighborhoodFormat: Typed letter in an envelope, postcard or handwritten noteLuxury Just-Listed Letter from Wise Pelican" data-medium-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?w=1024" tabindex="0" role="button" class="wp-image-491879" src="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png" alt="Just Listed Letter for real estate prospecting" srcset="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png 1200w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?resize=150,84 150w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?resize=768,432 768w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?resize=1024,576 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Local Agent Letter from Wise PelicanSend this prospecting letter to your neighbors — letting them know they have a knowledgeable agent living right in their own neighborhood. This is especially effective if you’re newly licensed, just moved to a new area, or simply as an introduction if you’ve haven’t previously told your neighbors that you’re in the real estate industry.If you opt for the handwritten note option, I’d shorten this by removing the last paragraph and jumping straight from the data to the closing sentence. Dear [first name],I know we are neighbors, yet I wanted to formally introduce myself and let you know I am a resource available to you! My name is [your name], and I’m a licensed real estate professional with [your brokerage].Access to a hyper-local agent is more important now than ever. I live over on [your street] and know this neighborhood inside and out. Last year, there were [number] homes sold here, and the average selling price was [dollar figure]. [If you have any homes you personally sold in the neighborhood, include those here].Please think of me as your go-to resource for all things real estate. I would be happy to give you an equity analysis and let you know how much equity you have in your home. I can also provide expert advice about renovations and the potential return on investment — where to get the biggest bang for your buck — or simply answer any questions you have about the market.Call or text me with any real estate questions!Sincerely,[your name][your brokerage][your phone number][your email]The Golden LetterAudience: Homeowners in the neighborhoods your buyers are interested inFormat: Typed or handwritten letter in an envelope, short & sweetLuxury Just-Listed Letter from Wise Pelican" data-medium-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?w=1024" tabindex="0" role="button" class="wp-image-491879" src="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png" alt="Just Listed Letter for real estate prospecting" srcset="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png 1200w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?resize=150,84 150w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?resize=768,432 768w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_1c14e0a6-313a-4d64-8e59-dc435ec3bbf6.png?resize=1024,576 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Real Estate ProspectingLetter Template from Wise PelicanA golden letter is a helpful tool when searching for an off-market property for your buyers. Many of us are in sellers’ markets with very low inventory. Buyer’s agents who can find their clients a home that’s not even on the market are instant heroes. What a great way to receive referrals for life! While some agents choose to handwrite these, it can be time-consuming.You will also hear agents say you can send these to any neighborhood, regardless of whether you have an actual buyer. While that’s technically true, I think it’s much easier and more natural to focus on targeting areas where your buyers are actively looking. If you don’t have active buyers, ask around the office. I’m sure someone in your office has a buyer struggling to find the right property. Dear [first name],I’m [your name], a local real estate professional with [brokerage]. I’m currently working with a very well-qualified buyer who is eager to move into this lovely neighborhood. Inventory is extremely low, and the competition is fierce. I would love to find them a home that is not yet on the market!Are you considering selling your property? If so, please call or text me at [phone number]. I’d be happy to email you a copy of their pre-approval letter. Thank you!Sincerely,[your name][your brokerage][your phone number][your email]The For Sale by Owner (FSBO) LetterAudience: For sale by ownersFormat: FSBO postcard or a typed letter in an envelopeFor sale by owner sellers are typically very cautious around real estate agents. They believe they can sell their own property without any help, yet the vast majority end up hiring a listing agent. The goal in prospecting FSBO sellers is to be that agent.How? Provide a ton of value upfront, let them dictate the time frame, and stay in touch. That way, when the time is right for them to hire a real estate agent, you’re their first choice.This letter template is full of value, specifically targeted toward for-sale-by-owners [FSBOs]. Of course, you can edit the list of services offered as needed to make it your own. Bonus: If you have testimonials from past clients who started as FSBOs, those would make a good insert to include in the envelope. Dear [first name],I’m [your name], a local real estate professional with [brokerage]. I know you are selling your own property and are not interested in listing with a real estate agent. I completely respect that.I also know that many For Sale By Owner sellers hit a point where they aren’t sure what to do. Perhaps they don’t receive strong enough offers or struggle to address issues that arise at home inspection. My goal is to become your trusted resource if you ever have real estate questions.Here are a few services I offer For Sale By Owner sellers, all at no cost or obligation:Hosting an open house for youDoor knock the neighborhood and invite your neighbors – and their friends – to the open houseProviding a list of safety tipsCompleting a comprehensive market analysis so as to give you a second opinion on the listing priceRecommending any repairs or improvements to increase the value of your propertyPlease call or text me at [phone number] if you’d find any of these services valuable or if you’d simply like me to come over and preview the property for my buyers. Thank you!Sincerely,[your name][your brokerage][your phone number][your email]The Expired Listing LetterAudience: Expired sellersFormat: Handwritten note on a folded notecard, in an envelope, handwritten addressFor each newly expired listing, dozens (or even hundreds) of agents are calling the homeowner to pitch for their business. Most say the exact same thing. Why not stand out by sending a handwritten note on nice stationery? For an even bigger impact, drive over to the home, knock on the door, and leave the note at their door if they’re not home. Our script below is short and sweet to give you enough room in the card. Definitely enclose your business card if your contact information isn’t on the card itself. Dear [first name],I saw your listing just expired. Are you still interested in selling? Please call or text me to set up time for us to meet. I’ll be happy to discuss how we can get your property sold.Thank you,[your name][your phone number]We love Handwrytten as a service that convincingly mimics handwritten cards and letters. I’d highly recommend using Handwrytten to write any letters or cards that you want to send in bulk! Handwrytten integrates with commonly used CRM tools like Salesforce, Follow Up Boss and Hubspot, so you can easily target your existing contact lists.Cards from Handwrytten start at $3.25; most are available for $3.75 plus postage. You can save a bundle by signing up for a monthly subscription. They even provide 25 useful note samples for agents [look for it on their blog] plus an AI Copywriting Assistant.Try HandwryttenThe Open House Neighbor Preview LetterAudience: Neighbors of an upcoming open houseFormat: Postcard or typed letter in an envelope, handwritten addressWise Pelican’s Open House Postcard templates" data-medium-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_52de681c-0aac-4d3e-8369-62c4dabab540.png?w=300" data-large-file="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_52de681c-0aac-4d3e-8369-62c4dabab540.png?w=1024" tabindex="0" role="button" class="wp-image-491895" src="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_52de681c-0aac-4d3e-8369-62c4dabab540.png" alt="Open House Postcard 1200x675 2" srcset="https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_52de681c-0aac-4d3e-8369-62c4dabab540.png 1200w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_52de681c-0aac-4d3e-8369-62c4dabab540.png?resize=150,84 150w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_52de681c-0aac-4d3e-8369-62c4dabab540.png?resize=300,169 300w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_52de681c-0aac-4d3e-8369-62c4dabab540.png?resize=768,432 768w, https://img.chime.me/image/fs/chimeblog/20241108/16/original_52de681c-0aac-4d3e-8369-62c4dabab540.png?resize=1024,576 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" />Wise Pelican’s Open House Postcard templatesThe delivery of this letter will need to be timed appropriately since you’ll want to make sure the letters arrive a few days before the open house happens. Hosting an exclusive neighbor preview the hour before your public open house accomplishes a few things: it makes the neighbors feel special, gives them permission to be nosy, and allows you more face time with future potential sellers while demonstrating to them that you go above and beyond for your seller clients.Adding teaser photos of the home’s interior can help pique neighbors’ interest. We are all a bit nosey by nature so a postcard or letter that includes images can help boost attendance. You can order preview postcards, letters and a more broad open house invitation postcard to send to your sphere of influence at Wise Pelican.Try Wise Pelican Dear [first name],I’m [your name], a local real estate professional with [brokerage]. I will be hosting an open house at [address] this upcoming [day and time].You are cordially invited to attend an exclusive neighbor preview before the public open house! I love meeting the neighbors around my listings to get the inside scoop and find out all the exciting things you love about living here.Please come by anytime between [times] before the public open house begins at [time]. Hope to see you there!Sincerely,[your name][your brokerage][your phone number][your email]P.s. Apologies in advance for the extra traffic on the street!The Tenant or Renter LetterAudience: RentersFormat: Typed letter in an envelope, handwritten addressEducating renters about the benefits of homeownership and busting myths is a proven strategy for converting tenants into buyers. Send this letter to apartment complexes and past rental clients you’ve worked with.If you want to think outside the box, consider partnering with an ambitious insurance agent who offers both rent and homeowners insurance. They’ll have a database of renters you can mail to, and you’ll likely be able to split the cost of the mailing! Dear [first name],I’m [your name], a local real estate professional with [brokerage]. I know you’re currently renting. Many renters I talk to wish they could buy a home but don’t think it’s possible.I’d like to share some useful information to help you decide if buying a home this year is the right option for you:You do not need to put down 20%. There are loan programs available that allow as little as 3.5% down.House-hacking is a great way to build wealth and pay down your mortgage. It entails buying a multi-family property, living in one unit, and renting out the other units.In late 2023, the Federal Reserve reported that between 2019 and 2022, the median net worth of a homeowner had grown to reach $396,200 versus $10,400 for renters and other non-homeowners; and that homeowners’ average net worth had grown to $1.5 million compared to just $154,900 for renters and other non-homeownersCall or text me at [phone number] with any questions. If you’re ready to take the next step, we’d simply schedule a buyer consultation and I’ll walk you through the entire buying process — start to finish.Sincerely,[your name][your brokerage][your phone number][your email]The Investor LetterAudience: Real estate investorsFormat: Typed letter in an envelope, handwritten addressWhile the average homeowner moves once every seven years, investors buy and sell much more frequently — sometimes buying multiple properties each year. Targeting investors and tailoring your real estate prospecting letters to their needs and is very smart. They could be looking to acquire more properties, do a 1031 exchange, or sell everything and retire. You’ll never know unless you ask.Edit this as needed to accurately reflect your own areas of service. If you have them, I would also include an insert with any testimonials you have from investor clients. Dear [first name],I’m [your name], a local real estate professional with [brokerage]. I work with many investors and want to introduce myself as a resource to you. We help real estate investors with everything from finding new tenants to acquiring more properties to expertly handling 1031 exchanges.What are your current real estate needs? If you’re in the market now, what types of properties are you looking for? How can I help? Call or text me at [phone number]. I would be happy to be a resource for you.Sincerely,[your name][your brokerage][your phone number][your email]Our Real Estate Prospecting Letter ChecklistStick to your brand. Use your brand’s fonts, colors, and tone to ensure the recipient feels the way you want them to feel. If your brand is light-hearted and fun, include humor in your letters. If it’s high-end, use high-quality paper and sleek colors/fonts. Provide real value without being pushy. Imagine you are a homeowner receiving your letter — how would you react? Would it be helpful or annoying? Keep that in mind when determining your letters’ content. Include a clear call to action. Do you want the recipient to call you? What would they get out of calling you? Think about the action and the incentive to take the action. Example: “Call or text me to schedule a home improvement consultation, so I can share with you the improvements and renovations that will get you the highest return on investment.”Keep your prospecting letters short and sweet. People already have short attention spans, and if they start feeling like you’re trying to sell them something, you may have already lost them. Make your point quickly and be as valuable/interesting/compelling as possible!Personalize your real estate prospecting letters. We recommend that you sign every letter and consider writing a little note at the bottom of each one. This will make it more warm and memorable. This strategy works ONLY if you’re sending 100 letters or less. If you’re sending thousands of prospecting letters, we recommend ordering beautiful notecards & envelopes created using Handwrytten’s robotic handwriting technology. Cards typically range from $3.25 to $3.75 (delivered directly to your database).Try HandwryttenThe Full Picture: Real Estate Prospecting Letter TemplatesWhen you’re developing your prospecting plan, incorporate some of these real estate prospecting letter templates to round out your strategy. They’ll help you capture and sustain mind-share, reach new potential clients, and increase your local presence. Do you have a tried-and-true real prospecting letter template, copy or provider that has worked for you or a tip about timing, delivery or style? Please share it in the comments!Related articles Real estate mailers: The ultimate guide for 2024 Create your real estate marketing plan in 12 steps (+ template) 12 proven real estate scripts that boost confidence & earn more business About Ashley HarwoodAshley Harwood began her real estate career in 2013 and built a six-figure business as a solo agent before launching Move Over Extroverts in 2018. She developed training materials, classes, and coaching programs for her fellow introverts. Beginning in 2020, Ashley served as Director of Agent Growth for three Keller Williams offices in the Boston metro area. She’s now the Lead Listing agent for the Fleet Homes team in Massachusetts and a regular contributor to Vetted by HousingWire. She created The Quiet Success curriculum and has taught thousands of real estate agents nationwide. She has also been a guest speaker at top industry events and has been named a leading real estate coach by prominent industry publications. YouTubeInstagramFacebookdocument.querySelectorAll('.copyButton').forEach(function(button) { button.addEventListener('click', function(event) { var targetId = event.target.getAttribute('data-target'); var textToCopyElement = document.getElementById(targetId).cloneNode(true); // Remove background color from the cloned element textToCopyElement.style.backgroundColor = 'transparent'; var hiddenDiv = document.createElement('div'); hiddenDiv.className = 'hidden-textarea'; hiddenDiv.appendChild(textToCopyElement); document.body.appendChild(hiddenDiv); var range = document.createRange(); range.selectNodeContents(textToCopyElement); var selection = window.getSelection(); selection.removeAllRanges(); selection.addRange(range); try { document.execCommand('copy'); console.log('Formatted text copied to clipboard'); showCopyMessage(event.target); } catch (err) { console.error('Error copying text: ', err); } document.body.removeChild(hiddenDiv); selection.removeAllRanges(); });});function showCopyMessage(button) { var message = document.createElement('span'); message.className = 'copyMessage'; message.textContent = 'Text copied!'; button.parentNode.insertBefore(message, button.nextSibling); setTimeout(function() { message.remove(); }, 2000); // Message disappears after 2 seconds}

Government-sponsored enterprise Fannie Mae announced on Thursday the appointment of Scott D. Stowell, a homebuilding executive with nearly 40 years of industry experience, to its board of directors.“Mr. Stowell brings nearly 40 years of experience in the U.S. homebuilding industry to Fannie Mae’s accomplished and diverse board, which guides the company’s efforts to responsibly expand access to mortgage credit and finance quality, affordable rental housing,” the company said in a statement.Board chair Michael J. Heid welcomed Stowell to the board, lauding his experience as a helpful factor for Fannie Mae’s intersections with the homebuilding industry.Scott Stowell“We are pleased to welcome Scott to Fannie Mae’s Board of Directors,” Heid said. “His leadership and guidance, especially from the homebuilding perspective, will be invaluable as Fannie Mae continues to create innovative solutions to help address today’s housing challenges.”Priscilla Almodovar, Fannie Mae’s president and CEO, also lauded Stowell’s appointment as a complement to the board’s expertise.“With broad expertise across the residential spectrum, including single-family homes, mixed-use communities, and projects meeting local governments’ affordability requirements, we will benefit from Scott’s deep understanding of the homebuilding process as lack of supply and new construction issues persist in the U.S. housing market,” Almodovar said.This marks the fourth board that Stowell serves on, in addition to positions at Toll Brothers, Pacific Mutual Holding Co. and HomeAid America.Stowell is the founder and CEO of advisory, real estate investment and angel investing company Capital Thirteen LLC. He served in various roles in the homebuilding industry beginning in 1986 — including as CEO of Standard Pacific Homes, and as as the executive chairman of CalAtlantic Group Inc. following the merger of Standard Pacific and the Ryland Group.CalAtlantic merged with Lennar Corp. in 2018 and Stowell served on that company’s board of directors until 2021.