Beyond Redfin: Zown bets on AI, salaried agents and buyer rebates

When Rishard Rameez, co-founder and CEO of Canadian-based real estate brokerage Zown, bought and sold a home within the same year, the inefficiencies of the process left him frustrated. “I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I had to pay [almost] all of my down payment towards covering the re
Read MoreRent collections improve slightly, but late payments signal strain
On-time rent payments improved in August 2025, offering a rare positive note in a year marked by declining performance, according to new data from Chandan Economics. Preliminary estimates for August show that 83.2% of tenants at independently operated units paid their rent on time — up 34 basis poin
Read MoreRocktop’s Cade Thompson on targeting inefficiencies in mortgage lending

Fannie Mae‘s latest Mortgage Lender Sentiment Survey points to a growing trend of lenders that want to make the mortgage process and its various components as efficient as possible. In 2025, lenders ranked streamlined business processes, reduced costs and consumer-facing technology as their leading
Read MoreeXp welcomes back The Victorica Group in San Antonio

The nation’s top brokerage by transaction side count continues to expand. On Monday, eXp Realty announced that it was welcoming back San Antonio-based The Victorica Group. The group was formed at eXp, but went on to briefly operate as an independent brokerage. It ultimately decided to return to eXp
Read MoreReverse mortgage lenders log Q2 profits amid home equity, AI push

The publicly traded companies in the reverse mortgage space were largely profitable in the second quarter of 2025, despite a challenging macroeconomic backdrop. As a group, they posted $1.2 billion in originations in Q2 2025, compared to $1 billion in the first quarter. Executives pointed to strong
Read MoreRealtor.com names Janakiraman Karthikeyan as CTO

Realtor.com is welcoming a new executive to its C-suite. On Monday, the company announced that it had appointed Janakiraman Karthikeyan as its new chief technology officer. This role will see Karthikeyan lead Realtor.com’s technology strategy as the company looks to achieve its long-term growth goal
Read MoreHave lower mortgage rates already boosted the homebuilders?
New home sales followed the existing home sales market by beating sales estimates and having positive revisions in today’s report, which suggests that we are already seeing some benefits of lower mortgage rates. While it’s not a spectacular number by any means, if mortgage rates can get toward 6% an
Read MoreSchemmel Soda Group joins Douglas Elliman in Florida

Top-producing residential real estate team Schemmel Soda Group has left Premier Sotheby’s International Realty to join Douglas Elliman’s Sarasota, Florida, office. The group is led by cofounders Joel Schemmel and Donna Soda, along with agents Sharon Chiodi and Patti Tebo. Marketing Director Katie Ku
Read MoreEvergreen Home Loans continues expansion tear, adding 11 new states

To continue its goal of national expansion, Evergreen Home Loans announced on Monday that it has entered 11 new states: Texas, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Wyoming, Nebraska, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Ohio and New Mexico. To support this growth, the Bellevue, Washington-based com
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Where do mortgage rates go from here?
Mortgage rates reached a new year-to-date low Friday after Fed Chair Jerome Powell, during his speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Summit, finally acknowledged that he was concerned about the labor market. Does that mean mortgage rates can go lower from here? It’s complicated. Since the last jobs re
Read MoreHow McLaughlin v. McKesson will implicate lender operations

Stripping away decades of precedence and standardized regulation makes compliance a moving target — especially for lenders whose operations span state borders — yet this is exactly what happened earlier this summer. SCOTUS’ impact on the lending landscape The Supreme Court’s June 20th decision in Mc
Read MoreOlder adults support many types of housing regulation reform

Older adults support changing zoning laws to make homebuilding easier, according to new surveys by AARP and the Pew Charitable Trusts. Older adults overwhelmingly want to age in place, but their homes are often unsuited to aging, while rising home prices and a shortage of housing inventory makes it
Read MoreTech Pulse: eXp’s digital twin trend; lenders urged to build AI compliance

Welcome back to Tech Pulse — HousingWire‘s weekly series rounding up the latest in technology news, including tools, integrations and trends that impact mortgage and real estate. Here’s what happened this week: eXp Realty embraces digital twin tech to transform workflows eXp Realty isn’t dabbling in
Read MoreWhat to expect next from The Builder’s Daily

No one in the homebuilding business I know is sitting around waiting for things to get easier. That’s not how this works. Not in 2025. Not when mortgage rates, insurance shocks, permitting delays, capital costs and housing politics are all pulling in different directions. Not when builders are expec
Read MoreIs the real estate industry getting its antitrust enforcement wish?

Many in the real estate industry lauded President Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election as they anticipated his win would usher in a new wave of weaker antitrust scrutiny on an industry that had spent the past four years battling its fair share of antitrust suits. However, these
Read MorePittsburgh, Cleveland top global metro affordability list
Pittsburgh and Cleveland rank as the world’s most affordable major housing markets, but a new report finds that not a single metro area among 95 studied actually qualifies as affordable. The annual Demographia International Housing Affordability report — released by Chapman University — measured aff
Read MoreHomebuyers seek independent research, but still want a real estate agent
From business practice changes, to a slowing housing market, to rapidly advancing technology, real estate agents have had to adapt quite a bit over the past few years. Still, homebuyers find them more important than ever. Data from Cotality shows that while more than 500,000 agents have entered the
Read MorePowell’s Jackson Hole speech stirs cautious optimism for housing

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech on Friday at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium left real estate and mortgage professionals cautiously optimistic. While expectations are building for lower interest rates, volatility remains a concern. In his final address as Fed chair at the Federal Re
Read MoreUSDA is automating its loan application uploading

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced this week that it has awarded technology services firm Phoenixteam a $49 million contract to modernize its mortgage underwriting platform, the Guaranteed Underwriting System (GUS). The Arlington, V.A.-based company will overhaul GUS, which supports
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