On Tuesday, Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) updated an August homeownership and household growth report with an addendum that adds a low-immigration scenario.  Under the low-immigration scenario, the number of homeowning households would decline by approximately 88,000 t

Equity Union Real Estate has expanded into California’s Central Coast by adding Team Sweasey, a San Luis Obispo-based real estate team led by Hal Sweasey. Team Sweasey will continue to operate from San Luis Obispo, which will serve as Equity Union’s 13th branch location statewide. Sweasey has more t

Americans searching for homes in 2025 placed greater emphasis on lifestyle features and everyday comfort than on size or luxury, according to Zillow’s annual review of home search behavior. Data from the 2025 Zillow Zeitgeist — which analyzes millions of natural-language searches on the platform — s

Movement Mortgage has a new East Coast growth director, according to a press release from the company on Wednesday. Justin Caplan is taking on the role. He is tasked with leading and supporting market expansion, along with strengthening recruiting and leadership development. Caplan, who has 30 years

Century 21 Real Estate has expanded its presence in Idaho’s Magic Valley through the affiliation of Twin Falls-based Gateway Real Estate. The brokerage — now operating as Century 21 Gateway — has been owned and operated since 2010 by Nathan Lyda, a Twin Falls native. Lyda entered the real estate ind

ERA Real Estate affiliate Sprout Realty ERA Powered announced its acquisition of Dallas-based 24Fifteen Realty, expanding its presence into the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and neighboring Waco, Texas. The acquisition includes two offices and nearly 100 agents. Following the transaction, the brokerag

On March 4, 2025, a windstorm cut across Texas and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes. Outside Dallas-Fort Worth, the pattern was the same as the storm swept through one of Lennar‘s new communities: the grid went down, the neighborhood went dark. But 46 homes in that same community—

The Supreme Court will not be taking up Real Estate Exchange (REX)’s appeal of a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in REX’s long-running antitrust suit against the National Association of Realtors (NAR) and Zillow. The nation’s highest court denied REX’s rehearing request in a ruling on Monday.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) on Tuesday named Bob Hart as president of its ICE Mortgage Technology division. Hart will succeed Tim Bowler, who will transition to ICE’s fixed income and data services division, where he will focus on index development and financial institution infrastructure. The l

Home shoppers in 2025 gravitated toward more affordable, midsized U.S. cities, with Midwestern markets accounting for most of the country’s most popular places to buy, according to new data released by Zillow. Rockford, Illinois, ranked as the most popular housing market in the country, moving up fr

The unemployment rate reached 4.6% today!  Nevertheless, the Federal Reserve perceives current conditions as stable, allowing for a policy stance slightly above neutral since labor market deterioration has not yet occurred. Since late 2022, I have consistently argued that the Fed shifted its approac

Freddie Mac announced Tuesday that its board of directors has selected Kenny M. Smith as the company’s CEO. The move is effective Wednesday and Smith will also serve as a member of the board. Michael Hutchins, who assumed the interim CEO role in March 2025 following the departure of Diana Reid, will

Even as higher material costs, labor constraints, economic uncertainty, and spottier consumer spending trends weigh on current renovation and remodeling projects, home improvement contractors remain optimistic. The Q4 Contractor Activity Tracker, released by The Farnsworth Group and Home Improvement

Boarding and lodging houses played an important role during American industrialization.​ Could they make a come-back? Rural people and immigrants relied on them when they sought jobs in rapidly urbanizing cities and affordable housing was scarce. Cities zoned them largely out of existence over the p

Co-living marketplace PadSplit is expanding into four new U.S. markets: Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Sacramento and Nashville. Founded in 2017, PadSplit operates in more than 35 markets and has listed more than 28,000 rooms, housing 65,000-plus people. The company said it focuses on access and flexibi

A new study found that Zillow’s automated home valuation tool, the Zestimate, improves pricing efficiency in residential real estate transactions and delivers measurable benefits to buyers and sellers like. The research, published in Marketing Science — a peer-reviewed journal of the Institute for O

ALIRT Insurance Research released a report this week finding that Florida’s homeowners insurance market has stabilized after years of financial strain — following legislative reforms adopted in late 2022 and early 2023. The 2025 Florida Domestic Property Insurer Market Update concludes that the mark

The executive team switch-ups at iBuyer Opendoor are continuing. On Monday, the firm announced the appointments of Lucas Matheson as president and Christy Schwartz as chief financial officer.  Matheson most recently served as the CEO of Coinbase Canada. Prior to this, Matheson spent five years in a