Last year was largely a good one for the nation’s homebuilders, which were able to offer rate buydowns to attract more clients while maintaining double-digit profit margins. Additionally, the competition from existing home sellers was somewhat absent. An estimated 668,000 new homes were sold in 2023

Commission lawsuit defendant HomeServices of America is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its argument that the Eight Circuit wrongly rejected arbitration agreements with unnamed class members in the Sitzer/Burnett commission lawsuit.In late October 2023, a Missouri jury found HomeServices of Am

By 2034, an estimated one in five residents of the state of California will be age 65 or older. While this won’t lead to a “silver tsunami” when it comes to a flood of housing inventory, the impacts of an aging population are difficult to ignore.These shifting dynamics are causing the California sta

There was rampant speculation after the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting last week about the timing and number of interest rate cuts this year. In a follow-up interview on 60 Minutes on Sunday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell did not sound like someone who has pivoted. In fact, Po

How will mortgage rates impact seasonal inventory in 2024? Is the seasonal bottom going to happen later than I want? Maybe. It’s not what I wanted to see in 2024, but I have to be realistic since we are already in February. In the last four years, we have had abnormal seasonal inventory data, meanin

Referral business is crucial to your bottom line as an agent. Imagine if you could bottle the enthusiasm your clients have for working with you and use it to capture new business in 2024. That’s where real estate testimonials come into play. In this article, we’ll show how to procure top-notch clien

Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.) and Tim Kaine (Va.) have reintroduced their Housing Supply and Affordability Act to the U.S. Senate in the hope of establishing a new grant program that would fund local government efforts to develop and implement housing policy plans.Announced on Thursday, the

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) on Friday announced that it has published a new final rule that eliminates a current requirement for lenders to register the branch offices where they conduct FHA Title I or Title II mortgage loan originations. By removing these requirements, FHA hopes to inv

With ongoing liquidity challenges and a continuing lag in Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) case numbers, reverse mortgage business in 2024 started off with a bit of a whimper.Both HECM endorsements and HECM-backed securities (HMBS) issuance saw modest declines in January, although four of the

Today we got a jobs Friday hat trick! Better headline jobs were reported, with positive revisions and more robust wage growth, which caught bond traders off guard and sent bond yields and mortgage rates higher today. Now, we do have some quirky seasonality issues with this report, but as I have ofte

Most of last year’s top-producing loan officers at Draper and Kramer Mortgage Corp. (DKMC) are not transitioning to the company’s acquirer, New American Funding (NAF), according to multiple sources and available public data.During their departure, DKMC sales staff who are not joining NAF were inform

Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp., the nation’s ninth-largest mortgage originator, announced Friday that it would be closing its wholesale channel and pivoting entirely to retail. “The people who have run Fairway’s Wholesale Department are some of the most talented, humble people in the business an

Retired couples who are Medicare beneficiaries could need as much as $413,000 saved to cover medical expenses in the latter stages of life, an increase over the previous year’s estimate of $383,000. This is according to new findings from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).The figure is t

The U.S. economy added significantly more jobs than expected during the first month of the year. Jobs increased by 353,000 in January, up from a revised rate of 333,000 in December, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday. January’s reading far exceeded the monthly ave

Real estate brokerage eXp Realty has entered into an affiliated business agreement with Orlando, Florida-based title firm Citrus Closing Group, according to an announcement on Thursday.“We are thrilled about the prospects of our exciting new partnership with eXp Realty, anticipating a wealth of oppo

Redfin is back to offering refunds to homebuyers but this time under a new name. Launched on Thursday, the brokerage’s Sign & Save program provides buyers who sign up to work with a Redfin agent before their second home tour — and who purchase a property with that agent within 180 days of signing th

Sure, your real estate landing pages look great — but do they convert? A good real estate website includes more than just drool-worthy images of homes priced to sell. Your real estate website should serve multiple functions, almost like a digital business card with an MLS listing storefront, a booki

The U.S. House of Representatives this week passed a bipartisan tax bill that included an expansion of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, a move lauded by housing advocates including the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) and the National Housing Conference (NHC).But political observ

United Bank will consolidate its mortgage subsidiaries into one unified mortgage business amid the housing industry struggles with elevated interest rates.United Bank has been delivering mortgage services through three channels, including two mortgage subsidiaries — Crescent Mortgage Co. and George

The report on the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) book of business inside the Mutual Mortgage Insurance (MMI) Fund was another positive overall development for the program, with the estimated economic net worth of the HECM MMI at $15.368 billion, according to the Federal Housing Administratio