Real Estate

Mortgage lender Equity Prime Mortgage (EPM) announced on Tuesday that it has appointed mortgage industry veteran David Abrahamson as its chief risk officer.

Abrahamson previously worked at EPM from 2010 to 2020, a period during which the lender said it expanded from a “primarily retail, refinance-focused organization” into a broader mortgage company with a growing branch model and wholesale channel. EPM now operates exclusively as a wholesale lender.

Abrahamson, who will be based at the company’s Atlanta headquarters and will work with EPM’s executive, credit, operations, compliance and underwriting teams, brings about 40 years of mortgage industry experience in risk management, operations, credit and sales.

“EPM has always felt like my home base,” Abrahamson said in a statement. “I have remained connected with Eddy and Phil over the years, and when the opportunity came to return, it felt like the right move at the right time. The company has changed dramatically, but the relationships, the vision and the opportunity to make a meaningful impact are still here.”

In his new role, Abrahamson will oversee the company’s risk management framework, including its credit, underwriting, regulatory compliance and investor-related functions.

“Effective risk management starts with meeting the expectations of every regulator and investor we work with, whether that is HUD, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the CFPB, state regulators, or our capital markets partners,” Abrahamson said. “My responsibility is to understand exactly where we are today, identify where changes are needed, and help build the processes and accountability required to create long-term success.”

EPM Founder and CEO Eddy G. Perez Jr. said Abrahamson’s familiarity with the company made him a strong fit for the position.

“David understands EPM because he helped build EPM,” Perez said. “He knows our history, he knows our people, and he knows what strong risk management looks like inside this organization. Bringing him back is not about looking backward. It is about applying decades of experience to where we are going next.”

Perez said the appointment is part of the company’s effort to strengthen its leadership team and support future growth.

This article was written by Sarah Wolak and generated with the assistance of HousingWire Automation, then reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

Lofty today announced an expanded version of its AI operating system, Lofty AOS, along with Lofty Cowork and House.ai, a financial intelligence platform for homeownership.

The company said updates are designed to automate workflow management for real estate professionals while helping consumers better understand homeownership and mortgage readiness.

Lofty AOS is designed to manage workflows proactively rather than relying on users to initiate tasks. Instead of a dashboard with multiple widgets, the platform presents prioritized tasks that are ready to execute.

Leaders said this approach reduces time spent managing software and allows agents to focus on client relationships and transactions.

“Artificial intelligence has become a commonplace term in real estate, but most solutions remain reactive, placing the burden on the agent to prompt tools, interpret outputs and determine next steps,” said Henry Li, chief technology officer at Lofty. “Lofty AOS and the addition of Cowork eliminates the dependence on agent adoption to make AI a reality, finally capturing the productivity and efficiency gains AI has long promised but seldom delivered.”

Lofty Cowork is an AI-powered workspace within Lofty AOS that organizes and prioritizes daily tasks through a chat interface.

Agents can review leads, send mass text messages, build Smart Plans and complete other activities without manual setup.

The platform includes features such as “Your Morning Read,” which prioritizes lead management tasks, and “What Needs You Now,” which identifies activities requiring human action.

Users can also create custom AI agents for tasks ranging from onboarding to post-closing activities, while existing AI copilots, including Sales Agent, Social Agent and Homeowner Agent, continue to support lead engagement, social media marketing and seller lead generation.

House.ai is a financial intelligence platform designed to help consumers understand their homebuying readiness while providing qualified prospects to real estate professionals.

For agents and brokers, House.ai is intended to automate early lead qualification and identify consumers who are ready to move forward with a transaction. When a user reaches an “offer-ready” stage, House.ai connects them with a local real estate agent or mortgage professional in the Lofty network.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

A new Consumer Policy Center (CPC) report found that administrative “junk fees” charged by real estate brokerages to both home buyers and sellers have become widespread, often ranging from $400 to $600 per side and sometimes exceeding $1,000, with some agents calling the charges unethical and refusing to pass them on to clients.

The report, titled “Junk Fees Charged to Both Home Sellers and Buyers: An Overview,” was released Tuesday by the Washington, D.C.-based consumer watch dog organization. It analyzes how so‑called admin or transaction fees are imposed, how often they appear in residential deals, how high they run and how they are disclosed to consumers.

Because there is no comprehensive public data set on these fees, CPC said the findings are based primarily on several hundred comments from real estate agents, brokers and mortgage professionals gathered through direct communication and public posts on platforms including Facebook, TikTok, Reddit and Quora. The authors, Stephen Brobeck and Wendy Gilch, characterize the work as closer to an investigative report than an academic study, but say consistent patterns emerge across markets.

What the report found on fee levels and scope

According to the report, brokerages most commonly label these add‑on charges as “administrative” or “admin” fees but also use terms such as transaction fee, broker service fee, processing fee, technology fee or regulatory compliance fee. The fees are typically imposed by the brokerage on both the listing and buyer sides, with agents expected to pass them through to sellers and buyers.

Agents cited by CPC report that:

• Most home sales in their markets now include an admin-style fee, with some agents estimating that more than 95% of transactions in their state include a fee on both sides.
• Typical charges fall between $400 and $600 per party, though individual fees can be below $200 or above $2,000. Isolated examples reached roughly $2,500.
• At least some agents raise the brokerage’s base fee and retain the difference, or charge a flat fee even when their brokerage does not require one.

CPC estimates that if roughly half of buyers and sellers pay an average $500 charge, the total annual cost to consumers would approach $2 billion. Because these charges are generally flat dollar amounts, the report notes they are regressive, effectively increasing the commission rate more for lower-priced homes than for higher-priced ones.

In one cited example, a $1,590 admin fee on a $412,000 sale increased the effective commission by about 0.40 percentage points, while a $795 fee on a $126,900 home added roughly 0.60 percentage points to the commission rate.

“It is difficult for brokers to justify charging a buyer or seller an admin fee when they are also charging them a 3% commission,” Brobeck, a CPC senior fellow, said in a statement.

“Because the fees are regressive, sometimes effectively increasing the commission rate by over half a percentage point, they hit first-time homebuyers especially hard.”

Disclosure practices under scrutiny

The report says admin fees are increasingly written into buyer-broker agreements and listing contracts, either as a separate line item or as a “plus $X fee” addition to the commission percentage. This shift has accelerated since the National Association of Realtors (NAR) settled the home seller commission lawsuits in 2024, as the settlement pushed more states to require written buyer representation agreements early in the process.

However, the CPC cites accounts from industry professionals that some fees are still introduced late in the transaction. The report describes instances in which agents or brokerages allegedly added admin fees to title or attorney disbursement instructions days or even hours before closing, despite state consumer-protection laws that generally require advance disclosure in agency agreements.

“It appears that in the early stages of the sale, a number of agents are not informing, either verbally or in writing, the imposition of these junk fees,” Gilch, a CPC fellow, said in a statement. “When a consumer learns about the junk fee at a closing, they are under great pressure to approve it.”

Brobeck and Gilch also pointed to a recent class action filed in Florida state court against Compass as an example of potential legal exposure. The suit alleges unfair and deceptive practices tied to a $475 “transaction fee” charged to a buyer and a $495 fee charged to a seller, and argues that the fee was not properly disclosed earlier in the process.

The report argues that private litigation currently appears more likely than regulatory action to change practices around admin fees. While CPC says federal agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau have not shown strong interest in this specific issue, the group notes that state consumer-protection laws already require clear fee disclosure in most cases.

The CPC also points back to earlier litigation, including Busby v. JRHBW Realty in Alabama, which challenged a separate administrative fee under the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act. That case ultimately led to a 2014 consent order with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and contributed to industry guidance that such fees must be retained by the brokerage, not paid to third parties, and must be adequately disclosed.

The report suggests that if admin fees continue to rise or remain opaque, state attorneys general could use consumer-protection statutes to issue subpoenas or civil investigative demands, and that multistate actions could follow. For large brokerages with national or multistate footprints, the combination of class actions, state-level enforcement and potential federal scrutiny represents a growing compliance risk.

Agent pushback and changing expectations

While some agents pass the fees on to consumers, the CPC’s review of social media posts found multiple agents who said they waive the fee and pay it out of their own commission to avoid client friction and others who have left or declined to join firms that require the charges.

The CPC reports that some of the harshest criticism of admin fees is coming from inside the industry. Agents quoted in the report and its appendix labeled the charges with terms including “unethical,” “money grab,” “garbage” and “robbery,” and described struggling to justify them to buyers who believed the seller was covering all broker compensation or to sellers already paying 5%–6% commissions.

According to the report, many of those agents say they either routinely waive the fee or left brokerages that required it. One mortgage broker interviewed by CPC estimated that agents personally absorb the charge in about one-quarter of deals.

Fees and consumer protection 

Looking ahead, the CPC suggests the brokers and team leaders should review whether admin or transaction fees are required, optional or prohibited and how that policy is communicated internally. Additionally, the organization said brokers should ensure that all add-on fees are clearly spelled out in buyer and seller agreements, with plain-language explanations that match what appears on loan and closing disclosures and that they should evaluate the impact of flat fees on lower-priced transactions and first-time buyers, where the effective commission increase is highest.

For agents, the CPC said they should work to understand their brokerage’s fee policies and how they align with your value proposition to clients and the organization noted that they should be prepared to discuss whether they charge an admin or transaction fee, as well as when it is disclosed and whether it is negotiable.

In addition, the CPC said agents need to document client consent to any such fees in initial agreements rather than relying on last-minute additions at closing.

This article was written by Brooklee Han and generated with the assistance of HousingWire Automation, then reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

While Zillow’s legal battles on other fronts may be heating up, for now, it no longer has to contend with claims of Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) and racketeering violations. On Monday, Seattle-based federal court Judge James Robart granted Zillow’s motion to dismiss the combined Taylor and Armstrong lawsuit. 

According to the ruling, the complaint does not contain enough factual allegations to satisfy the standards for the claims the plaintiffs made. 

“Plaintiffs’ claims of lack of notice are implausible given Zillow’s express, repeated disclosures,” the ruling states. “Plaintiffs fail to plead specific facts showing how Defendants’ practices actively undermined the home-buying process, restricted informed lender choice, or eroded trust in real estate professionals.”

Originally filed in mid-September 2025, the lawsuit claims that the portal tricks consumers into using agents affiliated with Zillow through its Flex and Premier Agent programs, resulting in inflated home purchase prices. In an amended complaint filed in mid-November, Taylor also alleged that Zillow violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act by pushing homebuyers to apply to more costly loans that do not serve their best interests. 

In December 2025, the lawsuit was consolidated with a second suit known as the Armstrong suit, which was first filed in early November, claiming that Zillow pressures agents in its Premier Agent and Flex lead programs to steer buyers to Zillow Home Loans for their purchase mortgage pre-approval. Allegedly, agents who send more clients to Zillow’s mortgage arm for their pre-approvals received extra or higher-quality leads in exchange.

In a first amended complaint filed in the consolidated lawsuit in early January, the plaintiffs again claimed that Zillow tricks consumers into using agents affiliated with Zillow through its Flex and Premier Agent programs, resulting in inflated home purchase prices. The complaint also added Real and The Frano Team as defendants. 

In a second amended complaint filed in April, the plaintiffs added eXp Realty as a defendant, accusing it of supporting Zillow’s “fraudulent business enterprise” by allegedly steering clients to Zillow Home Loans for their financing needs.

Failure to identify necessary information

For the RICO claims, Judge Robart found that the complaint failed to identify necessary information such as who committed the fraudulent acts, what communications were fraudulent, how they were fraudulent and how the different defendants participated in the allegedly fraudulent acts. Additionally, the court found that the plaintiffs’ claim that in working together Zillow and brokerages formed an unlawful enterprise was actually just an ordinary business relationship. 

As for the RESPA claims, the court found that since the plaintiffs were not the ones to pay the fees in question, they lack standing. Judge Robart reasoned that while the homebuyers paid for the home, under the cooperative compensation model that was common practice when the buyers purchased their properties in 2022, the fees in question came out of the seller broker’s total compensation that was then split with the buyer’s broker. 

In addition, for both the RESPA and the RICO claims, the judge found that the plaintiffs failed to show how they were injured, including how Zillow Flex led to increased home prices or how using a Zillow Home Loan product actually caused financial harm. 

In a post on its Front Porch blog, Zillow lauded the judge for dismissing the “plaintiffs’ baseless complaint.” 

“The court rejected plaintiffs’ entire suit, even after five rounds of complaints, finding that every claim they asserted against Zillow and its partners in their 100+ page complaint was deficient,” the post states. 

The court is allowing the plaintiffs to file an amended complaint by August 17. 

Other defendants in the Taylor suit, The Real Brokerage and the Real-brokered The Frano Team, were both voluntarily dismissed from the lawsuit earlier this year. Additionally, GK Properties was dismissed as the claims made against it were time-barred. The claims against eXp are still pending. 

This post was originally published on here. 

On July 23, plaintiffs in the Sitzer/Burnett and Gibson cases asked Judge Stephen Bough to enforce something this industry already agreed to. As HousingWire reported, they want the listing and commission data that MLSs promised to hand over when they opted into the National Association of Realtors settlement.

The obstacle is a vendor. FBS, which powers Flexmls, declined to release the data without explicit permission from each MLS, and will not say which MLSs are withholding it. So, the plaintiffs proposed a rule. Notify every opted-in MLS. Give each one seven days to object. Treat silence as consent.

Read the headline and this looks like housekeeping. Read the filing, and it is not.

Why the data is the story

Listing and commission data does two jobs. The stated one is compliance. Did the MLS strip the compensation fields? Did the rule changes take hold?

This data is the raw material for whatever comes next. Status history. Entry dates. The gap between when a listing agreement was signed and when the listing appeared. What was paid and to whom. If you wanted to learn whether listings are being routed around the MLS in a pattern, or whether concessions are quietly doing the old co-op commission’s job, this is the dataset you would want first.

Lawyers who are finished do not keep a docket warm

Nearly three years after the verdict, the plaintiffs are still filing motions in Judge Bough’s courtroom.

The filing names the four plaintiffs, not their counsel. Michael Ketchmark of Ketchmark & McCreight is lead plaintiffs’ counsel in both Sitzer/Burnett and Gibson, so the reasonable read is that his team is behind it.

The practice changes are not complicated. An agent working with a buyer must have a written agreement before touring a home. It has to state a specific compensation amount or rate, not an open-ended number tied to whatever the seller offers. It has to say plainly that fees are negotiable and not set by law. And the agent cannot collect more than the amount in that agreement. Those are NAR’s own published terms.

Four rules. Now, walk your office and ask honestly how many of your agents follow all four, every time.

Two years in, the answer in most companies is not one hundred percent. Some still get it signed at the offer table. Some still write in language pointing to whatever the listing side is paying. Some have not read the form they hand to people.

That is a company problem, not an agent problem. The exposure runs up the chain, and a pattern across an office is worth far more to a plaintiff’s lawyer than one sloppy contract.

Beware of testers

There is a specific way that pattern gets documented, and most brokers have never thought about it.

Start with what Michael Ketchmark said out loud. When NAR was weighing Clear Cooperation in 2025, he said brokers voting to enforce the rule with anticompetitive goals could expect his firm to “take their depositions and hold them accountable.” He said much the same about MLSs that stayed out of the settlement. Nothing in his record suggests posturing.

So, think it through the way he would. If you have promised to hold noncompliant parties accountable, you first have to find out who is noncompliant. Filings and data tell you what happened on paper. They do not tell you what your agent says on the phone or in person.

A tester is someone hired to pose as a consumer in order to document what actually happens. Usually a licensed private investigator. Not a real buyer. The job is to call your office, ask ordinary questions, and write down the answers.

This is not a theory. Fair housing groups have used paired testers for decades to document steering, and the Supreme Court settled whether a tester can sue back in 1982. In Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, the Court held that a tester given false information has suffered a real injury and can sue, even though she never intended to rent the apartment. The technique is legal, cheap, and it produces the one thing that is hard to argue with in court: a written record of what your agent said, made at the moment he said it.

Now map it onto settlement compliance. A firm checking whether the practice changes are actually being followed hires an investigator to pose as a buyer. The investigator calls your office and sets an appointment with your agent. Suppose that agent sits down and runs the meeting the old way. Talks about houses. Draws out the buyer’s needs and wants. Then starts showing property. No conversation about agency. No discussion of the fee he charges. No signed buyer agency agreement compliant with the settlement.

That tester writes it up and hands it to the attorney. Now you are not defending a paperwork slip. You are the exhibit. That report is the kind of thing that turns one office into a named defendant, and antitrust damages are trebled automatically. Add the other side’s legal fees to your own. And do not assume your E&O policy is going to cover any of it.

I am not claiming a testing program is underway.

I have not seen that reported, and I will not assert it. What I am saying is that the tool is old, legal and cheap, and that last week’s motion suggests the plaintiffs’ side is still building a record. I’ve always said, “Plan for the worst, and hope for the best.” Every broker, manager, and agent should assume every buyer post NAR settlement is a tester. If you do, you will help protect yourself from the next lawsuit.

The fix is not complicated. Audit your files. Retrain your agents on the settlement rules and work from NARLawsuit.com, so you know the dos and don’ts. Spend the most time on the compensation language, because that is where the errors live. Then roleplay both the buyer phone call and the face-to-face appointment in a sales meeting until the compliant answer is automatic. One meeting and one file review, for less than the cost of a single deposition.

The second lesson: 562 MLSs, each one alone

When the court granted final approval, 547 Realtor MLSs and 15 non-Realtor MLSs had opted in. That is 562 organizations that made the same promise.

Under the proposed rule, each of those 562 gets a notice, and seven days. Each one decides alone, with its own board, its own attorney, its own budget. A large MLS with in-house counsel can work that out in an afternoon. A small one with six staff and a lawyer on retainer may not get a real answer inside a week. And silence counts as yes.

Meanwhile one vendor sits in the middle, telling nobody who said what.

That is what happens every time something lands on this industry at once. Five hundred sixty-two separate reactions to one question. No shared position, no shared counsel, no shared voice. Compare that to the other side. One firm. One strategy. One filing that reaches everybody on the same day.

The MLS community keeps treating this as a technology question. It is not. It is whether America’s MLSs keep answering the biggest questions in this business one at a time, in isolation, on a seven-day clock, or whether they build a table where they can answer together.

The motion is small. The pattern it reveals is not.

Darryl Davis, CSP, is a national real estate speaker and coach with more than 40 years in the industry, bestselling author of How to Become a Power Agent® in Real Estate, and founder of the POWER AGENT® Coaching Program. For more info, go to DarrylSpeaks.com.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners.

To contact the editor responsible for this piece: tracey@hwmedia.com

This post was originally published on here. 

Parker County and Weatherford are beginning to display the demographic, economic and infrastructure signals that once beamed in on Collin County as North Texas’ next great suburban market.

For most of the past three decades, the North Texas growth story came with a compass direction: North.

Plano became Frisco. Frisco became Prosper. Prosper pushed toward Celina. Highways, corporate campuses, master-planned communities and highly rated school districts created a powerful development machine that transformed Collin County from a collection of small towns and open farmland into one of America’s most important suburban economies.

That northern expansion remains formidable. Collin County is still adding residents, jobs and corporate investment at a scale few counties in the country can match. But mature growth markets eventually create their own constraints.

Land becomes expensive. Entitlements become more complicated. Infrastructure struggles to keep pace. Competition intensifies. Every major builder, developer and capital source begins chasing the same remaining tracts. What was once a frontier morphs into an established, and increasingly crowded, market.

That is why the more interesting North Texas question is no longer whether Collin County will continue to grow. It will. The question is where the next disproportionate opportunity is forming. Increasingly, the best answer may be west of Fort Worth, in Parker County and its economic center, Weatherford.

The growth map is changing

Parker County is still far smaller than Collin County in absolute population, but it is expanding at a rate that deserves the attention of homebuilders, developers and institutional investors.

The county’s population increased from approximately 148,000 residents in 2020 to 180,000 by mid-2024, according to Census estimates cited in regional data. That amounts to growth of 21% in four years.

Over a comparable period, Collin County added more people, but Parker County grew faster on a percentage basis. That distinction matters.

Large counties often dominate growth rankings because even a modest percentage increase produces an enormous number of new residents. People might take smaller counties for granted because their absolute gains appear less dramatic. But percentage growth often reveals where household behavior, land economics and development momentum are changing most rapidly.

Parker County had approximately 117,000 residents in 2010. Depending on the estimate and methodology used, its population in the middle of this decade ranges be between 180,000 and 192,000.

Even at the lower end of that range, the county has added more than 60,000 residents since 2010. Some projections place Parker County above 200,000 residents before the end of the decade. This is no longer incremental exurban growth. It is the early formation of a major suburban submarket.

Weatherford is becoming more than a county seat

The strongest evidence shows up in Weatherford. Historically, Weatherford functioned as a traditional county seat with a distinctive courthouse square, strong local identity and an economy tied to agriculture, energy, small business and government services. It keeps that character. But it is also becoming the commercial and residential center of a much larger western growth corridor.

Weatherford’s population was approximately 31,000 in 2020. Current estimates place it above 40,000, with some sources suggesting a figure approaching 43,500 by 2026. While estimates vary, the direction is unmistakable: Weatherford is growing far faster than the typical American city of comparable size.

More important than the population number is Weatherford’s expanding role within the region. It is not merely absorbing commuters who drive east each morning. It is becoming the place where residents throughout Parker County go for healthcare, shopping, education, dining, professional services and entertainment. That distinction separates a durable growth center from a collection of rooftops.

Strong suburban markets require more than subdivisions. They need a gravitational center. Frisco developed one. McKinney developed one. Southlake and Grapevine developed their own versions. Weatherford is increasingly filling that role west of Fort Worth.

As the county grows, more retailers, medical providers, employers and service businesses can justify locating there. Those additions create more local jobs and reduce the need for residents to travel east for every major purchase or appointment. That, in turn, makes the county more attractive to more households. It is a reinforcing economic cycle: rooftops support services, services support employment, and employment support more rooftops.

The buyer is changing

Parker County’s growth is not solely a function of households searching for the least expensive home available at the edge of the Metroplex. The county’s income profile suggests a more durable and varied demand base.

Compiled demographic estimates place Parker County’s median household income above $100,000, although exact figures differ by source and reporting period. Per capita income clocks in above national levels, while the poverty rate ranks below the Texas average.

These are important indicators for residential developers. Higher income households support a broader housing spectrum: entry level homes, move up communities, luxury product, active adult housing and larger lot development. They also support restaurants, specialty retail, private services and higher quality community amenities.

The migration story is equally significant. Recent population analysis shows that much of Parker County’s growth stems from domestic migration, people deliberately moving into the county, rather than births alone. Some are coming from other parts of North Texas. Others are moving from outside Texas. These households are making a lifestyle trade.

They are exchanging density, smaller lots, traffic and higher land costs for more space, a different community character and access to Fort Worth without fully separating themselves from the DFW economy. That is not a temporary pandemic era phenomenon. It is part of a broader reshuffling underway across major metropolitan areas as households reconsider how close they need to live to a traditional downtown employment center.

Parker County offers something increasingly difficult to find in North Texas: proximity without complete urbanization.

Fort Worth changes the equation

Parker County’s rise also reflects the increasing economic weight of Fort Worth. For years, DFW growth commentary often treated Dallas as the center of the regional economy and Fort Worth as its smaller western counterpart. That view is increasingly outdated.

Fort Worth is now one of America’s largest cities. Its employment base includes aviation, defense, logistics, manufacturing, healthcare, energy, finance and professional services. Major industrial and distribution investment continues to spread along the western side of the Metroplex.

As Fort Worth grows, Parker County becomes less remote. A household in Weatherford does not need to commute to downtown Dallas for the location to work. Employment nodes in west Fort Worth, the Interstate 20 corridor, the Interstate 30 corridor, Alliance and other parts of Tarrant County broaden the range of realistic commuting patterns.

That is a fundamental difference between Parker County today and the distant exurban markets of earlier cycles. The employment center is moving toward it.

Parker County is not simply growing because people are willing to drive farther. It is growing because the western side of the Metroplex is developing greater economic depth. Infrastructure Is Following the Population Growth cannot continue without transportation investment, and Parker County is beginning to confront that reality.

The county benefits from direct access to Interstate 20, one of the region’s most important east-west corridors. It also has connections through U.S. Highway 180 and a network of farm to market roads and local arterials. Originally, those routes were not designed for the volume of suburban traffic now arriving.

Transportation bonds and planned roadway improvements indicate that local officials and voters understand the challenge. The next phase will require widening key roads, improving intersections, building more complete arterial networks and coordinating development with long-term water, sewer and mobility planning. This is where Parker County has an opportunity to learn from the growth of North Dallas.

Collin County’s success created tremendous value, but it also produced congestion, infrastructure pressure and a landscape in which some communities became difficult to distinguish from one another. Parker County can choose a more deliberate path.

Its competitive advantage is not the ability to reproduce Frisco west of Fort Worth. Its advantage is the ability to accommodate growth while protecting the physical and cultural characteristics that are causing households to move there in the first place. That requires discipline.

The county needs housing, but not every tract should be maximized for density. It needs infrastructure, but infrastructure should support a coherent land use strategy. It needs commercial development, but not an endless repetition of highway frontage and disconnected retail centers.

Growth is coming. The investment question is whether planners will holistically organize the county into enduring communities consume one project after another, each in isolation.

Jobs are beginning to catch up

One traditional weakness of fast-growing exurban counties is that home construction arrives much faster than employment. Parker County still exports a meaningful part of its workforce into Tarrant County and the rest of DFW. It would be premature to describe it as fully self-sustaining. But the gap is beginning to narrow.

Regional workforce data cited for the county identified approximately 47,800 jobs as of 2022 and job growth of 20% over the preceding five years. Economists and business execs expect added growth in healthcare, construction, education, retail, professional services, logistics and skilled trades.

That employment profile may not generate the headlines associated with a billion-dollar corporate headquarters relocation, but it can create a more resilient local economy.

Healthcare is particularly important. As Parker County’s population grows—and as part of that population enters older age cohorts, the demand for medical offices, outpatient services, specialty care and hospital capacity will increase.

Construction and skilled trades should also get a tailwind from years of residential and infrastructure investment. The result is an economy that is gradually becoming less dependent on residents leaving the county each day to earn their income.

Collin County is the precedent, not the competitor

The Parker County thesis should not be interpreted as a prediction that the west will replace the north. That is not how metropolitan growth works.

Collin County and Parker County occupy distinct positions in the DFW economy. Collin County has more than a million residents, a deep corporate employment base, extensive toll-road infrastructure and decades of institutional development.

Parker County is much earlier in its cycle. That is precisely the opportunity.

The comparison is useful not because the two counties are identical, but because Collin County exemplifies what can happen when population growth, transportation access, employment expansion, strong schools, household income and developable land align over multiple decades.

Parker County is beginning to show an earlier-stage version of that alignment. It has rapid population growth. It has attractive household demographics. It has access to a major employment center. It has a recognized county seat capable of becoming a stronger regional hub. It has room for large-scale community development. And it is beginning to receive the infrastructure investment needed to support a larger population.

The ingredients are present.

What builders and investors should understand

Parker County is not a market where every acre will work simply because the population is increasing. Successful projects will still require reliable utilities, realistic entitlement strategies, strong road access, adequate school capacity and product aligned with actual household incomes.

Land bought at an unjustifiable basis is still bad land, regardless of the growth rate.

The strongest opportunities are likely to be in locations that combine three characteristics: connectivity to Weatherford or western Fort Worth, a credible utility and infrastructure plan, and a community concept that preserves some of the space and identity households are seeking.

That may include conventional master planned communities, move up neighborhoods, active adult projects, mixed use centers, medical and professional districts, and carefully placed commercial development. The common denominator should be long term relevance rather than short term lot production.

Builders should also recognize that Parker County will not behave as a single uniform market. Weatherford, Aledo, Willow Park, Hudson Oaks, Springtown and the county’s more rural areas serve different buyers and run at different price points.

The winning strategy will not be to import a product program from another DFW submarket and assume it fits. It will be to understand why households are choosing the west and then build for that decision.

The next chapter is being written west of Fort Worth

North Texas is no longer expanding in one direction. The northern corridor stays powerful, but land economics, household preferences, infrastructure investment and Fort Worth’s continued rise are creating a second major axis of suburban growth.

Parker County sits directly in its path. Its population growth is faster than many better-known counties. Its income base is stronger than its rural image suggests. Its employment base is expanding. Its infrastructure is undergoing an upgrade. And Weatherford is evolving into the kind of regional center that can support growth beyond isolated subdivisions.

The opportunity is not that Parker County will become another Collin County. The opportunity is that it does not have to. It can become the western counterpart: a major DFW growth market shaped by Fort Worth’s economy, Weatherford’s identity and a household preference for more space without surrendering access to the Metroplex.

Collin County showed North Texas how quickly farmland can become a nationally significant suburban economy. Parker County is now showing the market where the next chapter may begin.

The future of DFW is still moving north. It is simply moving west, too.

This post was originally published on here. 

Closinglock has launched two new capabilities designed to protect homebuyers’ funds throughout the real estate transaction process, including when a deal falls through.

The escrow management platform introduced the SecurePay open payment link and buyer earnest money deposit (EMD) returns, enabling title and settlement companies to manage both incoming and outgoing buyer funds through a single platform.

The SecurePay open payment link allows buyers to securely submit earnest money, option fees, cash-to-close and other closing costs at any time, even before a transaction file is opened.

Title companies can place the link on their websites, emails and email signatures, with payments automatically matched to the appropriate file once it is created, Closinglock added.

“We added the payment link to our intro letters and secure earnest money payments started coming in right away,” said Melissa Neesen, vice president of operations at Reliable Title. “No file needed, no data entry and it’s working really well. I think this is going to be a great addition to our workflow.”

The second feature, buyer EMD returns, allows title companies to quickly refund earnest money if a transaction is canceled.

Because the buyer’s bank account has already been verified during the original payment, refunds can be initiated with pre-filled payment information, built-in approval workflows, real-time tracking and a full audit trail.

According to Closinglock, funds are delivered by the next business day.

Closinglock said it has protected $800 billion-plus across more than 2 million real estate transactions without losing funds to fraud.

“We’ve spent years making sure money gets into escrow safely,” said Andy White, CEO of Closinglock. “The harder problem was always what happens when it has to come back out. A verified payment shouldn’t turn into a manual refund process. If we already know the buyer’s account is real, sending their money home should be just as fast as taking it in.”

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

For the past several years, the real estate industry has talked about the mortgage-rate lock-in effect mostly as an inventory problem. That is understandable. When a homeowner has a 3% or 4% mortgage, and today’s replacement mortgage is in the mid-6% range, selling can feel financially irrational.

Freddie Mac reported that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.43% as of July 2, 2026. Realtor.com, using data from the FHFA National Mortgage Database, found that just over half of outstanding mortgages still carried rates of 4% or lower as of the fourth quarter of 2025. FHFA researchers have also found that for every percentage point the market mortgage rate rises above a homeowner’s origination rate, the probability of sale falls by 18.1%. Their working paper estimated that lock-in prevented 1.33 million home sales from 2022 Q2 through 2023 Q4.

But there is another consequence we do not talk about enough.

Homeowners are moving, even when they are not selling

When homeowners cannot make the math work to sell, many do not simply stay put. Life keeps moving. People accept new jobs. Military families receive orders. Families grow, parents age, marriages change and homeowners relocate for reasons that have nothing to do with mortgage rates.

When that happens, the owner often asks a reasonable question: “Why sell and give up my low-rate mortgage if I can rent the house instead?”

That is how many Americans are becoming landlords — not because they set out to build a rental portfolio, but because the housing market pushed them into a new role.

In my experience, many accidental landlords are not thinking like investors at first. They are thinking like homeowners. The property may have been their first home, the place where they raised children or a house they hope to keep available for family in the future. That emotional attachment can be a good reason to hold the property, but it can also make the transition harder. A rental home has to be managed as a rental home, even when the owner still thinks of it as “my house.”

Zillow recently reported that 2.3% of homes listed for rent on its platform had previously been listed for sale, the second-highest share in nearly six years. That may sound like a small number, but it is a meaningful signal. The lock-in effect is not just suppressing transactions. It is creating a growing class of inexperienced landlords.

Renting out the house sounds simple — until it is not

At first glance, renting the home can look like the perfect solution. That is where the red flags start waving.

The moment a homeowner leases the property, the home becomes a business asset, a legal responsibility, a maintenance obligation and a risk-management exercise. Personal preference has to give way to profit and loss, market expectations and sound operating decisions.

That can be a difficult shift. An owner may love the purple bedroom. The 1980s washer may still work well enough. The carpet may seem fine because it was fine when the owner lived there. But renters are comparing that property with other available rentals, and the market does not care about sentiment.

Tenant selection is often the first issue. The goal is to place a qualified resident who can pay consistently, care for the property, follow the lease and communicate when something goes wrong. A vacant property is expensive, but the wrong tenant can be far more expensive.

The lease matters, too. A casual agreement may feel friendly, but residential leasing is not a handshake business. Then there is maintenance. A slow plumbing response can become water damage. A poorly documented repair can become a dispute. Deferred maintenance can become very expensive.

What makes long-term ownership work

The homeowners who succeed over time usually have more than a low mortgage rate. They have good tenants, strong communication, realistic expectations, professional distance and a way to handle maintenance and re-leasing without turning every issue into a personal emergency.

The rent check is only one part of the equation. The real test is what happens between rent checks: tenant questions, lease renewals, inspection findings, repair decisions, documentation and the ability to respond quickly when something goes wrong.

A low mortgage rate also does not eliminate cash-flow risk. Taxes, insurance premiums, HOA fees, appliances and HVAC systems do not stay frozen just because the mortgage rate is low. The rent may cover the mortgage most months, but the owner still needs reserves.

This matters for more than the individual owner. Real estate agents, mortgage lenders, title professionals, housing economists and policymakers should understand that “rent it out” is not a simple fallback plan. It changes the homeowner’s risk profile, the renter’s housing experience and in some markets, the local supply of single-family rentals.

It also complicates the public conversation about single-family rentals. Not every rental conversion is a Wall Street story. The accidental landlord is often a homeowner who made a rational financial decision in a difficult market.

The next lock-in conversation should include landlord risk

That does not mean homeowners should never rent out a former primary residence. In many cases, keeping the home can be the right decision. It may preserve a low-cost mortgage, maintain long-term exposure to a strong housing market and provide flexibility if the owner may return.

Before a homeowner becomes a landlord, they should understand market rent, projected vacancy, leasing costs, maintenance reserves, insurance implications, tax considerations, local landlord-tenant laws and the burden of managing from a distance. They should also have a plan for missed rent, major repairs, early lease termination or another market shift.

The mortgage lock-in effect did not just freeze inventory. It quietly moved risk from the sales market into the rental market. And the professionals who recognize that shift early will be better positioned to advise homeowners before a smart financial decision turns into an expensive landlord lesson.

David Norod is the Principal Broker, Managing Partner at WJD Management

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.

This post was originally published on here. 

The fight for market share in real estate has never been more intense. National portals, institutional investors and well-funded disruptors are all competing for the same buyers and sellers, pushing many brokerages to believe they need to spend more to keep up. But independent brokerages won’t win by outspending the competition—they win by outmaneuvering it. The ones that succeed are those that dominate their local markets so completely that no competitor can meaningfully break in.

This moment presents a unique opportunity. As technology evolves, consumer expectations shift and margins tighten, independent brokerages have a distinct advantage: agility. While larger organizations are slowed by scale and complexity, independents can move faster, go deeper and build stronger local relationships. The future doesn’t belong to those who are everywhere — it belongs to those who own their backyard.

Here are three key tactics to help your agents dominate your local market. 

1. Become a neighborhood specialist

Most agents claim to “serve” a city—but consumers don’t choose agents that way. They choose experts who understand their specific neighborhood. The more focused your presence, the more credible and visible you become.

Neighborhood specialization means going beyond general marketing and building real authority in defined areas. This includes creating detailed area pages, sharing local insights and consistently showing up with content that reflects true market knowledge. When done right, you’re no longer competing broadly—you’re owning a space.

2. Turn listings into local content assets

Every listing is a storytelling opportunity to demonstrate local expertise. Beyond photos and price, listings can highlight neighborhood lifestyle, buyer considerations and market context. Repurposing listings into multiple content formats helps extend their value and reinforce your local authority. 

Leveraging a tech platform with built-in ad creation, automated property reports, market insights and targeted ad distribution in specific zip codes can help extend listings for increased local exposure in a specialized market.  

3. Think beyond SEO. AEO is now king.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the bare minimum in the new age of AI. The next frontier is Answer Engine Optimization (AEO)—preparing content to surface in AI-driven tools like ChatGPT and voice assistants. As consumer search habits shift, brokers who think ahead here will help their agents be discoverable in entirely new ways.  

Large platforms struggle to address the specific concerns buyers and sellers have about neighborhoods, timing and trade-offs. Answering common questions clearly and directly helps consumers feel informed and confident in their next step. 

Your audience doesn’t look for information in just one place, so you shouldn’t be in just one place!  Show up consistently across social media, short-form video, local publications and community spaces with the same locally focused message.

Beat the big brands through consistent execution

Independent brokerages don’t lose to big brands because of budget — they lose because of inconsistency. When local knowledge lives only in individual conversations, it’s hard to scale. The brokerages that win long-term build repeatable frameworks: content templates, follow-up sequences, market update cadences and onboarding processes that any agent on the team can execute. 

Repeatable content frameworks and simple systems help teams stay visible and consistent — test, refine and stay locally relevant as markets evolve. The result is a brokerage that delivers a consistent experience at every touchpoint, no matter who the client speaks with or where they encounter your brand.

Today’s real estate landscape demands more than tools that store contacts or automate a few tasks. It requires technology that can drive outcomes and actively work on an agent’s behalf to generate opportunities, nurture relationships and move deals forward. 

Consider your tech stack and whether it is functioning as an “always-on” digital teammate, ensuring no opportunity is missed and every lead is maximized.  If not, it’s time to re-evaluate your tech decisions and instead provide your hard-working agents the platform they need to become the local experts required to deliver real business results today.   

Dave Carter, Vice President, Marketing, Lofty 

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. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Although she’s no stranger to the real estate industry, Ruth Reffkin, the mother of Compass International Holdings founder and CEO Robert Reffkin, has decided to start her own real estate team. Reffkin announced the launch of her eponymous Ruth Reffkin Team, which will unsurprisingly be brokered by Compass, on Friday, just days ahead of her 81st birthday. 

She is launching the team along side Susan Hirschorn, who will serve as the team’s principal strategist. 

In an email, obtained by HousingWire and sent to other Compass agents and brokers on Friday announcing the launch of the team, Reffkin and Hirschorn said they created the team “to offer expanded support, broader reach and highly personal service to buyers, homeowners, investors, families and seniors navigating important transitions.” 

“With Compass now part of Compass International Holdings, we also have an even stronger national and international network through which to serve our clients and collaborate with colleagues,” they wrote in the email.

After over 27 years in the real estate industry, Reffkin said many people were surprised that this is the first team she has ever started or led. 

“I’ve worked on other people’s teams, but I’ve never had one that was my own, and I’ve realized that this is kind of due to fear or maybe a bit of imposter syndrome,” Reffkin told HousingWire. “I didn’t have the confidence, but now I have a business partner that I can count on and that gives me a lot of confidence.” 

She added that knowing they have the support of the Compass Home Platform to help with backend office support as well as the other logistical challenges of running a team, is another source of confidence as she embarks on this new adventure. 

“Having the Compass platform plus all of the transaction services the firm allows me to contract, that support allows me to have a small team without having to undertake the responsibility of things like payroll and that really allows me to take something like this on,” Reffkin said. 

As of right now, Reffkin said she plans on keeping the team just herself and Hirschorn, however she is open to adding more members in the future. As the former leader of Compass Plus, a division of the brokerage focused on serving the firm’s senior citizen clients, Reffkin said she has relationships with a lot of Compass agents and she hopes to continue to grow those relationships. 

“We have a lot of people that we already work with, like our senior moving manager, and eventually we can decide if we want to formalize those relationships as part of the team,” Reffkin said. 

For now, the team will serve clients in New York City. 

In a post on LinkedIn on Friday, Robert Reffkin wrote that watching his mom “build this chapter with so much passion, integrity and care has been inspiring.”

“Happy early birthday and congratulations. I couldn’t be prouder,” Robert Reffkin’s post read. 

This post was originally published on here. 

In 2024 and early 2025, homebuilders large, medium and small were smitten with the strategic notion of “land light.”

In 2026, and for the near future, most everybody is more preoccupied, and rightly so, with “land right.”

Many of the U.S.’s most prolific new-construction markets undergoing some form of “work-out” to winnow down aging spec inventory and secure a floor on pace-price levels.

In this context, land right means controlling the locations, lot counts and delivery schedules a builder needs to support future community openings without over-extending a balance sheet with too much land, too early, at an internal rate of return basis that counts on stronger home prices and faster order pace than a market or submarket will bear.

Homebuilders, with their respective product, pricing, land position, and customer targets, are each struggling to reconcile several binding goals that have fallen out of sync. They want to protect sales pace, preserve gross margin, reduce speculative inventory, grow or at least maintain community count and continue securing land for homes they may not start until 2028 or 2029.

That means finding something elusive in a volatile and uncertain backdrop, a “strike price” baseline that solves for pricing, pace and a predictably stable margin to build off.

The latest quarterly results from Forestar Group and Five Point Holdings offer two different views into how that conflict has migrated upstream in homebuilders’ building lifecycle, into residential land development.

Forestar, majority-owned by D.R. Horton, is a national finished-lot production platform operating in 65 markets across 24 states. Five Point is principally an owner and developer of scarce, large-scale California master-planned-community land, while its Hearthstone platform adds a national land-banking and asset-management business.

Forestar must keep thousands of lots moving through a national development system. Five Point can often create more value by controlling when, and on what terms, it monetizes “hairy,” hard-to-permit and irreplaceable entitled land.

Taken together, the two land-development enterprises’ latest financial and operational results suggest that builder land demand has slowed but not broken. The adjustment is showing up first in weakening absorption, transaction timing, takedown terms and structures and capital exposure rather than in a broad, readily visible collapse in land prices.

Demand slows before values reset

Forestar sold 3,659 lots in its fiscal Q3, 1% more than a year earlier, producing $407 million in revenue. But its year-to-date lot deliveries fell 9% to 8,541. The company sold 289 quarterly lots to customers other than D.R. Horton, compared with 530 in the prior-year period, although the earlier number included 331 lots sold to a lot banker expected eventually to deliver them to Horton.

The results show a lot-production platform that stays active but relies heavily on the pace decisions of its largest customer. Forestar CFO Jim Allen said 14% of the homes D.R. Horton started during the past 12 months were on Forestar-developed lots, against the companies’ longer-term goal that one of every three Horton homes be built on a Forestar lot.

“D.R. Horton is our largest and most important customer,” Allen said on the earnings call. “14% of the homes D.R. Horton started in the past 12 months were on a Forestar-developed lot. With a mutually stated goal of 1 out of every 3 homes D.R. Horton sells to be on a lot developed by Forestar, we have significant opportunity to grow our business with D.R. Horton.”

That relationship gives Forestar an unusually clear path to long-term growth. On the down side, it also creates vulnerability when Horton reduces starts, constrains inventory investment or chooses profitability over incremental volume.

Wolfe Research analyst Trevor Allinson put Forestar’s near-term challenge in those terms. With Forestar’s largest customer pulling back on volume, Wolfe expects lot sales to finish near the bottom of management’s fiscal 2026 guidance range, even as the firm maintains its longer-term Outperform rating and $33 price target.

At Five Point, slower demand appears less through lot-delivery totals than through the absorption pace in its California communities and the timing of negotiated land sales. Builders sold 56 homes at Great Park during Q2, down from 82 in the first quarter. Valencia builders sold 78, down from 90. Five Point executives said builders remained engaged in negotiations and due diligence but repeatedly cautioned that market conditions could affect whether forecasted land sales close this year.

“Builders are still selling in our communities, [but] not as fast as they might have been 12 months ago, but we also think that there will be a turn in that market,” Five Point CEO Dan Hedigan said. “I cannot predict the timing. But to answer your question, we are trying to balance, more than anything, optimizing land value. We are watching and working with the builders. They are engaged.”

The signal in the land market is not that builders have stopped needing lots. It is that they are less willing to commit capital ahead of visible homebuyer demand or accept delivery schedules based on absorption assumptions recognized a year ago, but are now dated.

Terms move ahead of prices

Builders need lower total costs to narrow the affordability gaps that have stalled buyers in many markets. They would welcome lower land prices, lower development costs and cheaper finished lots.

To date, Forestar business leaders are not seeing a decisive land-price reset.

“Land market has been relatively stable. I have not seen much change in land price,” Forestar CEO Andy Oxley said. “We have seen a little bit of improvement on being able to negotiate terms, for example, getting land on takedowns, getting through full entitlement and permitting. So, we are able to focus on shovel-ready deals.”

Between the lines of Oxley’s statement comes one of the clearest readings of the residential land market in this earnings cycle. The adjustment is occurring through risk allocation before it occurs through headline price.

Sellers may agree to phased takedowns, longer closing schedules or more entitlement and permitting work. Builders and developers may reduce the amount of capital needed upfront without formally lowering the stated value of the land.

Five Point is applying a similar principle to higher-value, supply-constrained California property.

“For now, the builders are looking at absorption that kind of supports moving forward, but we’re also always trying to realize that our most important thing is to really optimize our land value, and we’re not prepared to compromise on land value,” Hedigan said. “But if I can help a builder a little bit with some structure, we’re prepared to have those conversations.”

Forestar’s national lot engine and Five Point’s California communities arrive at the same basic negotiating point from opposite directions: preserve the asset’s nominal [residual land] value where it is possible to do so, and at the same time, flex timing and transaction structures to try to flow and align with builders’ lower risk appetite.

Forestar manages velocity; Five Point manages timing

Forestar’s business depends on converting land into finished lots and turning that inventory at a pace that produces acceptable returns.

Its Q3 gross margin was 20.7%, near the lower end of the company’s recent range. Allen tied that performance directly to home-sales conditions.

“It’s primarily mix and just a slower absorption environment as we manage price and pace on a project-by-project basis,” he said. “Our margins have been in the lower end of our historic range over the last 3 or 4 years.”

Forestar’s gross margin still compares favorably with many homebuilders now contending with incentives, price reductions and elevated financing concessions. Wolfe expects most builders in its coverage universe to generate 2026 gross margins below 20%.

Even so, Forestar is not receiving much help from weaker horizontal development expenses.

“Our costs have stabilized, I would tell you, over the past 12 months,” Forestar COO Mark Walker said. “I mean we are seeing some reductions in some categories, and we are seeing some increases in others. But I would say relative to direct costs, they are pretty stable. We have not seen a big decrease in cost.”

That’s a form of pressure because a lower finished-lot basis cannot materialize easily when neither raw land values nor development expenses are declining significantly.

Five Point’s challenge is different. Its financial results can depend on a small number of high-value transactions and the accounting treatment of its joint ventures. The company generated $13.9 million in consolidated revenue and $29.9 million in consolidated net income during the quarter, but only $10.9 million of that net income was attributable to Five Point after non-controlling interests. Much of the economic result came through equity earnings and distributions from unconsolidated ventures.

The quarter’s major transaction illustrates both Five Point’s strength and the lumpiness of its model. Great Park Venture sold 17.7 acres planned for senior housing for $159.3 million, or approximately $9 million per acre.

Forestar protects returns by managing inventory velocity across more than 200 active projects. Five Point protects value through scarcity, land-use flexibility and patience. Forestar must keep its land moving. Five Point sometimes benefits by waiting.

Capital strength buys patience

Both companies enter the slowdown with balance sheets that cushion them somewhat from the likelihood of forced selling.

Forestar ended the quarter with $1.1 billion in liquidity and a 17.7% net-debt-to-capital ratio. It controlled 91,700 lots, including 62,200 owned lots, and had 23,500 lots under contract representing approximately $2.3 billion of future revenue.

The company invested $312 million in land and development during the quarter, with 80% directed to development and 20% to acquisitions. That allocation suggests Forestar is prioritizing the conversion of land it already controls rather than rushing to add more property in an uncertain demand environment.

Five Point ended the quarter with $565.9 million of liquidity, including $348.4 million in cash. Its debt-to-capitalization ratio was 16.2%, while net debt to capitalization stood at only 4.2%.

Such financial flexibility allows Five Point to continue infrastructure work, negotiate creatively with builders and avoid setting a lower land-value benchmark merely to complete a transaction.

“Maintaining development momentum during periods of slower home sales activity positions us to respond efficiently as demand strengthens and allows our builder partners to move quickly when they’re ready to commit additional capital,” Hedigan said.

Liquidity, in this setting, is not simply a defensive cushion. It is a negotiating leverage point.

From land light to land right

Five Point is also trying to make its future earnings less dependent on when individual California land sales close.

Its Hearthstone platform oversees approximately $3.4 billion in assets and gives Five Point exposure to land banking, capital solutions and recurring management income beyond its three core California communities.

Five Point CFO Kim Tobler said Hearthstone receives ongoing opportunities from builders without broad demands to renegotiate pricing or terms.

“They’re still seeing good flow from the builders,” Tobler said. “We’re not seeing builders coming back to them generally and asking for changes in terms or anything like that. It is holding up well. That is a statement about their underwriting more than anything else and the nature of the transactions that they engage in.”

That helps explain why “land light” has not disappeared as an operating ambition. Builders still prefer to preserve capital and rely more heavily on land developers, lot bankers and option structures.

What has changed is the tolerance for land strategies built chiefly around financial optics or rapid volume growth.

Land right requires the right basis, entitlement status, delivery timing, market, product fit and capital partner. It must preserve a builder’s access to future communities while limiting exposure if sales pace stays slow.

Forestar and Five Point show two ways that demand is being managed. Forestar is aligning finished-lot production more closely with builder starts while retaining the scale and liquidity to gain share when less-capitalized developers retreat. Five Point is using scarce entitled assets and balance-sheet patience to protect land value while Hearthstone expands its participation in builders’ capital-light strategies.

Neither company’s latest results evidence the level of price correction builders may need to restore affordability and normalize margins.

For now, the correction is occurring in time. Builders are taking longer. They are committing later. They want more entitlement certainty, greater structural flexibility and less capital at risk before homebuyer demand appears.

Land light described how much land builders wanted to own. Land right describes which land they can ill afford to get wrong.

This post was originally published on here. 

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) is urging the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) to move carefully as it finalizes changes to its Duty to Serve (DTS) rule.

The trade group backs the shift toward more flexible “eligible actions” while warning about potential unintended consequences for manufactured housing and lender operations, according to a comment letter sent Friday to FHFA Director Bill Pulte.

The FHFA in June proposed an outcome-based framework that would change how Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac support manufactured housing, affordable housing preservation and rural housing. It would emphasize chattel loans, broaden how Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) activities are treated and expand “high-needs” coverage.

Operational hurdles

A key issue for the trade group is FHFA’s request for input on whether to change the definition of a manufactured home to better account for factory-built housing beyond units covered under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) code — including modular homes.

“As innovation in factory-built housing continues, financing and collateral policy should evolve alongside product innovation,” the MBA stated. “Maximizing the effectiveness of the Duty to Serve program will also require continued attention to valuation practices, secondary-market execution, and operational considerations that affect lender participation.”

The group cautioned that some emerging factory-built products use ownership or titling structures that do not fit current purchase standards from the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). It also pointed out varying state titling laws and affixation rules that pose operational hurdles.

MBA also urged FHFA to coordinate any updated manufactured housing definition with other federal initiatives — including efforts by Congress, HUD and the enterprises themselves — to expand factory-built housing.

Restoration of 60-day comment period?

FHFA’s draft rule revises how performance is evaluated, while also shortening public input and plan changes. The proposal would shorten the public input window on DTS plans from 60 to 45 days, but the MBA urged the agency to keep the 60-day period to ensure adequate time for industry feedback.

The draft rule would sharply limit the GSEs’ ability to revise their three-year DTS plans, allowing changes mainly in cases of “extraordinary and significant market disruptions.” The group recommended including specific market changes outside certain tolerances, with any requested update supported by data and documented justification.

MBA urged FHFA to adopt a “do no harm” approach as it finalizes the rule, noting that the underlying mandate for the enterprises is not expected to change. Rather, the proposal is “a focused reworking of the form of the DTS regulations,” MBA wrote, which the group generally supports if implemented appropriately.

MBA said that, if managed correctly, FHFA’s revisions could maintain and improve support for manufactured housing, rural housing and affordable housing preservation while giving the GSEs and the regulator “improved administrative and oversight processes.”

This article was written by Flávia Furlan Nunes and generated with the assistance of HousingWire Automation, then reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

Proprietary reverse mortgages continued to gain market share in 2025, fueled by rapid growth in originations and larger loan balances, according to a Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data.

The analysis, released Monday as MBA’s Chart of the Week, comes as more older Americans are choosing to age in place. Citing the U.S. Census Bureau‘s 2024 American Community Survey, the association said homeowners ages 55 and older own 55% of all owner-occupied homes in the U.S., with households headed by someone 65 or older accounting for more than one-third of these homes.

At the same time, 14 years of home price appreciation have pushed accumulated equity to nearly $35 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data, creating additional opportunities for seniors to tap their housing wealth while aging in place.

The analysis examined reverse mortgage originations between 2018 and 2025, comparing Federal Housing Administration-insured Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs) with proprietary reverse mortgage products offered by private lenders.

After averaging about 59,000 originations in both 2021 and 2022, reverse mortgage volume fell 57% to 25,312 loans in 2023. Of this total, 23,538 loans (93%) were HECMs, while 1,774 loans (7%) were proprietary reverse mortgages.

Although HECM originations increased modestly by 4.7% in 2024 and 0.7% in 2025, proprietary reverse mortgage originations grew much faster — rising 81% in 2024 and 118% in 2025.

As a result, proprietary products accounted for 22% of all reverse mortgage originations in 2025, more than triple their 7% market share in 2023 and above the 14% share recorded in 2022, when 8,359 proprietary reverse mortgages were originated.

MBA also noted that proprietary reverse mortgages typically have larger loan balances than HECMs, allowing them to account for nearly 40% of reverse mortgage originations by dollar volume in 2025.

According to the association, HMDA data shows $5.8 billion in HECM originations during 2025, while Home Equity Conversion Mortgage-Backed Securities (HMBS) issuance totaled about $4 billion. MBA said the difference reflects the fact that HMDA reports the initial principal limit, while HMBS data is based on actual loan balances.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

FirstTeam Real Estate has partnered with Purlin to deploy an AI-powered operating system across the brokerage, giving agents a unified platform for managing contracts, negotiations, transactions and client communications.

The California-based independent brokerage will implement PurlinOS, Purlin Close and Purlin Offer & Negotiate, creating a single AI-powered infrastructure that connects agents, teams, clients and transactions. Agents will be able to interact with the platform through voice, text, email and chatbot.

Leaders said the partnership reflects its strategy of simplifying the real estate experience through integrated technology rather than adding more standalone software tools.

“Real estate is undergoing a seismic shift, and the brokerages that will succeed are those focused on creating an integrated technology ecosystem, not just adding additional software features,” said Lauren Henss, vice president of marketing and strategic initiatives at FirstTeam. “This isn’t about adding another piece of AI technology. It’s about creating a seamless experience for everyone involved in a transaction.”

FirstTeam reported $6.12 billion in 2025 volume across 5,978 transactions to RealTrends Verified, which was good enough for respective national ranks of No. 34 and No. 67.

Henss said the platform will help standardize operations, improve workflows and enable agents to close more deals in less time.

FirstTeam said the rollout aligns with its “Behind the Agent” philosophy by giving agents technology that allows them to focus more on client relationships and less on administrative work.

“As part of our ‘Behind the Agent’ philosophy, we view every partnership decision through the lens of how it will help our agents succeed and better serve their clients,” said Michele Harrington, CEO of FirstTeam. “As the market evolves and continues to become more competitive, our investment in an intelligent, AI-led ecosystem will help our agents work more efficiently and make more informed decisions.”

Purlin CEO Giorgi Chigogidze said the partnership positions FirstTeam ahead of an industry-wide shift toward AI-enabled brokerage operations.

“Most brokerages and teams are not yet built for a market where AI touches every part of the transaction,” Chigogidze said. “FirstTeam is choosing its footing early.”

Tim Quirk, chief revenue officer at Purlin, said more than 40,000 real estate professionals across North America already use the company’s platform.

According to the companies, standardizing on Purlin’s platform is intended to streamline workflows across the brokerage while creating a more connected experience for agents, loan officers and clients throughout the transaction process.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

The cost to service mortgages is rising for reasons that extend beyond a recent increase in borrower delinquencies. That’s according to Erik Eggers, chief revenue officer at Rocktop Technologies, who said that regulatory requirements and industry consolidation are fundamentally changing the economics of mortgage servicing.

Speaking with HousingWire, Eggers said that servicing costs have traditionally risen during periods of elevated defaults. But today’s environment is different, with structural pressures increasing expenses regardless of loan performance.

“The burden on servicers has simply gotten heavier over time,” Eggers said. “It’s not a challenge that you can outhire to solve. These structural changes and this increased workload, it is definitely not a performance issue. When you think historically of the rising cost of servicing, you typically think that it comes in connection with delinquency, and that is certainly the case. But these other costs that I’ve enumerated, they’re there regardless of delinquency.”

Servicers face growing compliance obligations while managing an increasing number of servicing transfers driven by industry consolidation. Each transfer requires heavy lifting from servicers to validate large volumes of loan data and supporting documents before they can confidently administer the loans.

These transfers, Eggers said, often include thousands of pages of documents, payment histories and servicing notes that must be reconciled with the data loaded into a servicer’s system of record.

Those issues can become especially costly if a borrower later enters bankruptcy or foreclosure. Missing documentation or inaccurate loan data can delay legal proceedings, increase expenses and create regulatory risk.

“That upfront work really pays dividends down the road,” Eggers said. “If something happens where a borrower gets into a situation where they can no longer afford the property, the servicer needs to be prepared to go through the necessary default processes. … That is one of the hidden costs that no one really talks about.”

Eggers described the current market as a “K-shaped” recovery.

The upside of the “K” is that conventional mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to perform well, supported by borrowers with stronger credit profiles and significant home equity. But on the downside, borrowers with Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Agriculture (USDA) loans have experienced higher delinquency rates because they generally entered homeownership with smaller down payments and less financial cushion.

“The servicers today need to ensure that they are prepared for the wave of defaults that may be coming,” Eggers said. “And because of that bifurcated market, it doesn’t seem like it is going to come with the same stress that we experienced during the credit crisis, but if you look at the broader economy … borrowers are feeling the impacts of inflation as well.”

Although foreclosure activity has increased this year, Eggers said there’s little reason to sound the alarm. Today’s market differs significantly from the 2008 housing crisis because most homeowners still have substantial equity.

“I think it might be more tumultuous at the margins,” he said. “I think it will largely be contained because of that bifurcated story and because of equity that borrowers have in their homes.”

This post was originally published on here. 

BKeeperAI has officially launched its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered expense assistant designed to help real estate professionals and independent business owners manage business expenses entirely through text messages.

According to the company, “solopreneurs” lose an estimated $4,000 to $10,000 annually in missed tax deductions because of inconsistent expense tracking, while 40% of small business owners avoid claiming deductions they are legally entitled to because they lack confidence in their records.

Instead of requiring users to log into an app or dashboard, BKeeper lets users either connect their bank account or credit card through Plaid or text photos of receipts directly to Bee, the company’s AI assistant.

Bee uses AI to categorize transactions and follows up for receipts when needed, while every expense is reviewed by a member of the BKeeper team before being finalized, the company said.

The company said its human verification process produces records that are accurate enough for CPAs and bookkeepers to use while allowing users to avoid manual expense reconciliation.

“Nobody became their own boss because they love categorizing receipts. That’s Bee’s job now,” said Christine Carlo George, co-founder and CMO of BKeeper. “We built a system that meets agents where they already are: their phone. Send a text, connect a card, and Bee handles the rest. A real person verifies. That’s the part that actually matters at tax time.”

BKeeper was founded by Carlo George, Laura O’Connor, co-founder and CEO; Eric Hunsberger, co-founder and CTO. The platform is available now at BKeeperAI.com.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

Reverse mortgage experts see some trends emerging amid economic uncertainty and high interest rates.

High interest rates impact reverse mortgages differently than forward mortgages. Instead of raising the monthly payment and reducing what a buyer can qualify for, higher rates in a reverse mortgage lower the principal limit factor (PLF), meaning borrowers can access a smaller share of their home’s appraised value and receive less cash upfront.

At the same time, higher rates cause loan balances to increase faster over time, which can reduce the remaining equity for the borrower or their heirs. For adjustable-rate lines of credit, higher rates also make the unused credit line grow faster, although the accelerated balance growth can still deplete overall equity more quickly.

“What we’re seeing is more affluent borrowers taking advantage of the growing line of credit in the higher-rate environment,” said Shain Urwin, national manager of reverse mortgages at C2 Financial.

Meanwhile, for needs-based borrowers, interest rates have less of a psychological impact because their financial conditions dictate an immediate need for resources. Many of these borrowers are cash-poor but have substantial equity in their homes.

“The interest rate isn’t really an impact to them,” Urwin said. “They might live in a state like California and have a ton of equity, but they’re not able to survive on the rising cost of inflation.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, when rates hovered around 3%, Urwin said he could secure a 62-year-old borrower a Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) with the equivalent of a roughly 50% loan-to-value (LTV) ratio. Today, with rates closer to 6%, that figure has dropped to about 30%, he said.

Reverse demographics 

Loren Riddick, national director of reverse lending at NEXA Mortgage, said he has “never been busier” as seniors increasingly recognize the trillions of dollars in untapped home equity available to them.

“When people are using this as a financial planning tool, they actually want the interest rates to go high, because the [line of credit] growth rate is always a half-percent greater than whatever the interest rate is,” Riddick said. “Currently, the growth rate is around 7% on the unused line of credit.”

Riddick sees a clear industry shift toward wealthier, more educated clients utilizing reverse mortgages for financial planning rather than out of pure necessity. At a personal level, he said his business is now comprised of roughly 70% non-needs-based borrowers, compared to an even 50/50 split for NEXA overall.

According to Riddick, the traditional HECM remains the dominant product, accounting for 60% to 70% of the market. Proprietary products make up the remaining 30% to 40%, filling critical gaps where HECMs fall short. 

Furthermore, roughly one in five reverse mortgages are currently used for home purchases, he said. But Riddick would like to see that ratio rise, a shift that would help free up housing inventory for younger families. He has also been vocal against industry “bottom-feeders” who aggressively solicit borrowers to refinance just months after originating a reverse mortgage.

Proprietary products 

Despite the challenges, the high-rate environment is accelerating innovation. “Rates are less impactful in reverse than they are in forward — not that they don’t matter,” said Kim Smith, senior vice president of wholesale lending at SmartFi Home Loans.

According to Smith, proprietary products offer a distinct advantage in the current context.

“Our Choice proprietary reverse mortgage program, in this current rate environment, can really offer higher loan amounts than the traditional HECM program. Rates are fueling the growth of proprietary reverse mortgages,” Smith said. “I don’t know that reverse has a demand issue; I think we have a distribution and education gap.”

Urwin also said that the expanding availability of proprietary reverse mortgage products is helping to push rates down in that segment.

“Investors are bringing in more products and they’re getting the rates lower than they were. They’re giving more options to select how much cash you want to take upfront and lines of credit,” Urwin said.

“With proprietary loans, a typical borrower is getting about 10% more LTV in many cases than they can get on a HECM.”

This post was originally published on here. 

Nearly two years after the National Association of Realtors (NAR) received final approval on its home seller commission lawsuit settlement, the trade group is hoping to receive final approval on its home buyer commission lawsuit settlement. 

In an order from late June, which was not filed in the court docket until last week, Judge Linsay Jenkins, who is overseeing the Tuccori homebuyer commission lawsuit, announced that a final approval hearing for the Tuccori lawsuit opt-in settlements was scheduled for Nov. 2, 2026. 

The order for the fairness hearing came after another hearing during which Judge Jenkins approved the manner and form of how the settlement class notices. 

The opt-in settlements that will be up for final approval include those those reached by NAR ($52.25 million), Compass ($7.33 million), eXp World Holdings ($4.34 million), Hanna Holdings ($8.25), HomeServices of America ($30 million) and Douglas Elliman ($2.04 million). The settlements all received preliminary approval in May. 

In total, the settling parties in Tuccori have contributed more than $120 million into the Global Settlement Fund. 

The firms that opted into the Tuccori settlement were originally defendants in suits like Batton 1 and 2, Cwynar, Davis and Lutz.

Since these opt-in settlements were announced, the  plaintiffs in other homebuyer commission lawsuits have sought to prevent the settlements from gaining approval. 

In the preliminary approval order for the opt-in settlements, Judge Jenkins wrote that the terms of the settlement, including the amount of each proposed opt-in agreement, are “fair, reasonable and adequate.” She ruled they were negotiated at arm’s length by experienced counsel acting in good faith, including through multiple mediation sessions overseen by a court-appointed special master for mediation.

The judge also wrote that the opt-in agreements were “reached as a result of those negotiations; there has been adequate opportunity for experienced counsel to evaluate the claims and risks at this stage of the litigation; and the Court will likely be able to approve the Opt-In Agreements.” 

This post was originally published on here. 

When membership numbers soften, the instinct inside most Realtor associations is to assume the value has eroded. Leaders start asking what new benefit they can bolt on, what shiny program might justify the dues. It is the wrong diagnosis, and the wrong diagnosis leads to wasted money and motion. The data tells a more uncomfortable and useful story. 

The MGI Benchmarking Report found that only about 11% of associations describe their own value proposition as very compelling. Read that again. The organizations themselves are not sure they are making the case. That is not a value problem. That is a communication problem, and it is the most fixable problem in the industry.

Consider what actually changed. For 30 years, the MLS did the communicating. An agent did not need a brochure explaining why membership mattered, because the value showed up every morning in the only tool they could not work without.

When the data and the dues were a single purchase, the association never had to develop the muscle that explains, in plain language, what a member gets for the money. Now that NAR has decoupled membership from MLS access, that muscle has to do the heavy lifting, and across most of the field it has atrophied from disuse.

The core discipline here is the oldest one in sales, and most associations have quietly stopped practicing it. A feature is what you offer. A benefit is what the member gets. Associations lose the dues argument because they recite features. “We have a legal hotline.” “We offer continuing education.” “We provide advocacy.” Those are inventory, not value. The member hears a list of things the organization does and is left to translate it into something that matters to their income, safety, time or reputation. Most members do not do that translation. They just see a bill.

Features vs. benefits

Watch how the same fact changes when you translate it. “We have a legal hotline” is a feature. “One phone call keeps a contract mistake from becoming a lawsuit that ends your business, and the membership pays for itself the first time you use it” is a benefit. “We offer education” is a feature. “Realtors with a designation have historically reported median income nearly double that of agents without one” is a benefit. The underlying service did not change. The sentence changed, and the sentence is what the member buys.

The MLS was a peculiar asset in this respect, because it was the rare benefit that doubled as its own feature. You could say the word MLS and the value communicated itself, instantly, with no translation required. That is precisely why its removal from the bundle is so destabilizing. It was carrying the entire communication burden, and when it left, it exposed how little the rest of the value had ever been articulated.

There is a measurable perception gap inside this problem that association leaders need to internalize. Research consistently shows a divergence between what staff and leadership believe members value and what members actually rank highest. Boards are often proudest of governance and advocacy work, which is important but abstract to a working agent.

Members, when asked, put income and career growth at the top, well above the institutional priorities the organization tends to lead with. If your communication leads with what you are proud of rather than what they rank first, you are speaking past the very people you are trying to retain.

What does fixing a communication problem actually look like at an executive level?

It looks like discipline, applied consistently, not a one-time campaign. Start by auditing every benefit you publish and asking a single question of each one: Is this sentence about us or about them? Rewrite anything that is about you. Lead with the member’s bottom line and connect the institutional work back to it, rather than the other way around. Put a dollar figure on the membership wherever you honestly can, because an agent now weighing dues against zero is reasoning in numbers, and a number answers a number.

Then make the communication relentless rather than seasonal. The most common reason members lapse is not that the value disappeared but that they stopped noticing it. Assume your value is invisible until proven otherwise, and over-communicate it at every touchpoint, inonboarding, in renewals, in every event and email in between. The associations that hold their base are not the ones with the longest benefit lists. They are the ones whose members can actually articulate, in their own words, what the membership does for them, because the association said it so often and so clearly that it finally stuck.

This reframe matters because it changes where leadership spends its limited time and budget

If you believe you have a value problem, you spend the next two years and a lot of money chasing new programs, most of which members will never notice. If you understand you have a communication problem, you spend that same energy re-selling the substantial value you already deliver, in language members care about, on a schedule they cannot miss. The second path is cheaper, faster, and far more likely to work.

The value is real. It always was. The job in front of every association is not to invent a reason to belong. It is to say the reasons you already have, clearly, repeatedly, and in the member’s own language, until the case for membership is as obvious as the MLS login screen used to make it.

It helps to see the discipline applied to a benefit leaders rarely think to translate. Take governance participation, the committees and volunteer structure most associations describe in purely institutional terms. The feature is a seat on a committee. The benefit, properly framed, is influence over the rules that govern the member’s livelihood, plus a network of relationships with the most engaged professionals in the market. One sentence describes an obligation. The other describes an opportunity. The underlying service is identical.

The framing determines whether a member sees a burden or a benefit, and the framing is entirely within the association’s control. Multiply that single translation across every line of the value stack, and the cumulative effect on how members perceive their dues is substantial. That is precisely why the communication discipline, and not a new program, is the highest-leverage investment a board can make this year.

Darryl Davis, CSP, is a national speaker, real estate coach, and the bestselling author of How to Become a Power Agent in Real Estate. Don’t miss this month’s free webinar series at PowerAgentWebinar.com. Through his POWER AGENT® Coaching Program, he helps real estate professionals build thriving businesses and lives at the Next Level®. Learn more at darrylspeaks.com.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners.

To contact the editor responsible for this piece: tracey@hwmedia.com

This post was originally published on here. 

The calendar may be telling Beazer Homes investors something

Over the past six months, the homebuilding industry’s most closely watched M&A drama has evolved from an unsolicited acquisition proposal into a public test of value, strategy and shareholder patience.

Dream Finders Homes has steadily increased its hostile all-cash offer for Beazer Homes – from an initial private proposal early this year to a public $25.75-per-share bid in May, followed by successive increases to $29.25 and, most recently, $32 per share. 

Along the way, Beazer’s board has repeatedly maintained that the DFH offers undervalue the company, while disclosing that it has also received interest from additional parties regarding what it describes as “a range of potential transactions.”

The latest chapter has shifted away from price alone. Dream Finders says it is prepared to execute a confidentiality agreement immediately so it can begin due diligence, but it has resisted Beazer’s proposed 12-month standstill, arguing that such a provision would unnecessarily limit its ability to re-engage shareholders or nominate directors should negotiations fail. Beazer, meanwhile, has maintained that all interested parties should operate under the same customary process.

Against that backdrop, Beazer’s upcoming fiscal third-quarter earnings release has taken on significance that extends well beyond quarterly orders, margins and deliveries.

Beazer plans to release its fiscal third quarter results on August 10th. The timing of the release is potentially more interesting than any results it may report. Over the past decade, Beazer reported its third quarter results on one of the last days of July, or the 1st of August at the very latest. Like clockwork. Through COVID.

But this year, the company plans to release its results on August 10th, … the very last day it has to file its quarterly 10-Q with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The change relative to its normal timing is “interesting.” Investors and analysts are left to wonder if this is just a placeholder with other news potentially coming prior to this.

Holders of Beazer stock seemingly think that there’s more in store, as shares of Beazer have been holding above $32 – the price in Dream Finders’ most recent hostile proposal on July 8th – despite the headwinds facing the industry with rising mortgage rates and a cautious consumer. This suggests that these holders of Beazer stock likely think that there will be yet another increased proposal from Dream Finders or from another buyer.  Beazer shares are up more than 60% in 2026, far more than the shares of other builders, and likely driven by hope and speculation that Beazer would be acquired by Dream Finders or another builder.

What will the next two weeks bring? Time will tell. Holders of Beazer shares seem to be hoping for something more than just Beazer’s earnings release on August 10th.

Whether that “something more” proves to be another move by Dream Finders, a competing bidder, or simply Beazer’s own case for remaining independent remains to be seen.

What is becoming clear is that the market is no longer valuing Beazer solely on its operating performance. For now, investors appear to be assigning meaningful value to the possibility that the company’s future will ultimately be determined not only by its operating performance, but by what comes next in one of homebuilding’s most closely followed takeover contests.

This post was originally published on here. 

Consulting firm Milliman has acquired Blue Water mortgage servicing rights (MSR) valuation and hedging services from Apex Analytics Corp., adding another platform less than a year after buying MorVest Capital to expand its capabilities in the space.

The transaction, announced Monday, folds Blue Water’s hedge analytics, trading platform and quantitative team into Milliman’s mortgage solutions practice. Financial terms were not disclosed.

“Blue Water’s sophistication in MSR hedge analytics is an excellent complement to our deep mortgage advisory expertise,” Brett Ludden, managing director and head of mortgage solutions at Milliman, said in a statement. “The addition of Blue Water’s trading and quantitative analytics professionals further strengthens our growing mortgage solutions practice and enhances the value we deliver to our clients.”

The acquisition is intended to expand Milliman’s MSR advisory and risk-management work, according to the company announcement. For Apex Analytics, formerly Voxtur Analytics, the divestiture supports its plan to concentrate investment on its core property intelligence and assessment technology business.

“By streamlining our portfolio, we can accelerate innovation in assessment software, artificial intelligence, data analytics and workflow automation, reinforcing our commitment to becoming a trusted technology leader serving assessors, government agencies and public-sector property assessment teams,” CEO Ryan Marshall said in the announcement.

Apex said the sale aligns its capital with higher-growth opportunities in mass appraisal systems, geospatial tools and AI-enabled assessment platforms, while moving the Blue Water MSR business to a firm whose priorities are more closely tied to mortgage servicing risk.

In December 2025, Milliman bought Dallas-based MorVest Capital, a provider of MSR analytics and advisory services. That deal expanded Milliman’s services to include MSR valuation, financing, hedging and brokering.

The Blue Water acquisition builds on that strategy. Milliman said the Blue Water hedging platform will be combined with its mortgage behavior modeling, quantitative analytics, hedging strategies, software development and data science capabilities.

Milliman, founded in 1947, is an actuarial and consulting firm. Its mortgage solutions unit works with originators, servicers and capital providers on financial risk management and mortgage market strategy. In addition to its recent M&A activity, Milliman in 2025 expanded further into residential mortgages by hiring Ludden and Jeff Juliane to lead its mortgage push.

This article was written by Flávia Furlan Nunes and generated with the assistance of HousingWire Automation, then reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

While the reverse mortgage industry has historically relied on specialized originators to drive volume, wholesale lender SmartFi Home Loans is looking elsewhere to expand the market.

The company’s growth strategy hinges on “growing the pie” by equipping traditional, forward-centric loan officers with the tools and education needed to seamlessly offer reverse mortgages to their clients.

“I hear a lot of people talk about growing the pie — that forward base would be growing the reverse mortgage pie, and that’s our core focus for growth,” Kim Smith, senior vice president of wholesale lending at SmartFi, said. “We are going to continue to support those traditional, reverse-focused originators, but the growth mindset has to be looking at reverses that aren’t even done in the current market.”

To execute this strategy, SmartFi is leveraging technology to simplify the origination process for newcomers. The lender recently partnered with Reverse Mortgage Insight (RMI) to integrate its Choice proprietary loan program into RMI’s tech platform, putting the product directly in front of a wider audience.

Simultaneously, SmartFi is building out a user-friendly internal partner portal designed to give forward LOs a quick, intuitive way to run numbers and make the financial mechanics of reverse mortgages make sense to their borrowers.

Smith recently sat down with HousingWire’s Reverse Mortgage Daily to talk about SmartFi’s strategy, the macroeconomic landscape and the main challenges for the industry.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Flávia Nunes: How do you see the current macro landscape impacting reverse mortgages?

Kim Smith: When you think about the traditional forward mortgage space, higher rates are typically correlated to those higher monthly mortgage payments. With the reverse mortgage, it’s designed to offer an optional monthly principal and interest mortgage payment. The bottom line is rates are less impactful in reverse than they are in forward. Not that they don’t matter.

The other thing is, our Choice proprietary reverse mortgage program in this current rate environment can offer higher loan amounts than the traditional HECM program. I feel rates are fueling the growth of proprietary reverse mortgages.

As far as demand, I don’t know that reverse has a demand issue. We have a distribution and education gap. We are looking to bridge that gap through our account executives, technology, and bringing the product to the forward-centric loan officer to let them grow that distribution. Product innovation is going to be a key as well.

FN: How does the Choice proprietary reverse mortgage program compare to HECM?

KS: The product is not FHA-insured. The Choice proprietary loan program doesn’t have a mortgage insurance premium. That’s a big difference. It can be a lower-cost option. Right now, with rates being as high as they are, what we look at is the principal limit factor tables. With HECM, when you put it side by side with the principal limit factor table of the proprietary Choice loan, you see Choice winning in a lot of cases. In a lower-rate environment, that wouldn’t be the case.

We offer fixed-rate and adjustable-rate options. Along with that FHA insurance, you have an FHA guideline on a HECM loan, whereas our Choice guideline is more of a conventional underwriting, which provides more flexibility in the qualification with borrowers. We still are looking for ability and willingness to pay taxes and insurance. It just provides more flexibility in those reviews.

FN: SmartFi grew HECM endorsements 32% YoY in 2025, ranking 12th nationally. What’s driving that growth? How has the performance been in 2026?

KS: Our growth is attributed to our people and the culture. I’ve been doing this for a while, specifically wholesale reverse mortgage for over 20 years, and I can say this is the best combination of sales and operational excellence. That’s the key. We have team members that will pick up the phone, work with our partners. We have a solution mindset. That is our secret sauce.

Our goal isn’t to be the biggest in this industry. It’s to be the best. We want the best experience for the originators and their borrowers from start to finish. When you put that lens on service, that speaks to the industry, and that’s where we’re seeing our growth. What we are looking for at SmartFi is consistent growth. We’re not looking for a spike. We’re not looking to take over the world. We’re looking for month-over-month consistent growth. That’s what we saw in 2025, and that’s what we’re seeing in 2026. 

FN: SmartFi launched a retail division in mid-2024 and closed it roughly a year later. What did that experience teach the company, and what are the advantages of going all-in on wholesale?

KS: The mentality of SmartFi is to leave no stone unturned. We want to be the best company we can; we’re not afraid to try different strategies, and then we just will learn from those and continue to evolve.

It’s very refreshing to not compete with our partners. In every other role that I’ve had in the space, there’s been a retail organization. It’s been my experience that those don’t necessarily cross paths that much. That being said, it’s very nice to not have to even have that conversation. We will not compete with our partner.

FN: When you joined the company, you highlighted SmartFi’s freedom from legacy processes. Three years later, what does that “best-in-class wholesale platform” actually look like in practice?

KS: Building the right team is where it starts. The people are the most important part, and that’s something that has become abundantly clear to me in the last three years. The other piece is empowering those people. You can have the best tech, the best process, and if you don’t have the right people as your foundation for that process, you’re going to see cracks.

In three years, we’ve done a great job of bringing the right people together, and then what we’re now working on is building on top of that foundation, continuing to evolve our technology, whether it is our CRM, how our ops team is working, etc. Those are all works in progress.

Even the technology, outward-facing. There’s really one option right now in the reverse space when you look from a loan origination system, and the forward space does not have an easy way to access our product. Just continuing to brainstorm on how to grow on the tech side, both operationally and outward-facing, to grow the market.

FN: Is SmartFi developing technology in-house or relying on vendors?

KS: We’ll bring all the resources together. We’ve seen a whole host of different technologies launched in the last 12 months, just trying to solve this forward – kind of how do you speak forward? How do you get it in front of more originators? How do you make it simple?

We’ve partnered most recently with RMI. They built a tech platform, and we want the Choice product to be in all of those technologies that are out trying to make a difference in the space. We’ve had a long-standing relationship with RMI, so it was like a no-brainer to partner with them, and that’s part of the technology strategy. That was a natural evolution of 20 years of working with RMI. One of our goals is to bring our Choice loan program to a broader audience, and we saw the RMI tool taking us a step closer to reaching that goal.

Then, we also are building internally. We have our partner portal, trying to offer a quick, very user-friendly solution to those forward LOs to come in and be able to run numbers and make it make sense to them. We’re employing any strategy that could possibly expand the reach of the product.

FN: Will the growth in the space come from forward loan officers offering reverse mortgages or reverse-focused LOs?

KS: We’ve built teams to support both. I hear a lot of people talk about growing the pie – that forward base would be growing the reverse mortgage pie. That’s our core focus for growth. We are going to continue to support those traditional, reverse-focused originators, but the growth mindset has to be looking at reverses that aren’t even done in the current market.

FN: What is the main challenge for this to happen?

KS: Twenty years ago, I started in this space, and there was a complete misconception of what this product was. There was a lot of very bad press, old products that people had learned about that they still thought was a reverse mortgage. You would think that at this point, we would be past those misconceptions. We aren’t.

I still, every day, am talking to leaders of forward companies, originators, or the person sitting next to me on an airplane, and they say, “Oh, what do you do?” And when you say, “Oh, I do reverse mortgages,” the cringe that you still get just because of misunderstanding of the product – that’s still this industry’s biggest hurdle. That becomes an education gap. We need more respected people that understand both financial planning and lending helping people understand that this is simply a mortgage with an optional principal and interest payment. That is what this is.

The thought that loans can take dramatically longer than a forward mortgage loan — that’s just not the case. We’re closing loans in seven to 14 days at SmartFi. They don’t have to take longer. There are just these deep-seated ideas of our products that we have to unseat through education. I would say that’s the biggest challenge for both SmartFi and I would say the entire industry.

This post was originally published on here. 

Mortgage servicers are misreading the current moment. Enforcement looks quiet, but accountability has never been broader. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has issued zero consent orders against servicers in 2026. Enforcement staffing is being cut by 80%, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s (OCC) most significant mortgage action this year touches VA origination, not servicing. Some servicers may read the lack of enforcement as a reprieve. The enforcement gap is real, but the compliance burden is not shrinking. 

What happened is a fracture. Three non-overlapping AI governance regimes are now in effect, and they don’t form a unified standard. They do, however, create a maze that every servicer will need to navigate without a map, with the same accountability question: When AI models make bad calls on account decisions, who owns the outcomes? The answer, under every framework in effect today, is the servicer, not their AI vendor. 

The regimes 

The first regime is traditional model risk governance under OCC Bulletin 2026-13 and SR 26-2,  issued April 17, 2026. The most meaningful change here is vendor parity. Third-party models now carry the same validation, monitoring and outcomes-analysis requirements as internal models. If a vendor’s scoring tool influences an account-level decision, your model risk management (MRM) program owns that tool and must be able to explain it. And sorry, SOC 2 reports don’t satisfy a model validation question. They never did. 

At the same time, OCC 2026-13 explicitly excludes generative and agentic AI, calling them  ‘novel and rapidly evolving.’ But those are exactly the tools servicers are deploying today, and they sit outside the guidance. 

The second regime is the GSE contractual mandates, with Freddie Mac Bulletin 2025-16 as the anchor. It has been in force since March 3, 2026, and requires documented AI governance with  CIO, CTO, CISO or CRO sign-off, audits mapped to NIST 800-53 and ISO 27001, continuous bias monitoring and explicit safeguards against prompt injection, data poisoning and model inversion. Compared to the agencies, Freddie is much more prescriptive. The mandate also  carries a broad indemnification clause, making non-compliance a direct contractual liability sitting inside your seller/servicer agreements today.  

Fannie Mae Lender Letter LL-2026-04, effective August 6, 2026, is softer but lands in a similar place. It requires that your vendor’s AI governance meet a standard no less protective than your own. Fannie also reserves the right to demand, without notice, a full inventory of every AI 

system you operate, including purpose, data classes and safeguards for each system. Could your organization produce that today? Most can’t. 

The third regime is the Treasury Financial Services AI Risk Management Framework, released  February 19, 2026. It’s technically voluntary. But in practice, this is the de facto reference for examiners and internal audit, since no binding federal standard exists for generative tools yet.  Its 230 control objectives cover AI governance, data integrity and bias monitoring, model lifecycle management, third-party AI risk and operational resilience.  

Third-party AI risk is where most servicers fall short today, and that gap almost always lives in the vendor contract. Every servicer wants the benefits vendors promise, but few have built a real risk model to understand the impacts and support them. That urgency gap will be visible the first time an examiner or auditor asks for the inventory.  

The outlook 

The regulatory guidance playbook vendors operate from is familiar. SOC 2 shows up quickly, compliance gets treated as a feature instead of a shared liability and contracts routinely omit  the provisions that actually matter: 

• Zero-training data-use prohibitions that cover sub-processors, blocking borrower data from being used to train or improve their foundation models. 
• Model-change notification clauses requiring advance notice before changes that affect model outputs. 
• Audit and inspection rights that empower the servicer to examine model behavior and validation documentation. 
• Termination data retrieval provisions that guarantee that audit logs, override history and source-document mappings are returned to the servicer when the contract ends. 

These aren’t aggressive asks. They’re derived directly from OCC 2026-13 vendor parity expectations, OCC Bulletin 2023-17 third-party risk management and the Fannie and Freddie AI  disclosure requirements. The regulatory groundwork already exists. Most sourcing departments just haven’t updated their contract standards to reflect it. They should, regardless of the resistance vendors are likely to raise. Has yours kept up?  

Adverse action processes are another gap. CFPB Circular 2023-03 remains in force and requires specific, principal-reason explanations tied to the borrower’s actual data and the model’s decision logic. Generic checklist reasons most servicers use today will struggle to satisfy the standard for any servicer that uses AI for loss-mitigation triage, workout eligibility or default communication routing. Interpretability is not a product feature; it’s a compliance requirement.  If you can’t get model-behavior documentation from your vendor sufficient to produce a borrower-specific explanation, you have a Circular 2023-03 problem.

State attorneys general in New York, Massachusetts and California are expanding enforcement activity to fill the federal gap, operating under state Unfair or Deceptive Acts or Practices (UDAP) statutes and the new NY FAIR  Business Practices Act. The Fair Housing Act’s disparate impact standard survived the April 2026 rollback of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA). 

Servicers that dismantled or scaled back disparate impact testing in response to the Reg B final rule created FHA exposure and GSE compliance gaps in the same move. The CFPB’s posture may shift with the political winds, but the underlying statutes do not. 

The accountability structure is not ambiguous. When an AI system makes a call, right or wrong,  on loss mitigation decisions, the servicer answers for it under model risk guidance, GSE  contracts, adverse action notice requirements and Fair Housing Act exposure, all at the same time. No vendor compliance slide changes that structure. Don’t be dazzled by cost-savings projections into thinking otherwise. 

Closing the gap is operational. You need: 

• A current AI use-case inventory covering every servicing tool and every vendor embedded capability 
• Vendor contracts with the four provisions above 
• Model validation records that treat third-party tools on par with internal models 
• Adverse action processes that can produce model-specific reasoning for each denial 

August 6 is the near-term forcing function as Fannie’s Lender Letter goes into effect and closes the GSE loop. But the accountability gap has been a miss in vendor contracts for years.  

AI didn’t change who is responsible. It made that responsibility harder to ignore, and the regulatory environment has run out of patience.

Frank Barilone Jr., MBA, is a product management leader with over 20 years of experience in mortgage servicing and consumer lending, with a focus on vendor governance and AI adoption in regulated financial services. 

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. 

REFERENCES 

• CFPB Enforcement Collapse / Staffing Cuts Covers claims: (1) zero CFPB consent orders  against mortgage servicers in 2026 to date; (2) enforcement staffing cut 80 percent (254  to 50 staff); (3) overall headcount reduction from 1,723 to 556. Source: CFPB Workforce  Reduction Plan filed March 31, 2026 in NTEU v. Vought, U.S. District Court for D.C.  Reported by American Banker (April 1, 2026) and Consumer Finance Monitor (April 8,  2026). Consent order absence confirmed via CFPB public enforcement actions database. 

• OCC’s Most Significant 2026 Mortgage Action Touches Origination, Not Servicing Source: OCC Enforcement Actions for April 2026. Consent Order against The Federal  Savings Bank, Chicago, Docket AA-ENF-2025-63, for FTC Act Section 5 violations on VA  cash-out refinances.

• OCC Bulletin 2026-13 / Federal Reserve SR 26-2 / FDIC FIL-15-2026 (April 17, 2026) Covers four claims: (1) vendor/third-party models now carry the same MRM  expectations as internal models; (2) generative and agentic AI explicitly excluded,  described as “novel and rapidly evolving”; (3) the agencies announced a forthcoming RFI  on generative and agentic AI with no published timetable as of June 8, 2026; (4) those  excluded tools are exactly what servicers are currently deploying. 

• Freddie Mac Bulletin 2025-16 (December 3, 2025; effective March 3, 2026) Covers five  claims: (1) already in force as of publication date; (2) requires CIO/CTO/CISO/CRO sign off; (3) requires audits mapped to NIST 800-53 and ISO 27001; (4) requires safeguards  against prompt injection, data poisoning, and model inversion; (5) carries a broad  indemnification clause making non-compliance a direct contractual liability. The  characterization of Freddie as “much more prescriptive” than the agencies is supported  by Cooley Finsights analysis cited in the underlying research. Link: Guide Bulletin 2025- 16. Sections 1302.2 and 1302.8 of the guide specifically identify the claims. 

• Fannie Mae Lender Letter LL-2026-04 (April 8, 2026; effective August 6, 2026) Covers  three claims: (1) effective August 6, 2026; (2) vendor AI governance must meet a  standard “no less protective” than the servicer’s own; (3) Fannie reserves the right to  demand, without notice, a full inventory of every AI system including purpose, data  classes, and safeguards. 

• Treasury Financial Services AI Risk Management Framework (February 19, 2026) Covers three claims: (1) released February 19, 2026 in partnership with the Cyber Risk  Institute, FSSCC, and AIEOG, with input from 100+ financial institutions; (2) 230 control  objectives across five domains including third-party AI risk; (3) technically voluntary but  the de facto examiner and internal audit reference given the absence of binding federal  standards for generative tools. The “de facto reference” characterization is supported by  ZwillGen’s analysis, which noted these resources “are likely to become an important  reference in examinations, internal audit expectations, third-party oversight, and  contract negotiations.” 

• OCC Bulletin 2023-17 (June 2023) – Third-Party Risk Management Covers the claim that  the four vendor contract provisions (zero-training data use, model-change notification,  audit/inspection rights, termination data egress) flow directly from existing TPRM  expectations. OCC 2023-17 remains the operative federal framework with no narrowing  updates specific to AI vendors issued in 2025 or 2026 as of report date. 

• CFPB Circular 2023-03 (September 2023; still in force) Covers two claims: (1) requires  adverse action notices for AI-assisted decisions to provide specific, principal-reason  explanations tied to the borrower’s actual data and the model’s decision logic; (2) has  not been withdrawn under the current administration. 

• CFPB Regulation B Final Rule / Fair Housing Act Disparate Impact Covers two claims: (1)  Reg B final rule effective July 21, 2026 eliminates ECOA disparate impact liability,  meaning servicers who dismantled testing in response created a gap; (2) the Fair  Housing Act’s disparate impact standard is unaffected, grounded in Texas Dept. of  Housing & Community Affairs v. Inclusive Communities Project, 576 U.S. 519 (2015), a  Supreme Court holding not subject to agency rollback. 

• State AG Enforcement Expansion Covers the claim that New York, Massachusetts, and  California are expanding enforcement activity under state UDAP statutes and the NY 

FAIR Business Practices Act (December 2025), which expanded General Business Law  Section 349 to cover “unfair” acts. Links:  1, 2, 3, 4

This post was originally published on here. 

Coldwell Banker Warburg is folding into Compass. Both Compass and the Coldwell Banker brand are owned by Compass International Holdings. 

The former New York-based Coldwell Banker franchise will now operate as Warburg at Compass, according to a Compass spokesperson.  

“We’re excited that Warburg’s agents are joining Compass’ New York City operations,” the Compass spokesperson wrote in an email. “Our focus is on providing these professionals with the enhanced resources and opportunities for collaboration to help them deliver even greater value to their clients.”

The brokerage has not set out a timeline for Coldwell Banker Warburg’s transition. 

This move comes almost eight months after Compass closed its acquisition of Coldwell Banker’s former parent company Anywhere Real Estate. 

This post was originally published on here. 

For generations, real estate has been the primary vehicle for building intergenerational wealth in America.

But for older adults and Black homeowners, that vehicle has also made them a target, says Scott Kohanowski, general counsel at the Center for NYC Neighborhoods.

New York City recently established a Deed Theft Prevention Office, building on longstanding community-based efforts like the Homeowner Protection Program that help residents identify, prevent and respond to deed theft before they lose their homes.

Kohanowski sat down with HousingWire to explain why deed theft disproportionately targets older adults and Black homeowners, the red flags homeowners should watch for and what other cities can learn from New York’s approach.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Jonathan Delozier: Is deed theft getting worse or is public awareness finally catching up to the full extent of the problem?

Scott Kohanowski: I think this has always existed, and I think real estate empires have been built on deed theft, scam and predation that’s been targeting distressed communities, especially. I don’t know if it’s increasing, but I think we’re probably noticing it a lot more because there’s been so much attention brought to it. Also, especially in a place like New York, we have a lot [of] public resources and a lot [of] support from the state attorney general’s office. Because there are a lot resources, there are a lot of people working in this area, and they’re identifying the scams that are happening and generally raising that awareness.

Delozier: Your work has shown that older adults and Black homeowners are disproportionately targeted. What makes those demographics particularly vulnerable and what systemic factors allow these scams to keep happening?

Kohanowski: Well, generally, for seniors, it’s diminishing capacity, and it’s also that there’s so much wealth that a lot of the seniors are sitting on, especially in a place like New York City, where we have through-the-roof market values. Seniors are generally seen as an easy target, especially if they don’t have the resources or they don’t have somebody who’s helping them manage their affairs. As they get older, it just becomes harder and harder to keep on top of things and know who to trust.

For historically Black communities, Black Americans, Black homeowners and new Americans, immigrants — a lot of those demographics don’t have access to information and legal resources and the things that help folks protect their homes and protect their assets. You can trace a direct line back to post-Civil War Reconstruction, then Jim Crow, then the Great Migration north, and then before the Fair Housing Act, we had these discriminatory lending laws and ownership laws and restrictive covenants that disproportionately affected African Americans and excluded them from a lot of the protections that we now have.

Those families or individuals who were able to acquire properties at that time had artificially depressed property values because of these restrictive covenants and redlining practices. But then once we had the Fair Housing Act, a lot of these areas that were historically artificially depressed in value — in places like New York — those areas have rapidly gentrified. It’s not uncommon to have a Harlem brownstone that’s now worth $5 million and there may not be any mortgage on that property at all because a great grandmother wasn’t able to get a mortgage. Fast forward 30 or 40 years, and you have a very high value property with a ton of equity. A lot of the scammers and predators see that as an opportunity to mine wealth out of those communities and to strip that equity and appropriate that equity.

Delozier: For real estate agents and title agents who are often the last line of defense before property changes hands, what are some under-the-radar warning signs they should be looking out for?

Kohanowski: For that side of the industry, it’s making sure that they’re not rubber stamping a lot of these sketchy transactions. You’ll see it where you’ll be in a closing room and you have what we call “potted plant lawyers” — the ones that are supposedly representing the victim but they’re really in cahoots with the perpetrators. You see that with the foreclosure rescue scams all over the place.

Even the title companies and the real estate agents — if they’re not communicating directly with the principal, the main person, the homeowner or the home purchaser — they should double verify everything because you see deeds being forged. You see the foreclosure rescue scams where people are being told one thing, a bait and switch type thing, and they’re being told to sign documents that they don’t understand. Just make sure that whoever is giving up their rights or selling something or signing something actually knows what it is that they’re signing.

Delozier: With the New York City Deed Theft Prevention Office and the Homeowner Protection Program, what elements have been most effective and what could realistically be replicated in other states or areas?

Kohanowski: New York and New York City have developed, over time, some robust protections for homeowners — not just in terms of foreclosure or inherited property — but what we’re talking about right now with deed theft and real property fraud and schemes, scams and predation. There hasn’t been, in New York City, a centralized agency or office that addresses all the various forms of deed theft. So that’s really a great development; that there is a single office now that coordinates efforts across different law enforcement agencies and civil legal service organizations.

The New York State Office of Attorney General has been active in this area. We’ve partnered with Letitia James and people in her office. They started convening, maybe five years ago, a deed theft task force that brought together different law enforcement agents and agencies in the city and civil legal service organizations to share resources and information about what they’re seeing on the ground. But it was not so much public facing. Having an office now that is public facing, that is in the communities, that people can go to directly, is great.

Delozier: How is deed theft affecting heirs’ property transactions?

Kohanowski: Heirs’ property is a really hot topic right now nationally in the home preservation circles because I think it accounts for a large part of wealth that’s held in homes, especially in Black communities. It’s something that I think has been happening for a long time. We originally saw it happening in places like the Gullah Geechee Islands and the South Carolina coast, but we saw the same practices transplanted into New York City. You’d have Grandma’s house up in Harlem, a brownstone worth $5 million, and she passed away 20 or 30 years ago and nobody’s handled the estate. You might have three or four family members living in that house and 20 heirs who own a part of that property automatically, by operation of law.

We’ve done some research, and we’ve seen how much wealth has been lost due to those practices. A lot of the work we’re doing now is getting that information out to homeowners and to heirs, and getting people to take estate planning seriously, and just to be aware of what their rights are and the values that we’re talking about. There’s so much wealth there to be mined.

Delozier: Data fragmentation seems to be a big enabler of deed theft and all forms of real estate fraud. Could there be a realistic expectation in the next 10 years to have some sort of national deed database, or does that seem unlikely given how low-tech some jurisdictions are?

Kohanowski: New York City is great because all of our land records are public, online and freely searchable, and that helps us as advocates working in this area. But all that information is local, and every municipality or every local clerk might have a different system. New York has 50-plus counties and every county has a slightly different variation on how to look at land records and how to trace title. I don’t know if that’s something that can even happen at a national level because it’s so local. But maybe AI could help.

Part of the problem too is that we see the predation happening largely to homeowners who are already in distress — they might be in foreclosure, behind on their property taxes or need home repairs. New York City for the longest time, and every municipality does this — if somebody’s behind on their property taxes, they can foreclose on that home, but they also release that information publicly. It’s basically giving a target list for the predators and scammers. The same for foreclosure filings — you see people pouring through the foreclosure records because those are the targets for foreclosure rescue scams.

This post was originally published on here. 

If you do not build it, they cannot come. If you cannot permit it, you cannot build it, and they cannot come.

NVR Q2 2026 results offer a sharp counterpoint to the strategic shifts now underway across public homebuilding. Lennar has boldly reset its enterprise around a more asset-light on-demand land investment structure. D.R. Horton continues to use inventory, incentives and local scale to protect sales pace. PulteGroup and KB Home are leaning into build-to-order and disciplined personalization as they work to restore margins. Century Communities is improving several operating levers at once while continuing to expand its community base.

NVR, partly because it survived a near-death experience in another turbulent and uncertain housing cycle more than three decades ago, pioneered a good deal of what these companies have set about to do in the past 24 months to capitalize on opportunities in the next 24.

For decades since its restructuring and resurrection, NVR has controlled land through options, limited owned land exposure, built primarily after securing a buyer and returned excess cash through aggressive share repurchases. The model has reliably set an industry standard for the strongest returns on invested capital and made NVR, our No. 4-ranked organization in the HousingWire Homebuilder Rankings, one of homebuilding’s pre-eminent operating performers.

Still, the Q2 2026 performance reveals clues about how and when the model comes under pressure.

New orders increased 9% from a year earlier to 5,885 homes, while the cancellation rate improved to 15% from 17%. Backlog grew 9% to 10,998 homes and reached $4.99 billion, up 5%. Those numbers point to stronger underlying demand than the company’s earnings decline might suggest.

The punchline is that NVR paid for that pace through price and margin.

The average price of new orders fell 5% to $437,100. Closings fell an even greater 8%, and their average price dropped 3% to $450,700. Homebuilding revenue dropped 11% to $2.28 billion, while gross margin narrowed to 19.2% from 21.5%. Higher lot costs, affordability-driven pricing pressure and $21.7 million of contract-land deposit impairments all weighed on profitability.

Net income fell 29% and diluted earnings per share declined 23%, even after continued share repurchases reduced the diluted share count by 8% from the prior-year quarter.

The quarter fits the pace-versus-margin pattern visible across the sector. The notable difference is how NVR produced the pace.

D.R. Horton and Lennar have leaned heavily on ready-to-occupy homes, mortgage-rate buydowns and other incentives to move buyers through communities quickly. Century Communities has kept approximately three finished specs per community while using lower construction costs and adjustable-rate mortgages to support affordability. PulteGroup and KB Home are emphasizing build-to-order partly because it reduces speculative inventory and allows product and option revenue to support margins.

NVR has stuck to that model. Its operating system centers on selling the home before committing most of the construction capital. That limits inventory risk and reinforces the land-light strategy, but it can become a sales disadvantage when competing builders have finished or near-finished homes available at heavily discounted prices.

Wolfe Research analyst Trevor Allinson zeroes in on that issue. NVR’s build-to-order model, he argues, faces pressure in the current environment because competitors can offer immediate occupancy and aggressive discounts without asking buyers to wait through a construction cycle.

NVR nevertheless generated order growth above expectations, suggesting buyers will accept that wait when price, product and location remain compelling. The company’s 5% reduction in order price also shows that build-to-order does not insulate a builder from the affordability problem. NVR protected volume by resetting price even though its balance sheet and low land exposure gave it less need than most peers to chase closings.

Margin stability minus the impairment charge

NVR’s reported margin decline looks severe compared with last year, however a quarter-to-quarter trend focus sends a clearer and more constructive signal.

Allinson noted that, subtracting land impairments, gross margin improved from Q1, like the stabilization D.R. Horton and PulteGroup have reported. Wolfe believes NVR’s trade concessions may be sufficient to offset at least part of the continued increase in finished lot costs. Accounting for those factors, NVR’s 19.2% reported margin takes on a more benign look.

Century Communities produced a 20% adjusted gross margin after lowering incentives and direct construction costs. Horton and Pulte also signaled that margins may be finding a near-term floor. NVR’s result supports the same conclusion, but with less help from speculative inventory turnover or mortgage incentives.

A fresh wave of global turbulence, policy impacts and fear could make short work of that new-found stability. Typically, NVR buys lumber in the spot market, and Wolfe estimates that lumber-price changes typically take four to five months to reach its income statement. Higher lumber costs could become a period-to-period margin headwind during the second half. Which means NVR may need still more concessions from trades and suppliers to hold the current level.

SG&A surfaces another risk

Q2 homebuilding SG&A expense was flat in dollars at approximately $151 million even as revenue fell 11%. The resulting ratio rose to 6.6% from 5.9% a year earlier.

Wolfe expects expenses to increase later in 2026 because NVR’s historical four-year equity-compensation cycle is coming due.

NVR runs with an SG&A structure that is the envy of its peers. Century Communities, for example, reported SG&A equal to 14.2% of home sales revenue as it supported a broader geographic platform and record community count. NVR’s lower expense load reflects deep local density and scale, limited corporate complexity and a military-precision operating model its leaders and managers have spent decades refining.

The challenge is that low SG&A cannot fully offset lower prices, rising lot costs and fewer settlements.

The community-count constraint

Community growth stands out as the thorniest question in NVR’s outlook.

Average active communities increased 4% year over year and 2% sequentially to 442. That total falls below the 450-level reached during the second half of 2025 and below NVR’s pre-pandemic peak.

Prying back the nuanced reasons for lackluster growth, the root cause not an issue of a shortage of controlled land.

NVR controlled 184,400 lots at quarter-end, up from 171,400 a year earlier. Wolfe notes that the controlled-lot position has increased 76% since Q4 2019 even as municipal delays and bedeviling approval processes have prevented a comparable rise in selling communities.

This is where NVR contrasts most sharply with Century Communities. Century ended the quarter with a company-record 330 communities, up 11% year over year, and is investing to support approximately 10% annual delivery growth when demand improves. NVR has more communities, deeper local market share and a far larger controlled lot pipeline, but it struggles on the permitting and zoning front to convert that pipeline into openings.

NVR has added staff to support development and community activation. Any acceleration would give the company a welcome boost in order and revenue growth beyond higher absorption or lower prices.

Until then, the business is stuck with having to extract more productivity from a frustratingly static geographic footprint.

A proven model, not an invulnerable one

NVR is second to none as the industry’s clearest and most capable working business model of how land-light homebuilding can produce superior returns, low leverage and durable cash generation.

Its second quarter did not undermine that model. Orders rose, cancellations improved, backlog expanded and underlying margins showed signs of stabilizing.

The results, however, did expose the tradeoffs.

Build-to-order limits inventory risk but can cede homebuyer urgency to spec-heavy competitors. Land options protect capital but cannot erase higher finished-lot costs or municipal delays. Low SG&A supports earnings, but a fixed expense base still deleverages when revenue falls. Share repurchases lift per-share results, but NVR’s cash balance declined to $1.1 billion from $1.7 billion a year earlier and $2.6 billion at the end of 2024, potentially reducing the scale of future buybacks.

NVR stands as one of its public peers’ strongest enterprises. Why? It has followed and flourished with the same disciplined system through several cycles.

The present market is testing a different capability: whether that system can create enough sales pace and community growth without giving up the margin and capital advantages that made it the industry’s land-light standard.

This post was originally published on here. 

Berkshire Hathaway has completed its acquisition of Taylor Morrison Home Corp. in a cash deal that values the Arizona-based homebuilder at about $6.8 billion in equity and $8.5 billion in enterprise value, the companies announced on Friday. The companies announced the proposed acquisition in late May 2026. 

Under the transaction, Berkshire paid $72.50 per Taylor Morrison common share in cash, according to the announcement. The deal adds one of the industry’s larger publicly traded builders to Berkshire’s existing homebuilding platform Clayton Properties Group.

Taylor Morrison, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, will continue to be led by CEO Sheryl Palmer. She will oversee integration of Taylor Morrison’s brands — including Esplanade, Yardly and Taylor Morrison Home Funding — with Berkshire’s Clayton Properties Group, a collection of 15 regional and local site-built homebuilders.

Combined, Taylor Morrison and Clayton Properties Group delivered nearly 23,000 site-built home closings in 2025, operate in 21 states and 52 housing markets, and serve more than 700 communities nationally, the companies said. That footprint positions the unit as the fourth-largest homebuilding operation in the United States.

In 2025, Taylor Morrison reported revenue of $7.76 billion and delivered 12,997 homes across 21 markets in 12 states. The builder operated 341 active selling communities and employed about 3,000 full-time team members, according to company data released with the deal announcement.

Greg Abel, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, said in the announcement that Taylor Morrison will lead Berkshire’s strategy for a unified site-built homebuilding operation. Berkshire already owns Clayton Homes, one of the country’s largest factory-built housing companies, alongside Clayton Properties Group’s site-built platform.

Palmer said the combination with Berkshire and Clayton’s regional builders will expand Taylor Morrison’s scale and reach while maintaining local expertise. 

“The scale and reach we gain by unifying with Berkshire and Clayton’s 15 site-built homebuilders is transformative. We’ll now serve more customers, in more markets, with more choices—while maintaining the specialized local expertise that has made us successful,” Palmer wrote in a post on LinkedIn. “Opportunities like this come along once in a lifetime. I have never been more excited about the future of Taylor Morrison.”

Goldman Sachs & Co. and Moelis & Co. served as financial advisors to Taylor Morrison. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett was legal advisor, with Mayer Brown as financial services regulatory counsel. Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Baker McKenzie advised Berkshire, according to the announcement.

This article was written by Brooklee Han and generated with the assistance of HousingWire Automation, then reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

Equity Union Real Estate has expanded into Nevada, marking the independent brokerage’s first market outside California as it continues its national growth strategy.

The company recently was named the fastest-growing brokerage, by five year transaction side percentage, in the country on the 2026 RealTrends Verified GameChangers list.

The southern Nevada operation will be led by Jason Lindstrom as regional director, overseeing Southern Nevada and California’s Coachella Valley, while Melissa Dominguez-Martin will serve as managing and compliance broker for Nevada.

“Our expansion into Nevada is an incredibly exciting moment for Equity Union,” said Harma Hartouni, CEO of Equity Union Real Estate. “We’ve built this company with a commitment to empowering agents, delivering exceptional client experiences and growing intentionally. Southern Nevada is a dynamic and rapidly evolving market, and Jason Lindstrom is exactly the kind of proven leader we want representing the Equity Union brand as we continue expanding nationally.”

Lindstrom brings more than 26 years of real estate experience, including leadership roles across Utah, Colorado, California, Nevada and Virginia. A U.S. Army veteran, he has worked in brokerage growth, recruiting, coaching and operations.

“Equity Union has created something rare in this industry — a brokerage that genuinely prioritizes people, culture, innovation and agent success,” Lindstrom said. “The opportunity to lead Equity Union’s expansion into Nevada in addition to growing Coachella Valley is incredibly meaningful to me.”

Dominguez-Martin has more than 24 years of industry experience and previously specialized in REO, HUD and short-sale transactions before founding the Dominguez-Martin Group.

“Joining Equity Union represents an exciting opportunity to help build something exceptional in Nevada,” Dominguez-Martin said. “The company’s commitment to collaboration, innovation, and agent success aligns perfectly with my own philosophy.”

According to the company, the Nevada expansion will emphasize an agent-first culture, in-house marketing and technology support, legal and operational resources, coaching and mentorship and an organic growth strategy without mergers or acquisitions.

In addition to leading the Nevada expansion, Lindstrom will help oversee Equity Union’s Coachella Valley region, which includes more than 270 agents and closed more than $1.2 billion in sales volume in 2025, according to the company.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

New home sales posted a modest increase in June but were down from a year earlier, while prices also fell year over year, further suggesting that the 2026 spring selling season fell short of expectations. 

According to newly released U.S. Census Bureau data, single-family new home sales ticked up 1.6% between May and June. However, at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 628,000, new home sales in June fell 5.6% compared to the year prior. 

New construction home prices last month also took a hit. The median sales price of new houses sold in June 2026 was $398,300, the lowest level recorded since July of last year. That figure is down 3.3% from May’s $412,000 adjusted sales figures and 2.7% below the June 2025 median of $409,200.

Builders continue to use price discounts and incentives to sell inventory, particularly in an affordability-constrained environment marked by persistently elevated mortgage rates. 

First American Deputy Chief Economist Odeta Kushi also noted that builders, in response to affordability constraints, continue to construct smaller and cheaper homes. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reported that the average new single-family home size has generally been falling since 2015. During Q3 2025, the median single-family home was 2,176 square feet, in comparison to over 2,600 square feet a decade earlier. 

Kushi claimed that although incentives and price cuts drove much of the price decline, a shift toward smaller homes may have also contributed.

“More than half of June sales were below $400,000, up from 47 percent a year earlier, while nearly one-quarter were below $300,000, compared with 16 percent last June. Builders are constructing and selling smaller, lower-priced homes that better align with what buyers can afford in today’s rate environment,” Kushi said in a provided statement. 

Those below-$300,000 new homes come with a caveat, according to Robert Dietz, Senior VP and chief economist at NAHB.

”That price point is generally only achievable in markets with lower development and construction costs, particularly with respect to lower state and local regulatory costs,” Dietz said.

Meanwhile, new-home inventory in June fell from May levels, but remained high by historical standards. The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of June 2026 was 485,000, according to the latest data release. 

That is 0.2% below the revised May estimate of 486,000 and 3.2% below the June 2025 level of 501,000. At the current sales pace, that inventory represents 9.3 months of supply. Roughly six months is often viewed as a more balanced level. 

The June months’ supply was 1.1% lower than May’s 9.4 months but 3.3% higher than the 9.0 months recorded in June 2025, signaling that supply remains elevated even as the number of homes for sale has drifted down compared to a year ago. 

Calculated Risk economics analyst Bill McBride unpacks the heavy lift builders have ahead of them to normalize supply vs. order demand balances. He writes:

The inventory of completed homes for sale (red) – at 118 thousand – is almost quadruple the record low of 31 thousand in February 2022. This is close to the recent peak of 128 in January 2026, and well above the normal level of completed homes for sale.

The inventory of homes under construction (blue) at 252 thousand is high but is 21% below the cycle peak. The inventory of homes “not started” is at 113 thousand and is at an all-time high.

Zeroing in on regional activity, the South continues to dominate the market, as the region accounted for roughly 66% of all new home sales over the last year. Meanwhile, 16.5% of sales took place in the West, 13% in the Midwest, and only 4.5% in the Northeast. 

Wrapping up the spring selling season

Many homebuilders entered the 2026 spring selling season with cautious optimism after reporting green shoots in the final months of 2025 and the early weeks of 2026. However, geopolitical uncertainty, namely the conflict in Iran, added an unforeseen challenge and layer of uncertainty. 

As mortgage rates and the price of oil increased, consumer sentiment went the other way. According to the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers, consumer sentiment was at 56.6 in February. Sentiment progressively eroded over the spring selling season, landing at 53.3 in March, 49.8 in April and 44.8 in May. That figure rose to a five-month high of 54.4 in July, but economists warn that a reignited conflict in Iran could erase those gains. 

Many — but not all — homebuilders reported that the spring selling season was choppy, with some weeks or months notably stronger or weaker than the next. The Census data may lend some credence to those observations. 

In March, new home sales increased 3.3% year over year, but the median price fell 6.2% to $387,400, as builders reported using incentives to account for slower-than-expected demand. 

In April, new home sales fell 6.2% from March and 11.3% year over year. However, the median price climbed to $422,500, an 8% increase from March and a 2.2% gain from a year earlier, suggesting builders may have focused more on protecting prices than maintaining sales pace during the month. 

In May, new home prices were up 2% from essentially flat year-over-year, while sales were down 7.3% from April and 6.8% year over year. 

“Step back from the single month, and a pattern has emerged. Through the first half of 2026, builders have sold fewer new homes than in any comparable stretch since 2017. The year-to-date pace is running below every year from 2018 through 2025,” Zillow Senior Economist Orphe Divounguy said in a statement.

According to Divounguy, weak household formation is a major contributor to this slowdown in sales. At the same time, excess inventory, expensive mortgage-rate buydowns and rising construction and land costs are squeezing builders, leading to more delayed projects as single-family permits, starts and homes under construction remain relatively weak.

“More young adults and would-be first-time buyers are staying put, doubling up or sharing a home rather than striking out on their own. After the burst of moves during the pandemic, mobility has slowed sharply. When fewer people form new households, fewer new homes sell,” Divounguy said.

This post was originally published on here. 

Miami Realtors + RWorld has completed its second merger in just over two months, joining with Martin County Realtors of the Treasure Coast to create a single association and multiple listing (MLS) service spanning five counties in southeast Florida.

The merger expands the organization to approximately 94,000 members across Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie counties while strengthening its position as the nation’s third-largest MLS, leaders said.

“The merger that created Miami Realtors + RWorld is about building the strongest possible organization for our future,” said Dionna Hall, co-CEO of Miami Realtors + RWorld, who will become the organization’s sole CEO in 2027. “The addition of Martin County Realtors of the Treasure Coast reinforces that vision and demonstrates the value of creating an organization that delivers more data, more innovation, stronger advocacy and greater opportunities than any one association could provide alone.”

The merger creates what the association describes as the most complete South Florida MLS dataset and completes the unification of the Treasure Coast marketplace within the regional MLS network.

Miami Realtors merged with Broward, Palm Beaches & St. Lucie Realtors (RWorld) in April.

“From Miami-Dade to St. Lucie, a nearly 120-mile real estate corridor, we are one,” said Teresa King Kinney, co-CEO of Miami Realtors + RWorld. “We are honored to welcome Martin County Realtors of the Treasure Coast and their outstanding leadership, professionals and programs.”

Founded in 1926, Martin County Realtors of the Treasure Coast brings nearly a century of member service to the combined organization, including its weekly Market Watch program.

“Our members have spoken with overwhelming support for a future built on greater opportunity,” said Janet O’Brien, CEO of Martin County Realtors of the Treasure Coast. “This merger honors the proud legacy of Martin County Realtors of the Treasure Coast while providing our members with expanded resources, enhanced services and a stronger regional presence.”

The combined organization now serves nearly 7 million residents through 15 offices across Southeast Florida.

Members of the merged association gain access to the region’s combined MLS dataset, both Flexmls and Matrix platforms, free IDX feeds from MIAMI MLS and BeachesMLS and more than 2,800 educational programs annually.

Benefits also include more than 300 products and services, 300-plus global partnerships, free Supra access, more than 11 data-sharing partnerships and expanded advocacy representing roughly 93,600 Realtors.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

On July 22, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust sent letters to Compass and to Midwest Real Estate Data. Both letters ask for a briefing on private listing networks and on the data partnership the two companies announced in April. The subcommittee wants those briefings scheduled by 10 a.m. on August 5.

That is the news. Here is the part worth sitting with.

The subcommittee is asking a fair question. It wants to understand what happens to competition, and to buyers, when a real share of the homes for sale in a market are visible to some agents and invisible to everybody else. That is a reasonable thing for a lawmaker to wonder about.

It is also a question this industry has been asked, in one form or another, since 2020. We had every chance to answer it ourselves. We did not. And now the answer is going to get written by people who do not sit in our meetings.

Nobody gets to call this partisan

Look at the last seven months. In December, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ron Wyden wrote to the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission asking them to closely scrutinize the Compass acquisition of Anywhere. In May, Zillow took Compass and MRED to federal court in Chicago.

On July 1, a coalition of eight consumer, housing, and civil rights groups led by the Consumer Federation of America asked the FTC and DOJ to open an investigation. Three weeks after that, the House letters went out.

The December letter came from two Democratic senators. The July letter was signed by a Republican subcommittee chairman.

So let us put one idea to bed right now. There is no political shelter here. Nobody is riding this out until the other party takes the gavel. When people who agree on almost nothing start asking the same question about your industry, the question is not the problem.

We wrote a rule and left a door in it

Here is what stings. We saw this coming and we half fixed it.

The Clear Cooperation Policy was the right instinct. If you market a home publicly, put it in the MLS so every buyer’s agent can see it. Simple. Defensible. Easy to explain to a homeowner at a kitchen table.

Then we left the edges undefined. Coming Soon stayed. Office exclusives stayed. And nobody wrote clean rules about how long a listing could sit in either one, or whether a buyer working with an outside agent could get through the door while it did. Bright MLS looked at its own market and found that 47% of office exclusives moved through Coming Soon status.

Put a ‘No Parking’ sign on the block, then add “Except For Loading” underneath it. Now look out the window. Everybody on that street is loading.

That is not a scandal. That is what happens when you write a rule with a door in it and then decline to say how wide the door is. People walk through doors. That is what doors are for.

Every MLS did the sensible thing. Together it added up to nothing.

The second failure is harder to point at, because no single decision looks wrong.

Over the past year, MLSs have negotiated with the largest brokerage in the country one at a time. Every one of those conversations was rational from where that MLS was sitting. You have members to keep. You have listing volume to protect. You have a board asking why the MLS down the road cut a deal and you did not.

But an industry where every MLS negotiates alone against a single national counterparty is not an industry with a standard. It is a patchwork. And a patchwork is exactly what invites somebody with subpoena power to come define the terms for you.

To be fair, people did try. In May, CMLS and NAR both wrote to the Justice Department and the FTC, responding to a request for public comment on how competitors are allowed to work together. Both made the case that the MLS system is good for competition. Both were right. But making the case for the system is not the same as fixing the rule inside it, and the rule inside it is what everybody is fighting about.

What an outside rule looks like

Here is the practical problem with letting Washington settle this, and it is not a knock on Congress.

A rule written in Washington has to work in Manhattan and in Muncie on the same morning. It has to work in a market with 90,000 agents and a market with 900. Federal rules are blunt because they have to be. That is not a flaw in the people writing them. It is the nature of the instrument.

A rule written by MLSs can be tailored. It can account for a home that genuinely is not ready to show. It can account for a seller with a real privacy need. It can tell the difference between a two-week Coming Soon window and a listing that quietly sells inside one brokerage and never sees daylight. We can draw those lines with a scalpel. Legislation draws them with an axe, and then everybody lives with the cut for 20 years.

The window that is still open

None of this is over. The subcommittee asked for a briefing, not a bill. That is a meaningful difference and it is the whole opportunity.

Three things would change the conversation, and none of them require anyone’s permission.

One standard, defined the same way everywhere. That does not mean one national MLS. A single national system would hand the keys to whoever has the most agents, and local control is the thing worth protecting here. It means a standard every MLS can adopt for itself. What counts as public marketing. How long a listing may sit pre-market. Whether a buyer working with an outside agent can get in the door during that window. Written plainly, enforced the same in every market, with real consequences for ignoring it.

Disclosure the seller actually sees. Before a homeowner signs anything with a private or pre-market phase, they should see both columns. The benefits are real: more privacy, one point of contact. The trade offs are real too, like a lower price. A seller who sees both sides and still chooses a private start has made a choice. A seller who only sees one side got a pitch.

MLSs should be setting the standards together as one voice. This is the piece nobody has tried, and it is the one that matters most. Right now, a national brokerage sits down with nearly 500 MLSs separately, and every one of those conversations starts from zero. If the MLSs built the standard together first, and each one adopted and enforced it at home, there would be very little left to negotiate. Nobody gives up local control to do that. They just have to agree on the rule before the meeting instead of during it. That is not a fantasy. It is a meeting somebody has to call. That is not a wish list. It is a to-do list, and the deadline on it is being set by somebody else now.

We spent years arguing about whether private listings are good for sellers. That argument was never going to end in a conference room, and it is not ending in one now. It is moving to a hearing room. The only question left is whether we walk in with a standard of our own, or wait to be handed one.

Darryl Davis, CSP, is a real estate speaker, coach, and bestselling McGraw-Hill author who has trained more than 600,000 agents over 40 years in the business. His research on private listings was cited in the House Judiciary Subcommittee’s July 22, 2026 letter to Compass. He is based in Wading River, NY. www.DarrylSpeaks.com

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners.

To contact the editor responsible for this piece: tracey@hwmedia.com

This post was originally published on here. 

At some point in nearly every listing appointment, a seller raises the comparison: Why hire you rather than the top producer in the market? Most agents experience the question as a threat. It is more useful to read it as a signal that the seller has not yet been given a real basis for the decision, and that you are about to provide one.

Begin by recognizing that the core tools of the business are commoditized.

Every licensed agent in the market has access to the same MLS, portals, signage and broadly the same marketing channels. When the inputs are identical and publicly available, they stop being a meaningful point of differentiation.

The seller comparing two agents on tools is comparing them on a variable that, in practice, does not vary. The real differences lie in judgment, execution and the relationship, which is exactly where a prepared professional should steer the conversation.

Preparation, not improvisation, is what lets you answer the comparison credibly.

If you anticipate that a specific high-volume competitor may come up, audit their public production data in the MLS before the appointment. The figures worth examining are the ratio of listings taken to listings sold, the average days on market, the list-price-to-sale-price ratio, and the average sale price.

High volume frequently conceals soft spots in one or more of those measures and knowing them lets you respond with facts rather than defensiveness. This is not a license to disparage a competitor, which tends to diminish the agent who does it. It is simply the difference between walking in informed and walking in hopeful.

The strongest position reframes the decision from scale to fit.

Once tools are off the table, the question becomes which professional will manage the transaction with more competence and attention, and which one the seller actually trusts. An agent who has spent 90 minutes building rapport at the kitchen table holds a real advantage on exactly that axis, provided they name it directly rather than hoping the seller notices on their own.

The move is to acknowledge the competitor’s size honestly, then redirect to competence, availability, and connection, the factors that genuinely shape how a sale turns out.

The data confirms that trust, not size, drives the hiring decision.

According to the National Association of Realtors, roughly two-thirds of sellers hire an agent they were referred to or had previously worked with. Sellers are predominantly choosing familiarity and confidence, not the largest market-share figure.

An agent who frames the appointment as a question of trust and fit is therefore competing on the dimension that actually determines who gets hired, while an agent who tries to win a volume contest is competing on the one dimension where the biggest name will usually prevail.

In a commodity category, the professional becomes the brand.

When the product looks the same from every provider, people default to the relationship and the perceived reliability of the person delivering it. That principle is why competence, communication, and trust are not soft skills in this market but the actual basis of competition, and why the agents who invest in them tend to take share as conditions normalize.

I developed that broader argument about skill as the real differentiator in a recent column on HousingWire.

Scale introduces a tradeoff that quietly favors the attentive agent.

High personal volume is frequently delivered through leverage, meaning assistants, junior team members, and automated systems handle much of the day-to-day contact. For some sellers that is perfectly acceptable; for many it is not what they believe they are buying.

An agent who personally manages the file can position that difference factually and without disparagement, framing the choice as one between a brand operated at scale and a professional delivering the service directly. In a relationship-driven decision, the direct service often carries more weight than the larger production figure.

Anticipate the comparison rather than reacting to it.

The agents who handle this objection best are rarely improvising in the moment. They have decided in advance how they will respond and have the competitor’s numbers ready before the question is even asked. Treating the comparison as a predictable part of the appointment, rather than an ambush, changes the entire dynamic, because preparation itself reads as competence, and competence is precisely what the seller is at the table to assess.

Treat the top-producer question as your opening and you convert a seller’s doubt into a clear, trust-based reason to choose you. Treat it as a verdict, and you concede the listing on the only ground where the bigger name was ever going to win.

Darryl Davis, CSP, is a national speaker, real estate coach, and the bestselling author of How to Become a Power Agent in Real Estate. Don’t miss this month’s free webinar series at PowerAgentWebinar.com. Through his POWER AGENT® Coaching Program, he helps real estate professionals build thriving businesses and lives at the Next Level®. Learn more at darrylspeaks.com.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners.

To contact the editor responsible for this piece: tracey@hwmedia.com

This post was originally published on here. 

Roomvu has launched a new recruiting content platform designed to help real estate brokerages, teams and agencies automate agent recruitment through AI-generated video and social media content.

The company said the new offering enables brokerages to create and automatically publish branded recruiting videos and posts that highlight their culture, values and recruiting message without requiring ongoing manual content creation.

“Recruiting runs on consistency that most leaders simply can’t sustain by hand,” said Roomvu CEO Sam Mehrbod. “With Roomvu, a brokerage’s recruiting message becomes branded videos that creates, schedules and posts itself — so the story that attracts agents is always working, even when the leadership team is busy running the business.”

The platform allows brokerages to convert existing recruiting articles or web pages into branded videos using Roomvu’s News2Video technology.

Content can then be automatically scheduled and posted across connected social media platforms while also being shared by agents throughout the brokerage.

Roomvu said the new recruiting tools are intended to help brokerages maintain a consistent recruiting presence while reducing the time required from leadership teams.

EXIT Strategy Realty, part of the EXIT Realty network, uses the platform to create branded recruiting content.

“Everything we put out has to live in the DNA of our brand and #ProjectX,” said EXIT Strategy Realty CEO Nick Libert. “Roomvu lets me create content that’s authentically ours and get it out consistently and that’s become part of how we attract and grow agents.”

The recruiting content platform is available immediately for brokerages, teams and agencies.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

New York City is not dead. Dead cities do not command global capital, fill Broadway theaters or charge $28 for a cocktail with three ingredients and a story. But the version of New York that anchored American economic gravity for much of the last century is weakening.

What is changing is not the city’s brand. It is the quality of its tax base, the age and composition of its population, and the willingness of middle- and upper-income households to keep paying the admission price.

The numbers increasingly look less like a temporary post-pandemic wobble and more like a structural transfer of people, income, and future household formation toward the South. Texas and Florida are the primary beneficiaries. Texas is attracting the engine: working-age adults, employers, young families, and college-educated households. Florida is attracting the leather interior: retirees, high earners, business-sale proceeds, and mobile wealth.

New York still has the title. Texas and Florida have the car.

The real problem is tax-base quality

New York can still produce population-growth headlines, particularly when international migration offsets domestic departures. But that can obscure the more important question: Who is leaving, who is arriving, and what do they contribute to the city’s long-term fiscal structure? Between 2019 and 2023, people leaving New York City earned tens of billions of dollars more than those moving in. One widely cited estimate places the income gap at $68 billion.

That is not merely population churn. It is an erosion in earning power.

A city can withstand the loss of some wealthy residents. New York has been replacing rich people since the Dutch were charging dock fees. The danger is broad-based attrition among upper-middle-income families, business owners, professionals, and aspirational households. Those groups do more than pay income taxes. They buy homes, support businesses, enroll children in schools, hire workers and absorb a disproportionate share of public costs.

When they leave, the city does not lose one taxpayer. It loses an economic ecosystem.

That matters in a jurisdiction whose fiscal model depends heavily on a narrow band of high earners. The subway may still be crowded, and Times Square may still be blinking, but neither proves that the people financing the pension system still live nearby.

New York’s housing market helps people leave

New York’s housing shortage is severe but not evenly distributed. The city can produce luxury towers and exceedingly small apartments. What it struggles to produce is attainable, family scale housing for households that earn too much for subsidies and too little to treat a $4,000 monthly rent as background noise. That is the population most likely to compare alternatives.

A young professional may tolerate a small apartment for access to New York’s career network. A couple with two children begins asking harder questions about bedrooms, schools, taxes, commuting and whether storing a stroller in the bathtub amounts to urban sophistication.

The answer often points outward.

Public school enrollment has fallen sharply from pre-pandemic levels, reflecting demographic change, private school enrollment, homeschooling, and family migration. Whatever the allocation, the signal is difficult to miss: Fewer families are committing to the city for the long term. That matters because children are leading indicators of future housing demand. Families buy more space, stay longer, and create durable neighborhood institutions. Lose the children, and the city loses both current stability and future taxpayers. From a land-investment perspective, school-age population is not a sentimental statistic. It is demand with a backpack.

Texas is importing the engine

Texas is capturing the most economically productive part of the migration cycle: younger adults in their prime household-forming and working years.

The state has added millions of residents since 2020 and is one of the nation’s largest absolute population gainers. Recent migration analyses place Texas at or near the top for net domestic inflows, with many newcomers arriving in their early 30s, often college-educated and ready to enter the housing market.

Retirees can bring wealth, but working-age families bring wages, children, home purchases, business formation and decades of consumption. They do not merely arrive with luggage. They arrive with amortization schedules. Texas also offers something many coastal markets no longer can: a physical path to growth.

Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Austin and San Antonio still have developable corridors, expanding utility systems, regional employment centers, and homebuilders capable of delivering housing at scale. Land is not cheap, infrastructure is not effortless, and entitlement is not always a church picnic. But a plausible route from population growth to housing supply does exist.

Demand without supply creates political conflict and rising costs. Demand with a development pipeline creates communities, tax revenue and investable cash flow. Texas has its challenges, including property taxes, infrastructure pressure, and local resistance to growth. Texans are perfectly capable of welcoming 400,000 new residents and then acting surprised when traffic increases.

Nonetheless, the state’s operating model leans toward expansion rather than the preservation of scarcity.

Florida is capturing the balance sheet

Florida’s migration story is different. The state attracts retirees, high-income households, entrepreneurs and residents converting business equity or investment assets into a lower-tax lifestyle. It has repeatedly ranked among the largest gainers of adjusted gross income through interstate migration, with New York serving as a major donor market.

If Texas is importing the engine, Florida is importing the fuel tank, the leather seats, and the owner’s manual.

Many Florida newcomers may be older, but they often arrive with substantial assets, liquidity, and spending power. They buy homes, consume services, invest locally and bring capital subject to indirect taxation even without a personal state income tax. Florida’s challenges are real: insurance costs, climate exposure, congestion and infrastructure demands. Sunshine is free; ensuring the roof beneath it is not.

Still, Florida’s value proposition is still compelling enough to attract households that can choose where to live. Migration is an economic vote, and households with portable income and wealth have been voting with moving trucks.

The South has something more valuable than momentum

The broader South also has a demographic advantage that other regions cannot replicate quickly: a more resilient youth population. While much of the country is aging and losing children, the South has performed better, with Texas, Florida, the Carolinas and Tennessee leading among family migration destinations.

For residential land, this is the central investment argument. Investing in land is not a wager on interest rates, builder sentiment or the next quarterly absorption report. It is a long-duration claim on future households. The relevant questions are straightforward:

• Where will adults between 25 and 44 form families?
• Where can those families afford homes with enough space?
• Where will policy, infrastructure, and capital allow supply to meet demand?

On those measures, Texas and Florida enjoy structural advantages.

Why master-planned communities fit the trade

Master-planned communities are well suited to this shift because their life cycles match the duration of migration and family formation.

A well positioned community can evolve over 15 to 30 years, serving first time buyers, move-up households, renters, empty nesters and active adults as the market matures. It can coordinate roads, utilities, schools, amenities and builder programs in a way fragmented infill rarely can.

In Texas and Florida, master-planned communities sit at the intersection of three advantages: developable land, continued household inflows and builders organized to build and market new-home communities at scale. That does not make every project attractive. Bad land in a growth market is still bad land. A drainage problem does not become an investment thesis because someone put “Sun Belt” on the cover page.

But the macro tailwind does have its advantages.

In New York and similar coastal markets, the ingredients needed for large scale housing development, land assembly, entitlement clarity, infrastructure finance and political support are often constrained, expensive, or opposed. Capital investors must assume more friction for less demographic upside. That is not a moral judgment. It is underwriting.

The capital allocation conclusion

This is not an argument that New York disappears. It will remain a global center for finance, media, tourism, culture and certain high-value industries. But a city can remain important while becoming less dominant, less affordable, older, and more fiscally fragile. Texas and Florida do not need to replace New York in every category. They only need to offer a better economic bargain to enough employers, families and investors for enough years.

That process is already underway.

For long-duration residential capital, the strategy is increasingly clear: Treat constrained coastal markets as selective, opportunistic investments, and treat Texas, Florida and the broader southern growth corridor as the core demographic position.

New York built the car. Texas is taking the engine, and Florida is taking the balance sheet. Meanwhile the Northeast is still arguing over parking regulations. The future is not waiting for the debate to end. It is already buying land.

This post was originally published on here. 

Account executives are in a unique position in the mortgage industry. On any given day, they’re helping originators navigate complex borrower scenarios, troubleshoot loan challenges, identify new opportunities and stay informed about product trends. Because they work with dozens of loan officers across different markets, they have a front-row seat to the strategies that are helping originators succeed.

Today’s market continues to present challenges, but conversations between account executives and originators are increasingly centered on opportunities rather than obstacles. Borrowers are adjusting to a higher-rate environment, homeowners are sitting on historic amounts of equity and non-QM lending continues to play a growing role in helping originators serve borrowers who fall outside traditional agency guidelines.

To learn more, I sat down with Eric Olson and Stacy Flanigan, two experienced senior account executives at Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions. Based on what they’re hearing from originators every day, they shared four strategies to adapt their approach and continue growing their business.

1. Shift the conversation from rates to success in the current market 

A takeaway that stood out was that conversations have shifted away from waiting for rates to fall and toward finding success in the current market. Olson noted that many originators still feel the pressure of a difficult lending environment, but the nature of those discussions has changed significantly: 

“A lot of what I’ve done is become the account executive counselor, either calming them down or creating a narrative around what’s working for others. It’s become much more educational,” he said.

Much of Olson’s role today involves helping brokers stay focused on the activities they can control, whether that’s refining marketing strategies, rethinking borrower outreach or exploring new product opportunities. In any case, he said, the emphasis is increasingly on generating business rather than waiting for market conditions to improve.

Flanigan shared a similar observation: “You need to build relationships. You need to educate your borrowers,” she said.

The most successful loan officers right now focus on borrower education, relationship-building and expanding their product expertise, Flanigan said. Rather than leading conversations with frustration, they’re helping borrowers understand long-term financial goals and the value of homeownership.

2. Expand beyond traditional lending opportunities 

When discussing opportunity, both account executives pointed to non-QM lending and home equity products as areas of significant growth. “The HELOC would be my very first number one answer,” Flanigan said.

Flanigan shared that many homeowners who secured low mortgage rates during the COVID-era have little interest in refinancing their first lien but still want access to the equity they’ve built over the past several years. Home equity products can help borrowers consolidate debt, fund home improvements, invest in additional properties or pursue other financial goals without replacing their existing mortgage.

Flanigan also highlighted self-employed borrowers as a significant growth opportunity. “The self-employed borrowers are everywhere,” she said. As entrepreneurship and small-business formation continue to grow, originators who understand bank statement lending and other alternative financing solutions are often better positioned to serve borrowers who may not fit traditional agency guidelines.

That growing demand has helped fuel broader adoption of non-QM lending across the industry.

“It’s almost non-QM or bust,” Olson said. He noted that conversations around non-QM have evolved considerably over the past several years. “A couple of years ago, it was teaching originators what non-QM is. Now they’ve had to learn it and study it.”

What was once viewed as a niche product category has become an important part of many originators’ businesses. As borrowers’ financial situations become more diverse, loan officers are increasingly looking beyond traditional financing options to help clients achieve their goals.

3. Treat your account executive as a strategic partner

In a market where every loan counts, both Olson and Flanigan emphasized that lender relationships have become increasingly important. Account executives have always played a role in helping originators work through loan scenarios and product guidelines, but today’s environment requires deeper collaboration.

“A quick no is the best yes,” Olson said. For Olson, transparency and responsiveness are more valuable than ever. Originators can’t afford to spend time pursuing deals that ultimately have no path to closing. Honest feedback and clear communication allow loan officers to spend more time focused on viable opportunities and less time chasing dead ends.

Flanigan echoed that sentiment, noting that the strongest lender-originator partnerships extend far beyond individual transactions. “It’s no longer a transactional environment,” she said. “You’ve got to cultivate that relationship. You’ve got to build that trust.”

That trust is particularly important as originators work to expand into products and borrower segments that may be less familiar. Whether it’s helping structure a bank statement loan, evaluating a second lien opportunity or educating referral partners on non-QM solutions, account executives can serve as an extension of the originator’s team.

“Lean on your AEs. That’s what we’re here for,” Flanigan said.

The best lender relationships are built on ongoing communication, education and a shared commitment to solving problems. In many cases, account executives are well-positioned to identify opportunities, share best practices from across the industry and help originators uncover solutions they may not have considered on their own.

4. Focus on what you can control 

Despite ongoing market challenges, both account executives expressed optimism about originators who continue to grow their businesses.

“Focus on what you can control,” Flanigan said. She believes successful originators are investing in the areas that drive long-term growth, including referral relationships, borrower education, and specialized product expertise. “Target your niche borrower,” Flanigan said.

Whether it’s self-employed borrowers, real estate investors or homeowners looking to leverage their equity, originators who develop expertise within a specific segment are often better positioned to stand out in a competitive market.

Relationship-building remains equally important. “Don’t treat it like a transactional deal. Treat it like you’re doing a loan for your family member,” Flanigan said.

Olson echoed that sentiment, noting that top producers are focused on meeting borrowers where they are and expanding their knowledge across a wider range of loan products. He also sees a new generation of originators entering the business with a fresh perspective, focused less on comparing today’s market to previous cycles and more on identifying opportunities within the current environment.

Commitment to education, adaptability and relationship-building are the qualities helping originators generate business today while positioning themselves for long-term success.

Looking ahead

One theme that consistently surfaced throughout these conversations was that the most successful originators are not trying to do it alone.

Whether they’re expanding into non-QM lending, helping borrowers tap into home equity or developing expertise within a specific niche, top producers are leveraging the resources around them to uncover new opportunities and better serve their clients.

That includes their account executives.

Too often, the AE relationship is viewed primarily through the lens of products and pricing. In reality, the best account executives can serve as strategic partners, offering market insight and real-world perspective drawn from conversations with originators across the country.

Tom Hutchens, President of Angel Oak Mortgage Solutions

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. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Adult children who live at home don’t get added onto their parents’ mortgage or deed. But that’s how they’re often treated when we rely on the most commonly reported measure of homeownership. We’re proposing an alternative that shines a light on millions of Americans routinely glossed over in the nation’s homeownership conversation.

The homeownership rate in the United States is commonly reported to be 65%. But this is actually the “owner-occupancy rate.” It tells us how many housing units are occupied by an owner. That measure has its uses, but doesn’t actually tell us how many adults own a home. To better reflect the share of adults who are homeowners, we offer the “homeowners-to-population ratio,” or the “HPOP.” Using this new measure, the U.S. homeownership rate is 53%.

To calculate the HPOP, first we count the number of homeowners by adding up the number of adults identified as the head of an owner-occupied household as well as any spouses or unmarried partners who live with them. Then we divide that number by the total adult population. i.e., people ages 18 and over.  

What are the strengths of this approach? Here are a few.

It focuses on people instead of houses

We developed this metric as part of our work to better understand economic conditions, which include homeownership. The HPOP categorizes adults more precisely than the owner-occupancy rate because many adults who live with homeowners aren’t accurately captured by the standard “renter” or “homeowner” category. 

We found that 13.9% of adults in the United States live in owner-occupied homes but are likely not owners themselves, even though the owner-occupancy rate would count them as such. In other words, about one in seven of the nation’s adults are misrepresented in the most-cited statistic on homeownership. 

They could be older parents living with their homeowning adult children; other relatives, such as siblings or cousins; or other unrelated adults, such as friends or roommates. Many likely are contributing in some way to the household’s finances, like the adult child who is buying the household groceries, but are not considered “renters” under the formal definition used for measurement.

Calculations of the owner-occupancy rate also leave out people who are living in group quarters such as college dormitories, nursing homes and correctional facilities. Our calculations of the HPOP include those groups, who make up about 3% of the difference in who owns a home between the two approaches.

It offers better demographic information

The HPOP can better measure homeownership statistics for specific demographic groups. This is primarily because the HPOP includes the individual characteristics of all adults, while owner-occupancy will only use the characteristics of the “head of household.” 

For example, the owner-occupancy rate for households headed by adults under age 35 was 37% in 2024. Using the HPOP, which accounts for the full range of adult living situations, we find a substantially lower number: Only 22% of adults under 35 own their homes. This large drop is primarily because as many adults under 35 live with their homeowning parents as are homeowners themselves.

Switching from the owner-occupancy rate to the HPOP also captures changes in the way people live over time. For example, the HPOP for adults over 70 climbed upward as more older adults chose to age in place. Their HPOP increased by 5 percentage points in total from 2006-2024. In contrast, the owner-occupancy rate among older adults increased by just 1 percentage point. 

It surfaces new state-level insights

Finally, the HPOP paints a different picture of how homeownership varies among states. Every state has a lower HPOP rate than its owner-occupancy rate. But the change tends to be bigger in places where housing is more expensive relative to local incomes. The inverse relationship between housing prices and homeownership may be stronger than the owner-occupancy rate suggests.  

For example, in California and Utah, states with high home prices, the HPOP is almost 15 percentage points below the owner-occupancy rate. Meanwhile, in states with low housing costs, such as North and South Dakota, the HPOP is less than 6 percentage points lower than owner-occupancy.

The right measure for more policy conversations

The traditional occupancy-based homeownership rate is helpful in certain cases. For example, it tells us about how housing stock is being used. And a government may need to know what share of its housing is owner-occupied for policy considerations related to property taxes. While using the HPOP recognizes that fewer adults own homes than we may have thought and changes our understanding of homeownership for some subgroups, it is important to note that it does not greatly alter our understanding of nationwide trends. For example, compared to 2006, just prior to the housing crash, both the HPOP and owner-occupancy rates for the United States have declined by 2 percentage points.

But we’d suggest the HPOP provides a person-centered homeownership measure better suited to most policy conversations. Instead of relying on the statistic that two-thirds of homes are owner-occupied, we can instead show that about one-half of adults own their home. 

Erik Hembre and Benjamin Horowitz work for the Community Development and Engagement Division at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. The views expressed do not represent those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis or the Federal Reserve System.

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. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Some of the most visible people in this industry aren’t the most qualified; they’re just the best at being seen, and generative AI has made being seen easier than it’s ever been before. Anyone can produce a week’s worth of content in an afternoon, which means the feeds are louder than ever, and the people filling them aren’t necessarily the ones with the most to offer. 

The distance between being good at your work and being known for it has never been wider, and right now it’s the talented, under-marketed professional losing ground to someone with half the experience and twice the visibility.

The problem with the AI content machine

AI has handed every loan officer and real estate agent the exact same content machine. Every generic market update, bland rate explainer, listing description and carousel graphic is generated in seconds and blasted across every platform, many times word for word from one profile to the next. And it all sounds the same for a structural reason. 

Chatbots don’t think; they predict. They study an enormous body of existing writing and, word by word, reach for the most probable next one, and the most probable word is almost always the most common. Average goes in, average comes out. Ask an AI for a take on the market, and it hands you the middle of every take that came before it.

For years, showing up consistently online was itself a signal of competence, because it took real effort, and effort was scarce. That signal is gone. When everyone can publish constantly and sound convincing, the audience stops reading and starts judging. The verdict is instant and merciless. If it feels AI-generated, it’s slop, and the person who posted it doesn’t know enough to do better. The danger now isn’t just being invisible. It’s publishing your way into the slop pile, next to people who never knew anything to begin with.

The rising value of a point of view

Buyers run their own research through the same machine, so by the time they reach out, they’re already holding the rate ranges, loan comparisons, timelines and checklists. Everything a loan officer used to lead with – the value of simply knowing more than the client did – is sitting in the borrower’s browser before the first conversation ever happens. What they’re evaluating now isn’t whether you have the information; it’s whether they trust how you think, how you lead, how you navigate.

This is where the people who only built visibility start to run out of room. A point of view is the perspective only you have. It’s the decision you made when it was unpopular, and you were right. It’s the lesson you learned saving a file at nine o’clock on a Friday night, after everyone else had already written it off. You earn it by doing the work, living the experience. A machine can’t manufacture it, and a competitor can’t copy it off your feed.

And buyers can tell the difference, even when they can’t name it. In less than a year, US buyers’ trust in AI to help them find a home fell from 30% to 16%, and the share who want a human to secure their mortgage climbed to 55%, up nine points in a year. 

The trust people are pulling away from the machine is looking for somewhere to land, and it lands on people. They’re reaching for what AI can’t replicate: a real person who has done this a hundred times and will tell them the truth, even when the truth isn’t what they want to hear.

The psychology of building trust 

This is how the brain is built to work. Decades of behavioral research show that people don’t reason their way to trust, they feel it first and explain it later. The brain runs on fast, automatic judgments, and a familiar, credible name registers as safe before the slower, rational mind ever weighs in. 

Psychologists call it cognitive fluency: The easier someone is to recognize and process, the more we trust them, whether or not that trust is earned. The first strong impression sets the frame for everything after it, and through what researchers call the halo effect, a single clear signal of expertise becomes a verdict on the whole person. 

Every one of those mechanisms rewards the same thing: a clear, recognizable identity, built on purpose, over time. AI content provides none of those trust markers, because there’s no one behind it to recognize.

When professional-looking content is infinite and free, what’s left worth anything is the substance underneath it, and that substance has a structure. The professionals who win from here will be the ones who hold a clear position on who they serve and what they believe, who express a genuine point of view the market recognizes as their own, and who carry a visible body of proof that they’ve actually lived. 

Position, point of view and proof. That’s authority, and it’s the one thing the borrower can’t generate for themselves from their chatbot. What they’re missing is judgment: a real read on their specific situation, an honest answer about whether this is the right move at the right time. 

That’s the originator whose referral partners vouch for her before the intro call, because she’s said something true and specific for years. It’s the agent whose read on a neighborhood is the one everyone else quotes. It’s the lender who repeats one honest thing so consistently that the market knows him on sight. None of them are racing to call back first, because the borrower arrived with their decision already made.

Winning the new visibility game 

If you’ve felt invisible lately, outposted and outspent by people who know less than you do, stay with me here. The shift is actually moving in your favor. By making the cheap content free, AI stripped it of its value and left only what it was never able to produce: your judgment, your track record, the clients you carried through the most important financial day of their lives. You’ve been building those your entire career. They were always the real asset. Now they’re the only one that counts.

AI made everyone visible, and that turned out to be the easy part. What’s scarce now is everything that visibility was always supposed to prove: that you genuinely know what you’re doing, and that the right people know it, too.

So build the position only you can hold, say the thing only you can say, and let the proof tell the story.

Stephanie Armstrong is the Founder and CEO of Moxie Creative Studios
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. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Something significant is already reshaping mortgage lending and servicing, and the data is beginning to bring into focus what many lending professionals have been experiencing firsthand.

A recent nationwide survey of lending professionals across banking, mortgage lending and fintech reveals an industry that overwhelmingly understands the need to modernize its mortgage origination, servicing and compliance technology infrastructure, yet continues to struggle with execution. While 76.5% of respondents describe modernization as either extremely urgent or very urgent, only 8.7% report having fully completed a platform migration.

The findings reveal a widening gap between awareness and execution. Mortgage lenders and servicers recognize that aging systems create operational inefficiencies, increase compliance exposure and limit their ability to adapt to changing market conditions. Yet many remain constrained by the costs, complexity and resource requirements associated with modernization.

Mortgage lending has reached a turning point

The survey suggests the industry has largely moved beyond debating whether modernization is necessary and is now facing the “how” challenge.

Nearly nine in ten respondents (87%) report that their organizations are engaged in some form of migration effort. However, more than half still operate primarily on legacy technology platforms, while only 10.6% report operating in a fully cloud-based environment.

For mortgage lenders and servicers, the window to modernize without operational disruption is narrowing. Digital mortgage experiences, evolving mortgage fraud schemes, growing borrower expectations and increasing integration requirements with credit bureaus, appraisal networks, POS mortgage platforms and verification tools are placing new demands on lending infrastructure. 

The industry understands where it needs to go, but many organizations are still working through how to get there.

Legacy systems are becoming growth constraints

The survey also found that operational efficiency is the leading driver behind modernization initiatives, cited by 64.8% of respondents. Legacy technology limitations followed at 38.6%, while 30.8% cited the need to support new products and services such as non-QM loans, HELOC expansion and digital-first mortgage products. 

These findings reflect a broader shift in how lenders view technology. Modernization is no longer primarily about reducing costs; it is increasingly about enabling growth and improving borrower experience.

Furthermore, as mortgage lending becomes more connected, lenders must integrate with POS origination platforms, automated underwriting systems (AUS), income verification tools, mortgage servicing platforms and emerging AI-driven credit decisioning technologies. Not surprisingly, API connectivity emerged as the most important modernization capability identified in the survey, while 67.8% of respondents rated third-party integrations as either very important or critical.

In many cases, legacy platforms are no longer simply outdated. They are preventing innovation and slowing loan production cycles, borrower conversion and secondary market efficiency.

The industry is stuck, not resistant

One of the survey’s most revealing findings is that very few organizations are delaying modernization because they believe their current systems are working well. In fact, only 5.3% cited confidence in their existing platform as a reason for postponing migration.

Instead, the primary barriers are limited internal resources (31.6%), cost constraints (28.6%) and concerns about operational disruption (15.6%).

The problem is often compounded by escalating maintenance demands that are consuming the very resources required to modernize. One-third of respondents reported spending between 80% and 100% of their technology resources maintaining existing systems, while another 40.9% spend between 60% and 80%.

Organizations understand the need to modernize. Many simply lack the time, personnel or budget necessary to execute large-scale transformation projects while maintaining uninterrupted mortgage origination and servicing operations.

Compliance and security gaps are creating immediate exposure

Compliance emerged as the most frequently cited operational challenge in the survey, identified by 35.4% of respondents. Additionally, 23.2% pointed to calculation accuracy as the area of their platform most in need of modernization.

The survey also revealed that 31% of organizations require six months or longer to implement a new product or regulatory change, while 12.7% report timelines exceeding one year. As mortgage regulations continue to evolve across CFPB guidance, investor requirements, and GSE updates, those delays can create meaningful operational and compliance risk.

Cybersecurity concerns are rapidly escalating the cost of inaction. Nearly 30% of respondents identified security risks as a significant challenge, while 30.2% said a security incident would be the event most likely to trigger a modernization initiative.

Taken together, the findings suggest that aging infrastructure is creating exposure across multiple fronts, from calculation accuracy and regulatory responsiveness to cybersecurity preparedness and audit readiness.

Lenders want guidance, not just technology

Perhaps the most important finding in the survey centers on what organizations say they need most.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents (64.6%) identified hands-on migration support as the most valuable resource for modernization efforts, far exceeding demand for technical guidance or compliance validation.

The message is clear: Most mortgage lenders understand why modernization is necessary. The greater challenge is determining how to execute it successfully while maintaining continuous loan origination, servicing and compliance operations.

The cost of waiting is not neutral; it creates competitive risk

The survey results point to a broader conclusion: Mortgage lending has reached a point where modernization is becoming a business imperative rather than a technology initiative.

Organizations recognize the urgency. They understand the risks associated with aging infrastructure and the opportunities created by modern platforms. Yet many remain constrained by limited resources and competing priorities.

The gap is no longer one of awareness. It is execution under time pressure.

The lenders that successfully close that gap will be better positioned to support borrowers, manage risk, adopt emerging technologies and compete in an increasingly digital mortgage marketplace. Organizations that delay risk falling behind competitors that are already improving speed, compliance responsiveness and partner integration capabilities across the mortgage ecosystem.

Tim Yalich is Vice President of Business Development for Carleton.
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. 

This post was originally published on here. 

“A rose is a rose is a rose,” according to a 1913 poem Gertrude Stein wrote, called Sacred Emily.

In our more earthbound sphere of residential development, investment and construction, a tacit belief is common, but misleading.

Peal back a layer or two, and it is clear. A homebuilder is not a homebuilder is not a homebuilder, with all due respect to Ms. Stein. The homebuilding industry’s largest public companies are beginning to separate themselves not simply by performance, geographical nuance, and capital stack variations, but by philosophy.

Lennar continues to shape-shift around a land-light model designed to improve capital efficiency. D.R. Horton stays stalwart in its disciplined returns and operational consistency and discipline. KB Home continues re-channel the build-to-order DNA that has differentiated its business and consumer reputation for so long, while PulteGroup is pivoting as nimbly as a national enterprise can in that direction as well.

Century Communities is charting a different course, as it has been wont to do.

Its Q2 2026 earnings call was notable less for what management announced than for how management described the business. Executive Chair Dale Francescon never suggested Century was reinventing itself. Chief Executive Officer Rob Francescon never pointed to one initiative that would transform operating performance. Chief Financial Officer Scott Dixon described financial results that reflected sundry operational improvements working together rather than a single big change.

The company delivered 2,506 homes during the second quarter, exceeding its own guidance while generating a 20% adjusted homebuilding gross margin, up 30 basis points from the first quarter. Orders rose 3% from a year earlier and 10% sequentially. Selling communities reached a company-record 330, and book value per share climbed to another company record at $90.24.

Those results matter because they did not come from a single catalyst. Throughout the earnings call, management described a business that is trying to improve every part of its operating system at once.

Construction costs are falling. Cycle times continue to improve. Spec inventory remains tightly managed. Mortgage products are expanding affordability. Land investment continues despite an uncertain market. Community count keeps growing.

None of those developments, by themselves, would define Century’s strategy. Together, they begin to explain why the company continues to produce relatively stable operating performance while many builders are still searching for the right balance between pace, pricing and profitability.

Dale Francescon: Build the business for the next cycle

Dale Francescon approached the quarter from the perspective of someone thinking less about the next ninety days than the next several years.

“We delivered strong second quarter results despite continued headwinds from macro challenges and weak consumer sentiment,” he said. The improvement, he noted, reflected stronger sales pace, disciplined management of incentives and costs, continued expense control and another quarter of book-value growth.

His comments quickly moved beyond quarterly performance.

Century’s land acquisition and development program, he said, set up to support approximately 10% annual delivery growth once housing demand returns to more normal levels.

That observation captures a crucial difference between Century and several of its larger competitors.

Much of the industry’s conversation over the past year has centered on structural change. Lennar has been building out its land-light strategy. PulteGroup has devoted increasing attention to its return toward build-to-order. Other builders continue adjusting product mix, speculative inventory or capital deployment to fit a slower market.

Century’s discussion sounded different.

Rather than describing a company changing direction, Dale Francescon described one continuing to invest while steadily improving execution inside the existing business model.

That approach requires confidence not only in future housing demand but also in the organization’s ability to execute consistently while conditions are still difficult.

The quarter offered several examples of that confidence.

Century increased selling communities by 11% from a year earlier, continuing to invest in future deliveries despite an affordability environment that stays challenging. The company also continued buying back shares below book value while maintaining its dividend and preserving flexibility to continue investing in land.

Taken individually, none of those decisions appears particularly bold.

Collectively, they suggest management believes the current environment is an opportunity to strengthen Century’s competitive position rather than simply preserve margins until conditions improve.

Rob Francescon: Operations become the strategy

If Dale Francescon spent the earnings call discussing where Century is headed, Rob Francescon explained how the company intends to get there.

His comments rarely lingered on any single operating metric. Instead, he described an organization whose various operating disciplines reinforce one another.

“Our net orders of 2,615 homes increased 3% year-over-year and 10% sequentially,” he said. “The majority of this increase [was] driven by improved absorption rates.”

Better sales pace gave Century room to modestly reduce incentives from the first quarter. At the same time, construction costs moved lower, cycle times improved and inventory remained under control. One analyst asked whether Century’s reported 5% sequential reduction in direct construction costs primarily reflected easing commodity prices.

Rob Francescon’s answer pointed elsewhere.

“We’re very pleased with the 5% reduction in directs on a quarter-over-quarter basis,” he said. “That’s based on an initiative that we started company-wide with our team members at the end of last year, beginning of this year that started to roll through the closings in Q2.”

Commodity markets move in cycles. Operating improvements can become permanent.

Century’s average cycle time fell to a company-record 112 calendar days during the quarter. Faster cycle times lower carrying costs, improve capital efficiency and allow communities to respond more quickly as market conditions change. Spec inventory tells a similar story.

Century finished the quarter with roughly three completed speculative homes per community, a level that gives sales teams immediate product without allowing finished inventory to accumulate beyond management’s comfort level. Rob Francescon noted that roughly half to 60% of completed specs sold during the same quarter they were completed, allowing Century to support availability without creating unnecessary balance-sheet risk.

Mortgage operations have become another operating lever.

Adjustable-rate mortgages accounted for nearly 35% of Century’s mortgage originations during the quarter, continuing a steady increase from less than 5% one year ago.

Rob Francescon said buyers have become increasingly receptive to ARMs because many households recognize they are unlikely to remain in the same mortgage for decades. Rather than relying exclusively on deeper incentives or added price reductions, Century is giving buyers another way to improve affordability.

What emerges from Rob Francescon’s comments is not a collection of unrelated operating initiatives. It is an operating discipline built around continual refinement. Every improvement may appear incremental.

The cumulative effect

Scott Dixon’s part of the earnings call completed the picture.

Where Dale Francescon focused on the enterprise and Rob Francescon on execution, Dixon explained how those operating decisions were beginning to show up in Century’s financial performance.

“We are effectively balancing pace and price and controlling our costs and inventory levels,” Dixon said. “We have bought back over 3% of our shares outstanding to date at a significant discount to book value, while continuing to position Century for future growth.”

That balancing act has become one of the defining challenges for every large public builder.

Push too hard for volume and margins compress. Protect margins too aggressively and absorptions suffer. Pull back on land investment and future community count begins to erode. Continue investing too aggressively and returns come under pressure if demand weakens further.

Century’s second-quarter results suggest management believes those goals do not have to be mutually exclusive.

The company reaffirmed its full-year outlook for deliveries while continuing to invest between $1 billion and $1.2 billion in land acquisition and development. At the same time, Century repurchased approximately $20 million of stock during the quarter, taking advantage of a share price that management believes undervalues the business relative to book value.

That combination reflects a capital allocation strategy built around agility and optionality. Defensiveness did not enter the talk-track. The same philosophy surfaced during the discussion of land.

Century ended the quarter with more than 60,000 owned and controlled lots. Rather than committing itself to a fixed acquisition pace regardless of market conditions, management emphasized that land spending can move higher if demand strengthens or lower if conditions deteriorate, without materially disrupting the company’s longer-term growth plans.

Optionality stands now as a non-negotiable asset.

Common goals, different ways of reaching them

The companies that entered this cycle with healthy balance sheets and disciplined land positions now have the ability to accelerate, pause or redirect investment as local markets evolve. Companies without that flexibility increasingly find themselves reacting to market conditions instead of shaping their own operating plans.

Regional commentary reinforced that theme. Texas remains Century’s largest growth platform, although Rob Francescon made clear the state is hardly one uniform housing market. Houston continues producing strong results in the company’s entry-level business. San Antonio is still another healthy market. Austin appears to be improving after an extended slowdown. Dallas, by contrast, remains more of a long-term investment where Century is still building scale.

Rather than applying one national strategy, management appears increasingly willing to allocate capital differently depending on local demand, competitive conditions and the maturity of each division. That nimbleness has become increasingly important as housing markets continue moving on different timetables across the country.

Century has been and continues to be a maverick among its peers. Its leadership does not fret that one strategic decision will separate the company from its competitors. Instead, Dale Francescon, Rob Francescon and Scott Dixon each described a business that expects competitive advantage to come from making hundreds of operating decisions a little better every quarter.

That is hard. That is who they are and who they have been.

A rose by any other name is still a rose.

This post was originally published on here. 

AARP is urging Congress to reject a proposal that would create a fast-track process for developing and considering legislation aimed at strengthening Social Security’s long-term finances.

The Protecting Retirement Opportunities and Maintaining Income Security for Everyone — PROMISE — Act, introduced July 14 by Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Bill Cassidy, R-La., and six other senators, would direct the Social Security Advisory Board to draft legislation designed to keep trust funds solvent for at least 50 years.

While AARP agrees Congress must address Social Security’s finances, the organization argues lawmakers should do so through the traditional legislative process.

“We agree with you that Congress needs to act to address Social Security’s financial challenges and to strengthen Social Security for generations to come,” Nancy LeaMond, AARP’s chief advocacy and engagement officer, wrote in a July 21 letter to Durbin and Cassidy. “But how Congress acts matters.

“Strengthening Social Security should happen through regular order, in full public view, with openness and transparency — rather than through a process that limits the type of amendments and sets arbitrary procedural deadlines to short-circuit the debate.”

Bill Sweeney, AARP’s senior vice president for government affairs, said the organization believes Congress should write the legislation itself rather than assign the task to an advisory board.

“Our members and the public expect that Congress is going to do its job and deal with these hard issues, which we elected them and we’re paying them to deal with, not to outsource it to some other committee, some unelected group of people,” he said. “The time they’re spending creating special rules is time they could be spending fixing Social Security.”

How the bill would work

Under the PROMISE Act, the Social Security Advisory Board would be required to submit a proposal to Congress by Sept. 17, or the next day both chambers are in session. Congress could hold hearings and amend the proposal. However, if committees fail to act by Nov. 9, the legislation would automatically move to the House and Senate floors without the committee votes normally required, AARP said.

Total consideration of the measure — including debate and votes on amendments — would be capped at 100 hours.

Supporters say the process would force Congress to confront Social Security’s long-term financial challenges after years of delay.

“Here is our chance to agree on a bipartisan process to rescue Social Security this year,” Durbin stated. “Our bipartisan proposal opens Congress to debate this issue in a transparent, fair and bipartisan way. We were elected to solve problems—and there’s no greater problem than the solvency and future of Social Security.”

Why it matters

The proposal comes as Social Security faces a projected funding shortfall.

According to the 2026 Social Security Trustees Report, the program’s combined trust fund reserves are expected to be depleted in 2034. Without congressional action, ongoing payroll tax revenue would be sufficient to pay about 83% of scheduled benefits.

The PROMISE Act does not specify how Social Security’s finances should be strengthened.

Instead, it establishes a process for developing legislation. Any proposal produced by the advisory board would still require approval by the House, Senate and president before becoming law.

AARP has also opposed other congressional proposals that would create commissions to recommend changes to Social Security — maintaining that any reforms should be debated openly through the regular legislative process.

This article was written by Jonathan Delozier and generated with the assistance of HousingWire Automation.

This post was originally published on here. 

Howard Hanna Real Estate Services has entered northern New England through a strategic partnership with Portside Real Estate Group, a Maine-based independent brokerage, the companies announced Thursday.

The deal gives Howard Hanna an immediate footprint in Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts and extends its coverage to 18 states and more than 500 offices. Portside, founded and led by Dava Davin, operates 12 offices with more than 225 agents. RealTrends Verified data shows that Portside Real Estate Group closed 2,090 transaction sides valued at $1.33 billion in sales volume in 2025, earning it the No. 239 rank in the nation for sales volume in the 2026 RealTrends Verified Rankings. 

Through the partnership, Portside will retain its brand and local leadership while gaining access to Howard Hanna’s technology, marketing, national and global referral network and consumer programs such as Buy Before You Sell and the 100% Money Back Guarantee. For housing professionals, the structure mirrors other “powered by” or affiliate-style models that aim to combine national scale with local decision-making at a time of heightened cost pressures and consolidation in brokerage.

“We are committed to thoughtful, disciplined growth by partnering with market leaders who share our entrepreneurial, relationship-driven approach,” Howard Hanna CEO Hoby Hanna said in a statement. “Portside has built an extraordinary company with dominant market share. This alliance proves that by joining forces, independent, family-owned brokerages can deliver the national scale and institutional resources that benefit both agents and the clients they serve, while preserving the agility and local decision-making that define independent companies.”

The companies said a key competitive lever in the expansion is Howard Hanna’s ability to offer healthcare and 401(k) options to independent contractor agents — a benefit that has become a recruiting tool as brokerages look for ways to stand out without significantly raising splits or adding fixed costs.

“Portside is getting stronger,” said Davin, founder and CEO of Portside. “We’ve built something really special together, and I am so proud of the culture, the relationships and the sense of purpose that defines Portside. Partnering with Howard Hanna lets us protect everything that makes us unique while opening doors we couldn’t open on our own.”

Both companies are affiliates of Leading Real Estate Companies of the World. 

This article was written by Brooklee Han and generated with the assistance of HousingWire Automation, then reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

Independent real estate brokerages will soon have a new path to compete with national conglomerates without sacrificing their autonomy.

Rodland Private Members — a membership platform launching this fall — will give independent firms access to enterprise-grade artificial intelligence (AI)-powered operations through its proprietary RoRo platform.

The program, announced by Rodland Real Estate founder Tim Rodland, aims to address what he calls a structural gap in real estate technology.

As industry consolidation accelerates, independent brokerages have faced a binary choice Rodland hopes to make obsolete; stay small or join a larger system.

“What we decided to focus on was, ‘How can we empower the independents like us to not have to give up their margins, their commissions, all of these different things?’” he told HousingWire. “We decided that by opening our Rodland membership platform, we could provide independent brokerages with the technology they need to compete with some of the biggest firms in the world.

“While the world is focused on consolidation, our mission is to empower the independent, the brokerage owners, the boutique guys that don’t want to sell their business. They don’t want a franchise. They want to preserve something that their great grandfather handed down to them.”

Built from brokerage experience

The RoRo platform was not conceived in a technology lab but emerged from Rodland’s own operational challenges at his Bahamas-based brokerage — a process he discussed with HousingWire earlier this year.

Rodland said a light bulb moment came when other brokerages began asking how they could access the system.

“We were getting requests from other people, like, ‘Hey, how can I have part of it?’” he said. “Or, ‘How can I get a piece of this?’ When we started [working on RoRo], we thought, ‘Well, we’re just going to fix our operations,’ and that it would be sort of a competitive advantage. Now it’s become, ‘How do we help others with this?’ And so that was kind of the aha moment for us, and we ran with it.”

RoRo integrates real-time market interpretation, workflow automation and conversational decision support.

The platform ties directly into MLS systems or any listing data repository, delivering insights in real time.

Rodland said this eliminates the process of manually downloading comps, plugging them into spreadsheets and running formulas — work that traditionally consumed hours of agent time.

“If you save more time, you’re able to sell more real estate,” he said. “We’re helping you to be more efficient. We’re helping you to modernize your system so that agents can actually be out in the field doing what they love, which is connecting with these relationships and that culture, instead of being bogged down by mundane admin tasks.”

Preserving culture, not diluting it

Some brokerage owners worry that adopting a centralized AI platform could dilute company culture or make operations feel less personal. Rodland argues the opposite.

The RoRo platform is designed to integrate with existing workflows rather than forcing brokerages to overhaul operations.

“We’re not saying to stop doing what you’re doing and change this and change that,” said Rodland. “There may be some things that you might need to change because you’re operating on something that was made 20 years ago. But for the most part, we’re building our platform around the existing brokerage.”

“A lot of people are resistant to change. So, we thought we’d build the AI systems around what they’re used to, and that’s the idea here.”

Membership and availability

Rodland Private Members is structured around an annual membership fee and a per-agent seat, with complete pricing details to be announced shortly.

Membership is open to independent brokerages across any MLS or database. An evaluation process will assess each applicant’s “quality, forward-thinking approach and commitment to service,” the company said.

The platform is available in the U.S. and Canada, with select international markets also expected to become eligible, Rodland said.

“Companies want to own their tech stacks. They want to own their data,” he said. “They want to have privacy around their data. When we tie into your MLS, your agents now can access information in real time, and if they have other private databases, we can tie that in, as well.”

Brokerages interested in joining can submit letters of intent now, with platform integration beginning this fall.

This post was originally published on here. 

With CrossCountry Mortgage’s deal to acquire Two Harbors Investment Corp. one step closer to the finish line after securing shareholder approval, the focus is shifting to what may be the next major challenge: integrating the businesses.

Industry experts pointed out the complex task of bringing a large servicing portfolio in-house, but analysts expressed confidence in CCM’s ability to combine both companies without losing track of its financials, while flagging rising leverage. 

Like its peers, CCM is seeking scale in mortgage servicing rights (MSRs). TWO would bring a $159 billion portfolio to CCM’s $202 billion as of the first quarter, per Inside Mortgage Finance. The deal pushes the lender from the No. 15 spot into the No. 8 spot among top servicers by owned portfolio.

If the acquisition closes as currently designed, CCM will pay about $1.26 billion, after weathering a public bidding battle with United Wholesale Mortgage that increased the price by about $126 million.

The company raised its cash bid from $10.80 per share in March to $11.30 in April and then to $12 in May, adding a dividend component. The current price came in at a 19% premium to TWO’s end of March tangible book value.

“Lately, people have been paying up for MSR assets. That’s not been a secret in the industry,” said Ryan Wallace, a Fitch director, primary rating analyst covering nonbank financial institutions. “I don’t think they’re being unreasonable. They see the value in this. They operate pretty conservatively, but they ended up paying probably what would be a full price.” 

In response to HousingWire‘s questions about the deal, CCM said the price reflects the deal’s strategic value and long-term financial benefits.

“When viewed through the lens of long-term earnings power, cash flow generation and strategic positioning, we believe this transaction creates compelling shareholder value,” it said. “Our immediate priority is successfully integrating the business, realizing the strategic and financial benefits of the transaction, generating strong cash flow and reducing leverage over time.”

The servicing play

With this transaction, CCM reaches a scale at which maintaining a dedicated, in-house servicing unit makes clear financial sense.

TWO subservices $40 billion in loans. Its servicing arm is RoundPoint Mortgage Servicing LLC, which it acquired in 2023. TWO also has a small direct-to-consumer origination business, launched in 2024 for recapture. In the first quarter, TWO funded $92 million in unpaid principal balance (UPB) and brokered $38 million in second liens.

CCM and TWO have been working together, including MSR sales by TWO to CCM and subservicing by RoundPoint of CCM-owned MSRs — an existing operating familiarity that should reduce risk.

“RoundPoint already subservices a significant portion of CCM’s servicing portfolio today, so this is not a new operating relationship. Over the past year, we’ve worked closely together and developed a deep understanding of the platform, technology and operating model,” CCM stated. “RoundPoint will continue operating with its experienced team and proven servicing platform, making this much more of a scaled expansion of an existing platform than a traditional systems conversion.”

However, CCM also uses Mr. Cooper Group. The lender is pursuing a strategy similar to one drafted by UWM. Following Rocket Companies‘ acquisition of Mr. Cooper, UWM moved its servicing in-house to keep it away from its biggest rival, and subsequently aimed to acquire TWO to boost its own scale.

“We have already begun boarding newly originated CCM loans onto the RoundPoint platform. Following closing, the transfer of legacy loans currently serviced by Mr. Cooper will occur in phases over the following months,” CCM added. “The phased approach is designed to minimize operational risk, ensure regulatory compliance and provide a seamless borrower experience throughout the transition.”

Balancing servicing and origination

By acquiring TWO, CCM will achieve a better balance between its servicing and origination businesses. It also reduces the need for the company to be active in the MSR bulk market. CCM said that the additional scale from this transaction allows it “to be even more selective in today’s market.”

Servicing fees provide steadier, more predictable earnings than origination volume alone, while the expanded MSR portfolio will fuel significant recapture opportunities.

“Much of the deal valuation was built on the ability to churn consumers, and CCM has one of the best consumer-direct and retention platforms in the industry,” said Rick Roque, corporate vice president of new growth at NFM Lending, who previously worked at CCM. “They could pick up another $10 billion a year in volume just from that extra pickup. There’s no indication that rates are going down, but if they were to go down, that could add another $3 billion to $5 billion in production over the next 12 to 18 months.”

In 2025, CCM originated $51 billion in mortgages, making it the No. 7 overall lender and the top distributed retail mortgage lender in the country. According to Roque’s estimates, the added recapture volume could generate roughly 50 to 60 basis points in net profit after corporate allocations, delivering an immediate impact within the first 12 months post-close.

Nick Kinsella, assistant vice president of the financial institutions group at Moody’s Ratings, added that bringing servicing in-house introduces new regulatory and operational risks. However, he noted, “given the company’s track record, management’s experience, and the complementary nature of the platform with CrossCountry’s business model, we view all those risks along with the integration risk as modest going forward.”

The MSR book profile

CCM has no history of operating a servicing business at this scale, according to Coby Hakalir, who leads the mortgage banking division at real estate consulting firm T3 Sixty. Integrating the technology and systems could take one to two years, spanning compliance, escrow management, custodial accounts and servicing platforms.

“The MSRs are already marked to market — 119% of that estimate is a big bet,” Hakalir said. “CCM’s hedge is the fact that they can refinance that book of business, which represents about three times their 2025 volume.”

If the deal closes in August, pending final regulatory hurdles, the key question is whether CCM will be operationally ready if rates drop soon. Because most borrowers in the portfolio were not originally CCM customers, recapture could prove difficult, Hakalir added.

“The risk is that the opportunity to refinance these clients comes too quickly,” he said. “But that’s not a death sentence; it’s just that it would become a more expensive deal if they couldn’t recapture some of that business based on the premium they paid on the MSRs.”

Based on TWO’s portfolio profile, however, rapid runoff is a low risk. As of March 31, the portfolio had a weighted average gross coupon of 3.54%, a 60-plus-day delinquency rate of 0.81% and a three-month conditional prepayment rate (CPR) of 5.6%. 

With this weighted average coupon on TWO’s MSR portfolio, mass rate-and-term refinancing is unlikely. However, the real opportunity is in cash-out refinances — borrowers at those low rates have seen home values rise, creating significant equity to tap.

“The reality is: it’s difficult to make money in just originating loans, so having this servicing play – not only as a hedge against higher interest rates, but to go for example from recapturing 20% of your customers to potentially 50% – is a game changer,” Hakalir said. “This is a long-term strategic play.”

CCM stated the deal creates a substantial opportunity to improve borrower retention over time.

“Historically, Two Harbors did not have the origination scale necessary to fully capitalize on those customer relationships,” the company said. “By combining their servicing portfolio with CCM’s national origination platform, we expect to create significantly more opportunities to recapture borrowers throughout the life of the loan.”

Leverage figures

When the deal was at $10.80 per share, Fitch estimated it would bring CCM’s corporate leverage — defined as gross non-funding debt to tangible equity — to about 2.1x on a pro forma basis at year-end 2025, assuming the transaction is fully debt-funded. The estimate may change depending on the deal’s final price and structure, as well as updated financials from both companies. 

This exceeds the agency’s downgrade trigger of 1.5x. However, retained earnings growth is expected to reduce leverage toward the company’s 1.0x target over the medium term.

“We still think that is pretty manageable for them,” Wallace said. “They’re going above our stated downgrade trigger, which is risky. But we just feel that there’s, all things considered, a good chance that they will get back within sensitivities in the medium term there. The integration is certainly what they’re going to be focused on whenever they do close, and it should probably take at least a year or two to fully work that through.”

CCM said that its fundamental approach to leverage hasn’t changed, with the lender still committed to target about 1.0x net leverage over the medium term. “While leverage will temporarily increase following the transaction, it’s important to view that in the context of a significantly larger and more cash-generative business,” the company said.

It added that, “The combined company will benefit from substantially higher recurring servicing cash flows, a larger MSR portfolio and meaningful synergy opportunities, all of which support rapid deleveraging over time.”

The negotiations with CrossCountry Intermediate Holdco, an affiliate of CCM, include $3.4 billion of committed financing: a $2 billion secured facility and a $1.4 billion unsecured commitment from Citi. CCM completed two large unsecured issuances last year totaling $1.5 billion to repay MSR lines. Fitch assumes it may return to the market for additional funding.

Moody’s Ratings also sees the company’s leverage increasing due to the all-cash nature of the deal, but anticipates a clear path to recovery.

“Due to the company’s prudent financial policies, and conservative and disciplined risk management practices, we expect them to manage it appropriately over the long term, and maintain a solid level of capital,” Kinsella said. “We would view a shift from secured to unsecured debt as a credit positive because it frees up collateral and strengthens liquidity.”

This post was originally published on here. 

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is now law, but most housing industry leaders argue that there is far more work to be done. Voters strongly agree.

A new survey of 19,564 adults from the University of Maryland Program for Public Consultation and Voice of the People found that voters, on a bipartisan level, support federal policies that add to the affordability and attainability measures that were included in the freshly-minted ROAD Act. 

The survey, conducted between May 27 and June 25, 2026, shows evidence that voters want elected national representatives to go further on legislation along several fronts, including support for additional funding to rental assistance and affordable housing programs. Large majorities of voters also back a federal ban on institutional investors. 

The survey fielded responses from voters in 11 competitive states and 28 competitive U.S. House districts, indicating that housing affordability could be a key issue in those races.

Bipartisan support for more federal housing funding 

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act includes tax incentives aimed at incentivizing the construction and preservation of affordable housing. The survey found that voters in both parties, including 88% of Democrats and 80% of Republicans, favor those provisions.

Voters also overwhelmingly back a pair of other policies. One proposal that would invest $40 billion in high-density affordable housing for very low- and low-income households garnered support from 86% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans. 

Another proposal to provide $25 billion to local governments for building and preserving high-density affordable housing similarly received the support of 84% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans. 

The poll also queried voters on their support for providing up to $24 billion in additional vouchers for very low-income, elderly and disabled renters, funding that is not included in the recently enacted law. That proposal received the support of 89% of Democrats and 74% of Republicans. 

The results of the survey indicate that voters of both parties back policies that would leverage federal tax dollars to tackle the national housing affordability crisis. 

The law that imposes a cap on corporate ownership of single-family homes at 350 properties also has strong bipartisan support, with 82% of Democrats and 77% of republicans in favor. Other surveys that asked the same question on institutional investors found similar bipartisan support. 

“While many of the proposals in the bipartisan legislation that just passed are consistent with the public’s goals for housing, large majorities of Democrats and Republicans favor the government going much further in both investment and regulation,” Steven Kull, director of PPC at the University of Maryland, said in a statement. 

Bipartisan housing support

The 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a margin of 358-32, and the U.S. Senate by a margin of 85-5, indicating strong bipartisan support for the legislation. 

Polling from the American Property Owners Alliance, released earlier this month, found that 89% of voters, including 92% of Democrats, 91% of independents and 87% of Republicans, support the overarching goals of the legislation. 

Additional polling from the Bipartisan Policy Center, released in May, also found that 89% of voters supported the bill. Overwhelming majorities of voters back expanded access to affordable home financing, streamlining regulations, federal rental assistance reform and leveraging federal tax dollars to incentive state and local governments to adopt pro-housing reforms. 

Nearly 80% of respondents said that housing is their biggest expense, and that housing is an extremely or very important issue for them. About nine in ten (88%) of respondents said that it has never been harder to buy a home, and 57% of voters agreed that housing costs make it difficult to pay the remainder of their bills.

This post was originally published on here. 

President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Brian Johnson, faced sharp questioning from Democratic senators Thursday over the future of the agency and whether he would resist political pressure in enforcement decisions.

Johnson, a former CFPB deputy director who now works for Capital One, appeared before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs alongside nominees for other federal posts.

Johnson’s confirmation hearing came as the bureau faces a major restructuring effort under Acting Director Russell Vought, who has called for significantly shrinking the agency and has previously suggested eliminating it. Vought testified before the House Financial Services Committee last week, during which he defended the bureau’s workforce reductions and regulatory rollback.

Johnson told senators he does not support dismantling the CFPB and would focus on carrying out the laws Congress assigned to the agency.

“The CFPB is a creature of statute,” Johnson said. “Congress has assigned to it important laws to implement and execute, and my intention is to execute the law.”

Democrats questioned whether Johnson could lead the bureau independently after moving from the CFPB to Capital One and amid controversy surrounding the agency’s decision to drop an enforcement action against the bank.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the CFPB’s architect and the committee’s ranking member, pointed to a January 2025 lawsuit in which the bureau accused Capital One of misleading customers out of more than $2 billion in interest on savings accounts. Warren said the case was dismissed after Trump took office and after Capital One donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugural committee.

Warren asked Johnson whether he would notify Congress and the CFPB inspector general if the White House pressured him over an enforcement matter involving a Trump family business or political donor. Johnson declined to make that commitment, saying he disputed the premise of the question and that such interference had not occurred during his previous time at the bureau “to my knowledge.”

Warren, who said that the CFPB needs “watchdogs” and not “lap dogs” during the hearing, argued Johnson’s continued ties to Capital One, one being that he is still on the payroll, raised concerns about whether he could prevent conflicts of interest. Johnson said he was appearing before the committee “in my personal capacity.”

Several Democrats also pressed Johnson on Vought’s plans to reduce CFPB staffing, including cutting the number of examiners responsible for reviewing banks and lenders for compliance.

Questions about reducing the number of examiners

Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., questioned whether reducing examiners from roughly 350 to 77 could make it easier for companies to harm consumers. Johnson said the impact would depend on the bureau’s examination strategy and noted that Vought’s staffing changes are tied up in litigation.

Johnson was also asked about the CFPB’s medical debt credit reporting rule, which Vought has criticized as unlawful. Johnson did not endorse the rule but said policymakers must balance ensuring accurate credit reporting with preventing consumers from being unfairly harmed by unexpected medical debt.

“I do think there are two important policy principles here. One is ensuring the integrity and accuracy of information that’s in the credit reporting system itself, and the CFPB’s responsibility under FCRA is to ensure that integrity… I don’t want folks to be unfairly punished for, you know, incurring debts that are, you know, something that they didn’t anticipate,” he said.

Johnson also faced questions about protections for military members and vulnerable consumers and told his audience that “protecting service members is an important function of the CFPB.”

When asked about whether offices focused on groups such as older Americans and servicemembers could continue operating effectively with reduced staffing, Johnson said he would evaluate staffing levels while prioritizing efforts to protect consumers from fraud and scams.

The committee has not yet scheduled a vote on Johnson’s nomination. Senators have until July 24 to submit written questions to Johnson and the other nominees, with responses due July 31.

Support from the industry

In a letter written to the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs on July 22, CEO and president of the Mortgage Bankers Association Bob Broeksmit pledged “strong support” for Johnson’s nomination on behalf of the association.

“Mr. Johnson possesses a deep understanding of consumer protection law, the financial services sector and our nation’s mortgage markets, positioning him well to provide the strong leadership needed to ensure the CFPB fulfills its mission,” Broeksmit wrote. “Should he be confirmed, MBA looks forward to working with Mr. Johnson on modernizing mortgage regulations, supporting housing affordability, advancing sustainable homeownership and empowering community lending – all under the aegis of protecting consumers.”

Broeksmit also urged the Committee to, following the Thursday hearing, “favorably report Mr. Johnson’s nomination – and for the full Senate to, in turn, confirm him as quickly as possible.”

This post was originally published on here. 

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani ran and won on bringing affordability and stronger rent stabilization to the city’s residents. Landlords are having none of it.

They sued in Staten Island court over a recent rent freeze, claiming the decision process was rigged.

The lawsuit comes nearly a month after the Rent Guidelines Board froze rents on roughly 1 million rent-stabilized units across the city for up to two years. Mamdani celebrated the freeze as a victory for the tenants he promised to help in his affordability platform.

Landlords are asking the court to annul the freeze, declare the board’s decision unlawful and send the matter back for a new determination that weighs the statutory factors they say were ignored. They’ve also requested expedited discovery and an evidentiary hearing to examine how the board reached its decision.

This latest lawsuit emerges as a broadside just as Mamdani’s administration seeks to show success on the housing supply front. In addition to promising strict rent stabilization, he has been cutting red tape and executing on zoning changes from the previous administration to accelerate housing construction.

Another legal round on rent stabilization

This new lawsuit is the second one filed on rent stabilization since voters elected Mamdani last November. The first, filed in federal court, targets a 2019 statewide law that closed a loophole allowed landlords to remove units from stabilization if they made substantial renovations. Landlords have struggled with higher construction costs like everyone else.

Landlords have chosen to leave units empty rather than renovating them for new tenants. Estimates of the number of empty units run as high as 100,000.

“Today’s housing shortage is driving rents up for market-rate housing, and revenue-challenged landlords cannot make improvements that would benefit stabilized tenants,” Scott Mollen, a partner with New York law firm Heckel, said in a statement to HousingWire TBD.

Mollen, who isn’t part of either lawsuit, said recent sales of stabilized apartment buildings at prices 30% to 50% below what sellers originally paid present the clearest evidence that many landlords are losing money. He added that loan portfolios have also sold below face value, wiping out landlord equity.

On the latest lawsuit, Mollen said former Mayor Ed Koch’s administration never pressured him or the Rent Guidelines Board, which he chaired, to reach a particular conclusion.

“The results were based on objective financial analyses, as required by the law,” he said.

A rigged process

The new lawsuit alleges that the board ran a “sham process” designed to deliver on Mamdani’s campaign promise rather than reach an independent, data-driven decision. It follows the board’s 7-1 vote last month to freeze rents on both one-year and two-year leases for rent-stabilized apartments. Those units make up roughly 41% of the city’s housing stock.

Landlords argue Mamdani packed the board with loyalists after taking office. They say he spent city money mobilizing tenant advocates through a newly created Office of Mass Engagement. The office received a $53 million annual budget, according to the lawsuit.

They also say the mayor’s office briefed the board on the “true cost of living” in the city, a move they claim compromised the board’s independence.

Longtime board member Christina Smyth resigned hours before the final vote. The landlords’ lawyers made her resignation letter a central theme of the lawsuit.

“This rebuilt board was required to deliver a rent freeze,” Smyth wrote in the letter, according to the lawsuit. “Everything since has been theater. The hearings, the reports, the public comment, the data. None of it was ever going to change the result.”

Board’s own data disputed

The lawsuit alleges the board manipulated its own data to justify the freeze. Its Price Index of Operating Costs showed landlord expenses rose 5.3% over the past year, with continued increases projected in fuel, insurance and utilities, yet the board still voted for a 0% increase.

Landlords also claim the board inflated income figures by blending revenue from unregulated, market-rate units with stabilized-apartment income, obscuring financial distress in fully rent-stabilized buildings. They say the board also ignored debt-service data showing 32% of surveyed rent-stabilized mortgages had insufficient income to cover payments, nearly triple the prior rate.

The earlier federal lawsuit, filed last November, doesn’t challenge stabilization for existing tenants directly. But it argues that the state’s 2019 law loophole crackdown is unconstitutional. Landlords want to be able to recover renovation costs through rent increases.

Together, the two cases show landlords contesting rent regulation on multiple fronts as Mamdani moves to make good on his affordability platform.

This post was originally published on here. 

Keller Williams Realty has appointed five senior leaders to growth-focused roles overseeing its U.S. and Canada divisions, commercial platform, agent attraction and digital strategy, the company announced Thursday.

The appointments — effective immediately — are designed to accelerate agent count growth, franchise productivity and expansion of KW Commercial across North America, according to the announcement.

The new leaders include John Clidy, Sean Hostert, Andy and Lesley Peters and Gabby Maddox Davis

“Great leadership drives growth, and the fastest way to accelerate this is to put proven leaders closest to the opportunity,” Chris Czarnecki, CEO and president of Keller Williams, said in the announcement. “John, Sean, Andy, Lesley, and Gabby are builders and operators with a track record of turning opportunity into results.”

New head of divisions

As head of divisions, John Clidy will lead strategic alignment and performance across Keller Williams’ 30 regions in the U.S. and Canada. Working with divisional leaders, the firm said he will focus on franchise growth, leadership, productivity, profitability and operational execution in the company’s markets.

Clidy joined Keller Williams leadership more than a decade ago as a top-producing mega agent and has since served as a market center operating principal, regional director, divisional leader and vice president of growth.

Commercial platform leader

Keller Williams named Sean Hostert head of commercial operations and strategy, where he will lead strategy and operations for KW Commercial and its affiliated network of agents.

Hostert brings more than 15 years of finance, investment and commercial real estate experience. He previously served as head of investments at Trio Investment Group, now part of J.P. Morgan Asset Management; vice president of acquisitions at Broadstone Net Lease; and director of acquisitions at VEREIT, now Realty Income Corporation, overseeing and evaluating billions of dollars in commercial real estate opportunities.

Agent growth and attraction

Andy and Lesley Peters were appointed co-heads of U.S. growth and attraction. They will lead Keller Williams’ national agent attraction strategy and growth initiatives, partnering with divisional and regional leaders to accelerate agent growth across regions and market centers.

The Peters have two decades of experience as real estate entrepreneurs, operators, coaches and trainers. Together, they lead, coach and train more than 2,200 agents across seven Keller Williams franchises in Georgia and the Carolinas and previously built The Peters Company into a top real estate team in the U.S. for 11 consecutive years, according to the company.

Digital and social strategy for growth

As head of digital and social for growth and attraction, Gabby Maddox Davis will oversee development of digital and social strategies to support agent growth across Keller Williams regions and market centers. Her role includes aligning agent attraction and recognition with the company’s broader marketing strategy.

Davis also serves as operating principal of Keller Williams Realty West ATL, where she grew the market center to nearly 500 agents in three years and led it to become the fastest net-growing Keller Williams market center worldwide in 2024 and 2025, the company said.

“Our growth strategy starts with a simple question: How do we create more opportunities for entrepreneurs to thrive?” Czarnecki said. “These appointments bring proven operators into critical areas of our business with clear accountability for growth to attract more great agents, strengthen KW-affiliated franchises and to expand their commercial real estate opportunities.”

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

It may be nearly three years since a Missouri jury found the real estate industry liable for colluding to artificially inflate real estate agent commissions in the Sitzer/Burnett commission lawsuit, but challenges related to the lawsuit continue to arise. 

On Wednesday, plaintiffs Don Gibson, Lauren Criss, John Meiners and Daniel Umpa filed motions in the Sitzer/Burnett suit and copycat Gibson lawsuit asking the court to enforce a provision in the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) commission lawsuit settlement requiring the MLSs that opted into the settlement to allow the plaintiffs to collect their real estate listing and commission data. 

This motion comes after third-party data provider Financial Business Systems (FBS), which supports MLS software platform Flexmls, refused to hand over data. According to the filing, FBS is claiming that it needs explicit permission from each MLS to hand over the data. The plaintiffs claim that FBS will not tell them which specific MLSs are refusing to give FBS the permission to do so. 

Due to this, the plaintiffs are asking the court to approve a new rule, through which the plaintiffs would send a notice to all of the MLSs that opted into the settlement reminding them that they already agreed to share this data by opting into the settlement.

If an MLS would like to object to sharing its data, it has seven days to notify the court of the objection, after which both sides would present arguments to the judge to decide if the MLS must share its data. If an MLS does not object within the seven day window, the lack of response would automatically count as written permission for FBS and other third-party data providers to share the data with the plaintiffs. 

It is unclear when Judge Stephen Bough, who is overseeing both the Sitzer/Burnett and Gibson lawsuits will rule on this motion. 

FBS did not immediately return HousingWire’s request for comment.

This post was originally published on here. 

People assume I catch everything in this industry because I’m chronically online. The truth is less flattering to my willpower and more flattering to my community: If I miss something, someone’s already emailing it to me, sliding into my DMs or telling me what actually happened behind closed doors. I am seeing what’s being advertised to consumers, what providers are saying about themselves online and have buyers and sellers telling me directly about their own experiences.

It feels like real estate whack-a-mole, every single day. My office might as well be at Dave & Buster’s with the constant noise, flashing lights, someone always trying to win you a prize that costs more than it’s worth. One problem goes down, another one (or another lawsuit) pops up. It’s a constant stream of issues and challenges that, for once, my ADHD superpower of handling multitasking and distraction comes in handy for.

But beyond the noisy lawsuits and corporate puffery tucked into every social media post, influencer campaign and the industry articles shoved into my inbox ten times a day, there are other issues out there that don’t get that same attention. Consumer advocacy work isn’t sexy or attention-grabbing, but it’s worth listening to if you care about your clients’ well-being and their wallet. So, here’s some insight into what I am seeing, what I’m watching and why it matters.

Lenders

Some of you are already getting emails offering to pay you to sell home equity investment products to clients who “might not qualify for a traditional refi or HELOC.” In our opinion, the wording is what it sounds like: “products of last resort.” Home equity investments (HEIs) remain largely unregulated federally, and with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) gutted, states are scrambling to figure out basic guardrails. These products can run twice the effective cost of a HELOC, and the fine print usually means that if a homeowner can’t buy back their equity stake within ten years, they’re forced to sell or take out another loan. 

If you’re offering these, you owe clients a plain-English walk-through of all of their options, and if they still move forward, you should review all of the terms and make sure they know about the massive balloon payment that will come due. Caring about your client’s outcome shouldn’t have an expiration date that lines up suspiciously well with your commission clearing.

Then there’s the mortgage “broker” who isn’t shopping anything. I once assumed a broker’s whole job was comparing lenders. Adorable, right? Hunterbrook Media found that more than 8,600 loan officers sent United Wholesale Mortgage over 99% of their business in 2023 — double the number who did the same in 2020. 

It became the subject of a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) lawsuit alleging borrowers paid hundreds of millions, possibly billions, more in closing costs as a result. When I bring this up, someone always says, “Well, that lender just closes faster.”  So, out of the hundreds of lenders out there, there is only one in the entire US that can close fast?  That math ain’t mathing.

What’s worse is that there is an entire Facebook group of brokers debating whether to work with Rocket or UWM.  At what point did mortgage brokers decide to let a corporation they don’t work for dictate who they send clients to? By the way, it’s not a badge of honor when you post about reaching a certain status with a lender, because all that tells me is that you likely aren’t shopping around for your clients as much as you should be.  

Appraisers

Uniform Appraisal Dataset (UAD) 3.6 becomes mandatory on November 2, 2026, and it’s a full restructuring of how appraisal reports are built, including more data and more time. Lenders, if you haven’t talked to your appraisal management company (AMC) about readiness, you’re setting yourself up for closing delays this fall. “We didn’t see it coming” is a rough look when the calendar has said this date for over a year.

Speaking of AMCs, their fees deserve scrutiny too, especially with “affordability” in the news weekly. Appraisal Regulation Compliance Council (ARCC) data showed that AMCs inflated appraisal costs by $15 billion from 2013 to 2023, a period during which appraiser pay barely moved. 

A handful of states are pushing for an itemized appraiser invoice to be given to the buyer. Other states do not seem to think they are responsible for regulating these giants. So who is to blame when consumers start asking where that $12 billion went?

Real estate agents

In my opinion, referral fees deserve the same scrutiny lead-gen platforms got in other industries. Angie’s List paid $1.4 million to settle a lawsuit alleging it ranked contractors by who paid the most, not who did the best work. 

If a home-services platform can get sued for that, why do real estate referral arrangements marketed as “free” or “no pay-to-play” while quietly kicking back 30%+ of what you pay get so little scrutiny?  You can “analyze millions of transactions,” but if the deciding factor of who you pair a consumer with is based on whether they pay you a fee, a consumer should know that.  

Admin fees are having their moment in the courtroom sun. If you need a script to explain a fee you already charge, or avoid it because it’s uncomfortable to explain, that should tell you right then and there you shouldn’t be charging it. In mystery-shopper calls, agent after agent told me, “don’t worry, the seller pays,” but the seller doesn’t always pay and often ends up covering their own agent’s fee on top of it. You can’t preach affordability and tack on fees in the same breath. Pick a lane.

There are a million articles out about pocket listings, so I won’t go too far into the industry’s turf war over who controls inventory, because that’s what it’s really about, not consumer rights. I will just say this: In all my years of watching what consumers say online (and they say a lot of things), I never noticed complaints about their home being displayed everywhere.  

And to round this out, let’s close on the accountability gap. My own research comparing state disciplinary records found a state with 50,000 agents had fewer violations posted last year than a state with just 5,000 agents. Either the bigger state is squeaky clean, or consumers aren’t being given the whole picture before they hire someone. 

A few states haven’t updated their records since last year.  Other states don’t display disciplinary actions on the individual license, while others just post a PDF that you have to search through every month. If you are a state-run organization meant to protect the public, ensuring consumers know who they are working with should be a top priority.  

None of this should surprise you, but it’s a wake-up call: Consumers are facing real issues that hit their wallets and shape not only their experience but also their perception of the industry. This is stuff I look at daily and ask not only if these practices are harming consumers, but how to fix them.   

The whack-a-mole game just started another round, so I will leave you with this: You don’t need a lobbying group to speak up. Pennsylvania got a bill regulating HEIs because I walked into my state rep’s office and asked what we could do. That’s the whole origin story; granted, I have a great state representative, and not sure I can say the same for everyone. But the reality is that sometimes you just need to ask the questions the industry doesn’t want asked out loud.

Wendy Gilch is a consumer advocate and thought leader in residential real estate and Founder of Selling Later. 
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. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Massachusetts-based ERA Key Realty Services has launched a redesigned website in partnership with RELIANCEai, upgrading its digital platform with new search capabilities, hyperlocal content and SEO tools for agents and consumers.

The brokerage, part of the HUNT Real Estate ERA family of companies, serves greater Boston, MetroWest, Merrimack Valley and central Massachusetts.

ERA Key Realty Services closed more than $3.85 billion in sales volume in 2025, according to the company.

Leaders said the new platform is designed to improve the online experience for homebuyers, sellers and agents while strengthening the brokerage’s digital presence.

“We’ve partnered with RELIANCEai since 2019, so when it came time to transitioning ERA Key Realty Services to their platform, it was a natural next step,” said Dan Mirsky, chief marketing officer for HUNT Real Estate Corp.

The redesigned website includes:

• Hyperlocal community pages featuring market information for greater Boston, MetroWest, Merrimack Valley and central Massachusetts.
• An MLS-powered property search with interactive maps, advanced filters and curated listing collections, including luxury homes, new construction, condominiums and 55-plus communities.
• A new SEO framework designed to improve the brokerage’s online visibility and help connect agents with prospective buyers and sellers.

“ERA Key Realty Services’ new platform is built to match the character and ambition of an organization that has earned the No. 1 spot in the ERA system,” said Nick Villanti, COO of RELIANCEai. “We’re proud to be their partner in this next chapter.”

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

Fathom Holdings has disclosed potential “material misstatements” in previous financial reports, placing blame on alleged actions of the company’s former CEOs. 

In a document filed earlier this month with the Securities and Exchange Commission discussing Q1 2026 financial results, Fathom Holdings claimed that former company executives may have made “material misstatements” in previous financial reports due to their failure to “maintain an effective control environment. 

According to the 10Q filing, the firm said it had found that its financial reporting disclosure control and procedures were ineffective due to “material weaknesses,” which were attributed to its former CEO Joshua Harley and Marco Fregenal, who had served as CFO prior to becoming CEO in 2023, when Harley left the firm citing family reasons. 

Fregenal was terminated as the firm’s CEO in June 2026 in conjunction with the announcement that Fathom was being acquired by Bed Bath and Beyond. Fathom attributed Fregenal’s termination to unspecified policy violations. The firm named Adam Rothstein as its current interim CEO. 

The SEC filing did not identify what types of alleged misstatements possibly happened, but it did identify specific “deficiencies” in the reporting, which include things like not maintaining an effective risk assessment and failure to provide quality information and communication. Fathom said these deficiencies could have led to “material misstatements to the Company’s quarterly consolidated financial statements that would not have been prevented or detected on a timely basis.” 

Primary factor stems from “side agreement”

Additionally, the filing claims that the “primary factor” that caused the financial reporting issues stemmed from negotiations for an acquisition in 2021 when company founder and CEO Harley and then CFO Fregenal signed a “side agreement” that allegedly bound Fathom without the board’s knowledge or authorization. According to the filing, the board only discovered this deal in April of this year, but it has concluded that the company is not bound by this side agreement and that the deal “did not have a material effect on financial information.” 

“However, the tone at the top set by our former Chief Financial Officer and former Chief Executive Officer was insufficient to create the proper environment for effective internal control over financial reporting under the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COCO) Framework and to further the Company’s commitment to integrity and ethical values,” the filing states. 

By signing this side agreement, the company claims that Frenegal and Harley failed to set the “appropriate tone” over internal control over financial reporting. 

Remediation plan in place

The filing notes that Fathom does have a remediation plan in place, which includes things like appointing an interim CEO and new CFO and reviewing and enhancing the company’s Code of Ethics “to clarify roles and responsibilities” related to financial reporting.

In addition, the company said it was also implementing new training, formalizing written policies and procedures to establish responsibility for guidelines, documentation and oversight of negotiations and discussions concerning certain agreements involving the firm and identifying and evaluating the process the board uses to review, approve and authorize transactions, including share-based compensation grants. 

“Management believes the foregoing efforts, once fully implemented, will effectively remediate the material weaknesses described above. However, as the Company continues to evaluate and work to improve its internal control over financial reporting, management may determine to take additional measures to improve controls or determine to modify the remediation plan described above,” the filing stated. 

Fathom said it would not consider the material weaknesses “formally remediated” until the controls “have operated effectively for a sufficient period of time and management has concluded, through testing, that the controls are operating effectively.” 

The filing also addressed Fathom’s “history of negative cash flow” noting that Bed Bath and Beyond has committed to providing Fathom with financial support for a year and a day after the date of the filing. The firm said that its management believes that this financial support, along with other measures will “mitigate the conditions that raised substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue.” In addition, Fathom said its “low-overhead business model,” as well as other programs will enable it to achieve “profitable growth in the future.” 

Fathom did not return HousingWire’s request for comment.

This post was originally published on here. 

There is no shortage of things happening in the real estate industry these days. From consolidation to the debate over private listings and seller choice, there are plenty of issues competing for attention, but for ERA Real Estate president Alex Vidal, the most important issues are those that are capturing the attention of the consumers. 

“Right now, there’s a lot happening that, no matter what I say or do, is going to happen anyway,” Vidal told HousingWire. “They [Consumers] are seeing the things pop up on Facebook saying that a homebuying experience turned into a ‘nightmare’ over a buyer representation agreement that was signed. Now the industry has said that buyer representation agreements are one of the best things that have ever happened to real estate, but the consumers aren’t seeing that. I’m trying to focus on what our consumers are reading.”

By focusing on this, Vidal said he is able to tune out the noise and figure out what is most important to consumers so he can better prepare his agents and brokers for any questions or concerns. 

“I feel like I should let everyone else focus on all those big headlines and instead I can focus on my clients, the agents, and their clients, the consumers, so I can prepare my agents to deal with what the clients are reading and hearing,” Vidal said. 

What is missing from the private listing debate

One rather noisy topic that has jumped from inside the real estate industry to the greater public sphere is that of private listings.

For Vidal, the current debate surrounding private listings is missing something, “nobody is looking at it as if they were truly in the seller’s shoes or the buyer’s shoes.” 

In the past three years, Vidal said he personally has been in two situations where the traditional go-to market strategy of immediately listing a property on the MLS did not work. One of these times was during his divorce when his travel schedule combined with his now ex-wife’s work schedule, and all that come with having three teenaged sons, two dogs and a cat made it incredibly difficult to prepare their home for showings. 

“For us, that path just didn’t make sense or really even work. We knew that we were in a hot market so if we went to the MLS we could get multiple showings and multiple offers, but there was no way with schedules that we could make it work. We actually could not go live on the market,” he said. 

Instead, Vidal said they decided to list the property privately, ultimately accepting a full-price offer.

“I don’t look at this debate from a place of who is trying to control the data,” Vidal said, discussing how his private listing experience has impacted his perspective on this issue. “I am looking at it from the situation I was in where the traditional route didn’t make sense. So, what I think is missing is more people talking about it truly from the consumer’s position.” 

While he recognizes that the vast majority of sellers want the most amount of money in the shortest amount of time for their property, there is a segment that this doesn’t apply to. This is what he says is missing in the current debate.

However, he also noted that at least for Compass International Holdings, over 90% of properties that start out as private exclusive listings do ultimately make it on to the open market. But while a private listing strategy may not have led to a sale for these sellers, he believes that the time was not wasted as it allowed sellers to gain a better understanding of what the demand for their property is like and if there are any changes they can make to help them achieve the price they want. 

This, in Vidal’s view, is also good for buyers because it makes the seller “malleable.” 

“The seller is always hesitant to take that first offer because they are afraid that they priced it too low or they believe another offer is going to come in right behind it that may be better,” Vidal said. “For a buyer, I think it is very beneficial to be interacting with a seller that has already heard feedback and has a sense of the demand. The seller then goes to market with the right strategy and it makes the process easier for the buyer.” 

Compass: The ‘God send’

The ability for ERA’s agents to access some of these premarketing tools and strategies comes from Compass International Holdings’ acquisition of ERA’s parent company Anywhere Real Estate, which closed in early January 2026. Nearly eight months into the integration process between the two firms, Vidal said the acquisition has been “an absolute God send,” for a few reasons. 

“Right off the bat, at some point in the relatively near future, every single agent under the Compass umbrella is going to have access to the popular Compass technology,” Vidal said. “Second, the deal Compass has with Redfin and Rocket enables ERA agents and consumers to premarket their coming soon listings without the lead on that listing being sold to another agent.” 

Additionally, Vidal said, as the only brand under the Compass umbrella that allows independent brokerages to affiliate with ERA while still maintaining their unique brand identity by using a “powered by ERA” tag, ERA has grown drastically over the past few months.

“People see the technology and all the stuff Compass has to offer and they want in. They can do that and keep their brand with ERA,” he said. “As a result of this, in April of this year, we already surpassed our growth goal for the entire year.” 

With this goal now in the rearview mirror, Vidal said he is focused on doing all he can to ensure that ERA franchisees continually choose to be with ERA and make them “raving fans” of the brand.

“Anytime we have a new initiative, I look at it and ask, ‘Does it help make our broker or our agents raving fans?’” Vidal said. “And with everything else happening, I just put my head down and focus on what is ahead of me.”

This post was originally published on here. 

Despite the reputation production homebuilders get for resisting change – and failing at innovation – the best path to a homebuilding team member’s career advancement is by evangelizing a passion project. Homebuilders have dozens such initiatives in progress at any given time across their various departments, divisions and workflows.

So how does inertia survive in our industry despite these big incentives to innovate?

How an innovative idea normally spreads

An operations leader trials something new in their division, then shares the idea with a few friendly peers in other divisions. If those divisions carry out an experiment that produces an equally impressive outcome, they have formed a coalition of sponsors who can present the idea at the next meeting of whatever inter-divisional committee handles that topic.

If the approach is widely understood and flexible enough to implement in a way that each division feels best suits their unique operation, it tends to catch its own momentum. Holdout divisions are more likely to be slowly nurtured through the barriers to adoption than bullied into conformity.

Most initiatives fail because of a handful of common dynamics in builder organizations.

Despite the individual career incentive to innovate, builders are disincentivized from being first. Divisions avoid open conflict. Corporate avoids the perception of a cramdown. And the most stagnant initiatives are the ones that need complete buy-in from everyone before they have even proven out the concept.

None of these modes of failure have much to do with whether the idea itself is any good.

All parties are acting rationally

The first division to pilot an initiative carries the cost of resources spent building it and the risk that it does not work, while later beneficiaries simply adopt a functioning system that is already built. Being last to invest in a challenging initiative that produces a shared benefit is a rational decision.

Not every initiative that helps the company benefits every division equally. National rebate or supply contracts, for example, are usually tiered to reward volume, so the largest divisions capture most of the upside while smaller ones see comparatively little.

In a market with a mega-trade whose own volume dwarfs what the homebuilder buys across all its divisions combined, that trade may already be pricing as competitively as a national contract, leaving little room for the national deal to actually beat what’s already on the table.

Both are legitimate reasons to hesitate, but divisions shy from expressing them directly. Saying an idea is wrong for the company, or that it does not serve the company equitably, invites a debate nobody wants to stir up in a committee meeting. “We’re not ready” or “this doesn’t apply to us” are two indefinitely renewable excuses that end the conversation at once and cost nothing.

Corporate does not like to test its own authority

Homebuilders structure themselves around corporate consolidation of capital and balance sheets, not the consolidation of operations. Firms build corporate’s authority to oversee what divisions report, not to engineer what divisions do.

Because of that, corporate rarely pushes back on divisions’ excuses. The faintest sign of support for one division’s proposal can be interpreted by other divisions as the opening move toward a mandate. A modest ask to adopt a shared format or contribute data to a common structure gets the same response as a top-down directive, and divisions react to the authority they imagine corporate has, not the authority it is exercising.

That arrangement works well for everything a homebuilder needs centralized. But it also means corporate teams are just powerful enough to shut down an initiative when a division starts acting outside the bounds of established infrastructure, while never being powerful enough on their own to commit resources to a full-scale rollout of a novel idea.

Some ideas cannot start small

Another dynamic is divisibility – an economic term repurposed here for whether it is practical to split a good initiative into smaller units that each deliver value on their own, or whether it only has value once the whole thing exists.

High divisibility initiatives, such as a training program for the sales team, offer any participating division value regardless of the reach of their adoption across other divisions. A single division can pilot the idea, capture the benefit, and refine it entirely on its own timeline, independent of what any other division decides.

This is why bottom-up adoption works so well for this category: the concept proves itself before anyone else buys in, which is what lets a coalition of sponsors build momentum one division at a time.

Low divisibility initiatives have no smaller unit that pays for itself: they either exist company-wide or they do not really exist at all. A shared cost code taxonomy to support ERP enhancements that organize unit-cost estimating is a clean example – maximally beneficial and financially only workable to implement as a scaled, enterprise-wide solution.

That difference changes what bottom-up effort can do. Low divisibility initiatives require outsized first investment. It is unrealistic that a single division would have the resources or the knowledge to build a solution that fully meets their own division’s needs, let alone those of their entire organization. At the pilot stage, these initiatives rely on effort over infrastructure: a new role to support a move to centralized scheduling, or a homegrown database to capture material take-offs.

Low divisibility initiatives, regardless of how good the idea is or how much enthusiasm the sponsor builds, suffer the most inertia. And this is where corporate’s learned caution does its worst damage. A low divisibility initiative is the one case where corporate’s involvement is not optional. No division can build it alone, and the same trust deficit that makes corporate hesitant to support a simple shared format is even harder to overcome when requirement No. 1 is real investment in shared infrastructure.

When is innovation possible?

A leadership team that understands what sparks common objections to novel ideas has a chance to call them out. Anyone at the table can test whether “this doesn’t apply to us” masks an underlying philosophical disagreement by asking what the objection would sound like were it conveyed about the whole company, rather than about one division. Clarifying who would fund or build the new initiative alone tests divisibility.

 A genuinely low divisibility initiative cannot stand up and sustain itself drawing on the resources or domain expertise of a single enthusiastic division.

Inventing a solution, proving it works, and packaging it into a form any division could adopt with minimal resources takes a markedly different skill set than building homes. That is why the most innovative solutions homebuilders adopt today tend to be bought, not built.

From finding land, to training the next generation of superintendents, to spending marketing budgets effectively, the solution that works at scale tends to come in the form of a subscription product built to be globally applicable and locally customizable.

The entrepreneur who builds the product that solves an initiative gets to divide the work across people who design it, make a persuasive case for it and implement it. A homebuilder vice president working solo faces all that work while running a division.

A full-time designer focused on scalability faces a more tractable problem than the homebuilder because a genuinely global solution requires an elegant idea, while reconciling a group’s individual ways of doing things requires political deliberation.

A full-time salesperson or a marketing professional has a completely clean slate advocating for an initiative within a builder organization, while the VP must work against whatever petty grievances other divisions may have racked up over years of working together. Homebuilders often pay for the implementation of new systems, but how often do they make the same investment in a completely internal initiative?

The future of innovation in homebuilding will look more like procurement than invention. Inertia survives despite every individual incentive to innovate because homebuilders are better at building homes than they are at designing systems to build homes at scale.

The industry does not lack for people willing to champion ideas. It has a shortage of ideas good enough to survive being built by someone with a day job.

This post was originally published on here. 

Artificial intelligence startup Flair Labs says a recent deployment with West Capital Lending demonstrates how AI voice agents can help mortgage lenders capitalize on leads that might otherwise go untouched.

Flair, a two-year-old Y Combinator–backed company, builds digital voice assistants that work on behalf of lenders, servicers and brokers. The technology sits on top of a lender’s existing systems, including CRMs such as Bonzo, Total Expert and Salesforce, to qualify borrowers, answer basic questions and route live, qualified leads to loan officers.

The company said its AI platform contacted more than 44,000 mortgage leads during a one-month deployment in May involving 70 West Capital Lending loan officers. According to Flair, the system placed more than 318,000 outbound calls, connected with roughly 11,400 borrowers through live conversations and generated 1,788 warm handoffs to loan officers, including 1,053 live transfers and 735 scheduled callbacks.

The results highlight a common challenge for mortgage lenders, which often spend significant sums acquiring leads but struggle with borrower follow-up.

“West Capital purchases a large volume of leads from providers… in addition to generating its own direct-to-consumer leads,” Flair founder and CEO Samir Sen said in an interview with HousingWire. “Their biggest pain point was capturing more opportunities without having to continue building out their loan officer team.”

Sen said it has worked with West Capital for about eight months, though the figures released this week reflect only activity during May.

“The challenge in mortgage has never been about a lack of opportunity; it’s always been about the ability to follow up with leads quickly and consistently,” said Tony Do, broker of record and vice president of real estate at West Capital Lending. “The breakthrough that Flair provides is [that] they identify the borrowers who are ready to engage and connect them directly with our loan officers, allowing our team to spend more time having productive conversations and less time manually working through a list of leads. It has transformed how our teams approach lead follow-up.”

AI-automated outreach

According to Sen, the AI system automates repeated outreach after a borrower expresses interest in a mortgage product, whether through an online advertisement, lead provider or an existing customer database.

“What we’re able to automate is a touch plan of about six attempts per lead,” Sen said. “Every borrower is attended to. Today, most loan officers stop after one or two attempts, and the purpose of the AI is to have a more persistent approach so every borrower gets an opportunity to discuss what they are looking for.”

Not every borrower reached ultimately speaks with a loan officer. Sen said approximately 25% of contacted leads result in a live conversation, while roughly 15% to 20% of those conversations become either live transfers or scheduled appointments that the AI agent creates for the loan officer.

Long-term follow-up campaigns

Borrowers who are not immediately ready to move forward are placed into longer-term follow-up campaigns.

“The other borrowers may not have been immediately qualified, but they’re put on a nurturing cycle where, over time, some percentage of those end up becoming loans,” Sen said.

Of the 1,788 warm handoffs generated during the May deployment, about 200 ultimately resulted in funded loans, Sen confirmed.

Flair’s AI voice agents conduct initial conversations with borrowers, ask qualifying questions and determine whether to transfer the caller directly to a loan officer or schedule a callback if the loan officer is unavailable.

Sen said the platform integrates directly with West Capital’s Bonzo CRM system, allowing outreach to begin automatically when a new lead enters the CRM or meets other predefined triggers. To manage volume, the company also gives loan officers control over when the AI places calls or attempts live transfers.

Flair also analyzes call transcripts to surface the highest-priority leads each day, allowing loan officers to focus on borrowers who appear most likely to move forward.

Digital assistance transparency and compliance

As AI-powered customer interactions become more common in financial services, Sen said Flair emphasizes transparency and compliance. The company’s voice agents identify themselves as digital assistants at the beginning of every call, and Flair manages telephony compliance, including consent requirements, calling-hour restrictions and opt-out requests.

“We announce in the opening line that this is a digital assistant,” Sen said. “Even with that, anecdotally, we’ve found that many borrowers don’t realize they’re speaking with AI because the conversations are so natural. But we’re transparent about it.”

The company says its technology is designed to supplement rather than replace loan officers.

“A mortgage is still a human decision,” Sen said. “People want to talk to someone who can explain the tradeoffs and help them feel confident. We’re not trying to automate that relationship away. We’re trying to make sure the borrower who is ready for that conversation actually gets to the loan officer before the moment passes.”

The announcement comes after Flair Labs raised $4 million in funding led by Leo Capital with participation from Y Combinator. The company said it plans to use the capital to expand its AI voice platform for mortgage lenders, brokerages and loan officers.

This post was originally published on here. 

A ransomware group posts a lender’s name on a dark web leak site. Terabytes of loan files,  Social Security numbers, bank account details, employee records. The clock the public sees starts there. The clock that matters started weeks or months earlier, the day the intrusion was detected. And in the gap between those two moments, while the company says nothing, the most damaging part of the event is already underway. 

The mortgage industry has a breach problem. Since January, at least five nonbank lenders have disclosed prior hacks. One Long Island lender detected unauthorized network activity in  May 2025 and did not notify affected employees until March 2026, a delay a subsequent lawsuit puts at more than 260 days past the statutory deadline. These are not outliers. They are the pattern. 

But the breach itself is not the story worth telling. Lenders will keep getting attacked, because lenders hold exactly what attackers want. The story is what happens in the silence afterward,  and how much of that silence is a choice. 

The long tail of a loan file 

Start with what makes mortgage data uniquely toxic when it leaks. Lenders retain records for decades. When one large servicer was breached, the exposed data reached back to customers who had originated loans in 2001, people who had paid off their mortgages and had no reason to think the company still held their Social Security numbers. 

A breach at a mortgage company isn’t a snapshot of current customers. It is an archive. The 2024 loan file that funds a fraudulent application in 2027 is the same file sitting in the export a ransomware group just posted. 

That long tail is also a legal and reputational one. The moment data hits a leak site, the ecosystem activates. Plaintiffs’ firms file investigations within days. Claims aggregators stand up intake portals. State attorneys general open inquiries. One recent nonbank breach produced a settlement valued at more than $86 million. None of that resolves quickly. Rather than a one-day IT incident, a breach is a multi-year event that touches the balance sheet, the regulators and the brand, and it begins the moment the company goes quiet.

Here is where the silence becomes a choice. 

Forensics and notification run on different clocks 

The most common defense of a months-long delay is that the investigation was ongoing.  Forensics take time, the reasoning goes and you can’t notify people until you know what was taken. The first half of that is true. The second half is where companies get the sequence backward. 

Notification and forensic certainty run on two different clocks. Nearly every state breach notification statute triggers on discovery, when the organization knew or should have known,  not on the completion of the forensic report. The deadlines are tightening. 

California moved to a fixed 30 days from discovery as of January 2026 under SB 446, replacing a vaguer “without unreasonable delay” standard, and a growing number of states now run their clocks from the moment of discovery. Some make the point explicit, requiring notice to the state attorney general within the window even while the investigation is still ongoing. The law itself does not allow a company to wait for certainty. 

The cost of a shrinking window 

For a lender operating in 15 states, the obligation isn’t one clock but 15, each triggered at discovery, each running while the forensic picture is still developing. The honest operational answer is to build to the strictest combined standard and let counsel narrow it per incident, not to assemble the response under deadline pressure after the fact. 

A breach victim refreshing their bank statements doesn’t need the final forensic report. They need to know early that they may be exposed and what to do about it. Every day of silence is a day they don’t know to freeze their credit, and a day the company chooses silence, letting the story be written for them. By the time a polished, fully-investigated notification arrives months later, the narrative has already hardened: not “they were attacked,” but “they knew and said nothing.” 

Containing the breach is a security function. Communicating about it is a separate discipline,  on a separate timeline, and waiting for the security work to finish before beginning the communications work is the error that turns a bad week into a bad year. 

Building reputational defense before the breach 

The fix is not faster forensics. It is readiness built before the event. A company that has already worked through its breach scenarios, drafted its holding statements, mapped its notification obligations across every state it operates in and rehearsed who says what to whom is ready when the breach comes. It can put out a credible, responsible acknowledgment within hours of confirmation, while the forensic investigation proceeds in parallel. A company starting from zero at 11 p.m. on a Sunday cannot, and the hours it loses assembling a response are the hours the silence costs it most.

Reputational readiness is infrastructure. It belongs in the same category as the security controls and the legal review every serious lender already maintains, because the reputational exposure is as real as the regulatory one and far less defended. The breach you cannot prevent. The silence after it, you can. 

Mitch Cohen is the founder of ClearLine, a crisis communications readiness and response platform for mid-market organizations and the enterprises that serve and oversee them. He has 25 years of experience in strategic communications across fintech, data, and regulated industries.
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. 

This post was originally published on here. 

In the mortgage industry, no word carries more stigma than subprime. For anyone who lived through 2008, it brings up memories of falling home values, rising foreclosures and a financial system that nearly came apart at the seams. Pinning that same reputation on non-QM lending is a mistake the industry can no longer afford.

In the years since the crisis, the industry has unfairly lumped non-QM borrowers in with subprime borrowers. That misconception is costing the industry more than it realizes and doing real damage to borrowers who deserve better from the system designed to serve them.

To understand why, it helps to remember what subprime actually was, because it was not one thing. It started with a legitimate purpose. Subprime and its close cousin Alt-A were built for borrowers with real income who struggled to document it through conventional means. Those early products carried reasonable discipline and served people who were genuinely creditworthy but poorly served by a system built around W-2s and tax returns.

Then the guardrails came off. Lenders started offering stated-income loans, where borrowers could write down whatever income they wanted, and no one checked. Then came NINJA loans, which stood for No Income, No Job, No Assets, where the borrower did not need to prove anything at all. By the mid-2000s, the original idea had been buried under products handed to people with no realistic shot at repaying them.

Non-QM was built to meet the legitimate need to serve borrowers who did not fit the agency credit box, but it operates under an entirely different set of rules. The borrowers it serves are not people who cannot afford their homes. They are people whose financial lives do not cleanly translate into government forms. 

According to Nomura’s 2026 Securitized Products Outlook, non-QM loans originated in the second quarter of 2025 carry the highest credit scores the sector has ever recorded. Since the fourth quarter of 2022, lenders have reduced the share of low-FICO and high-LTV loans by approximately 50%. 

The credit box has tightened over time, not widened, despite the sector’s nearly nine-year existence. The trajectory runs in the exact opposite direction of what the market took heading into 2008.

The workforce changed, but the underwriting didn’t

Agency lending was designed for salaried employees with a W-2, buying a modest home, planning to pay it off over thirty years and staying put. That model made sense when it was drawn. That now describes a shrinking share of Americans’ actual earnings. 

Estimates of the self-employed population range from 16.5 million to more than 27 million, depending on how you measure it, according to the Center for American Progress. All measures agree that these are not marginal earners. 

Self-employed workers generate $156,000 in annual income on average, compared to $123,000 for traditional wage earners, according to St. Louis Federal Reserve data. The people the conventional mortgage system most often turns away are, in many cases, among the most financially capable people in the market.

The problem with conventional underwriting is that it reads a tax return and makes a decision. For many self-employed borrowers, that tax return won’t tell the whole story. For example, business owners who write off legitimate expenses, pay themselves through a pass-through entity or have income that fluctuates seasonally can appear to be a credit risk on paper, even when they are anything but. 

Non-QM underwriting gives lenders room to ask different questions. Instead of “What does your tax return say?” it asks, “What does your actual financial situation look like?” A borrower with 12 months of consistent bank deposits and 30% down is not a risk. They are a paperwork problem, and there is a big difference between the two.

Regulatory environment prevents a subprime repeat

The subprime collapse was about more than bad loans. It was about what happened to those loans the moment they were made. Lenders were packaging mortgages and selling them off within days, meaning they had no financial incentive to care whether the borrower ever made a payment. That was somebody else’s problem now. When you remove that accountability entirely, you get a machine that actively rewards lenders for making these bad loans.

Dodd-Frank addressed this directly. Under the Credit Risk Retention Rule, finalized by six federal agencies in 2014, sponsors of mortgage-backed securities must retain at least 5% of the credit risk of the assets they securitize. They cannot offload or hedge that position during a specified holding period. 

The rule exists to make sure the people packaging and selling mortgage securities have real money on the line if those securities fail. The originate-to-distribute model that triggered the subprime collapse now carries a mandatory cost.

The Ability-to-Repay framework goes even further. Every lender, including non-QM lenders, must verify that the borrower can afford the loan before closing. We are talking about a full review of income, assets, employment, monthly debt obligations and credit history. Non-QM lenders go through the same exercise. 

The difference is that instead of a W-2 and a tax return, they might use 12 months of bank statements or an asset schedule. The documentation looks different. The standard does not.

And here is the part of the argument the industry rarely makes loudly enough. A QM lender gets a legal safe harbor if a loan goes sideways. A non-QM lender gets no such protection. When a non-QM loan defaults and enters litigation, the lender must prove that the underwriting was sound. The system punishes bad non-QM underwriting in a way the subprime market of 2005 never did.

Non-QM volumes rising

The numbers tell the story pretty clearly. According to Nomura’s 2026 Securitized Products Outlook, non-QM origination volumes are on track to reach $150 billion in 2025, up from $50 billion in 2022, with room to reach $180 billion if rates decline. Non-QM hit a record 8% share of total mortgage origination volume in July 2025, up from around 5% the year before. 

More originators are offering it, more issuers are bringing deals to market and the institutional investors coming into the secondary market, insurance companies, pension funds and private credit funds are not the kind of buyers who take on risk without doing their homework.

There is one risk worth being straight about. Nomura points out that as volumes grow and more lenders pile in, there will be pressure to loosen credit standards. That has happened before, and it could happen again. The rules put in place after 2008 make it harder than it was, but rules only work if the people following them actually care about why they exist. The subprime era did not fail because there were no guidelines. It failed because the people running the machine stopped asking whether any of it made sense.  

Non-QM lending is not a concession to risk. It is the mortgage industry updating its picture of who a creditworthy borrower actually is in an economy where income is increasingly non-linear, non-traditional and no longer tied to a single employer sending out W-2s every January. 

The subprime era failed because lenders stopped asking whether borrowers could repay. Non-QM is defined, legally and practically, by the requirement that they must. Those are not the same thing. They were never the same thing.

Victor Kuznetsov, Managing Director, Imperial Fund Asset Management
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. 

This post was originally published on here. 

When rates surged and the mortgage market shifted almost overnight, lenders were forced into difficult decisions. Growth plans changed. Costs were reassessed. Teams had to adapt quickly to a different operating reality.

At Atlantic Bay Mortgage Group, that moment reinforced a simple truth: While market conditions are outside your control, organizational alignment is not.

In cycles like this, success isn’t defined by who has the boldest strategy. It’s defined by who executes with discipline and who can communicate priorities clearly, maintain accountability, solve problems quickly and stay focused as conditions change.

As a CFO, I’ve seen this repeatedly. Strategy sets direction, but execution determines outcomes.

Finding the right framework: The EOS advantage 

Many independent mortgage banks don’t struggle because they lack talent or ideas. They struggle when priorities become unclear, communication breaks down and accountability becomes inconsistent. In a business as complex as mortgage banking (spanning sales, underwriting, capital markets, compliance and servicing), even strong strategies can stall without a system to keep teams aligned.

That realization led Atlantic Bay to adopt the Entrepreneurial Operating System (EOS), a framework built to improve alignment, accountability and execution.

Our CEO was introduced to EOS through a peer in his Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) network. He saw how another company used it to drive alignment and believed it could help us scale more effectively while keeping our most significant asset at the forefront-culture.

What resonated wasn’t a new strategy. It was a better way to execute the one we already had.

The power of organizational alignment 

Mortgage banking requires coordination across functions that must stay aligned despite constant market shifts. EOS gave us a consistent structure for how we define and implement our vision and strategy, meet, communicate, solve issues and track progress. More importantly, it created discipline within our leadership to focus on what matters most.

The clearest impact was alignment.

When teams understand company priorities (and how their work connects to them), decision-making accelerates. Leaders spend less time clarifying direction and more time addressing opportunities and mitigating risks as they arise. Across the organization, energy shifts from debating priorities to executing against them.

EOS also strengthened accountability.

Accountability as a tool for clarity, not restriction 

Accountability is often misunderstood as restrictive. In practice, it creates clarity. High-performing teams want to know what success looks like, who owns what and how their work contributes to broader goals.

A structured operating framework defines ownership, increases transparency and surfaces issues early, before they become larger problems.

From a financial perspective, that discipline matters. Performance reflects thousands of decisions made across the organization every day. The more aligned those decisions are, the more consistent and predictable outcomes become.

One of the most meaningful impacts, however, has been cultural.

Sustaining culture as a competitive advantage 

As organizations grow, culture becomes harder to sustain through informal communication alone. EOS helped us clearly define our core values and integrate them into our operations. That has made it easier to reinforce expectations, guide decisions and maintain consistency as we scale.

In today’s environment, that clarity is a competitive advantage.

Attracting and retaining talent requires more than compensation. People want to understand how decisions are made, how success is defined and how their work contributes to something larger. More importantly, people want to understand how they can evolve and grow within their careers and in the company. Organizations that provide that clarity are better positioned to build engaged, resilient teams.

It’s also important to address a common misconception: EOS is not a strategy.

Execution as the ultimate differentiator 

Leadership still has to define the vision, make critical decisions about growth and risk and set direction. EOS doesn’t replace that work. It provides a framework to execute those decisions with greater discipline and consistency.

Could other independent mortgage banks benefit from a system like EOS? In many cases, yes.

Not because EOS is a one-size-fits-all solution, but because every IMB faces the same core challenge: maintaining alignment across a complex organization in a cyclical, rapidly changing market.

The specific framework matters less than the commitment to disciplined execution.

The mortgage industry will continue to evolve. Market cycles will shift. Technology will advance. Borrower expectations will change. Leaders can’t control those forces. But they can control how their organizations communicate, align and execute.

In my experience, that’s what separates companies that react to change from those positioned to lead through it. Because in mortgage banking, execution isn’t just an operational necessity. It’s a competitive advantage.

Morgan Wise, CFO at Atlantic Bay Mortgage Group.
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. 

This post was originally published on here. 

The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed legislation that would make a series of changes to federal banking regulations, including easing certain capital, supervisory and merger requirements for community banks and other smaller financial institutions.

The bill is sponsored by House Committee on Financial Services Chairman French Hill (Ark.-02) and Subcommittee on Financial Institutions Chairman Andy Barr (Ky.-06)

The bill, H.R. 6955, known as the Main Street Capital Access Act, passed largely along party lines on a final vote of 270-154. A total of 213 Republicans and 56 Democrats voted in favor of the measure, while 154 Democrats voted against it. One Republican voted no, and one independent voted in favor.

According to the bill’s summary, the legislation lessens and otherwise modifies banking regulations related to institution formation, supervision by federal financial regulators and bank merger requirements.

The news comes as Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analysts released data that banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Truist, PNC, Fifth Third, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo reported a combined $56.1 billion in second-quarter 2026 mortgage volume, up from $46.4 billion in the first quarter.

Changes could prompt large banks to reenter mortgage market

Industry executives have told HousingWire that forthcoming changes to capital requirements could prompt large banks to reenter or expand in the mortgage market. Still, they expect institutions to move cautiously rather than make immediate strategic changes.

“As a former community banker, I’ve seen firsthand how community banks drive Main Street’s growth,” Hill said in a statement. “For decades, Washington has forced these institutions to operate under rules built for the largest, most systemically important banks, stifling local lending and accelerating industry consolidation. This bill fixes that. It spurs the formation of new banks, restores common-sense tailoring to bank regulation and removes barriers that have limited lending in communities across the country.”

Barr also released a statement calling the passage of the bill a “regulatory framework that expands access to capital, promotes economic growth, and strengthens Main Street.”

The bill would give newly chartered banks three years to meet certain capital requirements and reduce the leverage ratio for qualifying rural community banks. It also would require federal banking regulators to tailor supervisory actions based on an institution’s risk profile and business model, conduct more frequent reviews of regulations and expand the scope of those reviews.

The bill also would ease certain bank merger requirements by allowing regulators to approve some mergers without evaluating whether a transaction is noncompetitive or monopolistic in specified cases.

In addition, it would increase asset thresholds tied to regulatory fees, reporting requirements and other oversight provisions, exempting more financial institutions from those requirements.

Raises the asset threshold

Among other provisions, the legislation would raise the asset threshold above which financial holding companies must obtain Federal Reserve Board approval before acquiring another company, allowing more acquisitions to proceed without board approval. It also would raise thresholds allowing additional small bank holding companies to operate with higher debt levels and enable more small banks to qualify for longer examination cycles.

The bill also includes provisions related to reciprocal deposits, the resolution of failed banks and other regulated banking activities.

The proposed legislation faces several opponents

In a joint letter to the House dated July 21, 28 consumer advocacy groups, including the National Community Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC), National Consumer Law Center, Public Citizen and Community Housing Development Corporation, called the bill a “dangerous deregulatory package.”

“H.R. 6955 treats bank rules as burdens to be minimized rather than what they are: essential safeguards that reduce the likelihood and severity of systemic risk, bank failures and publicly financed bailouts, while protecting consumers from predatory practices, redlining, and other forms of racial discrimination in lending,” the letter said.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren also voiced concerns about the bill. “While American families struggle to afford everyday expenses, House Republicans are advancing a key pillar of President Trump’s Wall Street First Agenda,” she said. “The Main Street Capital Access Act is a massive giveaway to Wall Street masquerading as a community bank relief bill. The bill would relax supervision of big banks and their executives, fast-track big bank mergers, exempt more big banks from enhanced oversight, and provide big bank lawyers with new tools to overturn safeguards and enforcement actions in court.”

Warren called the bill “reckless” and claimed that the provisions of the bill would “increase the likelihood of big bank failures.” She also said that it “shreds bipartisan compromises struck during the negotiation of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, inviting much greater risk into the banking system.”

The measure now moves to the Senate for consideration.

This post was originally published on here. 

The market-driven forces for greater homebuilder margins, sales pace and efficiency in 2026 take a variety of shapes, sizes, risks and opportunistic tactics. For PulteGroup, a key margin-enhancing strategy is leveraging improved build-cycles and a balanced sales pace to swell its mix of build-to-order (BTO) homes vs. speculative starts.

Pulte, the third-largest homebuilder according to HousingWire’s homebuilder rankings, has intentionally shifted more of its business away from spec builds and toward more profitable BTO sales, particularly for move-up and active adult buyers who value customization and tend to have discretionary wherewithal to buy despite rate and ASP friction that has stalled other sources of demand.

This strategy, which offers higher margins than spec builds, was already underway in Q1 and continued to gain momentum last quarter, according to Pulte’s Q2 earnings call held on Wednesday.

The strategic shift came as Pulte navigated a quarter that saw consumer activity thwarted by macroeconomic uncertainty, global tensions and interest-rate volatility. Despite those headwinds, orders increased across all buyer groups, margins remained resilient and units in backlog ticked up. However, results were mixed, as revenues fell 11.6% year over year and the average sales price also declined. 

A strategic shift to BTO

Pulte has already made substantial progress on plans at least a year in the making to shift the business back to its historic product mix of 60% BTO and 40% spec, a goal that the company expects to realize at some point next year. 

In the second quarter, the builder’s order mix was 45% BTO and 55% spec. According to Pulte President and CEO Ryan Marshall, year-to-date orders for build-to-order homes were up from just “39% during the same six-month period last year.” 

Another benchmark executives targeted is maintaining the number of finished specs per community between 1.0 and 1.5. Pulte is now in the middle of this range at 1.3 homes per community by the end of the quarter, a level that executives are satisfied with.

The company’s spec home sales peaked during Q3 2025, reaching about 60% of total orders. However, the builder has been progressively shifting away from its prior spec strategy for much of the last year. 

“Our decision to build more spec homes once supply chains collapsed and build cycles effectively doubled was the right one at the time, but we much prefer having a growing backlog of sold homes,” Marshall explained. 

At the end of 2024, Pulte had about 8,800 spec homes in production. This number fell to 7,200 specs at the end of 2025, and is now down to 6,600 specs in production as of the end of Q2. 

Pulte has also continued to emphasize its popular, higher-margin Del Webb active adult communities. The strategy appears to be gaining traction, with active adult orders rising 12% in the quarter, compared with 5% growth among first-time buyers and 4% growth among move-up buyers.

By the quarter’s end, active adult buyers accounted for 25% of net new orders, compared with 39% for first-time buyers and 36% for move-up. 

How pace plays into Pulte’s BTO shift

The shift to BTO was supported by a sharp decline in cycle times, which fell from 123 days a year ago to about 100 days as of Q2.

“Given our build cycle time is down to 100 working days, and even lower in many markets, we are now able to selectively use market rate buydowns to facilitate BTO sales,” Jim Ossowski, Executive VP and CFO, explained.

As Pulte moves toward a greater mix of BTO sales, executives expect starts to become more closely aligned with sales. That allows the builder to respond to real-time demand rather than build ahead of demand, as it did when longer cycle times required a larger spec inventory. With construction times now significantly reduced, the company can wait for a home to sell before starting construction, executives say.

Pulte has also strategically reduced starts to support the transition and protect margins. In the first half of 2026, the builder intentionally started fewer homes than it sold, with 15,570 net new orders compared with 14,378 starts. Many of the homes sold during the period came from existing spec inventory that Pulte was working to clear.

The strategy allows for greater flexibility when managing the pace of sales and starts, while reducing reliance on spec inventory. At the same time, the focus is on balancing sales pace with pricing and margin resiliency, rather than simply maximizing volume. 

Marshall said a community generally needs to sell at least two homes per month to achieve the economies of scale necessary for a production builder, though the optimal pace varies by community and depends on whether additional volume can be achieved without sacrificing price or profitability.

“We’ve been working to match starts with prior quarter sales as kind of the best linkage, with the caveat that we intentionally under-started the sales that we had in the first half because we had more spec inventory than we wanted. A lot of the sales that we had in the first half were specs that we wanted to get out of the system. As we continue to make this transition back to build to order, you’ll see a stronger linkage between what we’re selling and what we’re starting,” Marshall explained. 

Margins and incentives rebounded, but prices fell

Pulte’s earnings also reflected the competing pressures it is facing on pricing, incentives and margins. Home sale revenue fell 12% year over year, driven by an 8% decline in closings and a 3% decline in average sales price to $544,000. 

Ossowski claimed that the lower average sales price was primarily a result of product mix, with fewer closings coming from the Northeast and West, Pulte’s two highest-priced operating regions. However, the builder did benefit from a greater mix of closings in higher-margin Florida markets. 

This price pressure is reflective of a broader national trend. Nationally, the average price of a new home was essentially flat year over year as of May, when prices averaged $424,900, reflecting the affordability constraints facing buyers.

Despite the lower average selling price, Pulte’s gross margin improved to 25% in the second quarter, up 60 basis points sequentially, but falling 200 basis points year over year. 

Incentives as a percentage of total sales price also improved sequentially, falling 50 basis points to 10.4%. Marshall cautioned that incentives will likely remain elevated for some time, but he noted that incentive levels are notably lower among BTO orders. The shift toward BTO is therefore helping Pulte manage some of the pricing and incentive pressure. 

“I’m very pleased to see that our incentives came down 50 basis points in the quarter. They’re still high, even though they did come down. We’d expect, just given everything that the consumer’s dealing with and the affordability challenges, that we’ll remain in an elevated incentive environment,” Marshall acknowledged. 

Navigating cost pressures

Like many other public builders, Pulte continues to leverage its scale and negotiating power to reduce home construction costs, which fell 5% over the last year and 1% sequentially, to just under $75 per square foot. 

While the builder made progress on cost reductions, Marshall acknowledged that there are risks, including increases in lumber prices. With the war in Iran now reignited with no end in sight, rising oil prices are also a major concern. 

“Oil probably continues to be the one that I’m most nervous about just because of how much oil is in some pretty big-ticket items like land development,” Marshall said. “There are some real big dollars that go into land development, never mind the diesel fuel that goes into the tractors that are moving dirt around. Those are things that we’re really paying attention to that could have an impact on not just price per square foot house costs, but ultimately maybe developed land cost.”

Marshall also took note of the increased consolidation among suppliers, claiming that it has been a net positive for homebuilders so far. This is because larger distributors have gained greater scale and, in some cases, have been able to offer strategic benefits and improved efficiencies. Pulte is exploring deeper partnerships with some of those suppliers. 

“Net-net…at this point, I think it’s generally a positive,” Marshall said. “We hope that as far as it relates to us, that return can come from increased efficiencies as opposed to just forcing higher prices on us or their customers.”

Geographic strengths and weaknesses

Pulte saw year-over-year order growth in four of its five regions during Q2, with the Midwest, Southeast and Florida standing out as areas of strength. Demand was particularly strong in markets including Columbus, Cleveland, Chicago, Greenville and the Coastal Carolinas, while Florida rebounded with orders up 19% year over year. The company also observed early signs of improvement in Dallas and Houston, though executives cautioned that it is too soon to declare a broader recovery in the Lone Star State.

The West remained PulteGroup’s weakest region, with slower demand and more competition for buyers. California and the Pacific Northwest showed some improvement, but demand remained soft. 

How Pulte evaluates M&A opportunities

Marshall said that recent homebuilder M&A transactions exemplify “a growing recognition that scale, particularly local market scale, matters,” pointing to the improved access to land and labor that comes with scale. 

Marshall, who views M&A primarily as a way to accelerate scale in existing markets, said that Pulte is mainly interested in acquisitions in markets where it has recently expanded organically. The company evaluates potential deals first on strategic fit, including whether the target operates in the right markets, serves the right buyer groups and will increase profitability. However, most potential M&A deals aren’t a good fit. 

“Even if we’re able to answer the first question, which is the hardest, if you can get past that, sometimes the underwriting, the risk-adjusted underwriting doesn’t make sense,” Marshall said. “As a result, while the company reviews a steady stream of potential deals, it is relatively rare for a target to progress to the point where Pulte is seriously considering an offer.”

The builder hasn’t acquired a competitor in years. Previous acquisitions over the last decade include Nevada-based American West Homes in 2019 and Sun Belt builder John Wieland Homes and Neighborhoods in 2016.

This post was originally published on here. 

A House Judiciary subcommittee is pressing Compass International Holdings and Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) to explain their nationwide private listing network partnership, citing concerns that the arrangement could limit transparency, reduce competition and harm homebuyers and sellers.

The House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform and Antitrust sent separate letters on July 22, 2026, to Compass CEO Robert Reffkin and MRED President and CEO Rebecca Jensen requesting briefings on the companies’ use of private listing networks and their recently announced data partnership. The letters were obtained and verified by HousingWire.

The letters, signed by subcommittee chair Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., say the panel is examining whether certain real estate companies are using private listing networks (PLNs) and similar structures “to insulate themselves from competition at the expense of consumers,” undercutting the goals of U.S. antitrust law.

In April, MRED — one of the nation’s largest multiple listing services — announced a deal with Compass to expand its Private Listing Network nationwide, opening participation to agents outside MRED’s traditional Midwest footprint. Under the agreement, MRED offers agents “off-MLS listings” that are not available to the general public, while Compass markets many of those properties as “Compass Private Exclusive” listings shared first within its own agent network before they appear on Zillow, Redfin, Realtor.com or local MLSs, according to the letters. Compass does have a mutually exclusive deal with Redfin to premarket its coming soon listings.

The subcommittee flagged several potential competitive concerns raised by the Compass–MRED structure and PLNs generally:

• Reduced transparency and fragmented inventory: Lawmakers cited industry commentary that PLNs can “lock” listing information into closed systems, making it harder for buyers without access to those networks to see available homes, compare prices or make informed decisions. Fragmentation of inventory could weaken price competition and create “velvet ropes” around certain properties, the letters note.
• Incentives for private listings and dual agency: The letters point to research and watchdog reports alleging that private networks encourage brokers to steer sellers off the open MLS. That, in turn, can increase “double-ending” or dual agency, where the same agent represents both sides of the deal and collects the full commission instead of sharing it with a cooperating broker. Lawmakers say this structure can create conflicts of interest and limit buyers’ access to independent representation.
• Captive buyer pipelines: The subcommittee also raises concerns that PLNs may let listing agents capture unrepresented buyers who discover a home through a private network, allowing the listing agent or brokerage to convert them into in-house clients or referrals, further concentrating deal flow.

The letters reference reporting from HousingWire, The New York Times, The Real Deal and other outlets, as well as research from consumer advocates, that has documented Compass’s rapid post-merger market share growth and the rise of private listing practices linked to double-ended deals.

Fitzgerald’s letters request that Compass and MRED each arrange a staff briefing on their “business practices, including [their] use of PLNs and recent partnership” by no later than 10 a.m. Eastern on Aug. 5, 2026. The subcommittee says the information will inform potential legislative reforms concerning “protection of trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopoly” under House Rule X.

Compass and MRED have not yet responded to HousingWire’s request for comment on the subcommittee’s July 22 letters. The panel has invited both companies to contact committee staff at the Judiciary Committee’s Washington office to coordinate the requested briefings.

The relationship between Compass and MRED was called into question in a lawsuit filed by Zillow in May. In the suit, Zillow claims that Compass and MRED conspired to withhold listing data from Zillow. The court overseeing the lawsuit is currently reviewing Zillow’s motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to prevent MRED from withholding listings from Zillow.

This article was written by Brooklee Han and generated with the assistance of HousingWire Automation, then reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took a big step toward clearing the path for developers to build smaller apartment buildings more affordably.

Whitmer signed Michigan’s single-stair legislation into law this week, a green light for developers to build multifamily housing up to six stories more economically, with a single interior exit stairway.

Michigan housing advocates say the win improves the chances that a broader “Housing Readiness” package they support in the legislature will pass.

“This could propel the momentum that we need to change” the laws to make housing more affordable, Lauren Strickland, Abundant Housing Michigan‘s executive director, told HousingWire TBD.

The single-stair move makes Michigan the latest state to break from a longstanding International Building Code two-staircase requirement for residential buildings taller than three stories. Colorado, Texas and Montana are among the states that have already adopted similar thresholds. More than a dozen others continue to study the change, while a number of city governments have moved ahead with the change.

Tennessee enacted an opt-in law in 2024. Nashville, Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga took advantage of it last year.

Washington, D.C., is finalizing its own version. California lawmakers are considering comparable legislation.

Fire officials nationwide tend to come out against these changes, arguing a second staircase gives residents an extra escape route and firefighters a clear path to fight the blaze. Connecticut is a prime example of the political power fire officials wield.

The state adopted reform in 2024 to allow a single-stair building up to four stories, adding just one floor above the previous limit. But that single floor drew opposition from fire and safety officials. They bogged down the rules-and-regulations process to the point that lawmakers repealed the law in February.

Smooth passage

Two related bills advanced through the Michigan Senate after clearing the House earlier this year with bipartisan backing. Whitmer’s signature finalizes a two-tier structure: one law permits single-stair construction in buildings up to four stories. The second extends that allowance to buildings between five and six stories. This second measure takes effect only because the first passed, tying the two together as intended.

The rules will sunset once Michigan’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity formally adopts the International Code Council’s own single-stairway standards. That frames the new rules as a bridge measure rather than a permanent break from the model code.

Housing advocates who pushed for the change argue it will meaningfully lower construction costs, particularly for infill projects in dense urban corridors where lot sizes constrain design. A single-stairway layout frees up floor space that would otherwise go toward a second stairwell, letting developers fit more units or larger units into the same footprint.

“It will allow us to build more homes for families of different sizes at lower costs — all on land we already have,” Matt Grocoff, an Ann Arbor-based developer and founder of Thrive Collaborative, said in a statement. “For families priced out of Michigan communities, this law may be the difference between a home that gets built and one that never gets built.”

Still time for more housing reform

The single-stair law stands out as one of the few housing wins on the governor’s desk this year. Whitmer’s agenda is “build, baby, build.”

But the Housing Readiness package, which would loosen parking minimums, lot-size rules and accessory dwelling unit restrictions, has stalled for now. It faces resistance from local governments wary of losing zoning authority, and the Michigan Municipal League’s competing MI Home Program is similarly stalled.

Separately, Whitmer’s proposed Michigan Housing Opportunity Credit, which would stack atop the federal Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, passed the full Senate in June and awaits action in the House Regulatory Reform Committee. Sen. Jeff Irwin has projected the credit could generate more than 2,500 affordable units annually if enacted.

Michigan’s legislative session runs longer than most other states around the country. It is one of the few states with a near year-round session, running from mid-January to Dec. 31.

“We still have time,” Strickland said. “All hope is not lost.”

This post was originally published on here. 

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released its second-quarter update on the 2026-2028 strategic plan on Wednesday outlining progress on lobbying, legal strategy, MLS guidance, technology and education designed to protect member businesses and reinforce the value of membership.

NAR CEO Nykia Wright said the plan is the association’s primary vehicle for delivering advocacy, guidance and tools to help members serve clients and grow their businesses in a fast-changing market and regulatory environment.

The update, which runs through seven priority areas, comes as the industry continues to absorb the impact of commission litigation, shifting Department of Justice (DOJ) scrutiny of MLS practices and affordability pressures tied to high mortgage rates and constrained inventory. For brokers, MLSs and agents, the details signal how NAR is deploying its resources over the next two years and where to expect new tools or policy changes.

Advocacy and coalition building

NAR said it helped shepherd what it called the most significant federal housing package in nearly two decades into law through a nationwide advocacy campaign and coalition work. The organization framed the legislation as a response to ongoing supply and affordability challenges.

For lenders, brokerages and real estate agents operating in markets defined by low inventory and stretched buyers, the scope and implementation of this package will influence demand, construction pipelines and local planning decisions. NAR positioned its coalition activity as a way to keep members at the table as federal agencies and lawmakers translate legislation into rules and programs.

MLS guidance and regulatory engagement

On the MLS front, NAR reported that it published practical guidance and resources for MLSs and members and convened industry partners to send letters to the DOJ, Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Copyright Office in support of the MLS system.

The guidance is aimed at increasing clarity around MLS policies, while the letters seek to underscore the role of MLSs in maintaining a transparent, pro-competitive marketplace. This work lands as regulators and courts reexamine how listing data, broker cooperation and compensation are structured.

For MLS executives and brokerage leaders, the update signals that additional policy clarifications and documentation could be coming from NAR to help align local rules with evolving legal and regulatory expectations.

Litigation strategy and brand protection

NAR said it has “reduced legal uncertainty” through a series of developments, including a strategic settlement in the Tuccori homebuyer commission case and multiple court dismissals of challenges to NAR’s membership and MLS structure.

The Tuccori settlement has received preliminary court approval. If granted final approval, NAR said, it would provide members, state and local associations, MLSs and eligible brokerages with protection from potential copycat lawsuits without requiring new business practice changes.

For brokerage owners and association leaders navigating the broader landscape of commission-related litigation, the scope of the Tuccori deal and the referenced dismissals will be closely watched as potential signals for how courts are viewing NAR’s structures and policies. The association’s emphasis on brand protection also reflects a push to steady consumer confidence amid ongoing headlines about the industry’s compensation model.

Broker engagement and business support

NAR reported that it has stepped up broker engagement by deploying new broker-specific resources, business tools, advocacy forums and direct outreach intended to support operations and business generation.

These efforts include more targeted programming tailored to brokerage needs, such as forums that tie policy developments to day-to-day business decisions. For brokerage leaders working through margin compression, agent retention and changing lead flows, additional NAR-backed tools and touchpoints could influence decisions around training, compliance and technology adoption.

Technology and data modernization

The association said it delivered new market intelligence tools and strengthened member data capabilities in the second quarter. The goal, according to the update, is to help members make more informed business decisions, better serve clients and compete in a data-driven market.

Governance and committee reform

NAR said it is continuing its multiyear effort to modernize governance through strategic committee reforms. Recent changes include a new application process designed to align member expertise with leadership opportunities and a simplified committee structure.

The stated objective is a “more effective and efficient” governance system with a stronger leadership pipeline. For association volunteers and state and local leaders, these changes may affect how they engage with NAR’s national committees, how quickly policy changes move and where member voices are integrated into decision-making.

Education and professionalism

On the education front, NAR reported “stakeholder-driven” curriculum updates, migration to a new learning management system and more accessible professional development options. The aim is to give members easier access to modern coursework that helps them build skills, meet rising professional standards and reinforce consumer trust in Realtors.

“The goal is simple: clearer information, more useful resources and stronger support to help you run your business and serve your clients in today’s market,” Wright said.

What’s next

Looking ahead, NAR said it will continue to execute on the strategic plan through more role-specific programming at its NAR NXT conference, the formal launch of its new learning management system and what it described as an increased commitment to professionalism.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

SERHANT. appointed Nick Janovsky director of luxury sales for Tampa, St. Petersburg and the Gulf Beaches, the company announced on Wednesday.

Based in St. Petersburg, Janovsky brings more than $250 million in career sales volume across 340-plus transactions, according to the announcement. He was a top producer for five consecutive years in Premier Sotheby’s International Realty’s St. Petersburg office and was ranked in previous editions of the RealTrends Verified agent rankings 

Janovsky specializes in luxury waterfront estates, architecturally significant homes, new development, investment properties and executive relocations. At Premier Sotheby’s, he led The Nick Janovsky Group.

“I’ve spent more than a decade becoming one of Tampa Bay’s top luxury real estate advisors, and real estate has changed,” Janovsky said in the announcement. “The future belongs to advisors who can combine relationships, strategy, media, technology and storytelling at the highest level. SERHANT.’s ability to pair deep local expertise with a national audience, world-class marketing, industry-leading content and a platform that creates opportunities for clients on a much larger scale.”

SERHANT. entered Florida in 2023 and has been expanding across the state. Since launching in 2020, SERHANT. has grown to more than 2,000 agents in 17 markets. 

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

National mortgage lender HighTechLending has rolled out major enhancements to its EquitySelect product line, expanding borrower eligibility, raising maximum loan-to-value ratios and widening access to low-payment qualification options for home equity loans.

The changes, announced Wednesday, are effective immediately through HighTechLending’s wholesale channel. The move comes as homeowners hold near-record levels of tappable home equity but face tighter credit conditions and higher rates that restrict access to standard home equity products.

“By expanding eligibility and increasing borrowing capacity, we’re enabling our partners to help more borrowers access the equity they’ve built while overcoming many of the qualification challenges associated with traditional home equity products,” David Peskin, CEO at HighTechLending, said in a statement.

The 1% qualifying payment plan is now available to homeowners ages 55 and older, while homeowners between 50 and 54 can now qualify using payment plans as low as 3%.

At the same time, maximum LTVs have been increased across all five payment plan options — 1%, 2%, 3%, 4% and 5% of the current annual balance — allowing qualified borrowers to access a larger share of their home equity.

The enhancements apply to both the EquitySelect 1st Position Loan and the EquitySelect 2nd Lien HELOC, with loan amounts available up to $4 million, HighTechLending said.

The company positions the program as a solution for debt consolidation, home improvements, retirement planning, emergency expenses and other consumer cash-flow needs.

EquitySelect debuted in September as a first-lien home equity loan that allows borrowers to set monthly payments as low as 1% of their annualized loan balance, subject to a cap. A second-lien version was launched in January – it does not disturb existing first mortgages, a key consideration for borrowers who locked in ultra-low rates in recent years.

The product is designed to function more like a credit card, with any unpaid interest added to the loan balance and ultimately repaid when the home is sold or through a final balloon payment that will not exceed the property’s value.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

South Carolina- based Movement Mortgage has launched a national Diverse Lending Support Team and an in-house Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) mortgage product to serve more Spanish-speaking homebuyers.

The Diverse Lending Support Team (DLST) is a dedicated bilingual group that supports loan officers working with Spanish-speaking borrowers, the company said in its announcement.

“Language should never be a barrier to opportunity,” Jeremy Berrios, Movement’s vice president, multicultural markets and strategic growth, said in a statement. “This investment will help us create greater access, deliver a better experience and serve our communities with excellence.”

The team builds on Comunidad, Movement’s Spanish-language lending platform introduced in 2016, which covers the full mortgage process. The new team adds staff capacity on top of that infrastructure.

For LOs who do not speak Spanish, DLST functions as an extension of their business, enabling them to originate loans they may not have been able to do previously. Spanish-speaking LOs can use DLST for bilingual assistants and support staff, helping manage files so they can focus on relationships and production.

Movement has also brought its ITIN mortgage program in-house. The product offers financing up to 85% loan-to-value for qualified borrowers who do not have a Social Security number.

“The move replaces a traditionally complicated, fee-heavy broker process with a simpler, less expensive experience supported by Movement’s own lending professionals from start to finish,” the company said in the announcement.

The combination of a centralized bilingual support team and an in-house ITIN product could streamline how they capture and serve a growing segment of the market that has often faced language and documentation barriers in the mortgage process.

The National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) projects that Latino households will drive a substantial share of U.S. homeownership growth in the coming decades, making language access and ITIN lending capabilities increasingly important for lenders that want to compete in these communities.

Movement funds more than $20 billion in residential mortgages each year and employs more than 3,000 teammates across all 50 states, the company said.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

Public homebuilders say they care about housing affordability. Their earnings calls reveal a more immediate set of priorities: protecting margins, controlling inventory and preserving pricing power.

In Dallas-Fort Worth, the consequences are easiest to see south of Main Street, where teachers, nurses, police officers, firefighters, linemen, tradespeople and young families are trying to turn ordinary paychecks into stable lives.

For these households, affordability is not an economic abstraction. It is the distance between a salary and a mortgage approval. It is the extra hour spent commuting because the homes near work no longer fit the family budget. It is the uncomfortable choice among childcare, healthcare, retirement savings and rent.

Meanwhile, Wall Street rewards public homebuilders for doing almost everything except building enough homes to put meaningful downward pressure on prices. Builders protect margins. They reduce speculative inventory. They hit the brakes on new starts. They delay phase releases. They offer temporary mortgage-rate buydowns instead of permanent price reductions. Then they call it discipline.

In a corporate presentation, that strategy looks prudent. South of Main, it can look like a housing shortage being managed for yield.

Where the shortage becomes human

“South of Main” is more than a phrase in DFW. It describes the parts of the region where more working households find themselves priced out of the communities they serve.

These are not families demanding oversized lots, luxury finishes or marble bathrooms large enough to host a city council meeting. They are looking for a safe neighborhood, reasonable schools, a manageable commute and a monthly payment that does not consume the rest of their financial lives. Yet many new subdivisions now open at prices beyond the reach of first-time buyers earning the prevailing wages paid by nearby school districts, hospitals, police departments, utility companies and local businesses.

That defines the affordability failure: the people needed to operate a community increasingly cannot afford to live in it. From 2020 through 2024, home prices and rents across Texas rose much faster than many public-sector and service-sector wages. Land became more expensive. Materials became more expensive. Financing became dramatically more expensive. Municipal fees, infrastructure obligations, insurance, labor shortages and development delays added still more cost.

Household incomes did not rise in lockstep. The result is an expanding affordability wedge—the growing difference between what working households earn and what they must earn to qualify for a newly built home. Texas may remain less expensive than California or New York. That is cold comfort to a teacher in Mansfield, a firefighter in Burleson or a nurse in Fort Worth who still cannot qualify for a home near work. Being cheaper than an unaffordable coastal market does not automatically make a market affordable.

The earnings call definition of discipline

Listen to almost any public-builder earnings call during a softer housing market, and the language becomes predictable: Protect the margin. Control starts. Reduce specs. Manage incentives. Maintain pricing integrity. Remain disciplined.

Wall Street hears prudence. Families hear fewer homes.

Public builders have become extraordinarily sophisticated at improving the appearance of affordability without meaningfully reducing the underlying price of the house. A temporary mortgage-rate buydown can lower the monthly payment for a set period, but it does not reduce the home’s base price. Closing-cost credits may help a buyer reach the closing table, but they do not correct the region’s wage-to-price imbalance. “Free” upgrades may improve perceived value, but granite countertops do not make a mortgage affordable.

These incentives can be useful. In some cases, they make the difference between a family buying a home and continuing to rent. But they should not be confused with a supply strategy. The deeper strategy is inventory control. Builders reduce starts and delay phase releases to prevent excess supply from forcing prices lower. That supports gross margin, return on equity, earnings per share and investor guidance.

It also preserves scarcity.

There is nothing irrational about this from the perspective of a publicly traded company. Management teams are accountable to shareholders. Their job is not correcting regional housing shortages.

If building fewer homes protects returns, the market may reward them for building fewer homes.

That is the structural problem.

The companies with the greatest scale, capital access, purchasing power and operating infrastructure are often rewarded for managing the shortage more effectively – not necessarily for building their way out of it. We have created a system in which the housing crisis can remain painful for households and profitable for housing companies at the same time.

Wall Street may call that alignment. South of Main might use a different word.

DFW is entering the dangerous middle

DFW is not Austin. Median home prices are generally lower, and the region continues to offer more land, more employment centers and more attainable suburban options.

But DFW is drifting into a dangerous middle ground. It is no longer inexpensive enough for working families to assume homeownership will remain available to them. At the same time, it is not yet expensive enough to generate the political urgency seen in coastal markets where the affordability crisis has become impossible to ignore.

That allows the problem to worsen quietly.

Across Texas, median home prices increased roughly 40% from early 2020 through 2024, rising from around $244,000 to approximately $340,000. Homes priced below $200,000—once the traditional entry point for many working families—have nearly disappeared from major markets.

DFW followed the same broad trajectory. The region added residents, jobs, corporate relocations and investment. But the wage curve for teachers, first responders, nurses, municipal employees and many skilled trades did not keep pace with the price curve for finished lots and new homes.

In a growing number of DFW submarkets, the income needed to buy a median-priced new home is approaching or exceeding $90,000 to $100,000.

That is well beyond what many households performing essential work across the region earn.

The rental market offers limited refuge. Texas has only about 26 affordable and available rental units for every 100 extremely low-income households, according to estimates from the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The statewide deficit approaches 700,000 units. DFW alone has hundreds of thousands of lower-income renter households competing for a fraction of the affordable units they need.

The consequences are predictable: longer commutes, delayed homeownership, overcrowding, reduced savings, greater financial fragility and households spending far more than 30% of their income on shelter.

A region can continue growing under those conditions. It simply becomes a harder place for the people doing the actual work.

Private builders can follow households

Texas still has another model. Not all scale is the same. DFW’s private-builder ecosystem includes large local operators, Texas-focused platforms and national private builders that all work under different incentive structures.

Privately held builders such as Bloomfield Homes, Highland Homes, David Weekley Homes and other regional operators do not answer to the same quarterly incentives as publicly traded companies. Bloomfield Homes is an example of the large DFW-based private builder with deep local roots and scale. Highland Homes is a Texas-focused builder with a long history across multiple metros in the state. David Weekley Homes stands as a national private builder with a broader geographic footprint.

None of them are charities. They still need margins. They still need capital. They still need to survive land cycles, interest-rate shocks, labor shortages and the occasional city council convinced that every new rooftop will personally cause rush-hour traffic.

But private ownership can create more room to think beyond the next earnings call. A large local private such as Bloomfield can align closely with regional wage structures and household demand. A Texas-wide player like Highland can carry successful products and site plans from one metro to another. A national private like David Weekley can bring higher-volume scale and systems to bear, while still working outside the strict cadence of quarterly guidance.

Private builders can design for the family household standing in the sales office rather than the analyst listening from New York. They can hold land through a cycle, adjust product more patiently, accept lower margins in one phase to establish a long-term community and pursue price points that may be strategically valuable even when they are not immediately accretive to quarterly earnings.

In practice, that can mean smaller plans, narrower lots, townhomes, duplexes, cottage products, fewer structural options, simpler elevations and less square footage devoted to rooms nobody has used since Thanksgiving 2007.

It can also mean developing more housing near employment centers rather than pushing every attainable buyer farther into the exurbs. The goal is not to build cheap housing. The goal is to build housing that working families can buy without requiring financial acrobatics. There is a difference.

The land model matters

Builders alone cannot solve the problem. Affordability often disappears before a homebuilder ever puts a finished lot on a balance sheet.

It disappears when land is acquired at an unrealistic basis. It disappears during years of entitlement delay. It disappears through oversized lots, excessive setbacks, mandatory materials, inflated development standards, redundant infrastructure requirements and fees that are embedded in—and financed through—a 30-year mortgage.

By the time the builder receives the finished lot, an affordable home may already be mathematically impossible. That is why capital allocators, land developers and policymakers should begin asking a more useful question:

Does this project make money by helping solve the shortage, or does it make money by preserving it?

A land strategy built around attainable housing must begin with a realistic basis, efficient infrastructure, thoughtful density and a product reverse-engineered from the customer’s monthly payment. That does not mean placing identical tiny houses on every available acre. Density without design produces opposition for good reason.

But smaller lots, shared open space, trails, parks, townhomes, duplexes and compact detached homes can combine to create neighborhoods that are both attractive and attainable. The choice is not between affordability and quality. The choice is between thoughtful design and lazy math.

Policy should catalyze and reward production

Public policy also needs to distinguish between projects that expand attainable supply and those that merely improve the optics of an expensive home.

Cities can streamline approvals for workforce housing formats. They can reduce unnecessary delays. They can align impact fees and infrastructure participation with projects that deliver homes at attainable price points. They can allow smaller lots and a broader range of housing types in locations where roads and utilities can support them.

Down-payment assistance may help households cross the final gap, but it cannot substitute for production. Subsidizing buyers without expanding supply risks sending more money after the same limited number of homes. Land banking and public-private partnerships can work, but only when the private partner is genuinely adding capacity rather than relabeling market-rate inventory.

The policy priority should be straightforward: reward more homes, lower total costs, shorter approval periods and products that serve a broader range of area median incomes.

Not another ribbon-cutting for apartments renting at $2,400 a month because someone included a bicycle rack.

South of Main deserves better

Wall Street has made its preference clear. It rewards builders that sustain pricing power, control inventory, protect margins and use incentives to support sales without allowing base prices to reset too far. That may be rational corporate behavior. It is not a housing solution.

South of Main cannot live inside an investor presentation.

The teachers, nurses, linemen, police officers, firefighters, tradespeople and young families who make DFW function need homes they can afford—not temporary buydowns attached to prices their wages cannot support.

Texas still has builders, developers and capital partners capable of following households rather than courting analysts. The next generation of DFW housing leaders will have to decide what business they are really in. They can build a franchise around preserving scarcity. Or they can build one around solving it.

This post was originally published on here. 

Stellar MLS announced the Realtors Association of Citrus County (RACC) as its newest corporate shareholder, expanding the multiple listing service’s (MLS) reach while providing RACC members with access to a broader technology platform, data resources and support.

Under the agreement, RACC will become an owner of Stellar MLS while retaining its independence as an association. Stellar MLS will serve as the exclusive MLS provider for RACC’s approximately 950 members.

“We are delighted to welcome the Realtors Association of Citrus County as Stellar MLS’s new corporate shareholder,” said Shayne Fairley, CEO of Stellar MLS. “This partnership represents another important step in expanding the reach and strength of our marketplace. By bringing our organizations together, we are creating greater opportunities for RACC members and existing Stellar customers through access to a broader inventory, enhanced technology and a more connected real estate network.”

Founded in 1952, RACC provides education, advocacy and professional resources for brokers and agents throughout the county.

“As an Association, our responsibility is to continually invest in the success of our members,” said Keith Pullias, president of RACC. “When our members spoke, our Board listened. Joining Stellar MLS represents more than a technology upgrade; it’s a commitment to providing the resources, reach, and opportunities our Realtors asked for.”

Marsha Coleman, association executive at RACC, said member feedback played a central role in the decision.

“At the Realtors Association of Citrus County, our members are at the center of every decision we make. Over the past several years, we consistently heard one message: our Realtors wanted access to Stellar MLS. We listened, explored every option, and today we’re proud to deliver on that request,” she said.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill added her state to a growing list banning algorithmic pricing tools blamed for higher apartment rents.

Sherrill signed the Forbidding the Algorithmic Inflation of Rent (FAIR) Act into law Monday in Newark. New Jersey becomes the fourth state to regulate software lawmakers and regulators said allowed landlords to coordinate rents.

“Landlords, who should be competing to provide the best price to renters, are instead colluding to drive prices up through so-called ‘algorithmic pricing,’” Sherrill said in a statement. “That stops now.”

Sherrill won last November on a platform of improving housing affordability, alongside New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger. Mamdani has made gains in his efforts. Spanberger’s legislative success has been modest so far.

New Jersey’s law takes effect July 1, 2027, giving landlords roughly a year to review whether their pricing software falls under the new rules.

New York, California and Connecticut each passed similar statewide restrictions last year. Those laws coincide with a wave of city-level bans that started with San Francisco and Philadelphia and spread to Jersey City, Minneapolis, San Diego and Hoboken.

Jersey City passed a local version of the ban in May 2025, well before Trenton acted.

“We’re in the middle of a housing crisis, and it’s gotten worse because corporate landlords are using algorithms to jack up everyone’s rent,” Assemblywoman Katie Brennan, who represents Jersey City and sponsored the bill, said in a statement.

Lawsuits drove the crackdown

The push against rent-setting algorithms started in courtrooms, not statehouses. Renters filed class-action lawsuits accusing RealPage and dozens of major landlords of using the company’s software to coordinate rent hikes instead of competing.

Last October, Greystar, the nation’s largest landlord, and 25 other property firms agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit, paying more than $141 million collectively.

In 2024, the U.S. Justice Department separately sued RealPage and six large landlords. RealPage settled last year along with Greystar, LivCor and Cortland Management. Property management company Willow Bridge recently settled with the DOJ.

New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin filed a similar antitrust suit last year against RealPage and 10 of the state’s largest landlords. That ongoing litigation helped build the case for the FAIR Act.

What the N.J. law bans

The FAIR Act targets software that pools nonpublic, competitively sensitive data – such as rents, occupancy levels and lease terms – from multiple landlords to recommend pricing. That effectively lets competitors set rents together instead of against each other.

“This bill gives families the power to end illegal rent increases that tear apart communities,” Ana Maria Hill, 32BJ SEIU vice president and New Jersey state director, said in a statement.

The law doesn’t cap rents, require landlords to lower prices, or ban ordinary tools like spreadsheets or public rent-estimate databases. It targets only software that facilitates coordination among otherwise competing owners.

Under the law, the attorney general must set up an online portal where renters can report suspected violations. It also preempts local governments from adopting conflicting rules of their own.

Property tax relief, housing investments

The signing came three weeks after Sherrill enacted New Jersey’s $60.7 billion fiscal 2027 budget, which she called an “affordability-focused spending plan”. It raised the First-Time and First-Generation Homeownership Program from $40 million to $45 million annually and created a $35 million homelessness fund.

Fair Share Housing Center backed those additions but warned the budget leaves most of the Affordable Housing Trust Fund untapped for construction. Only about $36 million is expected for production in fiscal 2027, despite the fund typically collecting over $100 million a year from the realty transfer fee.

The budget and the FAIR Act both build on an April executive order creating the Housing Governing Council. The state’s chief operating officer chairs the cross-agency body, and the Department of Community Affairs, the Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency, the Economic Development Authority and NJ Transit co-chair it. It aims to cut through state approval delays by coordinating financing, identifying surplus land, and setting production targets, with recommendations due to the governor by late September.

Separately, the administration expanded NJ HOMES, a technical-assistance program helping towns identify zoning barriers to new construction. Its first cohort launched earlier this year; applications for a second cohort of 30 municipalities closed July 1.

How that assistance and FAIR Act enforcement perform will shape how observers judge Sherrill’s housing plan this fall.

This post was originally published on here. 

Real estate services and technology platform PLACE is welcoming a new executive. In a post on LinkedIn on Tuesday, Mike Ryan announced he was joining PLACE where he will serve as executive vice president of business development 

Prior to this he had been with OJO Labs for over a decade, most recently serving as the chief partnership officer of mortgage lender Lower’s real estate division after OJO’s listing portal Movoto was acquired by Lower in 2025. 

In his post, Ryan said that leaving Lower “wasn’t an easy decision.” 

“Over the past 10+ years, I had the privilege of working alongside incredibly talented people, building strategic partnerships and helping grow businesses that have made a meaningful impact on the real estate industry,” Ryan wrote. 

He also thanked fellow Lower real estate leaders Angela Dunham and John Berkowitz, as well as Lower’s vice president of product Adam Tao. 

Rayn wrote that his decision to move was not about leaving something behind, but joining something he believes “has the potential to redefine what’s possible.”

“PLACE has quietly built one of the most impressive platforms in residential real estate, combining technology, services, and operational expertise to help the industry’s top professionals build more valuable businesses while delivering a better experience for consumers,” Ryan wrote. “The vision is bold, but what convinced me was the team’s ability to execute.”

In his new role, Ryan said he will be “focused on expanding strategic partnerships and accelerating the distribution of PLACE’s technology, services, and consumer solutions.”

In joining PLACE, Ryan is reuniting with former colleague Chris Heller, who had previously served as the chief growth officer of Lower’s real estate division. Heller joined PLACE in November 2025, where he currently serves as the firm’s chief revenue officer.

Lower did not immediately respond to HousingWire’s inquiry regarding the firm’s plans to fill Ryan’s vacated role.

This post was originally published on here. 

Building codes are ripe for change as policy analysts and the housing reform movement at large move beyond land use and zoning alone.

After working through several hundred hours of building code reviews in Minnesota over the past decade, reforms are needed, even with our robust local adoption process. 

But we cannot reform just the local code adoption. 

We must also investigate where it all starts with the model code development process for all building codes. Both must be reformed; otherwise, we are left with a system in which we can never reach the destination. 

Heightened scrutiny is long overdue

Regardless of the level, broadly speaking, there isn’t sufficient scrutiny of code changes. 

I saw this firsthand in a recent legislatively mandated study in Minnesota on single-stair multifamily dwellings. Researchers took the current Minnesota Building Code provisions, which align with the 2020 International Building Code (IBC), and overlaid these structures with existing fire data.

Their findings? Locally speaking, with two minor adjustments in the code, multifamily dwellings could be built twice as large, up or out, without impeding safety. 

To me, there was an obvious question raised by this review: How many other long-held assumptions of the code don’t match the data?

Model codes 

As with any process, if you seek improvement, you have to start with the first step. For all building codes, this is the model code process used by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the United States. 

Perhaps the most frequent complaint is the current system of perpetual adoption. From start to finish, building codes operate on three-year cycles across the various publishers. When one cycle ends, work on the next set of codes soon begins. 

The result is incrementalism, and the problems are twofold.

First, smaller changes are made that open the door to greater changes in the future. The rationale is often knowing that substantive changes are costly, and incrementalism allows this to happen gradually, making the financial impact less severe. 

Second, this incremental movement, paired with perpetual adoption, allows no time to study the effectiveness of changes. The next code is being written before cities, counties and states have put these codes into place, and any home built to these new specifications. 

When it comes to the model building codes, it’s time the industry asks itself a simple question: Are we improving outcomes or just updating books?

I would argue that emphasis is on the latter.

There is another issue: the lack of scrutiny of these changes. Last year, I spoke with a representative of an emerging construction technique who was displeased with the scrutiny being applied to his local code proposal. He was frustrated as the International Code Council’s (ICC) process allows arbitrary proposals to be enacted in the code, so why couldn’t Minnesota’s local adoption? 

To me, the issue isn’t that local adoption is too strict, but rather that the model code process was too lax. 

Local adoption

As the last mile of the code adoption process, and where these NGO proposals become law, increased scrutiny of changes is needed.

Even where heightened scrutiny already exists, local adoption jurisdictions often apply detailed review to amendments while accepting sweeping model code changes with little independent evaluation, even when those provisions carry real cost and feasibility implications. 

This imbalance, combined with inconsistent adoption timelines and limited coordination across codes, creates a system in which requirements are layered in without a full understanding of how they perform in the field. A more rigorous, uniform review process at the last mile is needed to ensure that every provision, not just local edits, is justified, workable and aligned with safety, durability and affordability.

Better process builds better codes

Whether it is model codes or local adoption at various levels across the country, it is time to apply heightened scrutiny to building code changes. If the process at either level is more important than the outcomes they produce, we’re doing it wrong.

At the model code level, establishing a clear baseline for safety, durability and affordability, extending code cycles to allow real-world evaluation and requiring evidence, cost analysis and a clear problem-solution link are necessary for any new mandate. Any widely unadopted provision should be cast aside.

For local adoption, this same scrutiny should be applied, adding affordability guardrails and aligning code updates to ensure the system works as a whole. Should model code publishers not adjust their timelines, state legislatures should take the step in unison to slow local adoption. 

The goal isn’t fewer building code changes; the goal is better codes where safety, durability, efficiency and affordability are in balance, guided by data-driven decisions. 

Nicholas Erickson is executive director of Housing Affordability Institute and senior director of housing policy for Housing First Minnesota.
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. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Few homebuilding enterprises look so voraciously at other homebuilding operators’ share of new-home sales in any given arena as present and future opportunity as does D.R. Horton.

When those Horton flags flap in the dry summer wind, you can almost hear them as lips smacking in anticipation of a good meal later in the day.

So, while Wall Street will spend much of the next day or more unpacking why D.R. Horton lowered its full-year revenue and closing guidance despite reporting stronger-than-expected Q3 2026 profitability.

Competing homebuilders should better focus somewhere else.

Not Wall Street. Main Street.

America’s largest homebuilder used its fiscal Q3 2026 earnings report and conference call to communicate two operating priorities that increasingly define success in today’s housing market. The first is preserving gross margin through disciplined operational execution rather than chasing sales volume at any cost.

The second is calibrating housing starts to actual new order demand, even when construction operations have become efficient enough to support faster production.

Those two decisions reach far beyond D.R. Horton. They increasingly stand for the balancing act facing every builder trying to navigate an affordability-constrained market where consumer demand exists, but confidence is fragile at best.

The quarter itself reflected those crosscurrents.

D.R. Horton reported home sales gross margin of 20.7%, above the high end of its own guidance, while closing nearly 24,000 homes during the quarter. Clear beats.

Orders, however, ran mostly sideways from a year earlier, cancellations increased to 20%, and management reduced its fiscal 2026 closing forecast to 83,800 to 84,300 homes from a prior expectation of 86,000 to 87,000. Revenue guidance likewise moved lower to $32.5 billion to $33 billion.

Research analysts at once gravitated toward two questions during Tuesday morning’s earnings call: what drove the company’s stronger-than-expected gross margin performance, and what management’s outlook for Q4 starts infers about new home demand heading into fiscal 2027.

For the broader high-volume homebuilding industry, those questions stand in everybody’s way, and the only way around the challenges are through them.

Gross margin becomes the industry’s operating scorecard

The big reveal of the morning did not involve costs, pricing or incentives. Instead, it came when President and CEO Paul Romanowski explained why Horton lowered its annual closing outlook despite preserving profitability.

“We did make the decision to hold margin a little more than push into the units,” Romanowski said.

A tad understated, but Romanowski’s remark signals a strategic shift in operating philosophy.

Rather than using chase-to-the-bottom incentives to Hoover every sale in sight, Horton consciously accepted lower volume than originally expected in exchange for supporting stronger profitability.

Wolfe Research homebuilding analyst Trevor Allinson re-capped the dynamic in his post-call notes, observing that third-quarter orders came in below the company’s internal expectations and drove the reduction in closing guidance.

The strategy worked financially.

Home sales gross margin reached 20.7%, eclipsing both management’s guidance and many analysts’ expectations. Evercore ISI analyst Stephen Kim noted that gross margin came in at 20.7%, well above his firm’s 20.0% estimate, helping drive earnings above consensus despite softer order performance. Mind you, Horton did not beat expectations by virtue of a tailwind of stronger housing demand.

Romanowski asserts that buyers are still out there – showing up in online and sales center traffic patterns – but hesitant.

“We still see plenty of buyers out there in our sales offices,” he told analysts. “It’s just needing to see them be a little more confident in the overall economy and their ability to move forward with a purchase today.”

That caveat – structural demand, but on-hold – separates today’s market from periods of genuinely weak housing demand. Horton continues seeing customer traffic. The challenge is converting that interest into contracts amid elevated mortgage rates, affordability pressures and broader economic uncertainty.

Operations, not pricing, carried the quarter

The earnings call also reinforced that today’s gross margins increasingly reflect operational execution rather than pricing power.

Jessica Hansen, senior vice president of communications and people and head of investor relations, said “across all of our major cost categories, we saw a decline in our costs on closings in the third quarter,” with framing as the largest area of savings.

Construction-cost reductions, slightly lower incentives and faster inventory turnover combined to offset continued affordability pressures. Horton also availed of selling more homes earlier in the construction cycle, reducing the incentive burden typically associated with completed speculative inventory.

The company cautioned, however, against assuming those tailwinds continue indefinitely.

“We’ve seen good improvement in our cost-containment efforts compared with the prior year,” Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Michael Murray said. “I’m looking for us to hang on to, and perhaps squeeze out, a little additional cost improvement, but it’s more challenging now just as you get closer to an optimal state.”

That observation may prove especially relevant as builders begin planning for fiscal 2027.

Allinson highlighted one reason in his call notes: lumber cost increases typically require two to three quarters before reaching builders’ income statements, suggesting meaningful lumber headwinds are unlikely to affect Horton until fiscal 2027.

In other words, one of the industry’s most important margin tailwinds may already be approaching its limits.

Starts becoming the more revealing demand indicator

If gross margin answered one major question Tuesday morning, housing starts answered another.

Despite improved construction efficiency and healthy inventory positioning, Horton expects fourth quarter starts to run below third-quarter levels.

The decision is notable because it reflects management choice rather than operational constraint.

Construction cycle times have continued improving. Aged speculative inventory declined again during the quarter. Only 600 completed homes stood unsold for more than six months, and executives repeatedly emphasized the freshness of completed inventory.

Rather than using those operational gains to increase production, Horton is matching starts to proven market demand.

“Our operators did a great job of delivering on the quarter in terms of our guidance in closings and in margin,” Romanowski said. “We’re going to continue to manage the business as efficiently as we can to drive the best returns that we have at a community level.”

That emphasis on returns rather than production volume surfaced repeatedly throughout the call.

Allinson noted management’s expectation that fourth quarter starts should still finish above year-earlier levels, while highlighting another important internal goal: improving the company’s revenue-to-inventory turn ratio toward three-or-so times.

Murray reinforced that goal during the call.

“A two-times turn had been a historical norm for us,” he said. “Today, we’re looking in excess of that, and our internal goal is to get that to three.”

Taken together, those comments suggest Horton increasingly views inventory velocity—not simply deliveries—as one of its primary competitive advantages.

Building for the recovery without overbuilding today

The company’s land strategy fits neatly within that framework.

Owned lots declined 13% year over year, while four-fifths of Horton’s lot supply remains controlled through take-down purchase contracts rather than outright ownership. At the same time, the company continues expanding its operating footprint, with active communities increasing 9% from a year earlier.

That combination has temporarily pressured SG&A leverage, but management argues it positions Horton to capture market share more efficiently when demand eventually improves.

Chief Financial Officer Bill Wheat acknowledged that current returns underperform the company’s long-term goals.

“Our current returns are lower than where we expect them to be longer term,” Wheat said, adding that Horton expects both gross margins and SG&A leverage to improve once revenue growth resumes and community absorptions stabilize.

Jessica Hansen echoed that long-term confidence, and she reminded analysts that Horton is still the largest builder in only about half of the markets where it operates, leaving meaningful room for added local market-share gains.

Why the industry should pay attention

For public investors, Tuesday’s earnings report will naturally invite debate over whether Horton should have chosen better margins over stronger order growth.

Private builders confront a more immediate reality.

Their businesses depend on generating sufficient margin to fund operations, satisfy lenders, reduce debt and lock-in flexibility while demand slugs it out at an uneven, fits-and-starts level. In that environment, protecting profitability and carefully managing starts become matters of financial resilience as much as quarterly performance.

That is why D.R. Horton’s third-quarter message extends beyond one earnings release.

The nation’s largest homebuilder is signaling that operating discipline—not maximum production—is increasingly the defining characteristic of successful homebuilding. Gross margin is no longer simply an accounting outcome. It is the product of construction efficiency, disciplined land investment, inventory management and measured pricing decisions.

Likewise, starts have become less a declaration of optimism than a carefully managed response to demand that checks-out as real but not yet fully confident.

As analysts continue dissecting the quarter, those two operating signals are the signal. The rest may be noise.

This post was originally published on here. 

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) is proposing a new structure, called Reinstatement Advance Payment (RAP), that would change how servicers document and service partial claims and payment supplements. 

Under the draft, attributed to Joseph M. Gormley, who is performing the delegable duties of the assistant secretary for housing–federal housing commissioner, the FHA would test a model that eliminates the traditional zero-interest subordinate lien used today for partial claims.

Instead, servicers would advance funds on the borrower’s behalf and add a non-interest-bearing balance to the existing FHA-insured first mortgage. The borrower would sign a RAP repayment agreement rather than a separate promissory note and subordinate mortgage.

“The RAP will reduce the burden on mortgagees in obtaining and recording the notes and subordinate mortgages and align with standard industry practice,” FHA states in a Mortgagee Letter.

According to the FHA, the structure would also facilitate the “sale, refinance, assumption and transfer processes” as there will no longer be a subordinate lien to resolve, removing challenges associated with nonjudicial foreclosures.

From the borrower’s perspective, the loss-mitigation experience is designed to look the same, the letter states. The advance remains a zero-interest obligation that is generally due only at maturity, sale, refinance, payoff, or termination of FHA insurance. Borrowers could make partial or full payments toward the RAP balance at any time without penalty.

The draft also introduces a RAPTOR Plan (RAP Terms of Repayment) for borrowers who cannot repay the entire balance in a lump sum when the mortgage matures. Under the proposal, servicers could offer repayment terms up to 18 months for RAP balances up to $5,000; up to 36 months for balances between $5,000 and $15,000; and up to 48 months for balances over $15,000

For servicers, the most significant operational shift is the removal of subordinate-lien mechanics. The RAP structure eliminates the need to prepare, execute, record and deliver separate partial claim notes and mortgages in HUD’s name, bringing FHA workouts closer to how many conventional investors handle similar advances.

The draft states that all mortgagees would be eligible to participate. Participation would be voluntary and servicers would not need to use RAP on every partial claim.

The demonstration is expected to run for five years. FHA is proposing incentive fees of $500 for a partial claim RAP and $1,750 for a payment supplement RAP, along with reimbursement of up to $250 for required title-related expenses.

This article was written by Flávia Furlan Nunes and generated with the assistance of HousingWire Automation, then reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

When Keller Williams announced its acquisition of the Jason Mitchell Group (JMG) earlier this month, Steve Murray, the co-founder of RealTrends Consulting, felt it was an historical moment for real estate companies with models similar to JMG, such as Mark Spain Real Estate, PLACE or Robert Slack Group. 

“The acquisition of Jason Mitchell Group means that a very large, very smart investor has just put a stamp of approval on that kind of a business model,” Murray said. “This is the first acquisition of this kind and this size.” 

However, Murray warned that this news does not mean that every large team or brokerage operating on a team model is worth the same or can generate the same multiple that JMG did. 

Craig McClelland, a partner at McClelland & Hahn Consulting, agrees, noting that this has to do with the fact that JMG isn’t just any real estate company.  

“Keller Williams didn’t just acquire JMG, they also acquired a relocation network and a lead distribution network, as well as relationships with Rocket and Zillow. Your typical team doesn’t have that component to it,” McClelland said. “You can’t just be like, ‘I have a team of 30 agents and a Zillow Flex agreement and now I’m worth $100 million’ — that isn’t going to happen. There are other dynamics you have to add into this equation.” 

Everything old is new again

Additionally, while this news certainly sparked some headlines in the industry, McClelland doesn’t feel it is all that different from what Cendant, the predecessor of Realogy, the firm that became Anywhere Real Estate, previously did with its franchise agreements. 

“They would sell franchises to independent operators and provide them with the opportunity to be part of their lead network,” McClelland said. “So, they have access to a lead source as well as other opportunities to grow their business, but eventually if they wanted to exit, they had the opportunity to sell the franchise to Cendant. This is kind of the same thing, but with teams instead of franchises.” 

What am I worth? 

When it comes to valuing a team, something Murray and his business partner Scott Wright have done several times over the years, Murray said it doesn’t differ too much from how they value brokerages. 

“It is based on cash flow and EBITDA and then you look at a multiple, and today, brokerage companies are in a fairly narrow band of multiples,” Murray said. “In the past, when big companies like Berkshire Hathaway were chasing after independent brokers and competing for them, multiples could push to five or six, but today, a big firm that’s out there is going to trade at a five, at best.” 

With teams; however, Murray said they need to examine how much of the business comes directly from the team leader’s sphere of influence.

“We heavily discount that business because the ability to transfer essentially personal relationships is very low,” he said. “Instead we look at how much of their business is what we call business generated — online leads, direct mail, billboards, phone calls, public marketing.” 

The next JMG?

For teams or firms looking to find themselves in a similar position to JMG sometime in the future, Murray said they will need to consider “scaling up.” 

“Now you may begin to see some of those teams that are doing well and generating significant cash flows, try to do their own mergers and acquisitions with other teams of their size,” he said. “Overall, I think what we will see happen is other teams start rethinking whether they should just be buyers or if they should be positioning themselves to sell.” 

McClelland added that it is important for the companies to make sure they are running a good business. 

“If you have good margins, you don’t have excessive overhead, good producing agents that are a resource to the company, then you will be more attractive,” he said. 

While both McClelland and Murray believe we may never see another acquisition like Keller Williams’ acquisition of JMG unless another similar company arises, they do feel this does signify a shift of sorts.

“Teams now have a seat at the deal table, and they are saying ‘Hey, I’m an intelligent acquisition,’” McClelland said. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Longtime Keller Williams executive Jay Papasan announced his decision to step down from his role as vice president of strategic content in a post on LinkedIn on Tuesday. 

Papasan has been with Keller Williams since September of 2000. He said his decision to step down comes from a desire to focus on family businesses, writing and coaching. Papasan’s last official day as a Keller Williams executive will be August 1. 

“It’s been a wild ride,” he wrote. “My first day was September 5, 2000. Back then, there were only 27 employees serving less than 7,000 associates. During my time, we grew to be the largest real estate franchise by agent count in the world.” 

Papasan’s first role at the firm was writing a newsletter for the technology team. From there he has gone on to work 26 Family Reunions and 25 MegaCamps, write books with Keller Williams executives including co-founder Gary Keller and lead several company branches and initiatives, including KWU, Research, Publishing, KW Video and Marketing.

“I’m incredibly grateful for all I’ve learned and the incredible people I’ve gotten to work with,” Papasan wrote. 

In an email sent to Keller Williams leaders and agents last week and obtained by HousingWire, the firm’s executive chairman Gary Keller wrote that for over 26 years Papasan has been “my dear friend, my writing partner, my business partner and one of the finest thinkers I’ve ever had the privilege to know.”

Through the countless hours they have spent together Keller said he has realized that Papasan “possesses a rare gift.”

“He sees things that others miss,” Keller said. “More importantly, he has the remarkable ability to take complicated ideas about life, relationships, leadership and business and express them in ways that are both significant and memorable. That’s one of the hardest things a writer can do, and Jay does it as well as anyone I’ve ever met.” 

As for Papasan’s decision to step down from this day-to-day leadership role at Keller Williams, Keller said he “couldn’t be happier for him.”

“This isn’t an ending,” Keller wrote. “It’s simply giving himself the opportunity to take his life and those he can help to a higher level.” 

According to both Papasan and Keller, Papasan will continue working on Keller Williams book projects, hosting The ONE Thing podcast, leading The ONE Thing training and coaching team and supporting agents in the Austin-based Papasan Properties Group.

“Jay has dedicated his life to helping others live their best lives both personally and professionally. I’ve had a front-row seat to that journey for more than two decades, and I can tell you without hesitation that the best is still ahead of him,” Keller wrote. “The journey we’ve shared has been one of the greatest privileges of my life, and I can’t wait to see where our next chapter takes us.” 

Keller Williams did not wish to comment on its plans to fill Papasan’s vacated role.

This post was originally published on here. 

Housing wealth among homeowners age 62 and older rebounded to a record $14.92 trillion in the first quarter of 2026 after declining in the previous two quarters, according to the latest National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association (NRMLA) – RiskSpan Reverse Mortgage Market Index.

The quarterly index, which has tracked senior home values and home equity trends since 2000, found that the increase was driven by rising home values and relatively modest growth in mortgage debt.

Senior housing wealth increased by an estimated $314.8 billion, or 1.8%, during the quarter. That gain was partially offset by a $10.5 billion, or 0.4%, increase in mortgage debt held by homeowners age 62 and older.

According to RiskSpan, the improvement coincided with mortgage rates falling to their lowest levels since 2022.

The company said the temporary improvement in housing affordability appears to have supported higher home values for older homeowners while mortgage debt growth slowed compared to the previous two quarters.

“The rebound in senior housing wealth is encouraging news for older homeowners and underscores the important role home equity continues to play in retirement security,” said NRMLA President Steve Irwin. “With senior home equity reaching another record level, many older Americans have greater financial flexibility to help address rising living expenses, healthcare costs, or other retirement needs.”

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

Equifax will keep its $1 VantageScore 4.0 price in place through the end of 2027 as it pushes mortgage lenders to adopt the alternative credit score model, CEO Mark Begor told investors.

The initiative was first launched in March, when the company also continued to offer free VantageScore 4.0 credit scores to mortgage, automotive, card and consumer finance customers who purchase FICO scores. 

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) activated the usage of VantageScore 4.0 in April for more than 20 mortgage lenders, when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) signaled future adoption. 

“While the vast majority of these mortgage lenders have begun using VantageScore, we have also seen a groundswell of VantageScore adoption with about 1,200 additional mortgage lenders pulling our free VantageScore alongside a paid FICO score from Equifax,” Begor said during an earnings call on Tuesday. 

In the second quarter, VantageScore mortgage volume reached 2.2 million transactions, nearly tripling from the first quarter, with the vast majority of those pulls coming from that 1,200-lender group.

Equifax also has roughly 100 mortgage lenders that have moved to using only VantageScore at the $1 price point for mortgage originations. Those lenders are primarily smaller, non-government-sponsored enterprise originators and lenders focused on HELOCs and home equity loans. 

“Although volumes remained low at about 10,000 transactions in the quarter, we saw significant acceleration as we moved through the tail end of the quarter,” Begor said. 

Begor told investors that Equifax makes no margin on FICO mortgage scores. FICO scores account for about 50% of U.S. Information Solutions mortgage revenue and roughly 7% of total Equifax revenue, “delivering zero margins,” he said. By contrast, VantageScore is jointly owned by Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. 

Equifax is positioning its $1 VantageScore as a cost-saving tool for originators and consumers. The company continues to cite a potential $1 billion annual cost savings opportunity as lenders shift volume from FICO.

Begor also stressed that while score choice matters, lenders are increasingly focused on the underlying data that feeds those scores. “What’s relevant is the credit data that’s used underlying the creation of that credit score,” he said, pointing to bureau files and trended data as central to underwriting decisions.

This article was written by Flávia Furlan Nunes and generated with the assistance of HousingWire Automation, then reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

A partial building collapse in New York City may more likely be explained by contractor error than from inherent risks in large-scale office-to-residential conversions.

An engineer on the former Pfizer headquarters conversion told Gothamist that workers failed to reinforce columns as designed. The columns buckled and prompted evacuations across seven Manhattan Midtown East blocks.

The incident raised questions about the viability of office-to-residential conversions not just in New York City but nationwide. If contractor error caused it, that would take some of the heat off safety and feasibility concerns about large conversions. New York City officials are still investigating the failed columns.

Despite the new, narrowed evidence around the New York City project, the episode highlights the complexity of conversions and the challenges that can arise, regardless of a building’s age. Such problems will likely grow more common as states and cities push conversions to solve two problems: eliminating obsolete, vacant office buildings – and the lost real estate value associated with them –and adding housing supply.

Age is just a number

Developer MetroLoft is converting the 1970s-era office buildings into 1,600 apartments. To get that number, the developer is adding floors to existing buildings. Plans by GACE Consulting Engineers called for steel plating along the columns supporting the additional floors.

“The structure was not reinforced as GACE’s design required,” Chris Behan, principal engineer with the firm, wrote in a statement.

Most conversions have involved 1950s and older office buildings. But the drive to add housing supply has pulled newer buildings into the mix, some just 20 years old. COVID-19-induced remote and hybrid work models rendered many office buildings obsolete.

“Older ones – because the floor plates are narrower, especially the ones that were designed before electric lighting or before HVAC – are always going to be better because they have more light,” Patrick Chopson, principal architect with Atlanta-based firm Cove, told HousingWire TBD.

Older buildings needed windows for light before electricity existed, or when only dim bulbs lit the space. Windows also allowed cross-ventilation before air conditioning.

Floor space sizes expanded as HVAC and lighting technology improved. That gave rise to office space with inoperable windows lit by fluorescent bulbs.

Residential space needs light, a code requirement. Developers can carve a narrow 10,000-square-foot floor into apartments with proper natural lighting more efficiently than a 50,000-square-foot one.

To get necessary lighting, developers carve out a portion of the building, which costs money. Even projects with an existing skylight may need changes to optimize light for units. That was the case when a developer converted a 1990s office building near the White House in Washington, D.C.

Differences in construction

Aside from the floor space, 1950s and older buildings offer an engineering advantage.

“Older buildings are typically overdesigned by a wide margin,” Chopson said. “The famous example that resonates with most people is the B-17 bomber from World War II that was flying over Germany, would lose a wing and have one engine and still make it back. Everyone added a 20% safety factor on top of what they were doing back in the day.”

But he and other architects note that unknowns remain in existing buildings of any age until work begins. Old building plans might not be available.

If plans exist, the final product may not match them exactly. A crew could discover a decades-old construction flaw that needs correction. A window leak in a 1970s building, for example, may have persisted long enough to cause unseen structural damage.

“In most conversion projects, things always go wrong,” Chopson said.

He said a project with the complexity of MetroLoft’s floor addition and parallel construction, “you’re magnifying the number of things that could go wrong.”

Complexity can make or break deals

A real estate lender walked away from financing the conversion of a 1922 Boston office building, citing its complexity. Sean Kelly-Rand, managing partner at RD Advisors, wrote in a LinkedIn post that he passed on the deal chiefly because of an operating U.S. Post Office on the ground floor and high construction costs.

“To make the transaction work, it not only requires tax abatements and code variances, but also historic tax credits,” Kelly-Rand wrote, noting the firm’s experience in lending on conversion projects. “It’s a great project, but these conversions aren’t without real risk.”

He said those risks include a softening rental market and the possibility of rent control at some point. A Massachusetts court last month scratched a rent control measure from the November ballot on a technicality.

But legislation is sitting in a Senate committee that state lawmakers have pushed as a compromise that would allow each city the option to approve rent control. The formal legislative session ends July 31.

In Los Angeles, apartment developer Kennedy Wilson is tackling a complex project. The firm is scheduled to begin work in August on converting the mid-1970s, 400,000-square-foot World Trade Center into 512 affordable housing units.

It will require a slew of low-income tax credits and other subsidies to achieve profitability.

“It’s complicated and not for the faint of heart,” Nicholas Bridges, Kennedy Wilson’s global head of capital markets, told the Los Angeles Times.

This post was originally published on here. 

Building a single home on each of the more than 300,000 empty lots listed for sale on Zillow in June could shrink the nation’s housing shortage by about 6.3%, according to new research from the listing platform.

Zillow estimates the U.S. is short 4.7 million homes, a deficit it says is the main driver of today’s affordability crisis. Putting one home on every currently listed lot of 5 acres or less would cut that shortage to roughly 4.44 million units. 

Empty lots are not a niche segment of the resale market. Zillow counted 300,242 lots for sale in June 2026, representing 17.4% of all for-sale listings on the site. The typical listed lot is 0.57 acres — often enough land for more than one home under more flexible zoning rules — which suggests the 6.3% impact estimate is conservative.

Where the land is

The distribution of listed lots is highly uneven, which matters for builders looking for near-term opportunities:

Most lots by state:

• Florida (42,601)
• Texas (40,907)
• California (18,508)
• North Carolina (14,226)
• Georgia (10,341)

Highest share of listings that are lots:

• North Dakota (45.9%)
• South Dakota (38.7%)
• Alaska (34.6%)
• Nebraska (30.4%)
• New Mexico (30.3%)

Rural markets show the highest concentration, with lots making up 25.3% of all for-sale listings, compared with 13.6% in suburbs and 9% in urban areas.

Land prices also vary sharply by location, which affects whether smaller builders can pencil a project:

• Median rural lot price: about $75,000 per acre
• Median suburban lot price: more than $181,000 per acre 
• Median urban lot price: roughly $500,000 per acre

Nationally, the median listed lot price is $79,000 at 0.57 acres, according to Zillow’s state-level table.

Policy and financing hurdles

Kara Ng, a senior economist at Zillow, said in the report that these lots represent “low-hanging fruit” for addressing a shortage that has built up over two decades, but that it is not yet feasible to build on many of them under current rules and cost structures.

Zillow’s analysis points to several friction points familiar to homebuilders:

• Zoning and density limits that keep modest infill or small-scale projects from penciling out.
• Permitting timelines and uncertainty that add cost and risk, especially for small and midsize builders working on scattered lots.
• Financing challenges for buyers and for small-dollar construction projects, particularly in rural markets.

The company highlighted recent federal efforts such as the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, which aims to modernize zoning, streamline permitting and expand access to lower-cost housing options, including manufactured homes. Zillow framed manufactured housing as a potential tool for turning more of these lots into homes because factory-built units can be produced faster and at lower cost than traditional site-built construction.

Zillow’s focus on rural small-dollar loans

On the financing side, Zillow noted that many consumers who want to buy a lot and build face a fragmented process: finding land, choosing a home type and securing financing typically require separate steps and multiple parties.

This summer, Zillow is participating in a 12-week federal tech sprint with the U.S. Census Bureau’s Opportunity Project, focused on increasing access to small-dollar housing loans in rural communities. The company said it is exploring ways to reduce friction for buyers interested in purchasing and building on an empty lot, which could eventually influence how builders connect with retail buyers in rural and exurban markets.

Why this matters for homebuilders

For builders, the research underscores how much potential supply is already sitting in current listings — especially in rural and lower-cost states where lots make up a third or more of the for-sale market. But converting that inventory into actual homes will depend less on raw land counts and more on whether local zoning, infrastructure and financing structures support small-scale development.

Key takeaways for homebuilding professionals include:

• Scattered-lot and infill strategies: In states like Florida, Texas and North Carolina, the sheer volume of listed lots may support programs aimed at scattered-site spec building, build-for-rent or manufactured home placements where local rules allow.
• Rural focus: With rural markets showing the highest share of lots and lower per-acre prices, smaller and regional builders may find opportunities to pair lower-cost land with manufactured or modular product — if they can navigate lending constraints and appraisals.
• Policy engagement: The gap between theoretical capacity (300,000 lots) and realized housing production highlights how much local land-use policy and permitting reform will shape future pipeline. Builders watching efforts tied to the ROAD to Housing Act or similar state-level reforms may want to identify jurisdictions where rule changes could unlock infill programs.

For now, Zillow’s findings quantify how much buildable land is already visible in the for-sale market, but they also show that closing even a modest share of the nation’s housing deficit will require aligning land supply with workable entitlements, infrastructure and finance.

This post was originally published on here. 

HomeAdvantage has partnered with Valley First Credit Union to offer a real estate rewards program and cash-back incentives to the California credit union’s 80,000 members, the companies announced on Monday. 

Under the agreement, Valley First members will gain access to the HomeAdvantage Real Estate Rewards Program, which pairs homebuyers and sellers with a network of vetted real estate agents and provides a post-closing Cash Reward equal to 20% of the participating agent’s commission on qualifying transactions.

Modesto, Calif.-based Valley First, a $1.1 billion-asset cooperative founded in 1949, serves members across 12 counties in the Central Valley through eight branches. The partnership fits a broader trend of credit unions expanding beyond traditional deposit and lending products to wrap real estate search, agent matching and incentives around mortgage offerings to improve member retention and capture more purchase business.

The HomeAdvantage platform for Valley First will include a co-branded website where members can search active listings and neighborhood data, view home value estimates, save favorite homes, create custom property searches and connect directly with participating agents, according to the announcement.

“We are thrilled to welcome Valley First Credit Union to the HomeAdvantage family,” Stephanie Smith, vice president of operations at HomeAdvantage, said in the release. “Our shared commitment to delivering exceptional member value makes this partnership a natural fit. Together, we look forward to helping Valley First Credit Union members navigate one of life’s biggest financial decisions with confidence while providing meaningful savings along the way.”

HomeAdvantage said the program is designed to simplify the home search and transaction process by combining technology with human guidance. Eligible members who use a participating HomeAdvantage real estate agent can receive the 20% commission rebate after closing, subject to program terms and state regulations.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has suspended funding to the Virgin Islands Housing Finance Authority (VIHFA) after an investigation uncovered what the agency described as widespread financial mismanagement, inadequate fraud controls, false certifications and improper payments tied to federally funded disaster recovery programs.

HUD Secretary Scott Turner announced the suspension on Monday, saying the agency will immediately halt additional funding to the authority while the investigation continues.

The action follows a HUD investigation into the authority’s administration of nearly $1.9 billion in Community Development Block Grant-Disaster Recovery funding.

In a July 20 suspension notice sent to the authority, HUD Deputy Secretary Andrew Hughes said the agency was taking immediate action pending an investigation by HUD’s Office of Inspector General, which is examining potential offenses by the authority, its officers and employees.

According to HUD, the authority has spent less than one-third of the funds nearly a decade after receiving them. The department alleged that some funds were diverted to administrative kickbacks and fraudulent schemes rather than disaster recovery efforts.

“The Trump administration is changing the game when it comes to who we entrust with taxpayer dollars,” Turner said in a statement. “Organizations riddled with corruption, mismanagement, and crime will no longer be allowed to squander billions.”

According to the suspension letter, the housing authority has received $1.9 billion in federal disaster recovery funding since Hurricanes Irma and Maria struck the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2017 — more than $20,000 per resident. Nearly nine years later, HUD said the authority has spent less than one-third of those funds.

“Nine years later, because of VIHFA’s blatant mismanagement of these critical disaster funds, USVI citizens still do not have the housing and electrical power they were promised nearly a decade ago,” Hughes wrote.

The letter also points to the conviction of former Chief Operating Officer Darin Richardson, who oversaw many of the authority’s disaster recovery programs. Richardson is serving a federal prison sentence after being convicted of fraud, false statements, money laundering and criminal conflict of interest in connection with a scheme involving disaster recovery contracts.

HUD alleged Richardson accepted a $107,000 bribe from a contractor, inflated the value of a lumber contract from $3 million to $4.5 million, and that the authority later allowed the lumber to deteriorate before it could be used.

“It would be irresponsible for the federal government to continue to conduct business with VIHFA,” Hughes wrote, adding that the authority “has violated its obligations to distribute and manage taxpayer funds lawfully, has failed to adhere to HUD procurement standards, and has repeatedly made false statements regarding its financial management controls and safeguards against conflicts of interest.”

HUD said the authority is immediately suspended from participating in federal procurement and nonprocurement programs while the investigation continues, arguing that allowing VIHFA to continue receiving federal funds “is not in the public interest.”

The department said its investigation found that the authority completed just 2% of its planned single-family rental rehabilitation projects and none of its planned single-family or multifamily housing developments despite receiving nearly $2 billion in disaster recovery funding.

HUD also cited findings from its OIG that the authority’s fraud risk management processes were “at or below the lowest desired goal state.”

The department further alleged the authority sought reimbursement for $6.2 million in disaster-related costs that had already been paid by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and repeatedly submitted false certifications about its compliance program in order to obtain additional federal funding.

The suspension remains in effect while HUD’s investigation proceeds. The Virgin Islands Housing Finance Authority did not immediately respond to HousingWire’s request for comment.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Federal regulators are taking a fresh look at reverse mortgage disclosures — and attorneys say the review is long overdue, though they’re urging caution about the cost of any overhaul.

In July, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) launched a request for information seeking public input on whether mortgage disclosure requirements and other regulations should be revised to reduce compliance burdens and improve access to credit. The move aligns with President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14393, which directs federal agencies to review rules that may increase the cost of lending and restrict credit access.

What surprised some attorneys: reverse mortgages made the list.

“I was surprised that they included reverse mortgage topics,” said Kris Kully, a partner in Mayer Brown‘s Washington, D.C., office and member of the firm’s Consumer Financial Services group. “However, I appreciate that the agency is attempting to gather some intelligence before making any changes — all changes entail regulatory burden, and often unintended consequences.”

Under current rules, reverse mortgage disclosures are spread across multiple documents — Truth in Lending disclosures, Good Faith Estimates and HUD-1 settlement statements. The product is also carved out of the TRID Rule, which streamlined disclosures for forward mortgages by combining overlapping forms into a single, unified document.

 “Regulations X and Z, implementing RESPA and TILA, require creditors and settlement agents to give consumers who apply for and obtain a reverse mortgage loan different but overlapping disclosure forms regarding the loan’s terms and costs.” 

The CFPB is exploring whether to create a unified, reverse-mortgage-specific disclosure form — similar to what the TRID Rule did for forward mortgages. 

Colgate Selden, a founding member of the CFPB and a shareholder at Baker Donelson, said the bureau simply ran out of time to address the unique features of reverse mortgages during the original TRID rulemaking.

“A completely new disclosure regime specific to reverse is needed for consumers to have a meaningful understanding of them,” Selden said. “Not sure the CFPB can do a lot now in the short term but if they are opening things up for a larger comprehensive reverse mortgage disclosure rulemaking that would be helpful.”

Rethinking cost disclosures

Beyond the structure of disclosures, the CFPB is questioning whether the numbers inside them still make sense.

The bureau is scrutinizing the Total Annual Loan Cost table — the standard tool used to help borrowers understand the cost of a reverse mortgage — which currently relies on three time periods and appreciation rate assumptions of 0%, 4% and 8%. Regulators are considering whether those assumptions still reflect current housing market conditions, or whether updated figures would give borrowers a more realistic picture.

One alternative under consideration is replacing or supplementing the annualized TALC rate table with a dollar-amount chart showing how the reverse mortgage balance grows over time. The rationale is that concrete dollar figures may be easier for borrowers to understand than abstract annualized rates — a meaningful distinction for a product whose borrowers are typically elderly.

While attorneys broadly agree the current framework is due for reform, they’re wary of underestimating what change would require.

Richard J. Andreano and John L. Culhane, senior counsels at Ballard Spahr, said in a blog post that reverse mortgage disclosures were “shoehorned” into disclosure regimes designed for forward mortgages and need to be integrated and streamlined — particularly given the age of the borrowers involved.

But they cautioned that the industry’s experience with TRID should temper expectations about how quickly or cheaply that can happen.

“Based on the enormous amount of money spent by the industry to implement the TRID rule, implementation costs and other burdens need to be considered in connection with any revisions of the reverse mortgage disclosure requirements,” they said.

This post was originally published on here. 

Factory-built housing startup Boxabl Inc. began trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market on Monday under the ticker symbol BXBL, following completion of its merger with special purpose acquisition company FG Merger II Corp.

The Las Vegas-based company said in a press announcement that the move to public markets comes after stockholder approval of the business combination with FG Merger II (formerly trading under the symbol FGMC). With the closing of that deal, Boxabl is now officially a publicly traded company.

Boxabl builds modular, factory-produced building components that can be shipped and assembled on-site, part of a broader push to industrialize home construction and address labor shortages and affordability challenges. The company has marketed its systems as a way to lower construction costs and shorten build times compared to traditional site-built homes.

The listing puts another off-site construction player into the public markets at a time when builders and developers are looking for ways to increase throughput amid tight existing-home inventory, elevated mortgage rates and persistent cost pressures. Public status can give modular and prefab firms access to capital that may be needed to scale manufacturing capacity and invest in automation and logistics.

For builders, land developers and build-to-rent operators, Boxabl’s Nasdaq debut is a signal that investor interest in industrialized construction remains strong despite a choppy capital markets environment. Housing professionals watching the space will be focused on how quickly Boxabl can convert public capital into reliable production, unit cost reductions and code-compliant products at scale, all of which will determine whether systems like Boxabl’s can materially move the needle on housing supply.

This post was originally published on here. 

As millions of homeowners remain locked into low mortgage rates, lenders are introducing new home equity products designed to help borrowers access accumulated equity without refinancing their first mortgages.

This week, Gershman Mortgage and Truss Financial Group announced separate home equity offerings aimed at different borrower segments but built around the same premise: allowing homeowners to tap equity while preserving existing first-lien mortgage rates.

The product launches come as many borrowers carry mortgages originated at rates of 3% or 4%, leaving refinancing to be less attractive despite record equity gains and therefore prompting lenders to expand home equity lending options.

Gershman Mortgage introduced a standalone “5-Day HELOC” for owner-occupied homeowners. The product allows qualified borrowers to access up to $750,000 through a home equity line of credit with repayment terms of 10, 15, 20 or 30 years.

The lender said borrowers can begin the application process without a hard credit inquiry and may close in as few as five business days.

“Plenty of homeowners have built up real equity, and a lot of them don’t want to touch their first mortgage to use it,” Jeff Ogden, senior vice president of production at Gershman Mortgage, said in a statement. “This HELOC gives them a way to quickly tap that equity for renovations, tuition, paying down credit cards or whatever they need.”

Separately, Truss Financial Group launched a debt service coverage ratio (DSCR) home equity line of credit (HELOC) tailored to residential real estate investors. The product allows borrowers to access up to $1 million in equity across investment properties without verifying personal income or replacing existing first mortgages.

Rather than underwriting loans based on a borrower’s personal debt-to-income ratio, the Truss product evaluates the cash flow generated by the rental property. The company said the program is available on non-owner-occupied one- to four-unit properties, condominiums and planned unit developments, with borrowers eligible for financing based on rental income and, in some cases, asset depletion calculations.

Truss said the revolving line of credit is intended to help investors fund property renovations, acquisitions and other expenses while avoiding cash-out refinances that would require replacing lower-rate first mortgages.

“Innovation is about removing friction between an entrepreneur’s vision and their earned capital,” Jeff Miller, CEO and founder of Truss Financial Group, said in a statement. “In this rebalancing market, home equity should not be a static number; it must be an active tool for growth.”

Both lenders said their products can close in as few as five business days. While Gershman’s offering targets homeowners seeking funds for renovations, debt consolidation or other personal expenses, Truss is focusing on investors looking to leverage equity to expand or improve rental property portfolios without disrupting existing financing.

This article was written by Sarah Wolak and generated with the assistance of HousingWire Automation, then reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

AI didn’t make me less authentic. It made me realize how valuable AI authenticity was. 

I thought I was getting a shortcut, but for me, it became a wake-up call. The content was fine, but it felt bland, and it bothered me in a way I couldn’t ignore. Months of using it daily showed me something I hadn’t expected. I had a voice, a definite point of view. I just needed to bring it into focus, and for the first time, I had the time to do that. 

Building the vision I couldn’t code

Like most agents, I embraced AI almost as soon as it arrived. For years, I had carried a running list of things I wanted to build but never quite got to. A website that actually reflected the brand in my head. Blog ideas, marketing campaigns, resources for clients, all sitting half-formed. The problem was never a lack of ideas. It was that I did not have the technical skills to bring them to life. 

I could have spent six or seven thousand dollars paying someone to build a website for me and still would not have trusted them to translate what was in my head. I knew the experience I wanted people to have when they landed on my site. I simply did not know how to build it myself. 

Then AI arrived, and that stopped being the obstacle. 

I could build the website I had imagined, create bespoke imagery instead of stock photography, finally organize years of photos scattered across hard drives and folders and turn years of ideas into reality. It genuinely changed how I worked. 

So naturally, I asked it to write too. 

The trap of the polished persona

My first thought was that I had found the shortcut every agent had been waiting for. Content at a volume no single person could produce alone. Entire weeks of work done before lunch. 

Then I read what it had actually written. 

There was nothing technically wrong with it. It was polished, grammatically immaculate, easy to read. It was also completely forgettable, the kind of writing that could have come from almost anyone. Once I noticed that, I couldn’t stop noticing it.

I started seeing the same voice everywhere. Instagram captions. Listing descriptions. Market updates. The same polished cadence. The same relentlessly positive tone. The same punctuation. The same emojis. Different agents. Different markets. One voice. 

That was the moment everything changed for me. 

Teaching the machine how I think

Until then, I had been treating writing as the hard part. AI showed me that writing was never the hard part. The hard part was figuring out what I wanted my content to say about me. It made me realize how much I wanted my content to sound like me, not a polished version of every other agent online. 

The first thing I did after upgrading to a professional account was upload two years of my old YouTube scripts, some of which had taken weeks to write. Hundreds of hours of thinking and rewriting. Slowly learning how to explain this market in a way that genuinely sounded like me. 

I wasn’t trying to teach AI what to think. I was giving it enough of my own work to understand how I think. That isn’t a small distinction. 

Those scripts were never valuable because they were well written. They were valuable because they reflected years of conversations with clients, deals I’d negotiated, mistakes I’d made, properties I’d walked through, and the same questions answered so many times that I finally understood my own answers. AI didn’t create any of that. It simply became better at helping me communicate it. 

Ironically, the more I used AI, the more protective I became of my own perspective. 

Content is discovery. Perspective is trust.

Agents already wear more hats than anyone should. Negotiator. Marketer. Photographer. Copywriter. Website designer. Social media manager. Now, apparently, prompt engineer. AI has been genuinely transformative across many of those jobs. But it has also reminded me that none of those jobs are actually my business. My business is helping people make some of the biggest financial decisions of their lives. 

Content may be how people discover me. It is not why they trust me. 

Trust comes from perspective. From judgment. From recognizing there is a real person behind the words. 

I am not trying to build an AI-powered content machine. I am trying to build a brand. Every article, every blog post and every page on my website is another opportunity for someone to understand how I think before we ever meet. 

Perspective doesn’t come from a prompt. It comes from living. From mistakes. From curiosity. From difficult conversations. From the people you meet, the places you live and the experiences that quietly shape how you see the world. 

That is what I want my content to reflect. Not simply what I know. But how I think. Every agent now has access to the same technology. What none of us have access to is each other’s perspective. That is earned over time. 

AI didn’t give me mine. It simply removed the barriers that stopped me from expressing it. 

I don’t want people reading my content and thinking, she’s good at AI. I want them thinking, I like the way she thinks. 

If AI helps me communicate that more clearly and consistently than I ever could alone, then perhaps that really was the most unexpected lesson it had to teach me. 

Anj Catalano is a luxury real estate agent with The Agency in Los Angeles, specializing in the San Fernando Valley and Westside markets. 
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. 

This post was originally published on here. 

Last month, Google made some waves announcing that it was taking its real estate listing pilot program nationwide. While the nationwide expansion of the program, which is powered by a partnership with HouseCanary, is a new endeavor, the idea for listing advertisements to appear in Google search results began on a softball field roughly three years ago. 

“One of our engineers in San Francisco was playing in an after-work softball league and there were a few people from Google in the league. They started chatting and that is literally how this all got started,” Chris Rediger, the CEO of HouseCanary, said. “So, what started as a fun conversation at an intramural sports thing, manifested itself into something much bigger.” 

From the field to the boardroom 

Initially, Rediger said the conversation was focused on helping Google better understand the real estate space. For years, the technology behemoth sold local services advertisement slots to real estate agents, allowing them to set up a business profile and gain reviews, but they realized that no one was searching for “real estate agents near me.”

“They had all of these agents with profiles and an appetite to buy advertisements, but no consumer demand and that is where we stepped in,” Rediger said. “We asked them what would happen if we switched things around and provided some real content that related to what the user was searching for and take advantage of the created geographic proximity.” 

What resulted is a search experience that allows for users to search for homes for sale in a geographic area, that also allows them to see both the listing agents and other agents that serve the local area.

In order to fuel this search experience, Google needed listings to populate the search results, which is where HouseCanary realized it could come in. 

While HouseCanary had access to listing feeds via IDX and VOW agreements with roughly 300 MLSs nationwide, according to Rediger, HouseCanary was unsure if the Google partnership fell within the scope of its IDX agreements. An initial verbal “ok” from some MLSs prompted Google and HouseCanary to launch the initial pilot program in December 2025, but after a few weeks, some of the MLSs began expressing concerns, prompting Google to remove the listings from search results for a time.

“We made sure on the second initial pilot that we signed agreements with MLSs regarding the feeds and how we were using them,” Rediger said.

Taking on the nation

HouseCanary and Google currently have agreements with California Regional MLS, San Diego MLS and national MLS MyState MLS, but Rediger said listings from REcolorado would be making their into search results in the coming weeks as they have just finished organizing an agreement with the Denver-based MLS. 

“Doing it this way does mean we have a long road ahead, but we are open and would like to talk with every MLS because we want to have every listing in the U.S.,” Rediger said. 

However, with the number of legal agreements and contracts needed, Rediger said he has no idea of what the timeline to achieving this goal will look like. For national or even large regional brokerages that span multiple MLSs that want all of their listings available for potential display on Google, Rediger said they can join MyState MLS, but he noted that HouseCanary really does want to engage with all MLSs.

“Our position is that we want to stay out of any battles in the MLS space. We are happy to work with any MLS that wants to talk with us,” Rediger said. 

Still a pilot program

Although the program is now national, Rediger stressed that it is still a pilot program and that they are continuing to test and change things based on user feedback and behavior. While he acknowledged that Google is known for killing off pilot programs that are unsuccessful and is aware that is a potential outcome for this program, he is still hopeful.

“It is going really well, and I think it is going to be here to stay,” Rediger said. “We will see if I am proven right, but I’m hopeful.” 

It is no secret that Google previously attempted to enter into the real estate space only to back out, but Rediger noted that the environment and technology of today are very different from what existed the last time Google made a real estate play. 

“I find this industry [has] a really long memory, but if you compare things that are happening today from a digital perspective to the last time Google tried something like this, a lot has changed. So, it’s like this fun trope to just assume that this won’t work,” Rediger said. “Just because it hasn’t worked in the past doesn’t mean this new experiment will fail.” 

Embracing the moment

For right now, Rediger is focused on trying to make the pilot successful and also soak up as much of the experience of working with a firm as large as Google as he can.

“They are pretty fun to work with, and they are, of course, very good at what they do. They have some of the trappings of a big company where different divisions have to talk to each other for something to happen, but it has been really cool to watch them step into this space with different ideas and perspectives,” Rediger said.  

Even if this pilot program doesn’t progress further, Rediger said he hopes to continue to find ways to eliminate friction in the homebuying and selling process for both agents and consumers. 

“The real bigger picture thing is doing things that are good for the consumers and good for the agent,” Rediger said,

This post was originally published on here. 

Student loan delinquencies and defaults have trended upward since October 2025, when pandemic-driven policy leniency hit a hard deadline. The three U.S. credit bureaus resumed capturing and reporting student loan delinquencies and defaults and assigning lower credit scores.

The lower credit scores – and particularly the appearance of a default – could prevent some prospective buyers from purchasing homes for up to seven years.

Low credit scores impact mortgage qualifications and raise housing costs

Credit scores are key to qualifying for a mortgage, and weak scores funnel borrowers to higher mortgage rates offered to risky borrowers. What’s more, the higher combined principal and interest payments likely will wind up being paired with higher hazard insurance premiums. That’s because insurers consider credit scores to gauge risky behavior that may align with property damage. The combined impact on monthly payments could prevent buyers from qualifying due to caps on debt payments as a percent of income.

Most conventional 30-year mortgages limit total debt payments (e.g., mortgage, credit cards, and auto) to 43% of monthly income, while FHA loans may allow up to 50% – but only with strong credit scores.

Defining delinquency and default for student loans:

A student loan account is delinquent when a payment due date was missed. At 90 days past due, delinquency is reported to credit bureaus.

A student loan is in default when no payment has been made for 270 days (nine months). At that point, the entire principal and interest balance is due, and refinancing options are extremely limited.

Student loan delinquencies and defaults also hurt renters, as landlords of Class A and B properties may turn down their applications. Utility companies evaluate credit scores and may require a larger security deposit to provide water, gas and electricity, and cable/internet. Renter’s insurance is often a requirement to lease and will cost more with a weak credit score.

As defaults impair consumers’ credit reports for up to seven years, a portion of the estimated 3.6 million student loan borrowers in default as of Q1 2026 may fall out of the buyer pool for years.

Rising household debt may contribute to student loan delinquency. Student debt balances remained fairly flat as of Q1 2026, while other types of household debt ticked higher, according to the Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit, from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Center for Microeconomic Data.

However, the share of student loans that have fallen past due increased to roughly 10%, on par with pre-pandemic levels.

Delinquent student loan borrowers faced an October 2025 deadline

When the pandemic’s “stay at home” restrictions took effect in March 2020, President Biden halted student debt monthly payment obligations. The reprieve lasted for over three years, until payment requirements resumed in October 2023. However, President Biden’s “on ramp” program provided an additional 12-month grace period during which any missed payments were not reported to the three credit bureaus.

During Q4 2025, student loan lenders again began reporting delinquencies to the credit bureaus. The first post-pandemic defaults reflecting 9+ months of nonpayment were reported to credit bureaus in Q1 2026.

Liberty Street Economics, a team of New York Fed economists engaged in research, estimates 1.0 million student loan defaults were reported to credit bureaus in Q4 2025, and another 2.6 million defaults were reported in Q1 2026. The economists note a potential wave of defaults may lie ahead as very few of the 7 million delinquent borrowers who planned to participate in the SAVE income-based repayment plan (cancelled by the Department of Education in March 2026 per the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit) have been making monthly payments.

This Fall, many could hit the 270-day mark that equates to default.

Student debt default rates are rising among older borrowers

Liberty Street’s analysis of the age distribution of recently defaulted borrowers reveals somewhat lower percentages for 20 to 32-year-old borrowers than the pre-pandemic default rate. However, default rates have risen among 35 to 70+ year old borrowers, although overall default rates remain low. Approximately 1.5% of all newly defaulted borrowers are 50 years old.

Members of the Millennial generation are now 30 to 45 years old and considered by housing and demographic experts to be in their prime working and family-building years. They recently surpassed the Boomers in numbers, and homebuilders and resale agents are excited by Millennials’ interest in buying homes.  Roughly 2.5% to 3.0% of newly defaulted student loan borrowers are ages 30 to 45 years old.

Sun Belt markets face elevated student loan defaults, a demand red flag

Liberty Economics calculated the share of student loan defaults occurring in Q4 2025 or Q1 2026 by state. Even the states with more moderate exposure have recent default rates of at least 4%.  View the map here.

Homebuilders operating in major Sun Belt markets, such as Houston, Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Phoenix, have been reducing new home starts and clearing their inventories of finished but unsold homes to align supply with soft demand.

Shrinkage in the buyer pool could push builders to further curtail new home starts, reducing new home supply despite the newly enacted 2026 ROAD to Housing law’s stated goal of boosting supply. Lower starts volume would also challenge building product manufacturers, homebuilding subcontractors, and land developers who sell lots to builders.

Up to now, the main impact of loan delinquencies and defaults has been the lowering of borrowers’ credit scores. Liberty Street indicates defaulted borrowers’ credit scores dropped 91 points in the 2nd half of 2025, from an average of 567 to 473. These borrowers are also delinquent on other debts. Data for Q1 2026 reveals 21% are delinquent on their mortgages, 40% are delinquent on auto loans, and 57% are delinquent on credit card payments.

The Department of Education has suspended efforts to collect on student loan defaults while refining the range of repayment options and an opportunity for borrowers to “rehabilitate” their student loans.

However, the government may garnish borrowers’ wages, tax refunds and even their Social Security payments in the future. Such reductions in household income would sideline potential homebuyers if weakened credit scores and more costly monthly payments due to higher mortgage rates did not already disqualify them from purchasing homes.

This post was originally published on here. 

Mortgage rates stayed in the upper 6% range over the last week as investors weighed persistent inflation concerns, geopolitical tensions and uncertainty ahead of next week’s Federal Reserve meeting.

At HousingWire‘s Mortgage Rates Center on Tuesday, rates for 30-year conventional loans averaged 6.85%, a slight decrease from last week’s 6.86%. Rates for 30-year loans through the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) rose 10 bps to 6.55% while rates for 30-year jumbo loans decreased by 3 bps to 6.84%.

Industry experts said mortgage rates remain closely tied to the 10-year Treasury yield, which has climbed as rising oil prices and conflict in the Middle East renewed fears that inflation could remain elevated.

“Mortgage rates moved lower last week as inflation data came in better than expected, but we’ve also seen how quickly the outlook can change,” said Benjamin Cohen, managing director and senior vice president of mortgage lending at Rate. “Rising tensions in the Middle East have pushed oil prices higher and reminded markets that inflation risks haven’t disappeared.”

Cohen said investors will watch next week’s Fed meeting closely, not just for a rate decision, but for policymakers’ assessment of inflation and geopolitical risks.

Fed tone, oil prices drive rate expectations

Some experts said inflation expectations, rather than the Fed’s benchmark rate itself, are the primary driver of borrowing costs. Charles Goodwin, vice president and head of bridge and DSCR lending at Kiavi, said hawkish Fed commentary and renewed oil price concerns have pushed rates back into the mid-6% range.

The CME Group‘s FedWatch tool showed that 82.4% of interest rate traders now believe benchmark rates will stay unchanged after the July 29 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), down from 88% last week.

“Commentary from the Fed has been clearly hawkish, with numerous Fed members and Fed Chair Warsh focusing more on the inflation narrative than the labor narrative,” Goodwin said. “Expect rates to stay in this range barring any breakthroughs in the Middle East, easing inflation data, or very weak labor data.”

Sarah DeFlorio, vice president of mortgage banking at William Raveis Mortgage, said higher Treasury yields have erased much of the recent improvement in mortgage rates.

“Mortgage rates are being directly impacted by rising oil prices and the increased risk of sticky inflation that comes with it,” DeFlorio said.

DeFlorio added that while many had hoped Warsh’s appointment as Fed chair would translate into lower rates, the “unpleasant reality of the macro global environment” is making that “particularly difficult to do.”

Mike Nielsen, a home loan specialist at Churchill Mortgage, agrees, noting that a resilient economy and stubborn inflation continue to push investors toward equities over fixed-income assets, limiting the likelihood of significantly lower rates.

“The combo of a decent economy with the current inflation numbers just doesn’t add up to a low-rate market,” Nielsen said.

Kevin Watson, district manager also at Churchill Mortgage, said renewed fighting in the Middle East has amplified concerns about oil supplies moving through the Strait of Hormuz, contributing to higher inflation expectations and Treasury yields. “We don’t anticipate rates will come down anytime soon, likely until we get a new ceasefire – and only if it actually sticks. Considering that, I wouldn’t expect to see relief on mortgage rates until 2027.”

That uncertainty is adding upward pressure to mortgage pricing, explained Grace Maxwell, broker-owner at Canter Financial.

“The more uncertainty that investors have for market conditions … the higher of a spread they will want to see to factor in that additional risk,” Maxwell said. “Right now, conflict in Iran is driving oil price volatility … which translates to higher mortgage rates to the American borrower.”

Affordability stabilizing, but challenges persist

Even as borrowing costs remain elevated, some housing data suggest affordability may be stabilizing. Kenon Chen, executive vice president of strategy and growth at Clear Capital, said the company’s June Home Data Index showed national home prices rose 2.2% quarter over quarter, with every region posting gains.

While affordability remains strained, Chen said monthly payment burdens appear more manageable than some headlines suggest when viewed in historical context, though rising insurance costs and HOA fees continue to pressure buyers.

Marc Halpern, CEO of Foundation Mortgage, said affordability remains the market’s biggest challenge as buyers contend with elevated rates, home prices, insurance premiums and property taxes simultaneously.

Rather than waiting for rates to fall sharply, Halpern said borrowers should focus on finding affordable monthly payments by comparing lenders and exploring options such as seller concessions, temporary or permanent rate buydowns, adjustable-rate mortgages and alternative loan products.

“Borrowers should shop multiple lenders, strengthen their credit and reserves, and negotiate aggressively in markets where inventory and price reductions are increasing,” he said. “They should not postpone a sound purchase solely to time the rate market.”

This post was originally published on here. 

Rechat has launched “Hey Lucy,” a new video-first advertising campaign highlighting how real estate agents can manage their business entirely through voice commands using Lucy, the company’s AI assistant.

The campaign features real estate agents working in everyday settings — arriving at listings, driving between appointments and leaving open houses — using voice commands to complete common real estate tasks without typing or switching between applications.

According to Rechat, the campaign builds on the growing role of voice-powered AI in real estate workflows.

“Agents were never going to type their way through their day and scale. They’re between showings, walking into a listing, sitting in a car between calls,” said Shayan Hamidi, CEO of Rechat. “The interface that fits that life is voice. Lucy was built for this. She knows your contacts, your deals, your listings. She’s not a chatbot responding to a prompt. She’s a colleague who already knows the context.”

The campaign showcases Lucy performing a range of tasks, including creating single-property websites, sending market reports to segmented contact lists, updating CRM records, drafting listing descriptions and social media posts, running buyer searches, sending testimonial requests and retrieving comparable sales and vendor recommendations.

The spots feature no narration, instead focusing on the voice command and resulting action.

Advertising will run throughout the summer across Meta, Google and other national digital platforms, with additional videos scheduled for release.

“Agents have never enjoyed typing notes into a CRM. We ask people who sell with their voice to sit down and type, then blame them for not doing it. Hey Lucy does the data entry for you. An agent walks up to a listing, says a few words, and the work gets done instantly,” said Audie Chamberlain, vice president of strategic growth and communications at Rechat.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here. 

The pandemic wrought financial havoc across the economy, but its impact on the housing market was significantly reduced due to a whole-of-government response that enabled millions of families to stay in their homes. The rapid deployment of forbearance, the ability to pause mortgage payments and a slew of new options to modify distressed mortgages provided critical support to households that prevented a deep and lasting housing recession. 

These tools, however, came with a financial cost, which was borne by mortgage servicers who were able to shoulder this burden by virtue of the historic refinance boom that followed the onset of the pandemic. The Federal Reserve’s intervention in the economy materially lowered mortgage rates, which both helped households save on their monthly payments and drove significant refinance activity, which gave mortgage servicers the operating capital to fund the cost of loss mitigation. 

But if we remain in an inflationary environment before the next housing downturn, the Fed may not respond by lowering the cost of credit, so we cannot rely on monetary policy to fund the use of these tools in the near term. We need to start building new vehicles to provide liquidity to servicers so they can help keep borrowers in their homes in the event of a downturn.

The vulnerability of independent mortgage banks

While the economy has proven resilient across the last few years, households are showing increasing signs of stress. At the same time, mortgage lenders, in particular independent mortgage banks (IMBs), have weathered several years of lower mortgage activity due to millions of borrowers being “locked-in” to their current mortgages originated or refinanced during the extremely low-rate pandemic era. 

Unlike traditional banking institutions, IMBs are monoline firms that do not benefit from the diversified business lines that typify traditional banks, so they are reliant on mortgage activity for revenue. 

Significant economic downturns like our pandemic experience and the global financial crisis of 2008 prompted the Federal Reserve to support greater economic activity by lowering the cost of credit; however, downturns and monetary easing do not always coincide, and today’s market reflects an inflationary environment that would likely render the Fed unwilling or unable to bolster the economy through a round of easing. Chairman Warsh’s first rate-setting meeting indicates that fighting inflation remains a priority and the Fed is strongly indicating either a stable or rising interest rate environment unless economic conditions change.

A perfect storm for housing finance

A downturn in the current economic environment would look vastly different than our most recent experiences. Mortgage servicers will not be able to manage a significant number of mortgage delinquencies in a low-origination environment without financing support. To the extent new loss mitigation tools are needed to address borrower distress, they will increase IMBs’ funding challenges, despite being a good investment of resources. 

This environment sets up the housing finance system for a potential “perfect storm,” in which large numbers of borrowers experience distress and default on their mortgages, even as the traditional sources of working capital for lenders become unavailable just when that liquidity is needed most. 

Managing mortgages of borrowers in distress is costly, but research has shown that prompt intervention is a good investment for mortgage servicers as the financial benefit of reperformance is often greater than recoveries in foreclosure. This recovery, however, takes time, and lenders need access to working capital to support borrowers and mitigate their own losses by modifying mortgages so that both they and borrowers can get to a sustainable outcome. 

The systemic risk of servicer failures

The potential failure of multiple mortgage servicers would present unique challenges to the housing finance system and broader economy. The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) published a report in 2024 laying out the ramifications of such a scenario. 

As the FSOC noted, servicer failures put distressed borrowers at risk of not getting available forms of mortgage relief. While mortgage servicing transfers occur regularly in the ordinary course, transfers related to servicer failures can be chaotic because they must be completed immediately, increasing the risk that borrowers will be lost in the process. 

Servicing failures result in the immediate transfer of servicing responsibilities to Ginnie Mae and the GSEs. Both Ginnie Mae and the GSEs rely on healthy mortgage servicers to take on these responsibilities, but finding new servicers in an environment that has led to the failure of multiple servicers would be challenging and would increase the likelihood that these transfers are delayed or impaired, exacerbating the impact on affected borrowers. Finally, as the FSOC noted, most mortgage servicers are also mortgage originators, so a disorderly set of failures can also threaten the availability and affordability of mortgages for new borrowers. 

How policymakers can prevent a crisis

What has changed in the years since the FSOC released its report is that the theoretical scenario that other experts and I have worried about has become much less theoretical. 

Over the last several years, a number of potential liquidity solutions have been suggested by experts and policymakers, each with its own advantages and drawbacks. The FSOC itself recommended a number of possible solutions, including asking Congress for new authorities to enable the federal government to provide liquidity when private-sector sources fail. 

While it is unlikely that there is a single “silver bullet” approach to solving this liquidity challenge, it is critical that stakeholders and policymakers work together to implement tools that make helping borrowers sustainable, so we can prevent deep and lasting harm to households and the economy before the storm hits. 

Sam Valverde, Managing Director at Falcon Capital Advisors and Former Acting President of Ginnie Mae
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. 

This post was originally published on here. 

For nearly two decades, consumers have had the ability to answer one of life’s biggest financial questions almost instantly: “What is my home worth?”

Today, millions of homeowners monitor their home’s estimated value almost as closely as they monitor their investment portfolios.

Anyone who has spent a career in real estate has likely had countless conversations with homeowners who confidently say, “My Zestimate says my home is worth X”, only to discover it missed important details on the property and often gave an inaccurate valuation.

Now, something even bigger is beginning to happen. Consumers aren’t just asking online home valuation tools anymore. They’re asking artificial intelligence (AI).

They are going to AI titans such as ChatGPT and Claude and asking them “What is my home worth?” Not only to get an estimated range, but to seek advice, real advice. Advice whether to accept an offer. Advice about whether they are overpaying or not.

Recently, even luxury Real Estate mogul Ryan Serhant was on CNBC stating he nearly lost a $50 million deal because ChatGPT told the seller it was worth more, while simultaneously telling the buyer they were paying too much.

The question is no longer whether AI will influence real estate. It already has.

The real important question is whether today’s AI tools and automated valuation models have enough information to produce a valuation homeowners should trust. And if AI is to give that valuation, how do we make it unbiased, objective and transparent like a professional appraiser would?

The limitations of automated valuation models

For the last 20 years, automated valuation models (AVMs) have relied on historical sales data, public records, market trends and comparable properties.  These tools have transformed the real estate industry by making information more accessible than ever before.

But even the best algorithms share one important limitation: they don’t actually know the home.

Imagine two homes on the same street. They have the same number of bedrooms and bathrooms. They have identical square footage. Similar lot sizes. Maybe even built in the same year. On paper, they appear identical!

However, one homeowner invested hundreds of thousands into a new roof, new pool, renovated backyard, a new luxury kitchen; the list goes on. The neighboring property?  It hasn’t been updated at all.

To an algorithm relying on public records, these homes may appear very similar. To a buyer walking through the front door, they’re entirely different properties. That gap between public data and reality is where I believe the next generation of home valuation technology will evolve.

Combining artificial intelligence with homeowner knowledge

Ironically, the person with the most knowledge about the home has historically had the smallest role in determining its online value.

The homeowner knows the renovations. The deferred maintenance. The premium finishes. The condition of the roof. The quality of the landscaping. The panoramic views that may not appear in public records. They understand details that no algorithm can reliably infer from historical data alone.

The future isn’t about replacing algorithms with homeowner opinions. It’s about combining the strengths of both.

Artificial intelligence has the ability to analyze enormous amounts of market data, identify patterns and process information at a scale no human ever could. Homeowners provide context that algorithms often cannot see. Together, those two perspectives have the potential to create a more complete understanding of a property’s value.

As AI continues to reshape nearly every industry, residential real estate faces an important decision. Will we continue asking algorithms to estimate homes based solely on publicly available information? I believe the future of home valuations will not be defined by smarter algorithms alone. It will be defined by valuation technology that can finally see the whole property.

That means giving homeowners access to better tools that help them understand value before they make major financial decisions.

Because in real estate, the difference between a good decision and a costly one often comes down to understanding the details no public record can see.

Gene Whiddon III is the CEO of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate Florida for South Florida and Founder and CEO of HomeZee.
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.

This post was originally published on here. 

The long game Was never about one Acquisition

Viewed through a sharply narrowed lens of a single transaction, Holiday Builders adds another respected, cycle-tested, deeply regionally invested homebuilder to Stanley Martin Homes‘ growing portfolio.

However, through the panoramic landscape lens of Daiwa House‘s long-term strategy, however, the acquisition takes on a considerably more significant mission and purpose.

It stands as another carefully measured step in a strategic roadmap that has been unfolding for nearly a decade.

From Day One over a decade ago, Daiwa House’s expansion into American homebuilding veered dramatically from the acquisition strategies often seen among publicly traded U.S. builders. Rather than assembling one massive national brand, the Osaka-based housing giant has steadily built a portfolio of strong regional operators, each keeping its own identity, leadership and market intel and reputational trust while receiving help from patient capital, operational resources and long-term strategic planning.

Stanley Martin became the company’s East Coast anchor. CastleRock Communities set up a meaningful Texas-and-beyond operational-excellence and business culture presence. Trumark Companies fortified its position across California and the western United States.

Holiday Builders now becomes another important mission and purpose role player in that enterprise architecture.

More pointedly, it suggests Daiwa House has entered a second phase of its American strategy.

The first decade proved out operating platforms. The next appears focused on strengthening them as local-learning-driven adapters.

That evolution is reflected not only in acquisitions themselves but in how Daiwa House executives describe the company’s future.

Speaking to investors earlier this year, management reaffirmed that despite continued pressure from elevated interest rates, its goal of delivering approximately 10,000 U.S. single-family homes stays unchanged. More tellingly, executives said future expansion would continue to count decisvely on the company’s existing American homebuilding businesses.

“Our core approach,” management explained, “is to put them at the core of our moves to expand business.” 

Holiday Builders is exactly the kind of acquisition that statement foreshadowed.

“This combination is meaningful, as Holiday Builders ranks as the largest post-Global Financial Crisis, Florida-based private builder transaction,” said Tony McGill, Head of Investment Banking at Zelman Partners LLC, exclusive advisor to Holiday Builders, underscoring the strategic nature of the combination and reinforcing that this was not merely an opportunistic acquisition, but one carefully structured around long-term value creation. McGill added, “It’s also the largest employee-owned private homebuilding organization to transact, which means the entire team of employees participate in the upside, and bring that skin in the game to the new organization.”

Rather than replacing an operating platform, Daiwa House is strengthening one.

A strategy measured in decades, not quarters

Holiday Builders also arrives at an important moment in Daiwa House’s own corporate planning cycle.

The transaction follows the successful completion of the company’s Seventh Medium-Term Management Plan, which emphasized building a sustainable long-term growth model through expansion of overseas operations, recurring revenue businesses and disciplined strategic investment. Company results show overseas revenue more than doubling during the plan period, fueled largely by growth in the U.S. single-family housing business. U.S. housing deliveries increased by roughly 74% while total land holdings expanded to more than 75,000 lots. 

Now, as Daiwa House prepares to launch its next five-year strategic framework – i.e. its Eighth Medium-Term Management Plan, executives have made equally clear that overseas housing, and particularly the United States, will remain central to the company’s future.

“The Japan-based homebuilding organizations seem to each have that longterm play on economic growth tied to rooftops,” said McGill. “Now they’re looking beyond that geographic sweep to bring scale down to a more grassroots level, where what they’re scaling is their profits and returns.”

The investor presentation positions U.S. single-family housing among the company’s key long-term growth businesses while reaffirming its emphasis on expanding American operations through its existing builder platforms. 

The earnings discussion added another revealing detail.

Executives told investors that the company continues targeting approximately 100,000 U.S. controlled lots while keeping a weather eye out for additional acquisitions should opportunities arise under the next Medium-Term Management Plan. 

Holiday Builders, another milestone in the Stanley Martin-Daiwa House arc of growth, fits naturally within that progression.

Where Holiday Builders plays a key role

The strategic value Holiday Builders brings extends well beyond Florida geography.

Under President and CEO Bruce Assam and Chief Financial Officer Richard Fadil, Holiday Builders has built almost stealthily one of Florida’s more disciplined operating organizations, emphasizing attainable housing – drawing on “secret sauce”-style skills in culling scattered lots in its operating arenas, effectively yielding an asset-light real-time lot absorption system, paired with 65-day construction operation cycles – all while navigating one of the nation’s most challenging affordability environments.

That focus became especially visible through the company’s Inspire product line, developed specifically to deliver homes that better align with today’s affordability realities without abandoning design quality or customer experience.

Those priorities closely mirror Stanley Martin’s own mission of designing and building homes “people love at a price they can afford.”

In an industry increasingly challenged to reconnect attainable pricing with sustainable profitability, that philosophical alignment may prove every bit as valuable as Holiday’s community count or controlled lots.

Holiday also plays a less heralded but arguably more vital role in the Stanley Martin growth trajectory. For more than four decades, the company has cultivated relationships with municipalities, landowners, trade contractors, suppliers and development partners throughout Florida. Those relationships cannot be replicated overnight. Stanley Martin gets them at once, without the de novo market expansion “brain damage” operators normally must endure.

By the same token, Holiday Builders gains access to broader organizational resources, greater capital nimbleness and an operating platform capable of supporting continued expansion while preserving the trusted local leadership that built the company’s reputation.

Rather than vanishing inside a larger enterprise, Holiday appears positioned to become an important contributor to it.

Product and land innovation can travel

An even more intriguing opportunity lies beyond Florida. As affordability increasingly shapes housing demand nationwide, Holiday Builders’ experience designing, pricing and marketing attainable housing may become transferable knowledge throughout Daiwa House’s broader American organization.

Stanley Martin, CastleRock Communities and Trumark Companies each operate in markets confronting similar affordability pressures, albeit under different economic and regulatory conditions.

Holiday’s work around attainable product design offers more than another successful Florida business model.

“Holiday’s skill at scattered-lot acquisition and real-time lot absorptions show up on the business balance sheet as a proven pioneer in asset-light business and capital investment,” said Zelman’s McGill.

The product and land-tactics skillset provide a potential template that could influence product development and land strategy discussions across Daiwa House’s broader U.S. portfolio. In that sense, Holiday Builders contributes intellectual capital alongside operating scale.

As homebuilders increasingly compete on product efficiency, construction cost discipline and value engineering – not simply location or amenities – that exchange of operating knowledge could become one of the transaction’s most durable benefits.

Disciplined capital, local leadership

Another notable aspect of the transaction is what it says about Daiwa House’s approach to growth.

Unlike many consolidation stories, Holiday Builders is not being folded into a centralized national operating structure.

Instead, the transaction reinforces a strategy that values experienced regional leadership. Assam, Fadil and the Holiday Builders organization bring decades of market knowledge that cannot be engineered through corporate integration.

That local capability becomes stronger – not weaker – when paired with Daiwa House’s long-term local learning and investment horizon and Stanley Martin’s expanding operational capabilities.

The combination reflects a philosophy that has become increasingly plain across Daiwa House’s American investments.

• National capital.
• Regional leadership.
• Local execution.

The transaction itself also bears the fingerprints of sophisticated industry planning, and a commitment to ongoing deep knowledge assimilation and local learning as a strategic throughline.

The competitive architecture is changing

Holiday Builders will not likely go down in homebuilding M&A annals because it added another thousand annual closings to Stanley Martin’s ledger.

Its greater significance may lie in what it reveals about where American homebuilding is headed.

The competitive landscape is no longer defined solely by annual closing volume or market-share rankings.

Increasingly, advantage is accruing to organizations capable of assembling something much more durable: regional operating density supported by patient capital, disciplined land strategy, experienced local leadership, transferable operating knowledge and product systems designed around evolving customer needs.

That is what Daiwa House appears to be constructing across its American portfolio.

Holiday Builders does not change that strategy.

It extends it, geographically, against customer segments, and in an operations-land system that can play in markets across the country.

On the eve of Daiwa House’s next Medium-Term Management Plan, the acquisition serves as a reminder that the company’s ambitions in American homebuilding remain measured not in quarterly earnings or even annual closings, but in decades of learning first and acting with discipline.

This post was originally published on here. 

Compass International Holdings has introduced AI Assistant, a conversational agent embedded across its new Home Platform that lets real estate professionals describe what they want to do and have the system complete tasks on their behalf, the company announced Monday.

The launch comes just weeks after Compass unveiled the Home Platform, its integrated operating system for agents. AI Assistant is designed to sit on top of that infrastructure and turn the platform into an intelligent, interactive workspace rather than a set of tools agents must learn to navigate, the firm said.

According to the company, AI Assistant has access to an agent’s core business data, including contacts, pipeline, marketing activity and upcoming tasks. That context allows it to deliver personalized daily briefings, highlight likely-to-sell opportunities and execute administrative work such as updating records and creating follow-ups.

“Instead of learning software, agents tell AI Assistant what they want to accomplish, and the Home Platform does the work,” Rory Golod, president of growth at Compass International Holdings, said in the announcement. “AI Assistant should feel like having a real assistant alongside you. The more administrative work we eliminate, the more time agents have to advise clients, negotiate great outcomes and focus on the work that matters most.”

Agents can use AI Assistant while driving between appointments or preparing for a listing presentation, Compass said. The tool can update client records, draft follow-up emails, create saved searches, manage transactions, surface upcoming occasions such as home anniversaries and birthdays and schedule reminders, without requiring users to switch between multiple applications.

“Software has always required agents to learn how it works. Our vision is the opposite. Technology should understand how agents work,” Shay Artzi, chief technology officer of Compass International Holdings, said. “AI Assistant is another step toward a future where the platform manages repetitive tasks so agents can focus on building relationships and advising clients.”

The release of AI Assistant comes as brokerages and software vendors race to embed generative AI into agent workflows. Most offerings to date have focused on tasks like property descriptions, email drafts or market reports. Compass is positioning AI Assistant as a broader orchestration layer that can initiate and complete workflows by tying together data and tools already inside the Home Platform.

As for the Home Platform, Compass said it is rolling out across company-owned and operated brands this year, with franchisees and affiliates slated to gain access in 2027. That staged deployment will determine how well the AI Assistant scales across different markets and operating models.

This article was generated using HousingWire Automation and reviewed by a HousingWire editor before publication.

This post was originally published on here.