As more brokerages and agents contemplate moving away from a cooperative compensation model, many are grappling with some tough questions, the most vexing probably being: What do I do if a seller is only willing to contribute part of the buyer broker’s fees, or none at all?According to Anthony Lamac

As an academic and consultant, Mike DelPrete wears many hats. He can now add “sting operative” to his resume.DelPrete managed a team of undercover “secret home shoppers” to test the responsiveness of brokerages to online inquiries on home listings. His team conducted 100 such tests and found signifi

As many as half of surveyed U.S. adults said that retiring at age 65 is “unrealistic,” instead saying that age 74 is a more attainable goal to reach full retirement. This is according to a survey conducted by Equitable, a financial services provider.“Equitable’s survey revealed that nearly half of c

Influential housing nonprofit Enterprise Community Partners this week submitted a comment letter to the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) regarding the Duty to Serve (DTS) plans submitted by the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.In its letter, the organization re

Construction of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) is taking off, but is it bringing down housing costs?A new report from John Burns Real Estate Consulting casts doubt on it, citing uneven geographic distribution of deregulations and the high cost of construction. As a result, the most impactful ADUs a

Kiavi, a San Francisco-based lender for residential real estate investors, announced on Tuesday the closing of a $400 million rated securitization of residential transition loans (RTLs) in an “oversubscribed” transaction. The deal marked Kiavi’s 19th securitization, elevating its total issuance to o

Talk of a potential recession and the impending business practice changes were the overarching themes of the opening session of Keller Williams’ 2024 Mega Agent Camp Tuesday morning.Despite these harsh realities, Gary Keller, the executive chairman and co-founder of the firm, still had a reassuring

California-based HighTechLending, a top-10 lender in the reverse mortgage industry, recently announced that it was rebranding its wholesale channel to American Senior Lending Wholesale Division in an effort to better align its identity with key business lines designed to serve older borrowers.One of

Mortgage rates fell two weeks ago, then climbed steadily again last week. Is it enough to motivate any new seller activity or are we looking at 2025 before home sales finally recover?From a total inventory perspective, we haven’t seen any pickup in demand in the past couple of weeks as mortgage rate

Piggyback mortgages — those involving a first and second lien at origination — are on the rise among first-time and low- to moderate-income borrowers who face affordability challenges. This is according to a CoreLogic report published on Monday.The share of piggybacked Federal Housing Administration

There are just five days to go until the business practice changes outlined in the National Association of Realtors’(NAR) nationwide commission lawsuit settlement agreement, but the trade association is not out of the lawsuit woods just yet. In a lawsuit filed on Monday by Douglas Hardy, Glenn Champ

Rural parts of the U.S. have roughly 35% fewer home health aides to assist their aging populations than urban areas do.This is according to research from the University of Minnesota as cited by the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), a private nonprofit research organization that receives funding fro

Realty ONE Group is making moves in Florida. The firm announced on Friday the affiliation of Florida-based MVP Realty Associates. Derek Carlson, the founder, CEO and broker of MVP Realty Associates, has been named CEO and broker of the new Realty ONE Group MVP. The firm has 10 offices and more than

Many brokerage firms are trepidatiously moving to a model with no cooperative compensation in light of the impending business practice changes outlined in the National Association of Realtors’ (NAR) nationwide commission lawsuit settlement agreement. Peter Voss at 3% Listing Co. is wondering what to

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) established name recognition and political bona fides from his military service in the U.S. Marine Corps, his education at Yale Law School, his work for state and federal politicians, and his time as a venture capitalist. He published his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, in June 2016.

While a U.S. district court judge in Pennsylvania may have denied its motion to stay the Moratis copycat commission lawsuit, defendant West Penn MLS is not backing down without a fight.In addition to filing a motion in June to stay the suit, West Penn MLS also filed a motion for dismissal, as the ML

Open Mortgage on Friday shut down its distributed retail channel and laid off more than two dozen employees. The divisional closure comes six months after the Texas-based lender changed ownership and nine months after it exited the reverse mortgage business. The company will focus on the third-party

Have lower mortgage rates positively impacted the housing demand data yet? Some people have been very disappointed with the data so far, so I wanted to take an in-depth look with this week’s tracker to see what lower rates have done to these key data lines. Let’s look at two of those data lines toda

The reverse mortgage industry’s key performance indicators were split in July, according to data from industry analysts.Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) endorsements increased by 8% from June to July, with the total of 2,274 falling reasonably in line with Federal Housing Administration (FHA)