The time has come to highlight game-changing real estate professionals who adhered to the gold standard of brilliance in 2024. RealTrends Verified has opened the submissions period for its 2025 rankings, alongside a series of big-time enhancements. This year’s rankings mark a new chapter in the jour

Inaction is easy. It’s quiet; unwritten; immune from critique. It sits undone; confidently static.But if buyers and sellers were compelled to transcribe their inaction, it would read like a sociopath’s diary entry:“We could have watched you grow up, but your grandpa and me weren’t willing to give up

The sight of beautiful houses in Los Angeles transports you to an idyllic version of the city found in classic Hollywood movies. But the harsh realities of its pricy housing market more resemble the city’s dark underbelly reflected in a David Lynch LA noir film. And the wildfires ripping through Los

Mortgage rates fell last week after a brutal few months of rising rates. The question now is whether rates can keep going lower, or if last week was just a pause in the mortgage rate storm before the spring home-buying season gets into full swing.10-year yield and mortgage ratesMy 2025 forecast incl

As the dust settles from the confirmation hearing of Scott Turner to serve as the new secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are logging their reactions in official statements and social media posts ahead of an expected Senate vo

A notice implemented into the reverse mortgage servicing process that is designed to flag potential foreclosures if they are in a federally declared disaster area could prove to be beneficial for any borrowers currently impacted by the Los Angeles-area wildfires, according to a servicing industry ex

Purchase mortgage applications for new homes rose 8.9% year over year in December 2024, according to a report released Friday by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). Application volume decreased by 3% compared to November.MBA’s Builder Application Survey for December monitors application volumes

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced this week that Mark Steven Diamond, who was accused of “bilking elderly homeowners in a reverse mortgage and home repair scheme,” was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.Diamond was cr

Compass is strengthening its presence in the Nutmeg State. On Friday, the largest brokerage in the country by sales volume announced that The Jennifer Leahy Team will be leaving Douglas Elliman to join the Robert Reffkin-helmed firm.Based in Greenwich, Connecticut, the team is led by Jennifer Leahy

Today’s housing starts data exceeded estimates; however, a closer examination of the report with the builder confidence reveals that the recent rise in mortgage rates, approaching 7.25%, has negatively affected builder sentiment. Since late 2022, our analysis indicates that mortgage rates in the 6%-

The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) this week published Mortgagee Letter (ML) 2025-06, which codifies “updates to FHA’s permanent loss mitigation options based on learnings from its temporary COVID-19 policies and feedback received on the draft policies” from a proposal published this past Nove

The wildfires ripping through Los Angeles are on pace to be the most destructive in U.S. history, as one estimate concludes that property damage from the Palisades and Eaton fires could exceed $45 billion.When they’re finally extinguished, the city and its residents will have to sift through the dev

Seattle-based WaFd Bank, which has offered home loans for more than 100 years, announced Thursday in an earnings report that it will exit the single-family mortgage lending business. WaFd president and CEO Brent Beardall said in a LinkedIn post that the move will involve layoffs for about 8% of the

Florida-based non-QM lender A&D Mortgage announced Friday that it has acquired the wholesale and nondelegated correspondent lending businesses of Mr. Cooper Group. The terms of the deal have not been disclosed but it is expected to close by the end of March 2025.A&D reported that the two entities be

Government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announced this week that the planned transition from a “tri-merge” credit model — requiring credit reports to be pulled from all three, major agencies — to a “bi-merge” model that would require only two will be tied to other, new cre

President Joe Biden is mere days away from leaving office, but his administration is taking one more shot at the real estate industry.The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Thursday that it’s suing multifamily property manager Greystar for allegedly deceiving renters by adding mandatory fees t

Attom‘s year-end 2024 foreclosure report revealed that 322,103 properties in the U.S. had some type of foreclosure filing — default notices, scheduled auctions or bank repossessions — last year. The data solutions company also reported that in fourth-quarter 2024, one in every 1,671 properties had a

Longbridge Financial, one of the largest reverse mortgage lenders in the country, is currently embroiled in a lawsuit against competitor and Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) endorsement leader Mutual of Omaha Mortgage. Now Longbridge has filed a motion in court seeking to take down material it

Mortgage and property tax payments are not the only expenses that prospective homeowners need to consider. Homeowners associations (HOAs) are commonplace, and more of them are requiring owners to pay up, according to a survey by Realtor.com. Realtor.com’s report found that 40.5% of listings in 2024

A dedicated aging in place (AIP) program offered by the Oswego County Habitat for Humanity (OCHFH) in New York says it is seeing success by incorporating family, community and local resources to ensure older homeowners can remain where they prefer.“It’s been projected that, over the next 20 years, h