2026 HousingWire Homebuilder rankings expand the scoreboard

Up to now, homebuilding rankings have mostly answered two questions: who is bigger? And who is the biggest? They remain important questions. Scale matters in U.S. homebuilding. It affects land access, purchasing leverage, trade depth, capital relationships, brand reach, technology investment and res

Supreme Lending’s John Luddy on the ‘3 deadly sins’ of reverse mortgages

When it comes to the process of selling a reverse mortgage, John Luddy exemplifies the clichéd phrase, “been there, done that.” After 40 years in the mortgage industry, including more than 20 in the reverse channel, there’s not much that surprises the Connecticut-based senior vice president of Supre

KBW says UWM is well positioned despite market pressures

Analysts at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods (KBW) said UWM Holdings Corp., the publicly traded parent company of United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), is positioned for continued growth despite elevated interest rates. It points to expanded broker market share, in-house technology investments and a push to bring

HUD audit warns that some HECM LESA accounts may run dry

An audit from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) found that more than 1,200 reverse mortgage borrowers could exhaust funds set aside to pay property taxes and insurance years earlier than expected, potentially exposing HUD to hundreds of mi

Real estate agents: Before you paste AI copy into the MLS, run this checklist

AI is proving valuable in real estate marketing, quickly turning rough notes into first drafts and maintaining message consistency across channels. It helps solo agents match output from larger brokerages. Used effectively, AI is a practical tool that frees agents to focus on pricing, advising, nego

Welcome to the tech-ecosystem brokerage: How recent mergers will change how you work

The real estate industry is entering a new era of consolidation where technology infrastructure — not just brand scale — is becoming the primary driver of enterprise value. Recent acquisitions by Compass, eXp World Holdings and The Real Brokerage illustrate how brokerages increasingly view proprieta

The underwriting problem crypto built: What regulators and institutions are watching

Cryptocurrency is no longer a peripheral line item in borrower financial profiles. Approximately 30% of American adults now own it. Global ownership has surpassed an estimated 500 million people. The total housing market has crossed the $1 trillion mark multiple times in recent years. These numbers

Opinion: ‘This time it’s different.’ U.S. of AmeRegCorp. AARP. UMMC. MHI. MHARR. Congress and manufactured homes

Per the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) website: “MBA issued a Mortgage Action Alliance (MAA) Call to Action urging members to contact their U.S. Representative to ensure…troubling provisions within the Senate-passed 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act are fixed as the House prepares its response.”

The 2025 Exhibit Awards winners: Celebrating innovation at The Gathering

At The Gathering this past April, HousingWire and MAXA Designs recognized the companies redefining what strong branding looks like in today’s housing market during the 2025 Exhibit Awards. Now in its fourth year, the Exhibit Awards program celebrates the marketing, branding and business development

Real estate agents hope Kevin Warsh can calm roller coaster housing market

The Senate’s confirmation of Kevin Warsh as chairman of the Federal Reserve is already reshaping conversations across the housing industry — particularly among real estate agents watching mortgage rates, affordability and transaction volume. Warsh is set to officially succeed Jerome Powell after a c

The Clarity Act is coming: How real estate tokenization unlocks $40 trillion in dead equity

The real estate industry is preparing for the wrong disruption. For two years, brokerages, MLSs and trade groups have been consumed by the AI conversation. What tools to buy. Which workflows to automate. How to compete with ChatGPT-native upstarts. It’s a legitimate conversation, but it isn’t the on

A tale of two M&As: DFH’s hostile bid sharpens homebuilder tiers

While Wall Street waits to see if and when Dream Finders Homes returns with a sweeter bid after Beazer Homes’ board rejected its third unsolicited takeover proposal, another provocative question may be lurking across the sector. What if Dream Finders’ hostile move this week did more than put Beazer

Why a 2008 housing crash can’t happen again

Since 2012, every year we have heard that it’s about to be 2008 all over again for the housing market, as people try to get attention by implying home prices are going to crash like they did starting in 2007 and ending in 2011. However, the housing credit markets have changed in such a fashion that

Reverse mortgage vet Bruce Simmons on success in sales: ‘What is my why?’

At last week’s Reverse Mastermind Summit in Tennessee, Bruce Simmons of American Liberty Mortgage shared some of the secrets behind his successful career as a reverse mortgage originator. His motivational message to the audience centered around helping them answer a key question: What is my why? Sim

Newrez debuts Rezi Mortgage Assistant in ChatGPT for lender-specific guidance

Newrez has launched Rezi Mortgage Assistant, a consumer-facing custom GPT inside ChatGPT that delivers mortgage and home equity guidance grounded in the lender’s own underwriting guidelines and products, the company announced Wednesday. The Pennsylvania-based mortgage lender said Rezi Mortgage Assis

UWM’s Jason Bressler says in-house AI agents are changing underwriting, servicing work

Artificial intelligence is reshaping nearly every corner of the mortgage business at United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), where chief technology officer Jason Bressler said the company is betting on AI agents to automate underwriting support and servicing operations at a massive scale. Speaking with Hou

From addiction to advocacy: How the mortgage industry gave me a second chance

Homeownership is one of the most powerful wealth-building tools this country offers, and my path into the mortgage lending industry is an unlikely story that I could not be prouder to tell. In 2006, I was a methamphetamine addict living in an abandoned house, likely due for demolition, in Akron, Ohi

Your AI-generated content is showing. (And not in a good way.)

People can sense when unedited AI is being used as content. Let me show you what I mean. Here’s what happens when someone plugs “write about mortgage marketing trends” into one popular AI tool without a second thought: In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, mortgage pros struggle to stand ou

New Rochelle housing surge proves predictable zoning’s impact

New Rochelle embraced the abundance mindset long before the “yes in my backyard ” crowd made it cool. Today, the city, 25 minutes north of New York City by train, is a reference point for how zoning reform and predictable approvals can speed mixed-income housing production citywide. The city built o

Retirees counting on home equity may face financial shortfalls

For generations, homeownership has been one of the primary ways Americans built wealth and passed it on to loved ones. Now, financial advisers and housing experts warn that many older homeowners may be counting too heavily on their homes as retirement safety nets as they discover their properties se