Canopy MLS opens participation to brokers nationwide

Canopy MLS is rolling out a new participation model and technology framework that will allow licensed real estate professionals across the country to join its platform and submit listings through approved third-party or proprietary systems, the organization announced Wednesday.  Under the participat

FTC wins court order to shut down alleged mortgage relief scheme

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Wednesday announced that it secured a court order to shut down an alleged mortgage relief scheme. The regulator says the scheme referenced federal homeowner assistance programs to collect upfront fees from financially distressed borrowers while failing to delive

PadSplit, Furnished Finder announce rental housing partnership

Furnished Finder has partnered with PadSplit to add thousands of PadSplit room rentals to the Furnished Finder platform. The partnership represents Furnished Finder’s largest housing inventory integration to date and responds to growing demand for private room rentals, which accounted for 19% of all

Opinion: Congress should protect property rights, not shift title risk to consumers and lenders

A home is more than a financial asset. It is where families build stability, save for the future and pass opportunity to the next generation. For many Americans, it is the largest investment they will ever make. That investment depends on a strong, transparent system that is accountable to the peopl

Why Taylor Morrison’s integration playbook matters in builder M&A

Flashback Shortly after Sheryl Palmer became chief executive officer of Taylor Morrison in 2007, I met with her in Scottsdale, Arizona, to discuss a challenge that would have intimidated many experienced homebuilding leaders. The company she had inherited was not merely navigating the early stages o

Pennsylvania ADU bill clears House, heads to Senate

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro declared he intended to go big on housing. On Monday, at least one piece of that ambition cleared the state House with a bipartisan vote, setting up a tougher sell in the Republican-controlled Senate. The House passed House Bill 2186, requiring municipalities statewide

BOXABL expands offerings with ‘kit-of-parts’ modular platform

BOXABL is moving beyond its flagship Casita accessory dwelling unit with a Phase 2 product lineup that uses three standardized modules to configure more than 20 different home and apartment types, the company announced Tuesday. The Las Vegas-based modular manufacturer launched a beta online catalog

Cloze Forge platform lets real estate firms ‘vibe code’ custom tools

Cloze announced Cloze Forge at the 1000WATT Signal conference on Tuesday. It’s a new platform allowing real estate brokerages to build and deploy fully branded digital tools without needing an internal development team. Cloze says Forge enables firms to “vibe-code” custom apps through its Forge Stud

Cole West promotes Chris Winter to President of Homebuilding

Utah-based Cole West named Chris Winter as the company’s new president of homebuilding to help facilitate the developer’s expanding footprint across Utah, according to a company announcement.  Winter will oversee Cole West’s homebuilding operations in both Northern and Southern Utah, according to th

Why CoStar, Berkshire Hathaway are betting big on homebuilding

The past week saw two companies traditionally associated with the real estate industry make a splash in the homebuilding space.  Things kicked off on Friday with CoStar Group’s $800 million all-cash acquisition of Zonda, a data company that tracks land development, construction activity, home sales

Windermere promotes founding family member Lucy Wood to regional director

Windermere Real Estate has promoted Lucy Wood to regional director for western Washington and Oregon, placing her in charge of the company’s largest operating region. The appointment expands Wood’s leadership responsibilities across more than 170 offices and strengthens the company’s presence throug

Onity wins approval for revised reverse MSR sale to FOA

Onity Group Inc. won regulatory approval for a revised sale of most of its reverse mortgage servicing rights to Finance of America (FOA), the company said Tuesday. Under the new agreement, Onity will sell MSRs on about 20,000 Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs) with an unpaid principal balance

Home purchase demand holds up even with mortgage rates at 6.7%

Rates for 30-year conforming mortgages stayed above 6.7% this week, but housing market activity has been resilient as weekly pending sales and purchase loan demand are up slightly compared to this time last year. At HousingWire’s Mortgage Rates Center on Tuesday, 30-year conforming loan rates averag

Opinion: Compass has made the MLS its proxy

When an industry’s incumbents can’t win on merit, they stop competing and start restricting. The MLS feed cutoffs to Zillow are the latest version of this pattern. Taxi commissions tried to slow Uber in 2014. They didn’t fight on product. They couldn’t. Uber was easier, cheaper and the cars were cle

Is the mortgage industry broken—or structurally misaligned?

There is an ongoing debate in mortgage lending about whether the industry is fundamentally broken or simply experiencing another cycle of technological evolution. Over the past decade, lenders have invested heavily in automation, OCR, verification services, title integrations and income validation t

Realtor.com adds Agoyu AI to generate quotes for movers

Realtor.com has integrated Agoyu’s AI-driven moving quote platform into select rental and for-sale listings, giving consumers access to instant estimates from vetted movers without an in-home visit, the companies announced on Monday. Within their home-search experience on Realtor.com, users can now

Berkshire’s big housing bet: What agents should pay attention to

When one of the world’s most respected investment companies makes an $8.5 billion move during a challenging housing market, people tend to pay attention. Berkshire Hathaway‘s agreement to acquire Taylor Morrison Home Corp. has sparked conversations throughout the real estate industry — with many vie

Berkshire Taylor Morrison deal focuses on scale and ecosystems

[Editor’s Note: Berkshire Hathaway‘s planned acquisition of Taylor Morrison is one of those rare transactions whose significance extends well beyond the companies involved. Today’s analysis examines the deal through a broad strategic lens, exploring why Berkshire may be betting not simply on a homeb

NAR publishes new resources on MLS, listings

With the increasing discourse surrounding listing data control and access, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) has published three new resources aimed at providing clarity for MLSs and brokers navigating these conversations.  Two of the resources, NAR said, are a complement to its MLS policy

Mutual of Omaha remains No. 1 as HECM endorsements fall 4.7% in May

Mutual of Omaha Mortgage remained the nation’s largest reverse mortgage lender in May, even as overall Home Equity Conversion Mortgage (HECM) endorsements continued to decline, according to a report released Monday by HECMWorld.com that utilizes data from Reverse Market Insight (RMI). Mutual of Omah