A letter from industry leaders to Congress is urging lawmakers for a safety net against the Aug. 1 TRID deadline In less than two months, enforcement of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s TILA-RESPA Integrated Disclosures (TRID) regulation, which aims

Latest housing survey from MacArthur Foundation finds many Americans skeptical of housing and the wider economy What a difference a year makes – or, in the case of the MacArthur Foundation’s “How Housing Matters” survey,  what a difference a

Down payment trends may hint at first time homebuyer confidence The average down payment for single-family homes, condos and townhomes was down to 14.8 percent of the purchase price for Q1 2015, the lowest number since Q1 2012, according

Latest jobs report features interesting implications for housing May was a positive month for the U.S. labor market, with the economy adding 280,000 jobs and the unemployment rate holding steady at 5.5 percent, according to the latest analysis from

Are real estate agents employees, or independent contractors? Massachusetts’s highest court weighs in The highest court in Massachusetts has settled the matter – real estate agents are independent contractors, not employees. That was the state’s Supreme Judicial Court’s decision

The Hispanic demographic struggles to recover from housing crash, but could become a big shaker in future markets Between now and 2020, roughly four out of every 10 new households in the U.S. will be headed by someone of

Last month’s new home sales appear hugely positive, but is there a hidden truth behind the numbers? On the surface, it would appear to be a wholly positive development for housing – sales of newly built single-family homes, according to

April’s pending home sales add positive note, but caution still necessary Pending home sales in April hit their highest level in nine years, according to the latest analysis from the National Association of Realtors. The Pending Home Sales Index

Home prices in Texas were strong as ever in the latest Case-Shiller report Home prices in the Lone Star State remained strong in March, with prices in the Dallas area rising 1.8 percent from February to March and 9.3 percent from March 2014,

Houston Agent counts down its top 10 real estate films In 1982, iconic horror moviemaker Tobe Hooper (of Texas Chainsaw Massacre fame) married two of American’s most deep-seeded fears: real estate and structures built on unmarked graves. In what became

Federal Aviation Administration approves 400-plus commercial drone exemptions As of late May 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration had granted 434 section 333 exemption petitions, which allow for the commercial use of unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, and among them,

Google has implemented several mobile-friendly guidelines to its search engine – is your real estate website following those guidelines? If your website isn’t mobile friendly, then Google may not want to be too friendly to it. And for a

Real estate agents should consider these pros and cons before building their own personal website. It’s a trifecta of statistics that perfectly reflects the modern real estate market’s relationship with the web: 92 percent of homebuyers use the Internet

New Freddie Mac research casts doubts on notion that rising rents push consumers toward homeownership It has been a common narrative in the post-boom housing market that rising rents would eventually push more consumers toward homeownership, but new research

Seven easy steps to building a real estate website The purpose of a good website should be to instill trust, amplify brand awareness and, ultimately, nurture prospects that will later turn into clients. Here are some “musts” for any

NAR documents 6 percent jump in existing-home sales Market indicators have detailed a continual progression towards normalcy since early 2014, but a hiccup in April’s existing-home sales could mark yet another slow down in the pace of progress, according