By Peter Ricci The surging residential rental market – and the uptick in multifamily construction that has accompanied it – has been one of, if not the biggest outcomes of the post-boom housing market, and according to recent data pulled

By Peter Ricci Just a week after releasing new standards for residential mortgages, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is at it again this week, releasing the first nationwide standards for mortgage

By Peter Ricci The U.S. housing market ended 2012 on solid footing in the Redfin Real-Time Price Tracker, with home prices, housing inventory and home sales all improving over 2011. A monthly measure of the housing market’s key fundamentals, the Real-Time

By Peter Ricci Heavy price reductions were one of the ugliest side effects of the housing downturn, but a new study by Trulia suggest that price reductions may be happening with fewer frequency as the housing market

By Peter Ricci Housing starts soared in December, climbing 12.1 percent from November and 36.9 percent from December 2011 to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 954,000, according to the latest numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department

By Peter Ricci Builder confidence in the newly built, single-family homes market held firm in January, remaining at a level of 47 in the NAHB’s Housing Market Index, the industry’s leading measure of builder confidence. That’s the eighth consecutive month of

By Peter Ricci The national foreclosure inventory declined by 10 percent from September to November and mortgage origination remains strong, according to the November Mortgage Monitor from Lender Processing Services

By Joe Van Acker Turns out, girls just wanna…count the homeless. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is partnering with ’80s pop icon and Grammy Award-winner Cyndi Lauper to determine the size and characteristics of the country’s

By Peter Ricci The Houston real estate market concluded a rousing 2012 with yet another strong month of home sales in December, with single-family home sales increasing 11.4 percent year-over-year and marking the 19th straight month of positive home

By Peter Ricci Home prices increased 7.4 percent from November 2011 to November 2012 in the lastest CoreLogic HPI, which is the ninth straight month of year-over-year home price increases and the strongest showing from home prices since May

By Joe Van Acker United Real Estate continues to grow as it welcomes Legé Properties into its Houston office. The move brings the branch to 100 agents and is the latest sign of solid growth for the

By Peter Ricci First-time homebuyers, as any agent knows, are one of the most important demographics to a healthy real estate market, and the increasing market share of first-time homebuyers has been one of the many positive developments of

By Peter Ricci Total home sales increased 6 percent in 2012 over 2011 according to the January MarketPulse report from CoreLogic, a wide-ranging analysis of the housing market that anticipated good things for the real estate industry in 2013.

By Joe Van Acker Buyers enjoyed unprecedented buying power last year, according to the National Association of Realtor’s Housing Affordability Index. Cruising past 2011’s record figure of 186, the index is expected to reach an all-time high of 194

By Peter Ricci Real estate is often considered the last truly “free” market in the U.S. economy, a sector that, unlike agriculture, manufacturing, education or health care, has avoided the influence of government to grow and prosper – or has it?

By Peter Ricci Well, it’s finally happened. After months of speculation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has finally announced its qualified mortgage standards, which are the new, defining lending guidelines for the nation’s