To my shock, housing demand grew noticeably last week, even though the war with Iran continues and mortgage rates are higher today than before the war started. Last week was one of the more positive reports since I started writing the Housing Market Tracker at the end of 2022. Everything I want to see in our weekend tracker for a healthy, positive housing market happened. We have had a lot of dramatic...

Securing homeowners’ insurance is reshaping the homebuying process itself. Premiums are rising, carriers are pulling back from entire states and buyers are increasingly discovering, sometimes days before closing, that the home they plan to purchase is either too expensive to insure or cannot be insured at all. What was once a routine, last-step check is now introducing unnecessary uncertainty into the...

A family of four loved spending time on the deck and lawn of their Chaska, Minnesota, home, which backs up to a beautiful stretch of woods. However, at certain times of day, mosquitoes often brought an abrupt end to outdoor time. When the homeowners decided to add a screened-in porch, they called...

With refinance activity constrained and purchase volume under pressure, lenders are being forced to rethink their sustainable growth plans. The answer is becoming clear: home equity. As millions of homeowners remain locked into low mortgage rates, they are turning to second liens and mortgages to access equity without disrupting their primary loan. Tom Davis, Chief Sales Officer at Deephaven,...

With warmer weather on the way, now’s the perfect time to freshen up your outdoor spaces so you can enjoy your yard all season long. In this guide, you’ll learn how to clean different types of outdoor furniture, as well as cushions, rugs and umbrellas. Start with the simplest cleaning methods and...

Proprietary reverse mortgages have gained a lot of traction over the past year and now account for more industry volume than federally insured Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECMs). With the help of loan officers Nathan Guerrero and Jackson Matheson, Tennessee will soon join the list of states to allow private-label reverse mortgages. Guerrero, a reverse mortgage specialist and president of Mortgage...

The fight over Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s sweeping housing reform agenda is intensifying as both sides harden their positions. Supporters and detractors by the thousands delivered their opening arguments Thursday at the first major hearing on Pritzker’s six-bill package. Pritzker’s BUILD plan seeks to lower costs by making construction easier and faster statewide. It would override local...

The share of first-time homebuyers has fallen to 21% of all transactions — the lowest level since the National Association of Realtors (NAR) began tracking the data in 1981. For real estate agents, the shift is not a temporary blip. It’s a structural change reshaping how agents build their businesses, talk about value and prepare for a future in which the traditional pipeline of new homebuyers has...

The mid-spring earnings cycle has produced a common-language reality check for America’s public homebuilders: the operating backdrop worsened faster than many management teams expected. In such a context of nearly-universal challenge, doing less-worse may count as a win. Meritage Homes’ Q1 2026 numbers serve as a case in point Orders fell 5% year over year, closings declined 13%, home closing...

Confronting heavier incentives, price cuts, tepid demand and margin pressure, PulteGroup opened the year with a mix-shift pivot that leans more heavily on build-to-order and active adult sales. Pulte’s Q1 2026 earnings call, held on Thursday, indicates that the nation’s third-largest homebuilder by sales volume made progress on this goal, despite an added layer of economic uncertainty sprinkled into...