Headline News Archive

2023

November

02

• How real estate commissions work and why they might get lower. In the United States, there’s generally an agent representing the seller and one representing the buyer. The seller pays the commission to both

September

18

• When Wall Street buys most of the homes on your block. First-time buyers, who overwhelmingly rely on mortgages, were often outmatched by cash buyers at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, when interest rates plummeted below 3

13

• Amazon launches plan to help ‘underserved’ D.C. families buy homes. The undertaking is part of a $40 million initiative that executives said is meant to help boost homeownership among “underserved groups” in the D

03

• Home insurers cut natural disasters from policies as climate risks grow. Major insurers say they will cut out damage caused by hurricanes, wind and hail from policies underwriting property along coastlines and in wildfire country, according

July

14

• How Philadelphia kept tenants from being evicted. Philadelphia has kept in place one key lockdown-era protection program — at least for the moment. Under this program, if a tenant owes less than $3,000

March

13

• Insurers slashed Hurricane Ian payouts insiders reveal. After years of more frequent and intense storms, national insurance carriers have pulled back from the market and smaller, regional carriers with smaller financial reserves

January

26

• White House unveils Renters Bill of Rights. The Biden administration is releasing a “Blueprint for a Renters Bill of Rights” that highlights the need for clear and fair leases, the

2022

November

01

• Sharp spike in Black, Asian and Latino homeownership. Helped by pandemic-era stimulus programs, Black, Latino and Asian households saw the sharpest increase in homeownership in 2021 since the Great Recession, when all their levels

October

27

• U.S. mortgage rates soar past 7%. Mortgage rates barreled past the 7 percent mark to their highest level since 2002, as the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate increases, meant to combat

September

01

• Bank of America tests no-down-payment mortgages for minorities. Bank of America Corp. started a trial program aimed at helping first-time homebuyers in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods by offering mortgages that don’t

August

• Corporate landlords ‘aggressively’ evicted tenants during pandemic. Four major corporate landlords filed thousands of evictions while federal moratorium orders were still standing, using aggressive tactics to force out tenants at the height

July

25

• We need to keep building houses, even if no one wants to buy. While the challenge for builders, in the short term, might be that they have too many homes and not enough buyers, the challenge for the

June

22

• Justice Department and Meta settle landmark housing discrimination case. Facebook-owner Meta agreed to revamp the social network’s targeted advertising system under a sweeping settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, after the

07

• Massive rent increases hit mobile homes. Surging home prices and rents are cascading down to the country’s mobile home parks, where heightened demand, low supply and an increase in

02

• You can ask Google to take your personal data out of its search results. Google is offering a new tool to anyone who doesn't want their phone number, email or street address and other personal information to be

April

18

• Find out and fix what big data says about you. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau maintains a list of consumer reporting agencies that’s currently 38 pages long. In addition to the big three credit

13

• The federal consumer bureau sued TransUnion over deceptive sales tactics. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued the credit-reporting firm TransUnion and a former senior executive — John Danaher, who led the company’s consumer

12

• Aging in place easier with smart home technology. Technology helps all homeowners, but especially seniors, by automating “things that are a pain or difficult to do,” says Michael Miller, author of

March

29

• Your shadow credit score could decide if you get an apartment. The rapid rise of tenant screening is one of the seismic changes to hit the rental market since the Great Recession. Tenant screening companies compile

21

• Remote appraisals of homes could reduce racial bias. The majority of appraisals on home purchases in the United States can now be conducted without an appraiser ever stepping foot into the home —

16

• Wells Fargo rejected half Its Black applicants for refinancing. Nationwide, only 47% of Black homeowners who completed a refinance application with Wells Fargo in 2020 were approved, compared with 72% of White homeowners, according to a Bloomberg

01

• Rents reach ‘insane’ levels across US with no end in sight. In the 50 largest U.S. metro areas, median rent rose an astounding 19.3% from December 2020 to December 2021, according to a Realtor.com analysis of properties with

February

16

• See where investors bought a record share of homes. Last year, investors bought nearly one in seven homes sold in America’s top metropolitan areas, the most in at least two decades, according

08

• Equifax breach settlement: Money for some, free monitoring for all. Equifax will pay up to $425 million in restitution to those directly impacted by the massive data breach of the credit bureau in 2017. A federal court

07

• When private equity becomes your landlord. Rents soared. Trash collected in the hallways and on the rooftop deck, Cooper said. The security guard showed up less often. Another renter described having