National News

Atlanta, Houston real estate professionals elected to LGBTQ+ Real Estate Alliance executive roles

Atlanta’s Rodney Mason, who serves as vice president of mortgage lending with Guaranteed Rate, was named treasurer of the nonprofit, while Anita Blue, who works as an agent and credit restoration consultant at Cap Tex Realty, was named national vice president.

Mortgage applications decline despite drop in interest rates

“Mortgage rates decreased for the first time since August, as concerns about supply-chain bottlenecks, waning consumer confidence, weaker economic growth and rising inflation pushed Treasury yields lower.” — MBA associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting Joel Kan

Rocket Mortgage, Salesforce team up for loan originations

“This will be the first time a home lender will provide an end-to-end ‘mortgage-as-a-service’ solution through Salesforce Financial Services Cloud — a platform that thousands of financial institutions already heavily rely on.” — Rocket Cos. Vice Chairman and CEO Jay Farner

Zillow closes Zillow Offers, announces layoffs

Zillow announced today it’s ending its iBuyer service, Zillow Offers, and cutting roughly a quarter of its workforce, citing the volatility the service created for the online brokerage as the motivation for the move.

Millennials are fueling the housing boom — will it continue?

Millennials are purchasing houses — finally. Over the past year, millennials made up the largest share of homebuyers: 37% according to Barron’s.

Boston Housing Scorecard: Interest rates rise, pending home sales fall in October

Builder confidence was also down from a year ago.

NAR: Pending-home sales slide 2.3% in September

“Contract transactions slowed a bit in September and are showing signs of a calmer home price trend, as the market is running comfortably ahead of pre-pandemic activity.” — NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun

S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller: Home prices rise again

Home-price gains were once again broadly distributed, as all 20 cities in the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index rose, although in most cases at a slower rate than a month ago.

Federal Housing Finance Agency makes desktop appraisals permanent

It’s been a more than a year and a half of technological innovation in real estate in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Federal Housing Finance Agency has decided to make one tool — desktop appraisals — permanent.

How pets are influencing housing decisions, post-pandemic

Pet ownership increased dramatically during the pandemic. 73% of homeowners report at least one pet in the home.

New-home sales rebound in September as prices hit new record

“There simply aren’t enough homes for sale relative to the demand fueled by millennials armed with low mortgage rate-driven house-buying power.” — First American Deputy Chief Economist Odeta Kushi

Boston makes U.S. News & World Report’s Best Places to Retire list

Boston wasn’t the only Massachusetts town on the 2021 list. Both Worcester and Springfield also made the rankings.

NAR: Existing-home sales rebound in September

The median existing-home price for all housing types in September was $352,800, up 13.3% on an annual basis, as every region in the country registered price increases.

New-home construction cools in September

The decrease was driven by a 5.1% month-over-month slide in the rate of multifamily starts, while single-family construction was flat.

RE/MAX: Boston housing market takes a pause in September 

The number of closed sales fell 12% month over month, while active inventory rose 5.6% to 7,362. Median sales prices dropped 4.8%, but that’s still up 7.3% from September 2020. 

Zillow pauses its iBuyer service for the rest of 2021

Zillow announced it will not sign any new contracts to buy homes until the end of the year due to a “backlog in renovations and operational capacity constraints.”

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