Consumer

Buying a home in New York City has long meant one thing financially: go to a bank, get a mortgage, close the deal. But in Queens, a different kind of listing is appearing more often – one where the seller, not a bank, holds the debt. For buyers struggling to qualify for traditional loans while ...

The assumption that New York City homeownership requires seven figures or generational wealth is so entrenched that many buyers never bother to look. But in the outer boroughs, entry-level properties are closing right now at prices that contradict that narrative entirely. Jonathan Ettricks, a Realtor with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Laffey International Realty, works across Queens, ...

When people talk about what is holding back the luxury housing market in Los Angeles, they tend to focus on interest rates and economic uncertainty. Adam Brawer, a residential agent focused on the west side of Los Angeles, points to a different factor: a local transfer tax that has compounded the rate-lock problem for sellers ...

Across the outer suburbs of Dallas-Fort Worth, new-construction builders are offering mortgage rates that start around five percent – well below what most buyers can get on the open market. The catch is that those homes sit in outlying communities where the drive to work, shopping, and services is significantly longer. For first-time buyers already ...

When a housing project costs $500,000 per unit, it looks like waste – unless half that money goes into building roads, water lines, and power infrastructure that most American communities already have. That distinction is at the heart of a funding dispute in southern Arizona, where the state denied a tribal housing authority’s tax credit ...

Below the luxury tier, Manhattan’s condo and co-op market has a mismatch problem. Buyers under $2 million overwhelmingly want units that are updated, low-cost to maintain, and ready to occupy on day one. But a large share of available inventory needs renovation – and sellers who have not adjusted prices for that reality are watching ...

For decades, home appraisals have arrived as dense, narrative-heavy documents filled with jargon that most buyers skim before handing back to their lender. A sweeping data-standards overhaul now rolling out across the industry is changing that – and according to Narainder Chandwani, Founder & CEO of apprAIz, a GSE-verified technology platform for appraisers, the new ...

When average home prices dip in a county-level report, the natural instinct is alarm. Your home is losing value. The market is softening. But in Collin County, Texas – one of the fastest-growing counties in North Texas – the headline numbers are telling a misleading story, according to one team that has been working the ...

Investors looking at affordable properties in Chicago’s south suburbs are running into an obstacle that does not show up in any listing: several villages have rewritten their rental standards in ways that effectively bar new investors from renting out properties within village limits, according to Aaron Gaines, a Realtor with Keller Williams Preferred Realty who ...

In conventional real estate, location drives price. A corner lot, a cul-de-sac, a waterfront view – these separate a quick sale from a lingering listing. But in the luxury motor coach resort market near Palm Springs, California, the improvements on a lot – not its position in the resort – create entirely separate seasonal markets, ...

In northern Bergen County, New Jersey, two nearly identical homes on the same street can sell months apart – one in a bidding war within a week, the other lingering with price reductions. The difference is not location, lot size, or school district. It is whether the kitchen has been updated and the bathrooms look ...

A growing acquisition strategy among small real estate investors in Texas involves taking over someone else’s mortgage payment without ever assuming the loan itself. It is called a “subject-to” purchase, and insurance professionals who work with these investors say the financial exposure on both sides – for the original homeowner and the new investor – ...

In Tennessee’s fastest-growing county, the gap between what people earn and what homes cost has widened so far that one local official calls it a direct threat to generational wealth. Median family income in Rutherford County has risen 71 percent since 2005. Over the same period, median home prices have risen 213 percent. The math ...

In a market where buyers finally have leverage – where inventory is at roughly 10-year highs, sellers are cutting prices, and concessions are available – a surprising number of Houston home purchases are falling apart before the buyer even asks for a single repair. The problem isn’t structural defects in the homes, according to Sherry ...

The New Jersey housing market looks red-hot or cooling fast depending entirely on which slice you’re looking at – and sellers who confuse one segment’s strength for their own risk a costly mispricing. Along the coast in mid-2026, the gap between the luxury second-home market and the broader residential market serving primary-residence buyers is widening ...