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Real Estate Industry

“All the news that's fit to print,” or to click, as the case may be, can be found right here at your favorite real estate social networking site, ActiveRain. And here you thought it was merely a great place to chat with colleagues and slap up a blog post or two.


We know you're busy – whether it's trying to fill your pipeline or following up on what's already popped out of the bottom of it. Who has time to read? And, while real estate market news geared toward consumers is easy to round up on the Internet, news for brokers and Realtors is a bit harder to come by.


Your friends at ActiveRain understand how important each of those 168 hours in every week is so we've made it easy for you by consolidating everything you need to know to keep up-to-date with the real estate industry right here, in one place.


How are housing starts looking? Has the FHFA launched any new efforts? How's that Fannie and Freddie loan limit rollercoaster doing?


You've got the questions and your colleagues here at AR have the answers. It's at your fingertips – finally.

Recent blogs on Real Estate Industry
By Dorie Dillard Austin TX, Educating. Encouraging. Serving.
(Coldwell Banker Apex Realtors, LLC ~ 512.750.6899)
“Honesty is the best policy.”I’ve been working with some buyers recently who heard through the grapevine about a home that had been under contract, but the buyer terminated after the inspection uncovered several repair issues, including a roof that needed to be replaced. The sellers were not willing to negotiate.And that got me thinking about something every seller should remember:Real estate is a very small world.Agents talk to other agents. Buyers talk to their friends, family and neighbors. And when a transaction falls apart, people often want to know why.Maybe the seller feels strongly that they shouldn’t have to negotiate. Maybe they believe their home is worth what they are asking and the buyer should accept it as-is. And, sometimes, that may be a perfectly reasonable position.But...
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By Nathan Fitts, The Leading Name in Real Estate in North Georgia
(Nathan Fitts & Team )
What Does the Hiawassee Real Estate Market Really Look Like?From Lake Chatuge waterfront properties to quiet mountain homes, understanding how location, property type, and lifestyle shape the Hiawassee market can help buyers search with greater confidence.When you first start looking at Hiawassee GA real estate, it can be tempting to compare properties by price, bedrooms, and square footage.But mountain and lake real estate rarely tells the whole story that way.A home overlooking Lake Chatuge can offer a completely different experience from a property tucked into the mountains. A house with a beautiful view may have different access considerations than one closer to town. A waterfront property may appeal to a buyer who values boating and lake access, while another buyer may prefer priva...
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By Nathan Fitts, The Leading Name in Real Estate in North Georgia
(Nathan Fitts & Team )
Important Financing Considerations for Mountain Property in Mineral Bluff, GABuying a mountain property is about more than finding a beautiful view. For buyers exploring Mineral Bluff GA real estate, understanding how the property, its location, and its intended use may affect the financing process can help create a smoother path toward ownership.Whether you're considering a private cabin, a mountain-view retreat, a luxury home, or a second residence, mountain properties can have characteristics that differ from a typical residential purchase. Preparing early can help you understand your options and focus your search on properties that fit your goals.What Makes Mineral Bluff Appealing to Buyers?Mineral Bluff offers the peaceful setting many buyers associate with North Georgia mountain l...
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By Lou Jewell ALC, ALC
(Land Pro Real Estate, Inc.)
For thirty-two years, I have been a Land Broker and a National Land course educator with 303 one-hour radio/podcast episodes at www.letstalland.net and now eight Land Books on Amazon, with the master one still in the works.Search "How many Land courses with Continuing Education are offered in all 50 states"; you will see what I mean. It is shameful that our real estate industry does very little to support land education. It is interesting.Why does the Realtors Code of Ethics, Article 11, say that you should not be engaged in a "Specialty" without proper training or education? Where are they supposed to find it?With my nine and a half years of interviewing over 300 professionals in the Land industry, I have composed nine books from the mass of information from professionals in all aspect...
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On August 25, 2026, The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced that the U.S. house prices up 0.3% in the 2nd quarter of 2026 from 1st quarter of 2026, and gained 2.1% from 2nd quarter of 2025 based on home sales values obtained from mortgages sold to or guaranteed by FNMA and Freddie Mac.Nationwide, among nine census East North Central Division was highest with an gain of 4.5% in the 2nd quarter of 2026 from 2nd quarter of 2025, while Pacific Division was slightly up  0.0% in the 2nd quarter of 2026, from 2nd quarter of 2025.  State of Alaska had the highest increase of 8.3% in house prices in the 2nd quarter of 2026, from 2nd quarter of 2025, and State of New Mexico was the lowest with a loss of 1.2% in the 2nd quarter of 2026, from 2nd quarter of 2025.For complete more detail...
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By Carla Goddard, Founder & CEO, Vicinity
(vicinity)
What If We're Wrong?Not about one house. Not about one builder. Not about one agent.What if some of the things we've accepted as “the way real estate works” simply don't work anymore?The market has changed. Buyers have changed. Technology has changed. Communities have changed. The role of the real estate professional is changing, too.Yet many of the assumptions we build our businesses around remain largely untouched.Maybe that's worth questioning.Not because everything is broken. And not because the old way never worked.But because what worked then isn't automatically what works now.That's the conversation I'm interested in having.And honestly?I don't think we're going to like every answer.So let's start there:What's one thing in real estate you think we're still doing because “that's t...
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By Jacob Maslow, Your Brooklyn Connection
(Torsx)
A flooring contractor walks into a freshly renovated kitchen, pulls up a corner of the new engineered board, and finds a dark stain spreading underneath. The cabinets are in. The island is set. The homeowners have already moved back. The floor was laid three weeks after the screed was poured, the schedule said it was dry, and the schedule was wrong. The job that cost forty thousand now costs sixty, and the extra twenty buys nothing new.That scene plays out more often than the industry admits. Subfloor drying is the unglamorous step that sits between the wet trade and the finish, and it is the step most renovations compress, skip, or guess at. The reason is rarely ignorance. It is schedule pressure, and the cost of that pressure lands on the owner, not the builder.The US EPA mold guidanc...
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By Jacob Maslow, Your Brooklyn Connection
(Torsx)
Hiring a roof sealing company is a transaction most owners get wrong once before they get it right. The first bid looks reasonable, the coating looks good for a season, and the second winter reveals what the quote never mentioned: no inspection, no prep, no warranty that covers peeling. The cost of doing the job twice is the cost of hiring the wrong firm the first time.The mistake is almost never the product. Most reputable coatings, applied correctly, perform within their rated life. The mistake is the contractor, and the gap between a competent roof sealing firm and a cheap one is almost entirely in the work that happens before the coating goes on. This guide is about how to tell them apart before the deposit clears.The team at Rancho Del Chinorotary approaches the hiring problem from...
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By Jacob Maslow, Your Brooklyn Connection
(Torsx)
When did a green interior stop being about recycled countertops and start being about the air you breathe? The shift happened quietly, somewhere between the pandemic retrofit boom and the 2026 wave of low-VOC mandates, and it left the marketing behind. A showroom still sells sustainability with a bamboo shelf. The spec sheet, increasingly, sells something else.The something else is occupant health. Indoor air is now treated as a building system, on par with structural load and water tightness, and the firms that design green interiors are measured less on the origin of their materials and more on what those materials do to the people inside over a decade. The US EPA's indoor air quality introduction puts the stakes plainly: people spend roughly 90 percent of their time indoors, and the ...
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By Jacob Maslow, Your Brooklyn Connection
(Torsx)
A homeowner in Phoenix noticed something odd last summer. After a white elastomeric coating went on her flat garage roof, the upstairs bedroom below it stopped hitting 38 degrees Celsius by midafternoon. She had not added insulation. She had not replaced the roof. A contractor had rolled on roughly 0.4 millimeters of reflective sealant in a single afternoon, and the room changed climate.That small result is part of a larger shift. Roof sealing used to be sold as leak prevention, a defensive fix for a problem that already existed. In 2026 it is being reassessed as a climate adaptation, a passive measure that cuts cooling load, extends membrane life, and buys time against hotter summers. The framing matters because the money follows it. A repair gets postponed. An upgrade gets budgeted.Th...
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By Jacob Maslow, Your Brooklyn Connection
(Torsx)
The word "architect" covers a wider field than most people realize, and the width is where most hiring mistakes begin. The architect who designs a museum is not the architect who designs a kitchen, and neither is the architect who files the permit. Hiring the wrong type is the first and most expensive mistake a project makes, because the work the architect does not do is the work you pay someone else to do over.The types are not a hierarchy. They are specialties. The residential architect is not a lesser commercial architect; the commercial architect is not a greater residential one. They are trained for different problems, and the project you have is the one that picks the type.The Residential ArchitectThe residential architect is the one who designs the house you live in. The work is ...
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By Linda Edelwich, Serving Glastonbury & Beyond | 218 New London Trnk
(William Raveis Real Estate)
Older homes in East Hampton are genuinely appealing to a specific and often motivated buyer profile. They also produce inspection reports with consistent patterns that agents working in this market encounter regularly. Understanding those patterns, and how buyer response is shaped by preparation and disclosure, is useful on both the listing and buying side of these transactions.The findings that come up most consistentlyHeating systems are among the most common inspection focal points in older East Hampton properties. Aging systems that are functional but approaching end of life draw buyer attention because of the anticipated replacement cost and disruption. The buyer's response depends heavily on whether the system's maintenance history is documented. A well-maintained aging system rea...
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By Carla Goddard, Founder & CEO, Vicinity
(vicinity)
There is a question I think we need to ask more often about new construction:Who is actually controlling the transaction?In a resale transaction, the answer feels straightforward.The seller has a home to sell. The buyer has a home to buy. The agents help bring the two sides together, negotiate terms, manage the process, and keep the transaction moving.New construction is different.By the time a buyer walks into a builder's sales center, much of the transaction has already been designed. The builder controls the contract. The builder establishes the incentive structure. The builder sets the construction process and timeline. The builder determines what is included in the base price and what becomes an upgrade. The builder controls the selections process. The builder establishes the warra...
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By Nathan Fitts, The Leading Name in Real Estate in North Georgia
(Nathan Fitts & Team )
More Than a Neighborhood: Discover the Different Ways to Live in Young Harris, GANot every mountain community feels the same.In Young Harris, Georgia, the experience can change dramatically depending on where you choose to spend your mornings, what surrounds your home, and how close you want to be to the lake, mountains, recreation, or local amenities.Some properties are drawn to the scenery of Lake Chatuge. Others are surrounded by mountain views and wooded landscapes. Some offer a more refined setting connected to golf and recreation, while others provide the privacy and quiet that make a mountain retreat feel like an escape.That variety is part of what makes exploring Young Harris GA real estate so interesting.Instead of thinking only about a neighborhood name, it can be more useful ...
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By Nathan Fitts, The Leading Name in Real Estate in North Georgia
(Nathan Fitts & Team )
There are places you visit for the attractions, and then there are places you remember because of how they made you feel.Epworth, Georgia, is the latter.Tucked into the North Georgia mountains, Epworth offers a slower rhythm shaped by wooded landscapes, mountain roads, outdoor recreation, and the nearby Toccoa River. Life here isn't necessarily about having somewhere to rush off to. It's about having more opportunities to enjoy where you already are.A morning beside the river, an afternoon exploring the mountains, and an evening back at a quiet cabin can become more than a weekend getaway. For some, it becomes the lifestyle they're looking for.A Different Kind of Mountain LifestyleThe appeal of Epworth isn't just its scenery. It's the feeling that comes with being surrounded by it.Inste...
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On August 25, 2026, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Census Bureau reported nationwide new single family home sales dropped 10.5% to an annual rate of 607,000 homes in July of 2026 from 678,000 homes in June of 2026, and fell 6.3% from in July of 2025 to an annual rate of 648,000 homes.The median new home sold value was $393,800 in July of 2026, lower 2.3% from the price of $403,100 in June of 2026, and declined 0.9% from the price of $429,000 in July of 2025.The average sales price of new sold house was $508,800 in July of 2026, increased 4.1% from the price of $488,900 in June of 2026, and higher 5.4% from $482,800 in July of 2025.There were estimated 488,000 new houses for sale in July of 2026, up 1.9% from estimate 479,000 homes in June of 2026...
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By Debe Maxwell, CRS, The RIGHT CHARLOTTE REALTOR!
(Savvy + Company (704) 491-3310)
🏡 MYTH-BUSTING TUESDAY—Price High So There’s Room to Negotiate? Welcome to Myth-Busting Tuesday, where we’ll take on commonly repeated real estate advice and separate fact from fiction.Between online advice, national headlines and the ever-popular “Well, my neighbor said…”, we certainly won’t run out of material!THE MYTH“You should price your home high so there’s room to negotiate.”It sounds reasonable: Start higher than the home is worth, leave yourself a cushion and allow buyers to negotiate you down to the price you wanted.Unfortunately, buyers don’t always respond that way.THE REALITYToday’s buyers can easily compare active listings, recent sales, price reductions and days on market. When a home appears overpriced, many buyers don’t make a lower offer—they simply skip it.A listing t...
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By Jacob Maslow, Your Brooklyn Connection
(Torsx)
Two buildings stand on the same Seattle block. Both carry a LEED Gold plaque in the lobby. One costs 28 percent less to run and its tenants renew every year. The other leaks heat through a glass wall nobody modeled, and its vacancy rate is double the neighborhood average. The plaque is identical. The architecture is not. That gap is the whole story of green building in 2026, and most of the industry is still talking about the plaque.Green building stopped being a checklist exercise about five years ago, when the operating data caught up with the design claims. The buildings that actually perform are not the ones with the most points on the scorecard. They are the ones where someone ran the energy model after construction, found the gap between predicted and actual use, and fixed it. The...
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By Jacob Maslow, Your Brooklyn Connection
(Torsx)
The Sun Belt rental market has been the most watched slice of American housing since 2020, and Dallas is the cleanest case study of how a fast-growing metro absorbs new supply without collapsing rents. The Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area added 152,000 residents between July 2022 and July 2023, the largest single-year gain of any US metro, according to Census Bureau estimates. That kind of inflow would normally push rents up sharply, yet effective rents in Dallas fell 2.4 percent year over year in the fourth quarter of 2023, the first annual decline since 2014, as a wave of new apartment buildings opened at the same time.Why Supply Caught Up With DemandThe mechanism is straightforward. Dallas issued permits for 64,400 multifamily housing units in 2022, second only to Houston among US...
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By Sally Dollar
(Royal LePage Niagara Real Estate)
Celebrating 22 years of turning house keys into home dreams across the vibrant Niagara Region! It's been an incredible journey, and I am deeply grateful to every friend, client, and family member who has supported me along the way. Your trust, referrals, and shared moments of joy are the true highlights. Here's to many more years of helping you navigate the world of real estate with passion and dedication. Thank you for being a part of my story! 🥂🏡 🔑 🥂  #22YearsStrong #NiagaraRealEstate #RealEstateExpert #MakingMemories #ClientAppreciation #ReferralLove #LoveWhatIDO #SallyDollarRealtor #RealtorForLife
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