Consumer

Bill Pulte will still lead the housing agency while serving as acting director of national intelligence. Plus, Fed faces “credibility” threat; CFPB sued; more.

The quirky trend can be explained in part by the flexibility of home builders as they navigate higher material costs and persistent economic uncertainty.

With mortgage rates still elevated, pending and new home sales — along with mortgage applications — have all trended down as affordability weakens.

Real estate investors are pulling back as rising homeownership costs, economic uncertainty and slowing price growth in some areas threaten to reduce profits.

Shifts in household incomes, home prices and mortgage rates will be key to housing affordability improvements in the next decade, according to Oxford Economics.

The ROAD to Housing Act heads back to the Senate. Plus, Trump urges new Fed chair to “be totally independent”; HUD releases home construction best practices.

Pending sales and purchase applications fell this week as average mortgage rates topped 6.5%, narrowing “the pool of buyers who can make the numbers work.”

A new Listing-Income Alignment Score finds “a shortage of options” for buyers looking to purchase a home they can afford, according to NAR and Realtor.com.

With no end in sight for the war in Iran, investors are growing increasingly nervous about how sky-high energy prices are impacting the U.S. economy.

A new Zillow analysis found that homesellers collectively lost nearly $1.5B on dual agency transactions in three years — and over $1.3B on off-MLS listings.

Rising pending sales and loan activity suggests some buyers have “shrugged off the current economic and mortgage rate uncertainties and returned to the market.”

Consumer confidence and purchasing power are weakening, with inflation jumping 3.8% in April amid rising energy prices.

Even though most buyers expect AI use, they want transparency, clarity and human verification of AI-powered real estate processes, a recent survey found.

April employment numbers were better than expected, but for buyers and sellers, “positive momentum matters more than any single month of data,” economists say.

While economic uncertainty persists amid the ongoing war in the Middle East, “the math has shifted in favor of buyers,” according to Zillow’s chief economist.

A recent survey found that many prospective buyers are in possession of incorrect or outdated information. It’s up to agents to set the record straight.

New data shows increases in pending sales, new listings and touring activity — but geopolitical and job market concerns continue to challenge the spring market.

In what may be his final press conference as Fed chair, Jerome Powell urged support for a central bank “free of political influence.”

More than 40% say rates would have to fall below 4% before they’d consider selling, but 10-20% do intend to move in the next five years, two surveys suggest.

Over the past five years, the average payment has jumped 44% — and breached $2,000 per month for the first time late last year, according to Realtor.com data.