Real Estate
Housing market coverage, home buying and selling, mortgages, rentals, and property investment. From market trends to the practical decisions involved in owning or renting.
Latest in Real Estate
Almost anyone who bought a home through a real-estate agent can still claim part of a $120 million commission settlement, but the window closes October 27
A settlement worth $120.3 million is now open to almost anyone who bought a home listed on a multiple listing service anywhere in the United...
Renters can claim part of a $359 million RealPage rent-software settlement before January 29
A federal court in Nashville has cleared the way for renters nationwide to collect a share of $359,925,000 in cash from RealPage, Inc. and roughly...
Home sellers are cutting prices at the fastest pace of 2026 as demand cools and rates near a one-year high
Home sellers cut asking prices on 20.4% of active listings in August, according to Realtor.com’s latest housing report, the highest monthly share so far in...
Recasting a mortgage lowers the monthly payment without a full refinance
A homeowner sitting on a lump sum of cash and a mortgage payment they’d like smaller doesn’t have to choose between refinancing, with its new...
Homeowners can drop private mortgage insurance once their equity reaches 20%
Private mortgage insurance is one of the few recurring costs on a mortgage statement with a built-in expiration date, and federal law gives homeowners two...
A homestead exemption shields part of a home’s value from creditors and can cut property tax
The phrase “homestead exemption” quietly covers two separate legal protections that happen to share a name and a common purpose: keeping more of a primary...
A lady bird deed keeps a home out of probate while the owner keeps full control
A homeowner who wants a house to pass to an heir without a court proceeding, but doesn’t want to give up any say over that...
Mortgage rates are pushing toward 7% after a Fed official floated a rate hike
Mortgage rates edged higher this week after Federal Reserve Governor Michael Barr said the central bank “should act decisively to raise” short-term interest rates unless...
Home asking prices fell about 2.5% from a year ago, the steepest annual drop since 2017
The typical home listed for sale in July carried an asking price about 2.4% below where it stood a year earlier, according to Realtor.com’s national...
Mortgage rates near 6.7% are keeping homeowners locked into older, cheaper loans
The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage held at 6.66% for the week ending Aug. 27, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly Primary Mortgage Market...
A reverse mortgage now gives a surviving spouse who wasn’t on the loan more protection to stay in the home
A federal rule change has widened protection for a surviving spouse left off a reverse mortgage, letting that spouse stay in the home for life...
HUD is auctioning off thousands of reverse mortgages where the owner died, and heirs who miss the deadline can lose the home
The Department of Housing and Urban Development will start reviewing bids on Sept. 1 for 5,500 federally insured reverse mortgages left behind after both the...
The typical homeowner now pays $2,354 a month once property taxes and insurance are added to the mortgage
A homeowner carrying a typical mortgage now pays $2,354 a month for housing, and only $1,843 of that payment actually covers the loan itself. The...
A homeowner can pocket up to $250,000 of home-sale profit tax-free, and a married couple up to $500,000
Selling a longtime family home can produce a six-figure profit, and the tax code lets most owners keep a large share of it without owing...
Homeowners can deduct the points paid to lower a mortgage rate, often all in the first year on a purchase
Points paid at a mortgage closing are a form of prepaid interest, and each point a borrower buys shaves the interest rate on the monthly...
A reverse mortgage can turn home equity into monthly cash for a homeowner 62 or older, but it shrinks what heirs inherit
A Home Equity Conversion Mortgage lets a homeowner who is at least 62 turn part of the equity in a house into cash without sending...
Mortgage rates are stuck near 6.7%, but buyers now have room to negotiate in most big U.S. markets as inventory rises
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.66% in Freddie Mac’s survey released Aug. 27, 2026, barely moved from 6.65% the week before and up only slightly...
A widow or widower keeps the $500,000 home-sale tax exclusion for up to two years
The death of a spouse quietly resets the tax math on the family home, and the change can cost a survivor hundreds of thousands of...
A 1031 exchange lets a landlord swap a rental and defer the capital-gains tax
A rental property sold outright can hand its owner a tax bill that swallows a large slice of decades of appreciation, and that figure arrives...
A veteran can refinance a VA loan to a lower rate with little paperwork through an IRRRL
The VA’s streamline refinance, formally the Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan, lets a veteran swap an existing VA mortgage for a lower-rate one without an...