Weekly Real Estate News Quiz: Think You're Up On The Biggest Headlines?
In documents filed Monday, the Department of Justice sought to correct what it calls an “inaccurate portrayal” of the 2008 consent decree by the National Association of Realtors. As a result of the consent decree, NAR said its affiliated multiple listing services would not discriminate against or impede the operations of brokers using virtual office websites to deliver brokerage services to customers.
According to the filing, NAR makes two references to the consent decree. It alleges that the consent decree authorizes NAR to “limit membership in an MLS to persons who make offers of cooperation and compensation to other members of the MLS,” the filing reads.
According to the filing, NAR also asserts that other attacks on the rules governing MLSs have been rejected because courts have recognized the efficiency and consumer benefits provided by multiple listing services. The statement then cites the consent decree, noting that NAR is permitted to make MLS membership contingent on a broker’s agreement to actively endeavor, or make and accept offers of, cooperation and compensation.
Following nearly a year of deliberation, federal regulators on Friday approved a long-awaited proposal to waive appraisal requirements on certain home sales of $400,000 and under.
Approved by the Federal Reserve on Friday, the adjustment, from $250,000 to $400,000, marks the first time in 25 years such an appraisal threshold has changed. The decision comes a month after the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation signed off on the rule.
EXp Realty is the latest real estate company to jump into the iBuyer business, following in the footsteps of NRT, Redfin and Keller Williams.
The virtual cloud-based real estate brokerage isn’t exactly going to be buying homes, however. With Express Offers, announced Thursday, eXp Realty will solicit multiple buyers at once, yielding more than one cash offer.
The National Association of Realtors is exploring a new policy that would require agents who are members of a multiple listing service (MLS) to share their listings with other MLS members, theoretically limiting the use of “exclusive” or so-called “pocket listing” marketing strategies.
The “Clear Cooperation Policy” was announced Friday and would require agents and brokers to share any listings that “are being publicly marketed” with other members of their MLS, according to a NAR statement. Every listing wouldn’t have to end up in any given MLS’s IDX feed. But the listings would at least have to be “available” somehow “so that other participant brokers have access to them and can bring potential buyers.”
Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman on Friday accused Compass of copying its consumer-facing search site “pixel for pixel” with its three-week-old website.
“This is at least the third attempt to copy Redfin’s search site pixel for pixel,” Kelman told Inman in a statement, referring to similarities between the two websites.
Read the story here.
Two RE/MAX real estate agents in Fort Myers, Florida, have come under fire for what critics called "transphobic" social media posts.
Agents Victor Tabarrini and Kynse Leigh, both with the RE/MAX Realty Group in Fort Myers, Florida, were blasted for separate posts that critics inside and outside of the LGBTQ community decried as insensitive, not to mention baffling, coming on the heels of the annual Southwest Florida Pride parade on Oct. 5.
Toronto, Vancouver, Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco are all poised for a housing crash in the coming months, according to the index, released Monday.
Gwen Stefani’s Beverly Hills mansion looks like something that would fit right into her “Harajuku Girls” video — and now, the iconic pop singer has unloaded it for $21.65 million.
The sprawling 15,500-square-foot estate, which boasts striped walls and bright pink furniture, has been sitting on the market since 2017. Stefani had initially hoped to sell it for $35 million but kept cutting back the price after failing to find a buyer. The pop singer and her now ex-husband Gavin Rossdale had purchased the home for approximately $14 million in 2006.
Beginning Tuesday, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service (NWMLS) will allow brokerages to publicly display buyer broker commissions — and at least three of the Pacific Northwest’s top brokerages have agreed to follow suit.
Redfin, Windermere Real Estate and Coldwell Banker Bain will all publicly display the selling office commission – what the seller and listing agent agree to pay the buyer broker – for all listings on their own IDX websites.
GeoCV, a 3D imaging company that has positioned itself as the chief rival to market leader Matterport, is splitting up and reducing operations, with most of its staffers forming a Russian office for a spatial computing firm while its service offerings continue to run on autopilot, the company said Wednesday.
In a statement, GeoCV said that the shift involves the "majority" of its team joining Occipital, a Silicon Valley-based company that will now open an office in Russia. At Occipital, the former GeoCV staffers will help launch a new research and development office in Moscow.