A new Redfin report indicates that most consumers are still willing to pay for their real estate agents and that last year’s NAR rules have had minimal impacts on agent pay.
Lone Wolf began notifying customers of the popular customer relationship manager software’s imminent shutdown “a few weeks ago,” Lone Wolf CEO Jimmy Kelly told Inman exclusively.
The University of Michigan Index of Consumer Sentiment slipped to 50.8 in May, its second lowest reading ever, as Americans fretted about tariffs, inflation and the job market.
RentSpree is working with TransUnion to improve how leasing agents and property managers determine a lease applicant’s background.
Following a dramatic turn of events at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) last week, the newly-installed acting leader acknowledged that the agency does not have a disaster response plan even though hurricane season is jus two weeks away.
Former acting FEMA chief Cameron Hamilton initially raised eyebrows when he was chosen to lead the agency on an acting basis, having gained online notoriety for criticizing FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene during the Biden administration.
A former Navy SEAL, Hamilton’s selection shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration departed from agency precedent going back to at least Hurricane Katrina, where it has typically been “led by disaster management professionals who have run state or local emergency management agencies, or were regional administrators at FEMA,” according to reporting at the New York Times.
Politico also reported that Hamilton had spread misinformation about FEMA ahead of his appointment as acting chief. But in a congressional hearing on May 7, Hamilton told lawmakers that despite testimony from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem saying FEMA should be eliminated the day before, he believed that FEMA should continue to operate.
“Communities look to FEMA in their greatest times of need,” Hamilton said, according to the Times. “And it’s imperative that we remain ready to respond to those challenges.”
FEMA operates under the purview of DHS, and his ouster followed roughly 24 hours later. He was replaced by former DHS official David Richardson, who has no formal background in emergency management.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Richardson has said in private meetings that the agency has no formal disaster plan in place as hurricane season approaches.
FEMA staffers have also warned Richardson that the agency appears unprepared for the start of the storm season, citing staffing challenges negatively impacting a full readiness assessment.
On Thursday, after viewing an internal agency document, Reuters reported that staff losses and low morale are “derailing” the agency’s preparedness for the season.
The 14-agent team, which was previously affiliated with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices under a different team name, closed over $100 million in sales last year, and has closed more than $410 million since 2020.
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) announced on Friday afternoon that Kaitlin Hildner has joined the association, taking on the role of Associate Vice President of Loan Administration Policy.
In her role, Hildner will help lead the development and implementation of MBA’s strategy on legislative, regulatory and other industry issues related to loan administration and mortgage servicing.
Hildner will act as MBA’s primary liaison for the Loan Administration Committee, working under the guidance of the Vice President for Residential Policy. She is tasked with crafting policy responses to major initiatives and building and sustaining relationships with regulatory agencies, member committees, and working groups.
“Kaitlin’s vast housing and financial services experience, including working on some of the most important servicing issues facing the mortgage industry, makes her a perfect fit for our residential policy team,” said Pete Mills, MBA’s senior vice president of residential policy & member engagement. “Her deep understanding of servicing trends and challenges uniquely positions her to advocate effectively on behalf of our members during a time of constant, ongoing change.”
Prior to joining MBA, Hildner served as a senior policy advisor for the U.S. Department of Treasury, Financial Stability Oversight Council Secretariat. She held former ascending roles at the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) and previously served in research associate and assistant roles at the Urban Institute, the University of Colorado Law School and the Piton Foundation.
Hildner holds a Master of Science in applied economics from Johns Hopkins University and her Bachelor of Arts in economics from Haverford College.
Buyer representation agreements have no impact on real estate agent commissions, according to a report published this week by researchers at the Federal Reserve.
The report examined commission rates advertised to buyers’ agents through data from CoreLogic (which recently rebranded as Cotality). This includes the CoreLogic House Price Index and CoreLogic Market Trend reports, which covered roughly 50% of properties listed nationwide from 1995 to 2023.
This data was used to analyze the relationship between home prices and agent commissions, examining how buyer representation agreements and state legislative commission rebate bans impacted commissions.
While buyer representation agreements were mandated by the National Association of Realtors‘ (NAR) commission lawsuit settlement agreement, they were already mandatory in 15 states prior to the settlement going into effect in August 2024.
The report found that commission rates have come down from roughly 3% in the 1990s to 2.7% in 2023. Additionally, the range of commissions has also increased. The data showed that in 2002, rates were crowded at roughly 3%, but in 2023, they were spread between 2% and 2.5%.
Despite the drop in commission rates, the report still found that the highest bar remained at 3%. This suggest that the industry norm of a 6% commission split between the buy-side and sell-side agents persists.
“This persistence may be explained by steering and how poorly low-commission properties fare. Low commission listings stay on the market for longer and are less likely to sell,” according to the report, which cited a study from 2019.
The report cited another study from 2017 which claimed that “brokerage firms that offer low commissions are less likely to obtain cooperation from agents from larger firms, who make up the majority of the real estate market. Thus they are unable to compete with full-commission brokerage agencies.”
When taking into consideration median home prices — which have nearly doubled since 1995 — the researchers found that the rising prices negated any impact agents would have felt due to lower commission rates.
“The variation in rates across metropolitan areas is negatively correlated with house prices, and we find that controlling for house prices in a panel regression eliminates the downward time trend,” the report states.
“When house prices are higher relative to consumer prices or prevailing incomes, real estate agents may be more willing to work for lower commission rates, since the higher selling price offsets the lower rate.”
Additionally, after examining commission rates before and after the buyer representation agreement requirements and rebate bans took effect in different states, and controlling for home prices, the researchers found “no material or statistically significant effects of buyer representation agreement requirements or buyer rebate bans on advertised commission rates, suggesting that changes in these policies might not have a material effect.”
The report noted that the NAR settlement removed all offers of compensation from the MLS, which the researchers felt could “could mitigate the issues of steering and collusion” and “lead to more substantial changes to business models and agent commissions going forward.”
But the researchers also acknowledged that listing agents are still sharing offers of compensation, either cooperative or from the seller, in places besides the MLS.
Despite a flood of new listings, buyers are cooling off from high prices, rising mortgage rates and economic uncertainty, according to new reports from Zillow and Redfin. Pending homes sales declined 3.4 percent year over year during the four weeks ending May 11, marking the lowest level for this time of the year since 2020.
Anywhere Integrated Services (AIS), a division of Anywhere Real Estate, has selected artificial intelligence company Vectara to streamline its title creation process and centralize document retrieval systems.
AIS — which supports brands including Century 21, ERA Real Estate and Sotheby’s International Realty — plans to use Vectara’s platform to address inefficiencies in title searches and reduce reliance on fragmented AI tools.
The move comes as more organizations face what’s being called “RAG sprawl” — a term used to describe the unchecked growth of disconnected retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems that can lead to increased costs, AI hallucination, inconsistent performance and oversight challenges.
AIS leadership said the decision to consolidate AI infrastructure under Vectara’s platform was driven by the need for better control, data security and cost predictability.
“We are committed to leveraging cutting-edge AI technologies to transform the real estate experience,” said Jeff Hummel, senior vice president of engineering at Anywhere Real Estate.
“Vectara’s Enterprise RAG platform not only gives us the intelligence and efficiency to streamline title creation, but critically, it protects us from the risk of RAG sprawl by delivering a unified, governed, and secure AI foundation.”
Anywhere plans to integrate Vectara’s AI tools to allow agents to search historical title records using natural language queries. Files can then be automatically routed into AIS’s title processing system, reducing manual handoffs and improving processing times.
In addition to improving search and routing, AIS plans to build AI-powered assistants on top of the Vectara platform. These tools are expected to automate routine tasks, offer recommendations and support decision-making within the title workflow.
“We are thrilled to partner with Anywhere Real Estate to address one of today’s biggest enterprise AI challenges — RAG sprawl,” said Amr Awadallah, CEO and co-founder of Vectara.
“Our platform is built to unlock the full potential of enterprise data while ensuring governance, reducing hallucinations, and controlling costs. We look forward to empowering Anywhere with the next generation of intelligent, efficient real estate workflows.”
AIS said the platform will learn from user behavior and historical data to improve search accuracy over time.
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