Earlier in 2025, the Florida House of Representatives passed a bill that would have deregulated several professional accreditations within Florida and abolished commissions/regulatory bodies—that exist as part of the larger Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR)—overseeing those professions. One is the Florida Real Estate Commission (FREC), the seven-member board that regulates real estate…
Homeowners may be feeling the impact of climate disasters on their insurance premiums, but are buyers modifying their behavior and performing deep research into climate risks during their home searches? Not for very long, it appears, per data shared by Redfin. Redfin listings separate climate risks into five categories: floods, fire, wind, extreme heat and…
Editor’s Note: The RISMedia series Legislative Round-Up looks at pending and passed federal and state-level legislation that impacts real estate professionals. Road to Housing Act removed from defense bill The Road to Housing Act, a bipartisan comprehensive housing reform bill passed by the U.S. Senate, has met a new roadblock. The bill, previously attached to…
Real estate professionals are well aware that housing affordability and supply are in short order, but are lawmakers taking appropriate action? On Wednesday, December 3, 2025, the House Financial Services Committee held a hearing focused on policies to boost housing supply. In attendance to testify before the committee was National Association of Realtors® (NAR) Immediate…
Throughout 2025, consumer sentiment toward the economy has declined noticeably—does the end of the year bring any turnaround? According to a preliminary report on consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan (scheduled ahead of the final December report two weeks out), consumer sentiment improved slightly month-over-month. The closely watched index of consumer sentiment came in…
This year is on track to end with a slower than average housing market, but will 2026 kick real estate into high gear? The 2026 housing forecast from Bright MLS projects another “transition year” for housing, with slight pick-ups in market fundamentals but enduring challenges for first-time buyers, as well as strong differences between regional…
The COURT REPORT is RISMedia’s weekly look at current and upcoming lawsuits, investigations and other legal developments around real estate. Lawsuits against Zillow and Redfin consolidated A partnership between Zillow and Redfin has come under litigation, with both the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and subsequently five state attorneys general filing to block the partnership on…
As housing remains unaffordable for many across the United States—and new construction hit a recent low on the back of consumer reticence—one solution that’s been floated are manufactured and modular homes. A new academic paper from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) has tracked how nonprofit housing developers, or community-based organizations (CBOs), have…
As we get closer to a new year, the real estate market shows new signs of incremental pick-up. According to the latest Pending Home Sales report from the National Association of Realtors® (NAR), pending home sales inched up 1.9% month-over-month in October. As Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist of Bright MLS, noted in a statement: “The…
Editor’s Note: The Mortgage Mix is RISMedia’s biweekly highlight reel of need-to-know mortgage-industry happenings. Watch for it every other Friday afternoon. As of Nov. 20, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate sat at 6.26%, slightly up from the previous week’s reading of 6.24%. Tracking with higher rates, mortgage applications—tracked by the Mortgage Bankers Association—found that…
Key issues include the property’s history, potential environmental hazards and neighborhood dynamics that aren’t immediately obvious. Read more.
