#house-hunting

#house-hunting

Scott Gottlieb's impressive performance in 2025 included 58 lease transactions, totaling around 2.3 million square feet, showcasing his ability to navigate a challenging office market.

Ginsburg stated that treating builder business as a core pillar rather than a side channel reflects a broader industry shift. He believes a healthy balance of builders should be around 15% to 20% of the overall retail book of business.

HousingWire's 2026 Rising Stars honor industry leaders age 40 and under who are making an impact across mortgage, real estate and homebuilding. The honorees represent a range of roles and are recognized for driving innovation, supporting their organizations and contributing to broader industry progress.

"When deciding whether to sell quickly or rent out the home, many homeowners underestimate the logistics involved with moving only part of their belongings or staging while relocating. Storage may seem like a simple add-on, but it actually introduces multiple steps, additional labor, and can significantly increase costs, sometimes even doubling them."

One of the biggest takeaways is that from a national perspective, the largest investors account for a really small proportion of single-family home purchases and that share has decreased in recent years. So the ban is going to have less of a bite now than it would have had it been enacted a few years ago. It is attacking a trend that is already decreasing as opposed to one that is becoming increasingly part of the market.

Rising utility costs continue to be a pain for the average U.S. renter. Energy-efficient rental features that help lower these costs like LED lighting, good insulation, and smart thermostats are becoming a baseline for renters.

Mortgage rates are near 6%, which means it costs builders less to do a buy-down, and because they sell homes as a commodity, they're trying their best to manage this cycle and their profit margins. This means selling a new home in recent years has been more of a calculation on how much builder credit they can and need to give.

Realtor Todd Luong of REMAX DFW Associates in Frisco said his recent experience reflects meaningful improvement for buyers, even if affordability remains strained. Here in the Dallas real estate market that I serve, affordability remains a challenge, he says. However, there is a significant amount of data showing that buyer conditions have improved over the past year and that buyers are gaining affordability ground. This should eventually increase housing demand to some degree as we head into the busy spring buying season.