Inman News

Fair housing groups are celebrating a judge’s Wednesday ruling that stopped a federal agency’s effort to cut funding to programs intended to improve equal housing opportunity in the U.S. Judge Myong J. Joun granted a temporary restraining order requiring the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to issue money to dozens of fair housing entities.

Inside Real Estate wants an artificial intelligence assistant checking your transaction files before they ever reach a broker’s desk. The bigger question circulating among industry watchers isn’t whether that assistant works, but who ends up owning what it learns.

For years, Miami’s high-end luxury real estate market was defined by the trophy home, whether it was the biggest waterfront mansion, the newest construction, the most recognizable architect or the best address. Today, some of the wealthiest buyers are looking at these homes through a different lens. They aren’t simply asking what house they can buy. They’re asking how much land they can control.

When music icon Dolly Parton died on Tuesday after a brief cancer battle, Nashville was quickly washed in a sea of hot pink and rhinestones, with buildings switching their lights to her iconic hue and residents breaking out their best Dolly-inspired outfits. Fans placed flowers outside of her Nashville residence and congregated around murals of the singer throughout the city.

Like most people in this business, I’ve been watching the Compass and Zillow debate with a lot of interest. It’s a fight worth paying attention to, and what happens here will shape how listings get marketed and distributed for years. But as a brokerage owner, I keep coming back to a different question. When this is over, what business are we actually in? History doesn’t repeat itself exactly, but the economics underneath it tend to. The music industry fought over streaming.

Fifty years after co-founding the franchise giant REMAX, Gail Liniger has died at the age of 81. With her husband Dave, she founded REMAX in 1973 and served as the CEO in 1991. The model “revolutionized how real estate brokerages operated,” the company wrote in its statement. Adam Contos escorts Gail Liniger onstage during Dave Liniger’s opening message | Credit: Stones Throw Images “Gail was my partner in every sense of the word,” Dave Liniger said.

Being the top producer in your own office is one of the most expensive positions a broker-owner can be in. The solution is to replace yourself with a high-producing agent so you can shift focus to growing the company. But here is where most broker-owners get stuck: They agree with the idea and then have no idea where to actually start.

As housing inventory climbs and demand cools, house hunters are finding more room to negotiate on price. New listings rose 0.4 percent from a week earlier during the four weeks ending Aug. 23, reaching their highest level since April, according to a Redfin report. The total number of homes for sale rose 0.5 percent over the same period to its highest level since May, while pending home sales fell 1.1 percent to a six-month low.

Vishal Garg, the founder of Better Home & Finance, who has been locked in an increasingly bitter fight with the company’s board since his ouster earlier this month, has offered his most detailed account yet of the battle for control in newly filed court documents that expose private texts, internal shareholder discussions and the identities of investors backing his bid to overhaul the board.

Many real estate agents believe they work full time. But do they? Let’s define terms. In America, full time means at least 40 hours a week. Everybody from plumbers to presidents works on that model. Now the fun part. What qualifies as “work” toward your 40 if you consider yourself a full-time real estate agent? What counts In real estate, two things directly earn commissions: Doing business and marketing for business. Doing business means you’re listing or selling homes. You’re driving to appointments.