Jesse Williams

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. -The Senate last week passed a bill that would ban so-called “trigger leads” in the mortgage industry, with the legislation receiving widespread support from the industry. Trigger leads, which allow consumer information to be sold…

Doubling down in what appears to be a growing and multi-pronged battle over MLS membership requirements, the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) sent a cease and desist letter to a local association that is seeking to allow agents and brokers to access listing services without NAR membership. An NAR spokesperson confirmed that the letter was…

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. That would appear to be the philosophy behind Howard Hanna’s latest courtroom maneuver in the largest Burnett copycat case (known as Gibson), in which Judge Stephen R. Bough in the Western District of Missouri (who also oversaw Burnett) recently denied the company’s request to move the…

While every agent knows how important market and local expertise is, it might be hard to imagine how certain interest and knowledge—however deep or important to you—have any applicability to real estate. Of course it is entirely possible that your favorite subject in school or lifelong hobby will never have much to do with your…

Housing affordability worsened slightly in October, according to the latest National Association of REALTORS®’ (NAR) Housing Affordability Index, and the qualifying income to afford a median-priced home rose above $100,000 again after briefly dipping below that benchmark. After the index fell sharply during the summer as mortgage rates climbed above 7% and home prices continued…

The Department of Justice (DOJ) Antitrust Division appears committed to pushing forward with a long-running investigation into National Association of REALTORS®’ (NAR) policies, despite the looming transition to a new presidential administration, continuing to defend its inquiry all the way to the Supreme Court. After sending a lawyer to speak at the final court hearing…

Does the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) secretly support conservative causes unrelated to housing? That is the question put forth in a recent New York Times article, which highlighted a relatively obscure entity created by NAR that has paid grants (totalling almost $14 million) to various non-housing advocacy groups, including some that oppose abortion rights…

RealPage, a software and property management company which uses algorithms and data sharing to recommend pricing to landlords, claimed that a Department of Justice (DOJ) antitrust inquiry that focused broadly on algorithmic pricing practices in real estate has been closed, though it was not immediately clear how this would affect separate civil lawsuits against RealPage…

Real estate brokers are seeing an exodus of active agents in their markets—though whether this is a response to recent policy changes or just a seasonal fluctuation is currently unclear. According to RISMedia’s latest Broker Confidence Index (BCI) survey, a huge majority of brokers—90%—observed a decrease in the number of agents who are actually present…

It can often feel like there is not enough time in the day to do everything you need to, but this might be literally true in the wintertime. As daylight gets shorter every single day, for many people, this will dampen productivity, or even create overwhelming feelings of depression or futility. If you struggle during…