Realtor.com® is expanding its lead generation offerings for real estate professionals by bringing a new tech platform under its umbrella. News Corp, which owns Move Inc. and realtor.com®, announced it will be acquiring Opcity, a tech program that matches qualified home buyers and sellers with real estate professionals in real time.Opcity culls proprietary data sets to capture online leads and instantly connects clients who are ready to act with
The risk of wildfires isn’t deterring some home buyers from purchasing in an area, even if the area has been struck by blazes in recent years. Real estate prices in wildfire-prone areas are in line with homes in low-risk areas, even immediately after fires, according to a new study.Americans may watch media coverage of out-of-control blazes, mass evacuations, and even deaths from recent wildfires out west, but that isn’t deterring them from m
Rising sea levels are putting more homes at risk of flooding and leaving a long, expensive trail of destruction. In eight states alone, flooding has caused nearly $14.1 billion in lost value to homeowners, according to a new study by the First Street Foundation, a nonprofit group that advocates for solutions to rising sea levels.In an earlier study, researchers had found that $7.4 billion in potential home value appreciation had been swept away i
Federal aid intended to subsidize housing costs for Puerto Ricans who were displaced by Hurricane Maria is set to expire Friday. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is still paying for hotel rooms for about 2,436 Puerto Ricans who fled to the U.S. mainland. Unless a federal court intervenes, they may be left with nowhere to go by the end of the week.The aid program has been extended several times. If it lapses Friday, the U.S. government will
Hurricane Lane is spiraling through Hawaii, with some areas of the Big Island already reporting more than two feet of rain as of early Friday. About 48,617 homes in Hawaii may be at extreme or very high risk of hurricane-driven flood damage from the hurricane, with a total reconstruction cost value of about $8 billion, according to a report from CoreLogic, a real estate data firm.The Category 3 storm hit Hawaii’s Big Island on Friday morning. O
Facebook is removing thousands of targeting options from its advertising platform after the Department of Housing and Urban Development accused the social media giant of discriminatory practices with its housing ads.HUD filed a complaint last Friday against Facebook that claimed the social network’s advertising platform allowed users to discriminate against prospective renters and buyers by being able to limit who saw their ads based on the us
As young professionals head out on their own, where are some of the best places for them to call home? SmartAsset, a financial resource, analyzed several metrics—such as employment rates, median earnings, housing costs, and entertainment establishment density—to identify the best U.S. cities for professionals between the ages of 25 to 34.Sioux Falls, S.D., landed at the number-one spot in SmartAsset’s rankings this year. Besides a low unemp
Lots located next to power lines tend to sell for a whopping 45 percent less than similar lots further away from high-voltage transmission lines, according to a new study in the Journal of Real Estate Research. Lots that are non-adjacent to power lines but are located within 1,000 feet of them often sell at a discount of 18 percent, researchers Chris Mothorpe and David Wyman, the authors of the study, found.The study focused on the value of vaca
Existing-home sales slowed for the fourth consecutive month in July, reaching their most sluggish pace in more than two years, the National Association of REALTORS® reports. The West was the only major U.S. region to see an increase in sales last month.Total existing-home sales, which include completed transactions for single-family homes, townhomes, condos, and co-ops, fell 0.7 percent month over month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.
Compass, a fast-growing New York-based real estate firm, plans to buy Pacific Union International as it focuses on expanding in California, according to news reports. Compass plans to make a formal public announcement about the acquisition Thursday, the reports say.Pacific Union is the nation’s fifth-largest residential real estate firm based on transaction volume; Compass is the sixth, according to real estate news site REAL Trends. Combined,
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