Homebuying activity picked up in November as election uncertainty dissipated and buyers grew more accustomed to elevated mortgage rates. Existing home sales for the full year will likely be in line with 2023 levels, but we expect activity to tick up in 2025. Existing home sales rose 0.7% month over month in November to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4,269,851—the highest level since March 2023. They jumped 4.5% year over year—the largest annual increase since July 2021. A seasonally adjusted annual rate is not a measurement of actual total sales for the year, but rather, the pace of sales at a given time. A seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4,269,851 in November means that existing home sales would end the year at that level if homes were sold at the November pace for each month of 2024. Redfin’s measure of existing home sales has them coming in at around …

Why Your Accountant is Begging You to Do This One Thing The Shoebox of Shame: Why We Need to Talk About Pre-Accounting By Gita Faust I realized this yesterday during my webinar titled “From Balance Sheet to Your Wellness.” Now, don’t roll your eyes just yet—this isn’t your average accounting lecture. While chatting away about wellness and financial health, it hit me like a ton of bricks: so many businesses are making the same mistakes repeatedly. And guess what? They’re using outdated methods that cause unnecessary stress. Let’s rewind for a second. Think back to the old days—remember when everyone used to collect receipts in shoeboxes? Oh, yes, the infamous shoebox filled with movie stubs, grocery receipts, and random scraps of paper. It’s like the treasure chest of financial chaos! You wouldn’t go to the grocery store without a list, right? So why would you run your business without some …

Platform Integration to Make Rental Application and Tenant Screening Tool Available in OneHome Boston, MA (December 9, 2024)—Rental Beast, an industry-leading real estate technology firm, and CoreLogic®, a leading provider of property insights and innovative solutions, announced today a new integration of Rental Beast’s powerful platform into OneHome™ from CoreLogic. This integration streamlines and enhances OneHome users’ rental application and tenant screening process while expanding the visibility of an MLS’  rental listings. Users of CoreLogic’s OneHome client search portal for participating MLSs will now have seamless access to Rental Beast’s Apply Now, a tenant application and screening tool, directly within the platform. This integration offers a more efficient application process, enabling consumers to manage and initiate rental inquiries with ease and speed. The integration will also increase listing exposure and lead quality by syndicating listings through the Rental Beast platform and getting exposure to millions of unique visitors by integrating …

According to the CoreLogic’s latest Loan Performance Insight Report, the share of U.S. borrowers who were in some stage of delinquency (30 days or more past due, including those in foreclosure), was up 0.2% year-over-year from September, 2023.  In addition they point out that Early-Stage Delinquencies (30 to 59 days past due) in September were 1.6%, up from 1.5% from one year ago.  The foreclosure inventory rate (share of mortgages in some stage of the foreclosure process) was 0.3% in September, same as a year ago. “Loan performance in the third quarter of 2024 showed a continual upward trend in mortgage delinquencies. Delinquencies remain low, particularly when compared with those during the Great Recession. However, 70% of metropolitan areas showed an increase in the overall delinquency rate from a year earlier, and more concerning, 30% of metropolitan areas showed an increase in the serious delinquency rate. As recently as the …

While smoking is not as “in vogue” as it once was, a recent report from the Tax Foundation says higher tax rates on cigarettes incentivize smuggling and as tax rates increase, consumers and suppliers search for ways around these costs.  They point out that, when it comes to cigarettes, consumers tend to shop across borders where the tax rates are lower and dealers develop black and gray markets to sell illegally to consumers, paying little or no tax at all.  They say cigarette smuggling is both a national problem and a lucrative criminal enterprise.  Citing data from a partnership with Michigan’s Mackinac Center for Public Policy, they have estimated smuggling rates for each US state (and DC) as recent as 2022.  Not surprising, their data shows that when states increase their cigarette taxes, smuggling rates increase. !function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<e.length;r++)if(e[r].contentWindow===a.source){var i=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";e[r].style.height=i}}}))}(); !function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t …

Agents, These Are the Best Resources for Real Estate Targeted Mailing Lists in 2025 Marketing via direct mail and email may seem antiquated compared to other methods like SMS and social media. But direct mail is still one of the most effective real estate marketing tools, particularly for targeting older generations who are less tech savvy. Direct mailing and emailing should be part of every real estate agent’s marketing plan, and the best part is you don’t have to do all the work yourself. Today, there are plenty of services that will do the hard work of data segmentation for you. With that in mind, below is a roundup of the four best resources for real estate mailing list providers in 2025. ***This article was originally written in 2022, but has been updated to reflect new solution providers*** 1. ATTOM Property Navigator – Best Overall Powered by property data from …

37% of home purchases made by people 65+ occur in counties with high risk of extreme heat, compared with 32% of purchases made by people under 35. The same trend holds true for flood and fire risk. Nearly all homes (96%) face high heat risk in the counties where 65+ buyers take out the largest share of mortgages, compared with just 59% of homes in the counties where buyers under 35 take out the largest share. Older Americans are more likely than younger Americans to buy homes in places with significant climate risk. Over one-third (36.9%) of home purchases made by people 65 and older last year were in counties with high risk of extreme heat, compared with less than one-third (32.3%) of home purchases made by people under 35.  We see the same trend for flood and fire risk; 13.3% of purchases made by people 65+ were in counties …