Various topics for July/August Transition

1. 9 THINGS CLIENTS EXPECT FROM THEIR REAL ESTATE AGENT
2. The nation's largest homebuilder says more buyers are cancelling deals amid growing real-estate market pessimism
   
3. Massachusetts legislation proposed A statewide optional transfer fee of up to 2% on high-end real estate sales would provide a local tool allowing any community that has a problem and chooses to participate to determine the kind of housing relief they want and need. On $1 Billion annual sales, that's 20 million - given cost to construct each unit to be $200,000, then about 100 units could be built...that's a drop in the Nantuckett bucket!
4. What the Fed’s July rate hike means for homebuyers and sellers - The Federal Reserve does not set mortgage rates, and the central bank’s decisions don’t move mortgages as directly as they do other products, such as savings accounts and CD rates. Instead, mortgage rates tend to move in lockstep with 10-year Treasury yields. But the Fed does set the overall tone for mortgage rates. Mortgage lenders and investors closely watch the central bank, and the mortgage market’s attempts to interpret the Fed’s actions affect how much you pay for your home loan.
5. Foreign buyers remain absent from U.S. housing market
6. US homebuyers are backing out of deals at the highest rate since the start of the pandemic
7. Foreclosure filings are up more than 150%. Here’s what that tells us about the housing market - much of the overall foreclosure activity we’re seeing right now is on loans that were either already in foreclosure or were more than 120 days delinquent prior to the pandemic,
8. Real estate company operating in Raleigh fined $62M for ‘cheating’, ‘misleading’
   Opendoor has now agreed to the following:

• Pay $62 million back to customers
• Stop deceiving potential home sellers
• Stop making baseless claims and instead use competent and reliable evidence to support any representations made about the costs, savings, or financial benefits