Free Republic

The real-estate industry is battling it out over control of for-sale listings, and home sellers in particular could get hurt. Two major lawsuits filed over the last two weeks against the real-estate platform Zillow and the National Association of Realtors, an industry group, seek to answer the question of who controls home listings in America. The lawsuits, filed by two real-estate companies, challenge the status quo of how for-sale listings are seen by millions of users on the internet. The plaintiffs want to keep some listings private and only accessible to those who hire certain brokers. Under the current policy,...

During a raucous meeting that stretched nearly six hours last week, the Berkeley City Council unanimously voted to adopt an ordinance that would effectively end single-family zoning in most of the city. The measure legalizes “middle housing” — duplexes, townhomes, courtyard apartments and other small multifamily dwellings — in areas previously limited to single-family homes. While the move was celebrated by some housing advocates as an overdue step toward equity, it drew hours of divided public comments. Keep Watching 5 Watch More The ordinance sets a density cap of 70 units per acre across residential zones, preserves current height limits...

Earlier today, the Gateway Pundit reported that some Jewish people are planning to flee New York City after communist Muslim Zohran Mamdani won the Democrat primary race for mayor. Now it’s being reported that some real estate brokers in New York City were flooded with calls from people looking to flee the city within minutes of Mamdani’s win. People are horrified by the prospect of this man being in charge of America’s most iconic city. From the New York Post: Luxury real-estate brokers say wealthy New Yorkers are already looking to flee after Zohran Mamdani’s primary win Within minutes of...

Los Angeles and California never cease to amaze. I can say that with absolute certainty.Just when you think things are simmering down, those folks out there come up some off-the-wall freakin' crap that just so mind glowingly unreal, you have to check twice to make sure you read it right.And then it's still unbelievable.That daffy, worthless, Communista LA mayor is still doing her posing and not much else regarding the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity that hasn't paused while LA's coddled illegals go through the motions, acting out during their tantrums in the streets.STOP THIS LAW STUFF RIGHT NOW“Mayors...

The Adams administration has inked a nearly $1 billion no-bid contract with the hotel industry for emergency shelter space — despite boasting that the migrant crisis is tapering off, The Post has learned. Taxpayers are on the hook for the $929.1 million reupped with the Hotel Association of New York City Foundation as the total city population still includes a whopping 86,000 people, including homeless individuals and asylum seekers. “These hotel units will be used by social services vendors to house emergency shelter clients who have entered the [Department of Homeless Services] shelter system,” the agency said in a notice...

To be honest, I for one am completely underwhelmed by the “largest deportation operation in American history.” Wake me up when we start deporting more illegals than Obummer and Crooked Joe, but, here’s a tip for ICE: Start at the shelters and hotels of Massachusetts.A new item out at Fox News reveals that state governor Maura Healey’s administration is on-track to spend more than one billion dollars on its “Emergency Assistance” program, which largely services illegal migrants, just in Fiscal Year 2025. Here’s the story:Gov. Maura Healey’s administration has already spent $830 million so far in FY25 – which started...

After years of sellers calling the shots, some of the hottest pandemic-era housing markets are now grappling with a surplus of listings — and not enough willing buyers. According to real estate brokerage Redfin, April saw nearly half a million more homes listed than buyers in the market, the largest gap since at least 2013. But this supply surge hasn’t translated into a wave of closings. Instead, home sales have stalled in many areas, particularly across the Southeast and Southwest, where inventory has ballooned past pre-pandemic norms. In Miami, for example, there were almost three times as many sellers as...

SAN MATEO COUNTY, Calif. (KGO) -- Two former Caltrain employees were sentenced to a collective six months in jail this week. Both men were charged back in 2024 with the felony theft of public funds after they embezzled money to build secret apartments -- one at the Caltrain station in Burlingame and the other at the nearby Millbrae station. "This is why I say to people, never say you've seen it all, because something new like this will come up," said San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe. Wagstaffe tells ABC7 News the men lived inside the apartments for several...

After four consecutive months of year-over-year inventory increases, California is now solidly a buyer's market, which means the supply of homes is greater than the demand for properties in the state. That is happening in part because, as real estate analyst Nick Gerli put it, "no one is buying homes in California." Home sales in the Golden State are hovering just below the lows of the Great Recession, according to a recent report by Realtor.com, as sky-high prices and elevated mortgage rates keep buyers on the sidelines of the market.

WalletHub analyzed 300 U.S. cities of varying sizes across ten metrics, including real estate tax rate, cost per square foot, median home price, and median household income. Each metric was scored on a 100-point scale, with 100 indicating the most favorable conditions for home affordability. For this map, only cities with a population over 100,000 were considered.This map, via Visual Capitalist's Bruno Venditti, shows the 20 most affordable U.S. cities to buy a home in 2025, according to data from WalletHub.Detroit Tops the List for Home AffordabilityDetroit leads the list, with a median price per square foot of around $87....

After decades of mass illegal immigration into the United States, untold millions of illegal aliens have settled throughout the country, competing with Americans for government benefits, jobs, and now, for homes. For most illegal aliens, obtaining a mortgage from a traditional bank — without a social security number or a credit score — is nearly impossible. But as millions of illegal aliens flooded the country, a new industry has cropped up to capitalize on the new customer base, selling financing catered to the illegal population. One entity at the forefront of this industry, a Daily Wire investigation has revealed, is...

In his budget plan for fiscal year 2026, President Donald Trump has proposed cutting a total of $32.9 billion in funding to HUD. The plan includes a $26.7 billion cut to federal rental aid — approximately 40% of the total — and would essentially end Section 8 and other housing voucher programs, according to NPR.

The 'king' of Britain's migrant hotels is raking in £4.8million per day and may become a billionaire from the money earned through housing immigrants in the UK. Graham King, a former caravan park and disco tycoon, was catapulted onto the Rich List this year after cashing in on accommodating and transporting arrivals due to the UK's migrant crisis. The 57-year-old - who has an estimated net worth of £750million - owns an Essex business which was paid £1.74billion last year and claimed this was due to the increase in refugees.

On Friday, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order (EO) signalling his administration’s prioritization of the nation’s veterans rather than illegals. The EO will redirect funds from housing for illegals to establish the National Center for Warrior Independence. The Center will be located on the Veterans Affairs campus in West Los Angeles. A Trump administration official told Fox News, “The new National Center for Warrior Independence will help them and other veterans like them rebuild their lives.” The initiative will focus and providing shelter, healthcare, and job training to veterans in need and will partner with private organizations to expand...

A Redfin analysis shows that the number of homes for sale in Washington, DC, rose at the fastest pace on record last month. Sweeping layoffs of government workers spearheaded by DOGE boosted the figure. DOGE slashed over 200,000 federal jobs in March alone, one analysis found. Widespread layoffs of federal workers are rippling through the housing market of the nation's capital, with Washington, DC, in April seeing the biggest surge in the number of homes for sale ever recorded, data from Redfin shows. Active listings of homes for sale in Washington, DC, soared 25.1% year-over-year in the four weeks leading...

200,794 views May 4, 2025 This video is in response to a biased article full of falshoods that was recently published by the Asheville Citizen Times about Haven on the Hill. If you'd like to chip in for gas, coffee, or gear to keep the camera rolling

On Friday President Trump released a budget blueprint for the next fiscal year that would take a chainsaw to social, environmental and education programs. Some of the sharpest cuts are directed at housing programs that are meant to serve the poor, housing insecure and unhoused. In California, millions are served by these funds and state and local governments depend on them to operate affordable housing, rental assistance, homeless service, planning and legal programs. In a letter to the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, the president’s budget director, Russel Vought, laid out $163 billion in annual spending cuts coupled with “unprecedented increases”...

Housing activity for new residential construction climbed in March, spurred by a greater supply of houses during a crucial spring period. Sales of new homes rose 7.4% in March to a seasonally adjusted rate of 724,000 units, up from February's rate of 676,000, according to the Census Bureau data released on Wednesday. The reading came in well above Bloomberg's consensus forecast of 685,000. Inventory also ticked up, with 503,000 homes for sale at the end of March, a 0.6% increase from the prior month and the highest level since 2007, according to Bloomberg. Regionally, sales in the South jumped at...

I've often written about how real estate prices have affected members of my own family. Of our four kids, two live in Colorado and can only afford to live in a nice, peaceful town well outside the troubled Denver area because they combine not two but three incomes. Our other two live in deep-red Iowa, in the same small town, where they are easily able to afford nice homes. They have a lot of company. Realtor.com has just released its latest Affordability and Homebuilding report cards, and I should note that, while Colorado comes in at #27 with a grade...

It’s been obvious for years that China has a Potemkin economy, kept alive by slave labor, market bubbles, and government underwriting. it can’t last forever. The latest grim forecast about the economy comes from Peter St Onge, an economist with a much deeper fund of knowledge about and understanding of the Chinese economy than I could have in a thousand lifetimes.The biggest hint that the Chinese economy was in trouble was the demise of Evergrande, a massive property developer in China. The bankruptcy was huge, with the company’s assets valued at a probably inflated $245 billion and debts of $300...