Free Republic

San Diego is one of the nation’s hottest housing markets, with average home prices hovering around $1 million and rents for a one-bedroom apartment topping $2,000 a month. Yet city officials estimate that more than 5,000 properties sit empty most of the year, which some advocates argue worsens the city’s housing shortage and affordability crisis. So California’s second-largest city is set to take dramatic action. In a few weeks, San Diego voters will decide whether to become the latest California municipality to tax vacant homes

As a cofounder of PayPal and the first outside investor in Facebook, Peter Thiel is widely recognized for his expertise in tech. But for a while now, the billionaire venture capitalist is sounding the alarm on an entirely different sector: real estate.During an interview with Common Wealth Canada in late 2024, Thiel drew upon the insights of 19th-century economist Henry George to underscore the gravity of America’s real estate crisis (1).snip“The dynamic ends up being that you add 10% to the population in a city, and maybe the house prices go up 50%, and maybe people’s salaries go up, but...

Katelin Holloway and Ben Ramirez thought they had found their forever home when they purchased a spacious North Beach property for $4.75 million in 2021 — a four-story residence with five bedrooms, sweeping skyline views and room for their growing family. Instead, the couple is now facing the possibility that the house must be carved back into four separate apartments after city officials determined the building was improperly converted from a multi-unit property years before they bought it, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. SNIP According to city officials and tenant advocates, the building had previously been altered from a...

NEW YORK (AP) — The wealthy Alexander brothers used the same tactics of luring, drugging and humiliation to sexually assault numerous women and girls, bragging about their exploits in blog posts with titles that included “It’s not rape if,” a federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday. snip... The allegations are corroborated by the “sheer number of victims who testified,” the prosecutor said — women who never have met each other and live different lives, but “have one horrific thing in common: they were raped by these men.” Far from hiding their activity, the brothers bragged about it in text messages, emailed...

STOPPING WALL STREET FROM COMPETING WITH MAIN STREET HOMEBUYERS: Today, President Donald J. Trump signed an Executive Order to protect the American Dream by making sure that large institutional investors do not buy single-family homes that could otherwise be purchased by families.The Order directs key agencies to issue guidance preventing relevant Federal programs from approving, insuring, guaranteeing, securitizing, or facilitating sales of single-family homes to institutional investors.The Order instructs key agencies to promote sales to individual owner-occupants through first-look policies (which give individuals and other non-institutional investors the opportunity to buy foreclosed properties before investors do), disclosure requirements, and anti-circumvention...

High home prices, faltering supply and weaker consumer confidence in the economy all continue to weigh on the U.S. housing market. The chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, Lawrence Yun, is calling it “a new housing crisis.” Sales of previously owned homes in January dropped a much wider-than-expected 8.4% from December to a seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of 3.91 million, according to the NAR. Sales were 4.4% lower than January 2025. That is the slowest pace since December 2023 and the biggest monthly drop since February 2022. This count is based on closings, so contracts that were likely...

China has executed 11 members of a notorious Myanmar mafia family that was infamous for duping victims in fake online romances. The Ming crime family was sentenced to death in September by a court in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou, with the same court also carrying out the executions on Thursday. Residents in the UK and the US have fallen victim to similar, sophisticated schemes, after being lured into romantic relationships that resulted in the loss of large amounts of cash. The clan members were executed for crimes including 'intentional homicide, intentional injury, unlawful detention, fraud and casino establishment',...

A homebuyer’s relief at landing a house turned to hesitation after an impromptu pre-closing visit revealed the property was still cluttered with the seller’s belongings. In a post on Reddit, the buyer shared how, the day before their scheduled closing, they stopped by the yard only to find old equipment, tools and what looked like junk still strewn around. The original poster (OP) described a quiet drive-by that turned into an unplanned walk-through once the buyer’s realtor granted early access. They found the property in a far-from-ready state, with one Reddit user responding: “You should do an official walk through...

Its some kind of wonderful … for home buyers. Home sellers outnumbered buyers by 47.1% in December 2025, the largest gap since Redfin data began in 2013. The percentage jumped by +7.1 points from November, the biggest monthly increase since September 2022. The number of active homebuyers fell -5.9% MoM to 1.34 million, the lowest level on record. Meanwhile, home sellers declined -1.1% MoM to 1.97 million, the lowest since February 2025. By comparison, in November 2021, there were 36.5% fewer sellers than buyers. This all comes as elevated housing costs and economic uncertainty continue to push buyers to the...

Denmark’s foreign minister had the top U.S. diplomat in the country summoned for talks after the main national broadcaster reported Wednesday that at least three people with connections to President Donald Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland. Trump has repeatedly said he seeks U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, a vast, semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. He has not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island. Denmark, a NATO ally of the U.S., and Greenland have said the island is not for sale and condemned reports of the U.S. gathering intelligence there.

Customs and Border Protection agents began an immigration enforcement operation Saturday in Charlotte. Leaders of North Carolina's largest city have said the federal operation is causing fear and uncertainty. Charlotte real estate agent Tabatha Andonian has been tracking federal agent sightings and sharing information with the city's Latino community. “Right now, I’m just driving around to see if I spot any vehicles that are ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), seeing if they have out-of-state plates,” she said.

Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said that President Donald Trump called her on Monday following a speech in which she sharply criticized his record on costs and governance. "In my remarks, I made it clear that despite promising to lower costs On Day One, Trump has done nothing but raise costs for families," she said in the statement. She said Trump called her after her remarks at the event on Monday. "I told him that Congress can pass legislation to cap credit card rates if he will actually fight for it. I also urged him to get House Republicans...

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's push to stop the bankruptcy sale of more than 5,000 rent-subsidized apartments in the city has been blocked, temporarily, by the federal courts. Mamdani, who was sworn into office last week, directed the city’s Law Department shortly after taking over City Hall to intervene in the bankruptcy proceedings of more than 90 buildings with apartments all owned by Pinnacle, a real estate group. The Mamdani administration says the company owes the city $12.7 million in unpaid fines for housing code violations. The company declared bankruptcy in May after defaulting on more than $560 million...

There’s a cruel irony in working harder than your parents did and still being unable to afford what they had. For a generation of Americans who played by the rules—saved diligently, built credit, waited for the right time—the right time never seemed to come. The house with the yard and the room for grandkids to visit? It drifted further away with every passing year.The numbers tell a grim story. Home prices have surged 105% over the last decade, transforming what was once a milestone into a fantasy for millions of families. Young couples delay starting families. Retirees watch their fixed...

For millions of Americans, buying a home no longer feels like a goal. It feels like a gamble they are destined to lose. Prices rise faster than savings. Mortgage payments outpace wages. Each rejected offer chips away at confidence.Donald Trump says that cycle must stop.His plan to ban large institutional investors from buying houses has struck a nerve across the US. It speaks directly to people who believe the housing market no longer serves them.The message is blunt. Homes are for people, not corporations.A Promise Built on FrustrationFor many, housing affordability defines their daily lives. Their circumstances have changed; many...

President Trump on Wednesday called for a ban on “large institutional investors” buying single-family homes in a bid to address the issue of affordability. “I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it. People live in homes, not corporations,” Trump said in a Truth Social post, adding that he will discuss the topic, including further Housing and Affordability proposals, at the World Economic Forum in Davos later this month. The proposed ban could prove to be a way in for Trump and Republicans to...

Redfin’s 2026 Predictions: Welcome to The Great Housing ResetPublished on December 2nd, 2025 by Chen Zhao and Daryl Fairweather U.S. homebuyers will start to get some relief in 2026, with affordability improving as income growth outpaces home-price growth. Next year will mark the beginning of a long, slow recovery for the housing market. The Great Housing Reset will take shape in 2026. It won’t be a quick price correction, and it won’t be a recession. Instead, the Great Housing Reset will be a yearslong period of gradual increases in home sales and normalization of prices as affordability gradually improves. It...

Some of the Minnesota Somalians convicted in the Feeding Our Future scheme reportedly enjoyed luxurious lifestyles with money stolen from the federal government, the news coming as the state is under scrutiny regarding more alleged fraud. The fraudsters stole hundreds of millions of dollars in federal COVID relief money and apparently used it to fund lavish lifestyles and not feed needy children, the New York Post reported Saturday. Their rich lifestyles included condos, luxury cars, and real estate in Kenya, the outlet said, citing court documents. ne of those involved, 43-year-old Liban Yasin Alishire, who pleaded guilty in 2023 to...

A federal jury in Minneapolis Wednesday convicted Feeding Our Future founder Aimee Bock and former restaurant owner Salim Said on charges of wire fraud and bribery in a trial that followed a lengthy investigation into an alleged scheme to fleece taxpayers out of $250 million by exploiting government child nutrition programs during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jurors deliberated about five hours before finding Bock, 44, guilty on all seven counts. They convicted Said, 36, of all 21 charges, which also included five counts of money laundering. U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel ordered Bock and Said jailed and did not set a...

Years before Minnesota welfare fraud captured the nation’s attention, a Somali-American leader of one massive scheme expanded his assets beyond the North Star State, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, a Somali-born naturalized U.S. citizen, used some of his ill-gotten gains to buy property throughout the Twin Cities and Kentucky before the DOJ prosecuted him for using the nonprofit Feeding Our Future to defraud the government of $300 million in COVID-19 relief meant for hungry children, leading to a 28-year prison sentence in August. There are at least 1,687 people of Somali descent living in Kentucky....