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WA real estate service settles with Compass in transparency fight
A fierce fight over transparency in the local real estate industry appears to have reached a truce.
The primary repository for home listings across Western Washington, the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, has settled with the brokerage Compass and loosened its stance on semiprivate home listings.
Compass touted the settlement Monday, saying...Read more
Study: How much income is considered middle-class in the Bay Area?
A new study looks at how much annual household income it takes to be considered middle-class in the most expensive cities in the U.S. Not surprisingly, Bay Area cities took up eight spots in the list of the 10 most expensive cities with a population over 100,000, compiled by MoneyLion, a mobile banking company.
The most affluent city on the ...Read more
Homeowners in Black neighborhoods are paying more for insurance. Pittsburgh offers a troubling example
Lyft driver Elwin Green knew exactly what he was paying to insure his home in Pittsburgh's Homewood neighborhood.
What he didn’t know was that his homeowners insurance bill was more than twice what the average homeowner in some of Allegheny County’s wealthiest communities are paying.
Green, 74, pays Allstate $3,875 a year to insure his 2,...Read more
Cities turn to AI to speed housing permitting
New housing projects can sometimes stall out as a developer applies to city or county planning boards and goes through cycles of inspections, reviews and approvals.
Now, cities are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to address one of the most persistent sources of housing permitting delays: incomplete applications. And two new ...Read more
Starter home prices have more than doubled in Las Vegas in 10 years, report says
Starter home prices in the Las Vegas Valley have more than doubled in the past decade, according to a new report from Zillow.
The latest numbers from the online real estate marketplace paint a bleak picture for potential first-time homebuyers, as the price of a starter home in the valley sits at $312,141 in July, down 3.2 percent from the same ...Read more
Real estate Q&A: Under 'as-is' contract, is buyer responsible for water damage seller hid?
Q: We bought our first house two months ago and signed an “as-is” contract. After the first heavy rain, water poured in around a bedroom window. When we pulled up the new laminate, we found the subfloor was already rotted and had been painted over. The sellers must have known. Do we have any recourse, or did we give that up when we agreed to...Read more
California bill targets abandoned funds. When can state seize your forgotten stocks?
SACRAMENTO, California — Proposed legislation to streamline California's ability to seize abandoned stocks and mutual funds is drawing opposition from business groups and dividing Democratic lawmakers.
State Controller Malia Cohen sponsored Assembly Bill 1447, which seeks to define the process for California to take custody of securities when...Read more
Want a lower credit card interest rate? Just ask
If you have a credit card, you have a relationship with your card issuer. Your card issuer values that relationship and wants to keep it. There are many types of offers your issuer can make to ensure you stay (and don’t default on your debt), but it won’t advertise them — since they don’t exactly make the banks more money. It’s like a ...Read more
Mark Zuckerberg buys an Irish castle
Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg's latest home purchase appears fit for a billionaire who runs the world's largest social media empire.
Zuckerberg, who is married to Dr. Priscilla Chan and has three children, bought the Strancally Castle in Waterford, Ireland, a spokesman for the tech executive confirmed Friday.
"Mark and his family look ...Read more
US housing affordability gauge worsens for first time since 2023
A key measure of U.S. housing affordability worsened for the first time in almost three years, as higher borrowing costs soaked up a bigger chunk of earnings for new homebuyers.
Monthly payments on a median-priced $410,700 home accounted for 34% of a typical family’s income in the second quarter of this year, according to data published ...Read more
Real estate Q&A: Should I consider getting a reverse mortgage?
Q: I am 71 and retired. My house is paid off, but money is tight every month, and I keep seeing ads for reverse mortgages. My son says they are a scam, and that the bank will end up owning my home. Is that true, or is this something I should actually consider? — Patricia
A: A reverse mortgage is not a scam, nor is it a miracle. Like any loan,...Read more
Seattle area doesn't have 'enough family-sized units to go around'
A Seattle renter’s search is always a struggle — some alchemy of budget constraints, need for space and tolerance for the grueling process of scouring listings. For families with children, that search can be even harder.
Fewer than half of available rentals in the Seattle area have two or more bedrooms, the smallest share among major metro ...Read more
How to save $2,000 a month in Los Angeles: Rent
Some Los Angeles-area renters may feel a secret shame of not owning their homes, but maybe they should be bragging. Right now, renting is a much better deal.
People in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim metropolitan area looking to get into a smaller home on average would save more than $2,000 a month by renting rather than buying, according to...Read more
Rents dropping across Las Vegas Valley, report says
Rents are dropping across the Las Vegas Valley, according to a new report from Zumper.
One-bedroom apartment rents dropped 18.8% in July year over year, the biggest drop in the valley, in Winchester, which includes the north end of the Strip and to the east, according to the apartment rental platform.
The second biggest decline was in North ...Read more
CD ladder: What it is and how to build one
A CD ladder spreads your savings across multiple certificates of deposit (CDs) with staggered maturity dates, so you capture the higher rates of longer-term CDs while still getting access to part of your money every six to 12 months. It’s a solution to the classic CD dilemma of choosing between better rates and flexibility.
That said, top ...Read more
College is still worth it, parents say. They just want more options
For parents looking at the rising cost of college, there’s a reality that keeps some of them up at night: 71% expect to take on debt to help their children pay for higher education.
Nearly half — 46% — expect to use education loans. Another 21% of parents say they may turn to credit cards or cash advances. Eleven percent of parents ...Read more
With gas prices back on the rise, some Chicagoans are reconsidering how they get around
CHICAGO — Forty hours a week used to be enough for Christopher Dever, 42, to make a living as a Lyft driver. But as the cost of a full tank of gas crept up from $60 to $80, he found himself living in what he calls “a cycle of scarcity,” working 60-hour weeks to scrape by.
Although Lyft offered a temporary fuel relief program for eligible ...Read more
'How can you not build an Asian mall?' He saw the Bay Area shift and launched a trend
Perhaps no one has done more to bring Asian shopping centers to communities across the Bay Area than John Luk.
Luk launched his career in commercial real estate years after arriving in the South Bay from Hong Kong for a career in nursing. But noticing the lack of Asian grocery stores and banquet halls as demographics shifted in the South Bay, ...Read more
Luxury homes prices have increased 60% in Las Vegas since 2019, report says
The median price for a luxury home in Las Vegas has increased almost 60 percent since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a new report.
According to May statistics from Realtor.com, the median price for a luxury home in the Las Vegas Valley (within the top 10th percentile of all sales) was $752,891 in December 2019. By the same month in...Read more
Real estate Q&A: Should I add my daughter's name to deed of my house to avoid probate costs?
Q: I am a widow in my 70s, and I want to make things easier for my daughter after I am gone. A friend told me I can simply add her name to the deed of my house so it passes to her without probate. It sounds simple and inexpensive. Is there any reason I should not just do it? — Eleanor
A: Your heart is in the right place, and the goal is a ...Read more
Popular Stories
- Homeowners in Black neighborhoods are paying more for insurance. Pittsburgh offers a troubling example
- Study: How much income is considered middle-class in the Bay Area?
- WA real estate service settles with Compass in transparency fight
- Real estate Q&A: Under 'as-is' contract, is buyer responsible for water damage seller hid?
- Cities turn to AI to speed housing permitting






