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Category: Industry News
Industry News
Researchers find 40,000 deeds around Puget Sound with racist restrictions – so far
Since Washington lawmakers passed a measure in 2021 enabling review and property owner notification of recorded documents with unlawful racial restrictions, teams of researchers have documented more than 40,000 properties with racial restrictions – and those are just preliminary results for four Puget Sound area counties. Representatives of the Racial [..]
Industry News
Urban Institute says much of Puget Sound region is “unwelcoming” to housing development
Local land use rules, including restrictive zoning, are limiting the creation of new housing in the Puget Sound region, according to research by the Urban Institute. In a recent report, researchers with that nonprofit organization and think tank suggested state legislation and local zoning changes could improve housing accessibility in [..]
Industry News
U.S. homes have near-record levels of equity
Homes around the country have near-record levels of equity, with the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area ranking 21st among markets with the highest percentage of equity-rich households. ATTOM Data Solutions LLC reported 48.5% of mortgaged residential properties nationally were considered equity-rich in the third quarter. A property is defined as equity-rich when the [..]
Industry News
3D-printed homes being built in pioneering response to housing crisis
Tech and tradition come together to create a pioneering community of 3D-printed homes near Austin, Texas. In an announcement, Lennar Corporation and ICON Technology revealed the 100-home project is situated in the Wolf Range master-planned community in Georgetown, about 30 miles north of Austin. Construction is underway at the community, [..]
Industry News
News In Brief
The National Association of REALTORS® released its annual profile of homebuyers and sellers, which found the boom in housing prices brought on by a pandemic-era surge in activity and increasing mortgage rates led to fewer people being able to buy their first home. First-time buyers made up 26% of sales in 2022, [..]
Industry News
Northwest MLS resumes in-person membership meetings to update brokers on initiatives, rules, systems, and services
Northwest Multiple Listing Service resumed in-person membership meetings for brokers last month for the first time since 2019. As with previous fall meetings, they featured an information-packed agenda that included reminders about elections for directors, updates on strategic initiatives, updates on rules, forms and the industry, and updates on systems [..]
Industry News
Housing Solutions Breakfast
An inadequate supply of housing threatens our state’s competitiveness and poses challenges on many fronts, stated Washington Lieutenant Governor Denny Heck, keynote speaker at the Housing Solutions Breakfast presented by the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties (MBAKS). Speaking at last month’s event, Heck highlighted some of the [..]
Industry News
Housing panelists focus on accessible, attainable actions to address housing crisis
Four local elected officials and a homebuilder (listed above) were panelists at last month’s Housing Solutions Breakfast presented by the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties. The event also featured keynote speaker Denny Heck, Washington’s lieutenant governor, and the recently unveiled MBAKS Housing Toolkit Preview, a compendium of [..]
Industry News
Homebuilder group outlines steps to streamline permit process
Improving permit review times for housing projects and having more transparency around timelines would benefit city staff, builders, and ultimately, consumers, suggests the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish Counties (MBAKS). With those outcomes in mind, the homebuilders’ association published an Issue Brief. The two-page document features a chart [..]