Meritage Q2 2026 earnings telegraph move-up buyer pivot

For much of the past decade, Meritage Homes has stood as one of public homebuilding’s clearest business use cases that thoughtfully designed, efficiently built entry-level homes could unlock homeownership for thousands of households who otherwise might have remained renters. The company’s strategy w

Fed Researchers Offer a New Homeownership Metric—and It Drops the Rate to 53%

The Federal Reserve of Minneapolis has proposed a new way of measuring homeownership that would change the current view of the housing landscape. In a paper released earlier this month, researchers suggested that homeownership in America should be measured not by the share of homes where the owner i

FirstTeam and Purlin on avoiding AI mistakes: ‘Some stuff actually creates more work’

FirstTeam Real Estate, a California powerhouse that reported $6.12 billion in 2025 volume across 5,978 transactions — good enough for national ranks of No. 34 and No. 67, respectively — has partnered with Purlin to deploy an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered operating system across the brokerage.

‘Is This House Haunted?’ The Strangest Questions People Are Asking RealAssist AI

Forget mortgage rates and property taxes—today’s home shoppers on Realtor.com® are sussing out the real dealbreakers. From suspected haunted listings to backyard chicken logistics, some buyers are ditching standard search terms and taking a delightfully quirky approach to house hunting. Home shopper