GlobeSt

6 days ago | globest.com | Erika Morphy

Bill Pulte, the recently appointed director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), has launched an aggressive campaign to combat mortgage fraud, signaling a new era of scrutiny and accountability in the housing finance sector. In a move reminiscent of crowd-sourced crime-fighting efforts, Pulte announced the creation of a public tip line on X, inviting anyone with knowledge of fraudulent mortgage activity to submit information directly to the agency via a dedicated email address.

6 days ago | globest.com | Erik Sherman

Tax incentive programs sometimes don’t seem to deliver on their promise. That’s not the case with the Opportunity Zone (OZ) program, part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Now, the question is whether some new version of the original concept, which faces its planned expiration date, will pass Congress and be signed into law. According to a CoStar analysis, OZs helped achieve completion rates for low-income household multifamily units at more than twice the national pace before the program.

6 days ago | globest.com | Philippa Maister

The bleak forecasts for U.S. office market distress are proving accurate as the year unfolds, according to a new report from CommercialEdge. Increasing office vacancy rates, rising distressed sales numbers, and slumping office starts nationwide tell much of the story. They are part of what the report called “a decades-long shift happening in the sector.”“Large urban properties are now feeling the pinch as demand continues to fall and many lease contracts come to an end,” the report found.

6 days ago | globest.com | Erik Sherman

After overcoming the pandemic and facing the uncertainty of tariffs, proptech is taking a different turn. It is moving from experiments and anything goes to discipline, a practical view of what customers might need, and “more realism on the part of investors,” Jameson Hartman, vice president at RET Ventures, tells GlobeSt.com.

6 days ago | globest.com | Erik Sherman

On-and-off-and-on tariffs and the response of other countries have had varying effects on CRE: construction costs, interest rates, insurance premiums, and more. Now Trepp has potentially added credit spreads to the list. Trepp product management analysts Jamie Quach and Valerie Mondschein said that a historical trend of widening credit spreads during times of uncertainty — seen, for instance, during the Covid-19 pandemic — has reappeared in early indicators.