Pending home sales increased in December for the first time in six months, and new-home sales and mortgage applications are rising.

Mashvisor CEO Peter Abualzolof says fresh content, paying attention to search engine optimization and short-form videos all help real estate firms market themselves. He notes that "all digital content that we post on our real estate website, other industry websites, social media or YouTube has to be created and published in such a way that makes it easy for search engines like Google to find it, identify its purpose, mark it as valuable and display it to online users," Abualzolof writes.

Sales leaders can help their team close more deals by coaching them to end conversations more effectively, sales consultant Colleen Francis says. Weak conversation enders, such as "I'll circle back," or "Let me know when you're ready," don't spur sales, but asking, "Where shall we go from here?" or "What would the next steps be?" are the kinds of questions that lead to action, Francis says.

The interest rate for a 30-year loan is nearly a whole percentage point down from a 7.08% peak just two months ago.

The decision ends a Department of Justice inquiry into the association's Clear Cooperation Policy and participation rule.

The most walkable urban areas in the country are New York, Washington, D.C., Boston and Portland, Ore., according to nonprofit Smart Growth America and real estate information company Places Platform. Walkability commands a 34% price premium in the overall urban real estate market, pricing out some potential residents, the report found.

Doug Duncan, senior vice president and chief economist at Fannie Mae, says baby boomers are aging in place and keeping a large inventory of homes off the market, though these homes will eventually be put up for sale, increasing supply.

Carolyn Gable, who struggled in poverty as a young mom, now provides small gestures of compassion—and $100 each—to people facing all kinds of problems.

The typical American renter is considered economically burdened, with 30% of median income going toward average rent, according to Moody's Analytics. "The rent-to-income ratio continued to climb up because income growth was not able to catch up with the rent growth," says Lu Chen, a senior economist at Moody's.

Rising interest rates might be increasing wealth inequality, largely because of their effect on mortgage rates, according to a working paper by the Federal Reserve. The paper counters a belief that a lower-rate environment benefits low-income households less.

The economy expanded at an annual rate of 2.9% in the fourth quarter, according to the Commerce Department, beating the expectations of economists surveyed by Bloomberg. GDP rose 2.1% in 2022 as a whole, down from 5.9% in 2021.