Mortgage Insights

Plain-English guidance on rates, home buying, and refinancing from the The Lending Stars team.

Housing Industry News

7 best places to buy real estate leads in 2026

Jun 29, 2026 · 2:24 PM Emile L'Eplattenier, Gina Baker HousingWire

Let’s face it — a healthy pipeline of leads is the lifeblood of any successful real estate business. Buying real estate leads is one of the fastest, most…

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Housing Industry News

13 of the best real estate agent retention strategies

Jun 29, 2026 · 2:20 PM Ashley Harwood, Megan Johnson HousingWire

With over 100,000 brokerages in the US competing for the approx 2 million licensed real estate agents , retention is just as important as recruiting when it…

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Housing Industry News

33 proven real estate marketing ideas & tools top agents swear by

Jun 29, 2026 · 2:17 PM Emile L'Eplattenier, Gina Baker HousingWire

Want to build a real estate career that lasts? Mastering the art (and science) of real estate marketing is a crucial first step. The key to effective real…

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Housing Industry News

The best real estate software for 2026: 20 top picks for agents + teams

Jun 29, 2026 · 2:14 PM Emile L'Eplattenier, Gina Baker HousingWire

It’s hard to overstate how dramatically real estate software has changed over the last few years. We went from clunky, slow, and expensive CRMs to…

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Housing Industry News

22 must-have real estate marketing tools for 2026

Jun 29, 2026 · 1:57 PM Megan DeMatteo, Jodie Cordell HousingWire

It’s time to level up your real estate marketing game. But where do you begin? We know you didn’t get into real estate for the love of marketing or tech.…

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Housing Industry News

Ryan Ponsford on cementing reverse mortgage partnerships with financial advisers

Jun 29, 2026 · 10:00 AM Neil Pierson HousingWire

Business relationships between financial advisers and reverse mortgage professionals have always been tricky arrangements . Like anyone else who lacks…

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Housing Industry News

The rate obsession is fading. Here’s what’s replacing it

Jun 29, 2026 · 7:19 AM John Cady HousingWire

For most of the past two years, the mortgage industry has been organized around a single question: When will rates come down? Sales pipelines, marketing…

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Housing Industry News

How the housing market survived the Iran conflict

Jun 28, 2026 · 12:04 AM Logan Mohtashami HousingWire

Now that the Iran conflict is behind us and oil prices have fallen significantly, we can hopefully move into the second half of 2026 with less drama for…

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Housing Industry News

VA loan fee hike proposal advances in Congress, drawing industry pushback

Jun 26, 2026 · 9:24 PM Flávia Furlan Nunes HousingWire

Legislation moving through Congress would increase fees on U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs ( VA ) loans, creating a new flashpoint for the mortgage…

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Housing Industry News

Homebuilding scale emerges as a fiduciary priority for boards

Jun 26, 2026 · 8:06 PM John McManus HousingWire

A question has hovered over America’s publicly traded homebuilders as the price, pace and margins plot thickened on or about February 28, 2026. How big is…

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