Don Baker is a full-time staff reporter for RealtyWire, where he covers residential real estate, commercial real estate, multifamily housing, market trends, finance, construction, rental data, and regulatory issues affecting the real estate industry.
Before joining RealtyWire, Don worked as an investor relations director for a multifamily private equity fund, where he wrote investor updates and reporting materials on the performance, operations, and outlook of investment properties. That role gave him hands-on experience analyzing real estate trends, rental statistics, construction activity, financing issues, multifamily operations, compliance matters, and the legal and regulatory factors that shape property ownership and investment.
Don brings a broad understanding of both residential and commercial real estate to his reporting, with a particular focus on helping readers understand how market data, policy changes, capital markets, and local property trends affect buyers, sellers, investors, brokers, developers, and property owners.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in Business from Southern Illinois University and currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Don Baker 
From Wrightsville Beach and Bald Head Island to Ocean Isle Beach, Masonboro Plantation and Kure Beach, the week’s top sales were spread across five different communities along the coast.
Three of the five sales were in St. Lucie County, with one each in Martin and Palm Beach counties.
An oceanfront estate in Melbourne Beach led a week in which every one of the top five sales closed above $1 million.
Two lakefront estates, a modern landmark near Park Avenue, a home in the gated Lake Nona golf community and a brand-new build in Beverly Shores made up the week’s top sales.
New construction made up three of the five sales, and two of the five were condominiums, with the rest single-family homes in Sarasota, Longboat Key and Osprey.
Park Shore, Olde Naples and the Moorings produced the week’s five top sales, every one of them above $5 million.
Homes with private docks on the Intracoastal Waterway led the week, joined by a newly built home in Forest Dunes and a lakefront Mediterranean home in Grande Dunes.
Two homes above $5 million led a week of sales that ran from a gated Knoxville community to open pasture and mountain views in Blount County.
Walton County accounted for four of the week’s five top sales, with the fifth in Destin, in Okaloosa County.
The week’s top sales range from a 1948 home in Crestline to a 2019 home in Mountain Brook’s Cherokee Bend, with a guest house, private pools and a gated community setting among them.
Shareholders have sued Millrose Properties, the Lennar land-banking spinoff, over $200 million of home purchases they say contradict its filings. SEC exhibits show the company quietly authorized a single-family rental strategy in August.
Three single-family homes and two condominiums across Pinellas and Hillsborough counties, two of them new construction, made up the week’s top sales.
Barns, pastures, riding trails and a lakefront setting run through a week led by an equestrian property in Wingspread Farms.
A newly built modern home in San Marco, a restored 1920s Palm Island estate and a pre-construction home in Boca Raton were among the week’s top sales.
An oceanfront estate in Ponte Vedra Beach led the week, ahead of a furnished home in Sea Colony, a new home in Jacksonville Beach and a penthouse in Fernandina Beach.
Two newly built homes, a Sea Pines family home and properties on Fripp Island and in Okatie made up the week’s top sales, all of them in Beaufort County.
A marshfront home with its own dock, a reimagined Harleston Village residence and an architect-designed country compound were among the week’s most expensive sales.
A Gulf-front home on Gasparilla Island led the week, with Sanibel accounting for two of the five sales and Bonita Springs and Fort Myers rounding out the list.
A remodeled brick home on a large rural tract outside Athens led a week that also included two brand-new homes and two homes in gated and golf communities.
September existing-home sales land Tuesday and September CPI Wednesday, with Freddie Mac’s survey and Prologis earnings on Thursday. Housing starts and builder sentiment wait until the following week, and the Fed meets Oct. 27-28.
Equifax reported VantageScore 4.0 mortgage score pulls rose 230% from April to August 2026 and said it will hold the score’s $1 price through the end of 2028. It also launched a tool letting lenders pull a credit file with no score attached.
At eXpcon in Salt Lake City on Oct. 8, 2026, eXp Realty announced four things at once: Revenos Mortgage, a joint venture with top-five nonbank lender Newrez launching in early 2027; an MCP strategy that connects agents’ own Claude or ChatGPT accounts to their eXp data; eXp Ready, up to $50,000 of pay-at-close seller prep financing; and ShowGo, an internal marketplace for showing coverage.
eXp Realty’s chief executive now runs the parent company, and the same Oct. 8 announcement carried a Newrez mortgage joint venture, a $50,000 seller-prep program, a showing marketplace and an MCP-based AI strategy.
Century Communities said on Oct. 8 it acquired substantially all assets of HMH Lifestyles, L.P., which does business as HistoryMaker Homes, a Grapevine, Texas, builder founded in 1949. The deal triples Century’s Dallas-Fort Worth community count and replenishes a lot pipeline that shrank by more than 8,500 lots over the past year.
HUD’s fair housing office told Wells Fargo CEO Charles Scharf on Oct. 7 that it is investigating whether the bank’s 2017 and 2022 commitments to Black homeownership violated the Fair Housing Act, and demanded the bank preserve all records tied to its mortgage lending policies.
Unlock MLS CEO Emily Girard told subscribers on Oct. 6 that the Austin, Texas, listing service will keep enforcing Clear Cooperation, rejecting a Compass demand backed by the threat of a federal antitrust suit.
Tishman Speyer and The Cooper Union finalized a 150-year ground lease on the Chrysler Building on Oct. 7, with $235 million going into systems, facade and amenities. PSP Investments leads the equity, and the group is using no acquisition debt.
The nation’s largest wholesale mortgage lender said on Oct. 6 that it will obtain both a FICO score and a VantageScore 4.0 on every credit pull and qualify the borrower on whichever is stronger, taking the choice out of brokers’ hands.
Two 1920s homes in Chatham Crescent and Ardsley Park lead a group that also includes two waterfront homes and a townhouse in the South Historic District.
Homes built around boating shared the week’s top sales with a rural spread that traded the waterfront for open land.
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