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 
A newly built Park View home sold for $1.64 million, the highest of five reported sales in the Little Rock, Arkansas metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
At $2.90 million, a newly built house on the Intracoastal Waterway in Palm Coast was the highest of five reported home sales in the Deltona, Florida metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
A Cocoa Beach house with 100 feet of deep-water canal frontage sold for $2.42 million, leading the five highest-priced home sales reported in the Palm Bay, Florida metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
A Bentonville house sold for $1.43 million, the highest reported home sale in the Fayetteville, Arkansas metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
A newly built custom home in Fresno’s Bullard area sold for $1.70 million, the highest-priced home sale reported in the Fresno metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
A newly built estate in the gated Serrano community of El Dorado Hills sold for $3.50 million, the highest-priced home sale reported in the Sacramento metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
CrossCountry Mortgage raised its agency conforming limit to $845,000 on Sept. 10, up 1.47% from $832,750, more than two months before FHFA sets the official 2027 figure.
The Fifth Circuit affirmed dismissal Sept. 9 of a Texas broker’s antitrust suit challenging the three-way Realtor membership requirement for MLS access, holding the complaint failed to allege antitrust injury.
A beachfront home in Captiva’s Beach Homes enclave sold for $2.83 million, the highest-priced sale reported in the Cape Coral metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
A $1.62 million sale in Acampo was the highest of five reported home sales in the Stockton, California metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
A lakefront home with a private cove on Hamilton Reservoir in Holland sold for $1.08 million, the highest reported sale in the Springfield metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
A renovated waterfront home on Rabbit Creek in Theodore sold for $638,175, the highest of five reported sales in the Mobile metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
A Phoenix Key Tower I penthouse in Orange Beach sold for $4.65 million to lead five reported home sales in the Daphne, Alabama metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
Intercontinental Exchange’s September Mortgage Monitor found property insurance costs rose 8.7% over the past year to a record $209 a month, with homeowners who switched carriers cutting premiums by 6.6%.
A six-bedroom estate bordering protected parkland in Spokane’s Casa Bella neighborhood sold for $2.30 million, the highest reported home sale in the Spokane metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
A five-bedroom house on Bald Head Island sold for $2.56 million, the highest of five reported home sales in the Wilmington, North Carolina metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
A 1931 house on Nantucket Sound in Cotuit sold for $6.05 million, the highest of five reported home sales in the Barnstable Town, Massachusetts metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
A custom-built home in Dunlap’s Copperfield neighborhood sold for $858,750, the highest of five reported sales in the Peoria, Illinois metro area for the week ending September 6, 2026.
Optimal Blue’s August Market Advantage report shows total rate-lock volume down 9% from July and 3% below a year ago, with rate-and-term refinancing off 47% year over year even as the 30-year rate held flat at 6.72%.
Multifamily buildings took an average of 18.9 months from permit to completion in 2025, 0.7 months faster than 2024 but nearly seven months longer than the 2013 low, according to NAHB’s analysis of Census Survey of Construction data.
Investors accounted for 27% of U.S. single-family home purchases between March and June, down from 28%, Cotality reported. The headline share barely moved, but the volume underneath it did: investors bought about 40,000 fewer homes than a year earlier, and the largest landlords accounted for a quarter of that drop.
NAHB’s Home Building Geography Index for the second quarter shows single-family construction contracting almost everywhere while apartment building concentrates in large metro cores and suburbs.
U.S. construction spending fell 0.5% in July to a $2.16 trillion annual rate, with residential work down 7.3% from a year ago while private office construction — the category that captures data centers — climbed 21.3%.
Zillow says a record 78,000-plus renters had on-time payments reported to credit bureaus in July, as its analysis of federal data shows thin credit files are now the leading reason conventional mortgage applications are denied.
Only 41% of apartments completed in the first quarter of 2026 were leased within three months, the seventh straight quarter below 50%, as the record delivery wave keeps pressure on lease-up.
Cook’s attorney told the White House the occupancy entries at the center of the case were an unintentional error, not fraud, three weeks before an FOMC meeting that will shape mortgage rates.
Nuveen closed on more than $1 billion for the fourth vintage of its C-PACE lending fund series, bringing total commitments to $3 billion as insurers treat the asset class as a standing allocation.
The Blackstone-backed developer has 4 gigawatts of leased capacity operating and more than 15 gigawatts of powered land in the pipeline — the scarce commodity in the AI buildout.
Active listings across Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria, Va., rose nearly 20% year over year while national inventory fell — and the region’s median price went the opposite direction from the country’s.
The governor gave the Texas Department of Insurance until Sept. 14 to recommend further changes, and ordered five immediate actions including a ban on price optimization and a prohibition on non-renewals based on a home’s age.
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