Steve Thompson is a staff reporter for RealtyWire, where he covers residential real estate, mortgage trends, home sales, housing market data, real estate finance, industry regulation, and the issues affecting Realtors, buyers, sellers, lenders, and property owners.
Before joining RealtyWire, Steve worked as a mortgage broker, giving him direct experience with the financing side of real estate transactions. His background in the mortgage business gives him valuable insight into how interest rates, lending standards, affordability, buyer demand, and regulatory changes influence the broader real estate market.
Steve brings a practical understanding of home sales, market analysis, real estate trends, financing issues, and the laws and regulations that shape residential real estate. His reporting focuses on making complex market and mortgage-related topics clear and useful for readers across the real estate industry.
He earned a Bachelor of Science in Business from the University of Central Florida and currently lives in Orlando, Florida.
Steve Thompson 
Census Bureau data show U.S. construction spending fell 3.2% year over year in June to a $2,166.5 billion annual rate, as residential building cooled while nonresidential construction, led by data centers, held up.
Security Properties, partnering with RGA ReCap on behalf of Reinsurance Group of America, acquired the 134-unit Langara apartment community in Issaquah, Wash., for $55.1 million.
Zions Bancorporation completed its acquisition of Basis Investment Group’s agency lending platform, gaining Fannie Mae DUS and Freddie Mac Optigo multifamily lending licenses and the team behind them.
Compass, Midwest Real Estate Data and Zillow have filed competing post-hearing briefs in the Chicagoland MLS dispute, sharpening the disagreement over private listings, MLS access and whether the challenged rules protect cooperation or suppress competing brokerage models, according to HousingWire. The filings followed arguments over preliminary relief. Zillow alleges an unlawful group boycott; Compass and … Read more
Seattle’s City Council passed legislation eliminating Hearing Examiner appeals for environmental review of zoning and comprehensive-plan decisions, aiming to remove a process officials say has delayed housing development for years.
The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge fell 0.1% for the month in June, the first monthly decline in six years, even as annual PCE inflation stayed at 3.7% and the personal saving rate dropped to its lowest since 2022.
VICI Properties President John Payne disclosed on the REIT’s Q2 earnings call that VICI and Caesars Entertainment are developing plans for an NBA arena on 50 acres of jointly owned land behind three Las Vegas Strip resorts.
Miami developer Neology Group closed an inaugural $175 million capital raise, giving it nearly $1 billion in transactional capacity to pursue mixed-use and district-scale projects across the Southeast, including a Rubell Arts District partnership.
The OCC and FDIC proposed amendments to Community Reinvestment Act rules that would exempt banks under $10 billion in assets from certain reporting requirements and narrow which retail banking services count toward CRA credit.
Housing’s contribution to U.S. GDP slipped to 15.8% in Q2 2026, the lowest since 2019, as NAHB data show residential investment turning positive while housing services growth softened.
LPT Aperture Holdings, parent of LPT Realty, has acquired Speculo, an AI database-engagement startup whose Remi assistant flags when past clients are ready to re-engage, adding intent detection to LPTA’s growing AI toolset.
Procore Technologies is buying construction robotics and visual intelligence platform DroneDeploy for approximately $845 million in cash, aiming to combine the two companies’ jobsite data into AI tools the company calls digital coworkers.
Ventas is boosting its 2026 senior housing investment target to $4.5 billion, up 50% from its prior $3 billion goal, after closing $2.2 billion in deals during the second quarter.
EMCOR Group’s Q2 2026 revenue hit a record $5.15 billion and backlog jumped 44% to $17.14 billion, as the electrical and mechanical contractor raised full-year guidance on strength in data center and AI-infrastructure construction.
Manhattan residential sales volume exceeded $8.2 billion in the second quarter of 2026, up 19.4% year over year, according to figures attributed to Douglas Elliman and Miller Samuel in market reporting on the quarterly Douglas Elliman market reports. The gain was led by higher-end transactions, and it indicates that Manhattan’s closed-sales market held up through … Read more
The 30-year fixed mortgage rate climbed to 6.66% this week, its highest level in a year, as Freddie Mac’s weekly survey showed borrowing costs extending a multi-week climb.
Redwood Trust finalized a joint venture giving its Aspire mortgage banking platform up to $8 billion in purchasing power, as the company’s overall mortgage production topped $8 billion for a second straight quarter.
BXP closed a $1.2 billion construction loan for its 46-story, 930,000-square-foot office tower at 343 Madison Avenue near Grand Central Terminal, already about half pre-leased ahead of a 2029 delivery.
Mid-America Apartment Communities lowered its full-year revenue guidance after second-quarter same-store results slipped, as new supply continues to pressure rents across the Sunbelt REIT’s Southeast and Southwest markets.
Equinix posted 16% revenue growth and record interconnection additions in the second quarter, prompting the data center giant to raise both its full-year 2026 guidance and its long-term outlook through 2029.
Turner Construction’s benchmark building cost index climbed 5.15% year over year in the second quarter, as data center, semiconductor and advanced manufacturing projects continue to drive nationwide construction demand.
The Energy Department named Utah, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Idaho and Louisiana as finalists to host nuclear ‘innovation campuses’ that could draw $50 billion in investment and, potentially, adjacent data center development.
Canada-based users searching for U.S. homes on Redfin fell 15.3% year over year in June, extending a two-year decline of roughly 37%, with San Antonio and Austin posting the steepest metro-level drops.
PulteGroup CEO Ryan Marshall called the housing market ‘pretty good’ on CNBC, even as the homebuilder’s Q2 revenue fell 11% and closings dropped 8%, offset by a 6% rise in new orders.
The median single-family lot value fell to $59,000 in 2025 from $60,000 in 2024, NAHB’s analysis of Census data shows, ending six straight years of record highs even as some regions kept climbing.
The Census Bureau’s Q2 2026 Housing Vacancy Survey shows the national homeownership rate flat at 65.0%, while homeownership among adults under 35 fell to 35.2%.
Sun Communities reported second-quarter Core FFO of $1.84 per share, up 4.5% year over year, and agreed to sell its UK Park Holidays operations for roughly $1.04 billion as the manufactured-housing and RV community REIT narrows its focus to North America.
The National Fair Housing Alliance and Massachusetts Fair Housing Center sued HUD and Secretary Scott Turner in federal court, alleging a restructured funding program would cut off enforcement grants to more than 100 nonprofit fair housing organizations nationwide.
Redfin reports vacation-home mortgages rose 4.1% in 2025, the first increase since the pandemic peak, with 85.2% of loans going to high earners and West Palm Beach, Fla., leading the nation.
U.S. nonresidential construction starts jumped to a one-month record of $100.3 billion in June, powered by a surge in office and data center projects, according to ConstructConnect.
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