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 
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 222 bills on Sept. 27, including new nonrenewal notice requirements, expanded replacement-cost coverage and FAIR Plan penalties — while vetoing two bills that would have forced insurers to explain and pay claims faster.
A newly completed Glencoe house measuring a reported 9,000 square feet sold for $5,225,000, the highest of five home sales reported in the Chicago metro area for the week ending September 27, 2026.
Andreessen Horowitz and Bessemer co-led a $350 million round in EliseAI at a $4 billion valuation. The company says its AI agents handle leasing, maintenance, renewals and billing across one in six U.S. apartment units.
Rocket Mortgage will default to VantageScore 4.0 on eligible loans in the fourth quarter, the same week FHFA said Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will price loans on one grid regardless of which credit score a lender uses. Fair Isaac shares fell as much as 29%.
The Phoenix software company said Sept. 28 it has released an MCP server, letting brokerages connect their own AI agents and internal systems to the data and workflows they keep in Lofty without custom integration code.
A $819,000 Chapin house led home sales in the Columbia, South Carolina metro area for the week ending September 20, 2026, on a list that closes with a Lake Wateree barndominium.
The 30-year mortgage crossed 7% this week. New-home sales hit a 2026 high only because builders cut prices 8.8%, apartment starts kept shrinking, and capital kept concentrating in AI infrastructure.
Google.org will fund Hiring Our Heroes, Student Veterans of America and the Home Builders Institute to move 25,000 veterans and military family members into construction trades, without disclosing the grant amounts.
An Exmoor residence in Ottawa Hills sold for $798,000, the highest reported home sale in the Toledo metro area for the week ending September 20, 2026.
A lakefront estate in Skaneateles sold for $4.88 million, first among the five highest-priced reported home sales in the Syracuse, New York metro area for the week ending September 20, 2026.
A red brick house on a cul-de-sac in Forrest Park Estates sold for $800,000, the highest reported home sale in the Ocala metro area for the week ending September 20, 2026.
A contemporary ranch completed this year on five wooded acres sold for $1.10 million, the highest reported home sale in the Clarksville, Tennessee metro area for the week ending September 20, 2026.
A Lake Shawnee waterfront house in Jamestown sold for $1.04 million, the highest of five reported home sales in the Dayton, Ohio metro area for the week ending September 20.
A $1,120,000 sale in Wormleysburg’s Pennsboro Manor was the highest of five reported home sales in the Harrisburg metro area for the week ending September 20, 2026.
A Fort Meade ranch with a stocked bass pond and its own lakefront building site led the Lakeland metro area’s five reported home sales for the week ending September 20, 2026, at $3.90 million.
A 1910 house on the Conesus Lake waterfront sold for $1.30 million, the highest reported home sale in the Rochester metro area for the week ending September 20, 2026.
A 7.56-acre Windsor property sold for $950,000, first among the five highest reported home sales in the York, Pennsylvania metro area for the week ending September 20, 2026.
Deloitte’s survey of 950 commercial real estate executives puts business sentiment at 57.8 out of 100, a second straight annual decline, even as revenue expectations sit just below their 2025 record. Cost of capital ranked as the top concern.
A 30-acre horse farm in Wagener, South Carolina led the Augusta metro area’s five highest reported home sales for the week ending September 20, 2026.
Three Hudson closings took the top three places on the Akron, Ohio metro area Top 5 home sales list for the week ending September 20, 2026, led by a $1.70 million sale.
A house completed this year in Ankeny sold for $1,498,870, the highest reported home sale in the Des Moines, Iowa metro area for the week ending September 20, 2026.
Stove Prairie Ranch, roughly 155 acres in the Bellvue foothills, led the Fort Collins metro area’s five reported home sales for the week ending September 20 at $5.87 million.
A two-story oceanfront penthouse at Hutchinson Island Club in Jensen Beach sold for $1.50 million, the highest of five reported home sales in the Port St. Lucie metro area for the week ending September 20, 2026.
PLACE has closed its acquisition of Maxwell, whose point-of-sale software and outsourced fulfillment services help facilitate more than $130 billion in mortgage transactions a year, moving the real estate platform onto the financing side of the deals its agents already work.
New single-family home sales ran at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 684,000 in August, the fastest pace of 2026, while the average sale price fell 8.8% from a year earlier and builders trimmed their stock of finished, unsold houses.
A 2021 custom home in the Destin community in Apex sold for $1,790,000, first among the Durham, North Carolina metro area’s five highest reported home sales for the week ending September 20, 2026.
A 1907 house on Harraseeket Road in Freeport sold for $2.65 million, the highest of five reported home sales in the Portland, Maine metro area for the week ending September 20, 2026.
A four-story Gulf-front house in Santa Rosa Beach sold for $19 million, the highest of five reported home sales in the Crestview, Florida metro area for the week ending September 20, 2026.
Five reported home sales across the Asheville metro area totaled $10.19 million in the week ending September 20, 2026, led by a $3.10 million golf-course closing in Arden.
The bills require data centers of 10 megawatts or more to report power use to the California Energy Commission, direct the CPUC to write new large-load tariffs by 2028, and strip categorical CEQA exemptions in exchange for a conditional fast lane.
Get expert insights, market updates, and new opportunities delivered to your inbox.