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Judge James L. Robart denied Zillow’s motion to dismiss on Sept. 28, letting agents pursue claims that Zillow ties Follow Up Boss to its referrals and uses it to steer business to Zillow Home Loans.
Battery Ventures led a $40 million Series B in Miter, which runs payroll and workforce operations for more than 2,000 contractors and says it pays about two of every 100 U.S. construction workers.
Stonelake Capital Partners held the final close of its eighth opportunistic fund on Sept. 30 at $1 billion, beating a $900 million target. It is already about 20% committed to logistics.
Carnegie Mellon said Sept. 30 that $2 billion of a $3 billion gift from Citadel’s Ken Griffin will fund a 35-acre campus in Wynwood, with construction slated for 2027 and students in 2028.
Bain Capital Tech Opportunities has bought a minority stake in construction project-management software maker Kahua at a valuation above $1 billion. The Alpharetta, Ga., company says it serves more than 2,500 customers, supports over $400 billion in capital programs and has passed $100 million in annualized revenue.
Holders of 57.1% of Apollo Commercial Real Estate Finance’s stock voted Sept. 29 to dissolve the NYSE-listed commercial mortgage REIT, five months after it sold its entire loan portfolio to an Apollo affiliate for about $9 billion. An initial cash distribution of $3.70 to $4.00 a share is expected within 30 days.
Realtor.com’s September report put price reductions on 20.8% of active listings, the highest share for the month since 2018, and brought the supply of homes for sale to within 9.1% of pre-pandemic norms β while pending sales fell 4.1% year over year.
The 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose for a sixth consecutive week to 7.30%, the highest since November 2023, and mortgage applications fell 6% for the week ending Sept. 25, with refinance volume down 56% from a year ago.
The Conference Board’s index dropped to 81.9 from 88.6 in August, and consumers’ assessment of their family’s current finances turned negative for only the second time in four years. Plans to buy a home slipped to 5.4%.
Open construction jobs dropped to 251,000 in August from 299,000 in July, yet remain above the 213,000 posted a year ago. NAHB’s chief economist points to data center construction up 46% year over year and immigration enforcement thinning crews.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 222 bills on Sept. 27, including new nonrenewal notice requirements, expanded replacement-cost coverage and FAIR Plan penalties β while vetoing two bills that would have forced insurers to explain and pay claims faster.
Investcorp paid more than $225 million for 22 infill industrial buildings in Philadelphia and Nashville while closing out a 5.8 million-square-foot portfolio in Chicago, Dallas and Charlotte for more than $550 million.
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.
The S&P Cotality Case-Shiller national index rose 1.9% in the year through July, up from 1.6% in June, but home values fell in real terms for a 14th straight month. FHFA’s separate index rose 2.6%.
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 turnaround drops from 24 hours to under 12 for MLSs that buy from both companies β which, since May, have had the same parent.
The wholesale lender created the role less than two months after a $2.05 billion preferred-equity deal with Oaktree and the Ishbia family, and days before a $400 million rights offering record date.
First American’s August index has U.S. prices up 1.4% year over year, with Chicago gaining 5.5% and Dallas losing 5.0% β a 10.5-point spread between the strongest and weakest large metros.
Brixmor takes 23 grocery-anchored centers outright for $636 million while a joint venture with Everview Partners, backed by Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund, buys the other 92 for $1.71 billion.
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.
The Nasdaq-listed REIT signed a definitive agreement to sell 40 outpatient medical facilities for about $531 million and a letter of intent on its final four, leaving it a pure-play senior housing owner with roughly $244 million of acquisitions lined up.
A Form 4 filed Sept. 25 shows Berkshire Hathaway bought another 1.68 million Lennar shares for roughly $136 million, extending a six-session buying run worth about $349 million that began the day after the builder’s third-quarter miss.
Intercontinental Exchange’s August First Look shows delinquencies up 14 basis points to 3.53%, foreclosure inventory at its highest since February 2020 but barely growing, and prepayment speeds at a 17-month low.
Two July home price indexes land Tuesday and the September jobs report closes the week Friday, with construction spending and the weekly rate surveys in between. No FOMC meeting, and no NAR or Census housing releases until Oct. 20.
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.
A U.S. Conference of Mayors survey of 113 mayors found 96% blaming housing costs for the affordability crisis. The group is taking the argument to Albuquerque, Austin, Columbus and Atlanta in October.
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.
Cipher Digital amended its Barber Lake lease with Fluidstack and signed a binding commitment with an unnamed AI lab for a second 10-year term, doubling the Colorado City, Texas campus’s contracted life and adding about $5.2 billion in revenue.
Neighborhood Intelligence, the Nasdaq company formerly known as Bed Bath & Beyond, would contribute its 38.8% tZERO stake and other digital assets to Fathom Holdings in exchange for newly issued shares and control of the national brokerage, replacing a June merger agreement that ran the other direction.
Blossom Capital led the Series A for a company selling AI agents to the in-house teams that manage corporate office portfolios. Meta, Uber, Merck and Cohesity are named as customers, and the former head of Google’s real estate expansion joins as an adviser.
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