by Richelle Hammiel | Jun 17, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
Bedroom: Navy Blue
This “moody hue” is set to bring peace, serenity, depth and elegance to the bedroom. Deep navy blue is rated the top choice for bedroom paint colors, and could net your client $1,815 more.
Living Room: Charcoal Gray
Charcoal is emerging as a power color for living rooms, with homes painted in this shade earning $2,593 more on average. It also works well in kitchen and bedrooms.
Colors That Cost Sellers
Bright or outdated shades could work against your seller. Daisy yellow kitchens or living rooms dropped perceived value by nearly $4,000, while fire engine red cost sellers around $2,000 in main areas of the house.
What This Means for Agents
Zillow’s findings challenge the long-held belief that light neutrals are always best for resale.
Before listing, it’s worth advising clients on their color strategy. If the home needs a refresh, steer them toward modern hues and away from overly bright or dated colors. And of course, what sells in one zip code may not work in another, so check the pulse of your market.
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by Lillian Dickerson | Jun 17, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
Nearly 40 percent of homebuilders cut prices in June, the highest portion since the National Association of Home Builders began tracking the cuts. A decline in single-family starts is projected this year.
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Homebuilder sentiment wavered in June as the industry responded to elevated mortgage rates and economic uncertainty impacting consumers today.
Builder sentiment dropped 2 points between May 2025 and June 2025 to 32 on the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) / Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), according to a report released on Tuesday. In June 2024, the index was at 43. An index below 50 is considered negative.
June’s HMI marked the third-lowest reading of builder sentiment since 2012. In December 2022, the index hit 31 after a spike in mortgage rates post-pandemic, and in April 2020 at the start of the pandemic, when the index tanked by more than 40 points to 30.
“Buyers are increasingly moving to the sidelines due to elevated mortgage rates and tariff and economic uncertainty,” NAHB Chairman Buddy Hughes said in a statement on Tuesday. “To help address affordability concerns and bring hesitant buyers off the fence, a growing number of builders are moving to cut prices.”
Thirty-seven percent of builders cut prices in June, the highest portion since the NAHB started tracking price cuts in 2022. In May, 34 percent of builders reported cutting prices, and 29 percent reported doing so in April. The average price reduction remained consistent at 5 percent, which is about what is has been since November, the NAHB reported. Sales incentives were used by 62 percent of builders, up one percentage point from the previous month.
Because of recent tariff negotiations and pullbacks from the Trump administration, many analysts expected a small improvement in builder sentiment, but growing inventory and little enthusiasm for buyers to enter the market right now has continued to weigh on builders.
The HMI index for current sales conditions dropped 2 points in June to 35, the component relating to sales expectations in the next six months dropped 2 points to 40 and the component tracking prospective buyer traffic slid 2 points to 21, its lowest level since November 2023.
“Rising inventory levels and prospective homebuyers who are on hold waiting for affordability conditions to improve are resulting in weakening price growth in most markets and generating price declines for resales in a growing number of markets,” NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz said in a statement. “Given current market conditions, NAHB is forecasting a decline in single-family starts for 2025.”
According to the three-month moving averages of regional HMI scores, the West saw the greatest decline, by 4 points, to 28. Meanwhile, the South fell by 3 points to 33, the Northeast fell by 1 point to 43 and the Midwest actually gained 1 point to hit 41.
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by Lillian Dickerson | Jun 17, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
The new policy was signed into law by Governor Maura Healey during the first week in June and is included in the state’s larger Affordable Homes Act. The law will apply to sales after Oct. 15, 2025.
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Officials in Massachusetts have passed a new state policy prohibiting homesellers and their agents from pressuring or requiring buyers to waive a home inspection as a contingency of buying their property.
The new policy was signed into law by Governor Maura Healey during the first week in June and is included in the state’s larger Affordable Homes Act, the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities (EOHLC) announced on June 6. The law will apply to home sales after Oct. 15, 2025.
The policy also stipulates that sellers may not accept an offer if they are informed in advance that the buyer plans to waive their right to an inspection. Still, buyers may choose to not get a home inspection if they wish, but sellers must provide a written disclosure affirming the buyer’s right to an inspection.
“A home inspection is an important step in buying a property,” Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities Secretary Ed Augustus said in a statement.
“Homebuyers must have the ability to make informed financial decisions and be given a clear picture of needed repairs or safety issues that could arise,” he added. “This new regulation creates a fairer, more even playing field for buyers and sellers, and HLC is proud to implement yet another smart policy from the historic Affordable Homes Act.”
The new regulation is a sharp rebuke to the pandemic-era days of buyers waiving their right to a home inspection all too readily, simply for the chance to have their offer considered by a seller.
Bidding wars and waived contingencies that hit a peak around 2020-2021 as buyers were fighting for a chance at scant inventory amidst record-low mortgage rates had some taking measures like “walk-through” or “walk-and-talk inspections” rather than no inspection at all. Although such inspections cannot replace a full home inspection, these abbreviated inspections could at least help buyers uncover major issues in a home before they purchase it.
Errors and omissions lawsuits against real estate professionals saw a substantial increase in 2022, according to a report from underwriting firm Victor Insurance Managers, and likely correlated with increased waived inspection contingencies. The amount in damages that losing agents in these lawsuits were liable for also ballooned 13 percent higher than the previous year to an average of $39,000.
After a draft home inspection regulation was published by the EOHLC, the office welcomed public comments on the policy in May, and received more than 100 submissions.
In response to feedback, the EOHLC pushed the implementation date to October so that real estate industry professionals would have time to create new forms, trainings and educational materials in compliance with the regulation. The extended timeline also allows consumers and the public more time to become aware of the law.
Any contract terms that impede on the effectiveness of an inspection will also be prohibited. Limits on repair costs or deposit returns that are negotiated between buyer and seller will still be allowed.
The EOHLC is also providing a standard disclosure form, and those individuals facilitating the transaction in a business capacity will be required to provide the disclosure, or risk violating consumer protection law. Other violations will be addressed on a case-by-case basis.
Pre-sales of new construction homes will have a limited exemption from the regulation to support new construction in the state, as long as a purchase contract is signed before “substantial completion” and the seller offers a one-year written warranty, at a minimum. Exemptions will also be applied to domestic partners, extended family members and estate planning, the EOHLC said.
The Greater Boston Real Estate Board, Massachusetts Association of Realtors, Massachusetts Mortgage Bankers Association and the Commercial Real Estate Development Association all opposed the regulation in a joint statement published during the May feedback period.
Concerns about the policy included an earlier timeline (which the EOHLC responded to by pushing the implementation date to October), profession-based exemptions (a previous version of the legislation also exempt licensed home inspectors from the prohibition on waiving inspections) and a need for more clarity and consistent guidance within the regulations. The organizations also questioned whether the state would have the capacity to meet a resulting surge in home inspection demand.
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by Lillian Dickerson | Jun 17, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
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In 2023, Compass launched the first iteration of its artificial intelligence tool, Compass AI. At that time, the tool, which is housed within Compass’ tech platform, could generate content for agents, including for social media posts, listing descriptions, emails and more.
Now, agents will have the ability to simply speak prompts to Compass AI, and the improved tool will be able to do things like create follow-ups, develop marketing collateral, send client invitations to Compass One (the firm’s public-facing platform), create custom listing presentations, build transaction timelines, update and organize client contacts and more.
“So this represents a really big acceleration of [the platform,]” Rory Golod, president of growth and West regions at Compass, told Inman.
“This allows, effectively all of the administrative work that comes with a day-to-day for an agent to be done by AI,” Golod continued. “So what I think you’ll see [are] massive productivity gains, but also massive increases in ease.”
When Compass founder Robert Reffkin announced the updates during Compass’ annual retreat on June 3, agents gave Reffkin a standing ovation for two minutes, Golod said.
The latest version of Compass AI is currently being beta tested by select agents, and will roll out across the company later this year.
Inman spoke with Golod about the new tool and how it will improve agent efficiency. Here’s what he had to say, edited for brevity and clarity.
Inman: Could you clarify what’s new about this rendition of Compass AI?
Rory Golod: What we launched a few years ago was kind of like that first iteration, where it was really about creating content or giving advice. This is now a whole workload, this is actually, do actual work for me. This is like a true digital assistant, an AI assistant, because now I’m able to tell the system: create this, email the client, send this, put this together. Do all the stuff, whereas, the first version was, write a listing description, create a social media post, which was great at the time. That was a big deal. But the world’s evolved and so this is just far more expansive now. This is more about like, ‘Hey, Compass AI: do work for me.’
That’s something that agents have been really wanting to do for quite some time.
In this latest rendition of Compass AI, the tool will be able to track buyer behavior and tell agents which of their past clients are most likely to sell soon. That sounds similar to Compass’ ‘Likely-to-Sell’ tool that has been around since 2020. Does this mean that ‘Likely-to-Sell’ is going to be sunsetted?
None of our tools are going to go away. All it is, is it’s just going to make it easier. It will take ‘Likely-to-Sell’ and put it on steroids.
Imagine being able to ask for likely to sell based on all different types of factors. Right now it’s based on looking at their address and the comps around it, but what about, I want to see the 10 clients that have been the most active looking at listings online right now. Who of my clients doesn’t have an agent in New York? Who of my clients are looking at listings outside of New York state right now? Who of my clients have been on a collection [of listings] and commented on the collection or shared it with a friend or a spouse?
It’s infinite what it can do, so ‘Likely-to-Sell’ will be a big part of it. But now with [Compass] AI, we can go even bigger and bigger.
At the Compass retreat earlier this month, Robert Reffkin said there will be some tasks that Compass AI will just complete in the background without an agent prompting them at all. Could you clarify what those tasks are?
Right now, a lot of that will be the intermediate steps to creating all of this, and setting these things up and building out folders and all sorts of things that can just happen. Setting appointments, reminders, coordinating schedules, so much of that can just happen.
And then being able to automate steps through a transaction. When you’re doing a transaction with a client, you’re going through the transaction, there’s a full checklist of tasks and all those things. Now, they’ll have the ability to have all this be able to effectively be automated. So the agent is the one being updated — not the agent having to do the updating. That’s part of what makes this really, really exciting.
Definitely. At this point, what features do you think agents are most excited about?
I think it’s just the totality of the fact that they can just run the workflow. That [Compass AI promo] video is a minute-and-a-half, but that probably represents what would have been maybe a few hours of work. And even just the intelligence of the system, for it to be able to respond back and say, ‘Oh great, I’ll add this client. Are they a buyer? Are they a seller?’ You hear little things like that, and you’re like, ‘Oh wow, it’s smart. It knows what to ask.’ So I think that’s kind of one of the things that’s got people really excited.
How do you think Compass AI stands apart from other AI tools launched by brokerages over the past few yearss?
There’s no shortcuts in building technology. If we took over 10 years and $1.5 billion to build this platform, and we invest over $100 million per year in R&D, with some of the best engineering talent in the country, I don’t know how other companies that just don’t have anywhere near the financial resources to invest will be able to make that investment or are ever going to be able to build anything that’s comparable.
I think what happens is, a lot of the stuff we see are things that demo really well and look really good, but don’t actually work. And I think you can measure it by agent adoption and usage. You can show off great technology very easily but can you get people to actually use it? Does it work? Is it fully integrated? Does it do enough?
The challenge that I think exists, which is an opportunity for us with AI, is agents want to be able to ask it to do anything. If you give someone a car and you tell them they can go drive, but it only goes up to 40 miles per hour, it’s not going to be super effective, right? They want to be able to drive fast, slow, go long distances, whatever it is. So I think one of the things that really sets us apart is, because we have this platform, there are so many different workflows that this can quickly do. We don’t need to go get another piece of technology from another company to try to fit into what we’re doing for each one of these workflows. All these workflows exist. They all exist in Compass and all the data in the interactions and the interconnection exists.
If you’re creating a collection for a client, and then you want Compass AI to then write a beautiful email to your client with certain things in it, and then send that email, Compass AI can do that because it’s connected to your email. It’s connected to your CRM, it’s connected to the listing system. It’s all in one place.
But if you’re using another company’s tools, it’s not connected to your email, it’s not connected to your listing system, and so it ends up being really difficult and ultimately disappointing. So I haven’t seen another brokerage that’s been able to build technology that even comes close to the things that Compass has built. And I think that’s been kind of proven out in the market.
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by Richelle Hammiel | Jun 17, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
IBuyer Opendoor on Friday agreed to pay $39 million to settle a federal securities class-action suit that accused the real estate tech company of misleading investors about its homebuying algorithm.
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Opendoor has agreed to pay $39 million to settle a federal securities class-action lawsuit that accused the iBuyer of misleading investors about its homebuying algorithm, a Friday court filing in the United States District Court of Arizona reveals.
The lawsuit, first filed in 2022, claimed Opendoor misrepresented the accuracy and effectiveness of its iBuying platform.
“Defendants are entering into the settlement to eliminate the burden, expense, uncertainty, distraction, and risk of further litigation,” the legal filing read. “Defendants have determined that it is desirable and beneficial to them that the action be settled in the matter and upon the terms and conditions set forth.”
The case centers around documents issued in connection with its 2020 merger agreement with Social Capital Hedosophia Holdings Corp. II, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) led by venture investor Chamath Palihapitiya, and the February 2021 offering.
Opendoor marketed its platform as a “tech disruptor,” claiming its AI-powered tools could outperform traditional real estate methods by accurately pricing homes for sellers and generating profits through resale. However, the complaint alleges the pricing process relied more heavily on human input than Opendoor had disclosed, and that the company failed to adjust to shifting market conditions.
Concerns intensified in September 2022, when a Bloomberg report revealed that Opendoor lost 42 percent of its home resales the prior month. The report cited an analysis suggesting the company’s algorithm was not keeping pace with a fast-changing housing market.
Following mediation, both parties agreed to settle on March 26, 2025. An official stipulation was filed on June 13 and now awaits approval from U.S. District Judge Michael Liburdi.
Plaintiffs say the settlement offers “meaningful recovery without the delays, risks, and expenses of prolonged litigation, discovery and trial.”
Opendoor’s legal team at A&O Shearman has declined to comment, while the plaintiffs’ legal team at Labaton Keller Sucharow did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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by Taylor Anderson | Jun 17, 2025 | Industry, News Feed
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President Donald Trump has an ear for real estate, and for a few minutes in January, Anthony Lamacchia got to bend it.
The industry that put Trump on the map has felt under attack in recent years, and a chance meeting that put the Massachusetts brokerage leader in front of the president earlier this year provided an opening for Trump to hear about it.
Lamacchia, CEO of Lamacchia Companies, told Inman exclusively that he received an invite alongside other business leaders to sit down with Trump at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach in January, two weeks before his inauguration for a second term in office.
At that meeting, Lamacchia told the incoming president that the Department of Justice under President Joe Biden appeared intent on punishing the real estate industry.
“I said, ‘Mr. President, are you aware that the Department of Justice has it out for real estate, organized real estate?’” Lamacchia told Inman. “He said, ‘I’m not. Tell me more.’”
Lamacchia said that for at least three minutes he talked “very substantially” with Trump about how the DOJ had backed out of a settlement agreement reached late in Trump’s first term.
The DOJ simultaneously announced a lawsuit and a settlement with the National Association of Realtors over various NAR rules in November 2020, after Trump lost his first re-election bid to former President Joe Biden. In July 2021, the DOJ withdrew from the settlement, and NAR tried for years fighting with the DOJ all the way to the Supreme Court.
At a meeting with 20 other business leaders, Lamacchia seized the opportunity to inform the president about one of real estate’s biggest headaches of late.
“He was not happy to hear it,” Lamacchia said. “He said, ‘Can you send me some information on that?’ So after the meeting, I sent an email to his assistant.”
Lamacchia spoke with Inman ahead of Inman Connect San Diego, where he’ll be speaking alongside other titans of real estate.
The following is a Q&A with Lamacchia, edited for clarity and brevity.
Inman: What do you expect the next three and a half, four years to be like under the Trump DOJ as it relates to real estate?
Lamacchia: I think it will be better. The prior DOJ, when Trump was in last time, was much more reasonable. And they made a deal with us.
I told Trump this. I met with Trump in January with 20 other business owners. I said, ‘Mr. President, are you aware that the Department of Justice has it out for real estate, organized real estate?’ He said, ‘I’m not. Tell me more.’ I said, ‘Your Department of Justice made a deal with NAR in November of 2020, signed the deal. There were a couple of industry changes that were agreed to, and Biden’s DOJ came in and undid the deal in June of 2021.’
And he was like, ‘Really?’ He was not happy to hear it. He said, ‘Can you send me some information on that? So after the meeting, I sent an email to his assistant and I never heard anything. But he was not happy to hear it.
I would think that this would be an industry that he would have an ear out for.
Frankly, I’ve been sitting around saying, when’s the shoe going to drop? Because I talked to him about it for three, probably three and a half minutes straight. Very substantively.
He was very interested. He asks very good questions. I mean, this guy, there’s no flies on him. And he said to me, ‘Why were you guys being investigated in the first place?’ And I said, ‘Well, the DOJ does an investigation in various industries every so many years. And with real estate, they do it about every decade.’ And then he goes, ‘Oh, antitrust?’
I said, yes. He goes, ‘OK, that makes sense.’ I said, ‘They negotiated for about a year, agreed to a couple of small changes. Your DOJ made the deal, finalized the deal in November of ‘20. Biden’s DOJ came in and undid the deal for the first time in history. A DOJ deal was undone.’ And he did not know. He was like, ‘Wow.’
That’s pretty incredible.
At the end, when I took a picture with him, he grabbed my arm and he goes, ‘OK, make sure to send that information.’ ‘OK, I will.’ He goes, ‘Don’t forget.’
I go, ‘Mr. President, I’m not going to forget.’
That’s interesting. I had no idea you met with him. Why did you not make it public?
I think just because it’s like everybody is so politically mental now. From where I sit, if Biden, if I had a chance to meet with Biden a year, two years, three years ago, I would have done it in a second.
But if I met with Biden, everybody would be like, ‘Oh, cool.’ You meet with Trump. It’s like, ‘Oh, you’re horrible.’ Listen, it was a business meeting.
On CCP, you’ve been clear all along. You said throughout you wanted CCP to stay, but that NAR was basically in a bind and needed to do something. What was the bind that they were in.
DOJ pressure. And then Robert Reffkin. I think he sort of self-perpetuated it. And hey, you know, good for him if that’s how he feels, but I think he’s wrong. And I also think the way that he went about it was terrible.
I mean, he’s criticizing NAR. You see the stupid post he did one weekend, put up a post about, this is NAR’s boardroom. What the hell does that have to do with the CCP policy?
But I think Robert Reffkin and the DOJ, although the DOJ never publicly came out and said they’re for or against CCP. But I think they pressured NAR. I don’t know that, just so you know. But I think they sort of put pressure on them.
Maybe I’m asking the wrong guy here, given where you already stand. But how is that pro-consumer in the DOJ’s eyes? Do you have any idea?
They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. You can quote me on that. They don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. And here’s the thing. When I say the DOJ, I’m talking about the DOJ that we’ve seen for the last four years. I really can’t tell if this new DOJ is different yet. From what I’ve heard, they’re a bit more reasonable.
They’re a bit more business friendly. But when I say that comment, I’m referring more to the policies of the last four years. My attitude is the DOJ of the last four years has really gotten things wrong in our industry.
Do you feel like the industry itself, players in the industry are divided amongst each other right now? Does it feel like a divisive time or or not?
Yes, there’s no question. And part of it’s just grumpiness. There’s been a very big housing recession for three years now and people are just grumpy. And I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or if it was on purpose, but our industry also came under attack. You know, came under attack from frivolous lawsuits.
And it ended up being that, you know, we got hit with what I refer to as judicially sanctioned extortion. But even putting the case aside, there’s just other stuff.
It’s a divided industry. What are you doing? What are you standing for?
The biggest thing I want to see is interest rates come down. The biggest thing.
I do think that the Trump administration is making some progress that is going to lead to interest rates coming down. But is it happening as fast as we would all like or as fast as he promised? No. It’s hard to fix the system. But there are some roots of the economy that are screwed up.
And he’s obviously working to fix that. And I think it’s working. And I think we’re going to see rates come down later in the year.
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