Southwest Florida Real Estate News and Market Insight

Homeowners in Texas are grappling with rising insurance premiums, as carriers raise rates in the disaster-prone state. Between 2019 and 2024, home insurance premiums rose 30% in Texas, to an average of $2,983 annually, according to a new report from Rice University's Kinder Institute for Urban Resea

Mario Lopez’s former Spanish Revival estate is back on the market in California for $5.79 million, three years after the "Access Hollywood" host and his family moved out. Much like its former owner's beloved “Saved by the Bell” role, A.C. Slater, the Glendale home is an iconic character in its own r

Only about half of U.S. private-sector workers participate in an employer-sponsored retirement plan at any given time — a gap driven almost entirely by small employers, according to new research from the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. While more than 90% of larger employers offer

Commercial real estate investment in South Florida has soared since last year.  But don’t get excited yet. Most property types are feeling the weight of elevated inflation and interest rates.  “When you have those two things going on, the institutional markets are like, ‘We don’t have certainty. Pen

FirstTeam has expanded its national brokerage footprint into Kansas and Missouri, partnering with broker-owner Scott Eckhoff and Rival Real Estate to open the company’s first Midwest office in Kansas City, the company announced Tuesday. The move marks the next phase of FirstTeam’s national expansion

The K-shaped economy is “over,” according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “I got sick of hearing about this K-shaped economy,” Bessent said in an appearance on CNBC’s "Squawk Box." “I can say here definitively, the K-shaped economy is over.” The term describes an economy in which segments of th

Palm Beach County’s luxury market was on fire last week, led by a Palm Beach estate that landed a contract with an asking price of $76 million.  Buyers signed 16 contracts between Aug. 3 through Aug. 9, according to the weekly report by Douglas Elliman’s Eklund-Gomes team, which tracks all listings

Josh Miller, CEO and co-founder of Epique Realty, told attendees at Tuesday’s HousingWire AI Summit that the real estate industry’s most expensive technology investments are often the least used. He offered a three-part prescription to solve the problem. Brokerages spend thousands of dollars on tool

Mortgage insurers will be required to keep a larger safety net for mortgages originated using VantageScore 4.0 than for comparable loans using Classic FICO, according to new guidance from the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). In late July, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac published a new grid for t

Indianapolis Colts star Sauce Gardner has filed a lawsuit against a Michigan construction company—claiming that the business failed to carry out renovations to a $935,000 abandoned apartment building in Detroit, despite receiving a $500,000 deposit to secure its services. The NFL athlete—whose real

Rising rates are weighing on the housing market, and the uncomfortable levels above 6% might be here for the medium term, capital markets firm Optimal Blue estimated in its latest report. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has been on a steady upward march for six weeks—hitting 6.69% last week, up from

Mortgage lenders that adopt artificial intelligence should focus first on the business problems they’re trying to solve rather than chasing the latest technology, according to panelists who spoke Tuesday at HousingWire’s AI Summit. Amanda Tucker, chief risk and compliance officer at Atlantic Bay Mor

The traditional path to homeownership — from portal search to real estate agent to loan officer — is being rapidly rewired by artificial intelligence (AI), and the industry’s biggest players want to be first through the new front door. That was the central theme of a packed session Tuesday at Housin

Now that Dream Finders and Beazer have reached an agreement, Dream Finders can now look further ahead. Soon after the closing, Dream Finders will find itself nearing a position as one of the five largest builders. Also, it will have restructured Beazer’s land holdings, utilizing Dream Finders’ asset

HGTV's hit show "Extreme Buyers Club" has showcased all kinds of bizarre requests from house hunters—but on the latest episode of the show, host Noel Collier's skills were pushed to the ultimate test when she was joined by two paranormal investigators seeking a "haunted" home in Texas. Collier, a re

Chef-owner Kayla Pfeiffer plating at Heyday Cookshop. Photo by Carlos Gonzalez Heyday Cookshop in Naples will set the scene for two chef-forward events this month. Heyday x Unidos On August 13, Heyday chef-owner Kayla Pfeiffer and Unidos Executive Chef Alex Malinowski will cook side-by-side for a on

Working well past traditional retirement age has become increasingly common these days. In fact, the U.S. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that of the 62 million people in the U.S. aged 65 and over—about 12 million—are still in the workforce.  And according to a recent AARP survey, 41% of re

On the afternoon of April 12, 2025, a crew of tree service workers entered the backyard of Stefan Pizzi’s duplex in Miami’s Buena Vista West neighborhood. Within minutes, they chopped down a 100-year-old oak straddling the property line with an adjacent vacant lot, home surveillance video shows. The

Farmland values continue to rise, with agricultural real estate values surging nearly 6% in one state last year, according to a new report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Across the country, median farmland prices hit $6,020 per acre this year, a 3.4% increase from 2025, according to the Ju

President Donald Trump has joined the chorus of voices decrying the rollout of New York City’s controversial pied-à-terre tax. “This doesn’t work in America, and must be stopped, NOW!” he wrote in a Truth Social post Tuesday morning. His comments came a day after a judge temporarily halted key parts