COVERAGE INFORMATION:
California Department of Real Estate (DRE) NEWS CLIPS service coverage:
Monday through Friday (except state holidays) each week includes electronic format articles retrieved from newspapers or news services that report real estate related news in California and some national services. Coverage is for California newspapers that are available electronically via the Internet - and any significant related breaking news.
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Copyright © , California Department of Real Estate
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Monday, April 6, 2026
Top Stories
Spring buyers return as pending sales jump despite mortgage rate jolt
LIEZEL ONCE, Mortgage Professional America
The spring housing market appeared to wake up in March, with new contracts and web traffic pointing to buyers re‑engaging even as mortgage costs moved higher. Newly pending listings on Zillow rose 4.6% year-over-year and nearly 30% from February, reaching 281,546. That's the second‑strongest monthly tally since the post‑pandemic comedown in 2022.
RESPA cases are rising as states fill CFPB void
ANDREW MARTINEZ, National Mortgage News (Subscription)
Since the Bureau's wind down at the beginning of last year, consumers have filed at least five steering complaints against the nation's biggest lenders, including one class action case reviving a discarded bureau complaint. Each company has denied violating RESPA, and the cases appear slated for lengthy proceedings, as none have approached class certification debates.
National News
U.S. Home Prices Lose Momentum, Signaling Fragile Spring
MICHAEL GERRITY, World Property Journal
The U.S. housing market entered 2026 on a subdued footing, with home-price gains cooling sharply and activity constrained by a persistent affordability crunch, according to the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Home Price Index.
National prices rose just 0.9% in January from a year earlier, marking a notable deceleration from December and underscoring a market struggling to reconcile elevated home values with stagnant purchasing power.
California News
San Francisco house prices hit record $2.15 million on AI boom
JOHN GITTELSOHN, San Jose Mercury News (Subscription)
AI companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic PBC have created a new gold rush in San Francisco and employees are pouring their wealth into homes in the compact city, which has little new housing development. At least 22 houses sold for more than $5 million in March, a one-month record, Compass said. In addition, 24 condo sales topped $3 million — also an all-time monthly sales high.
Tech and AI leasing surges help launch South Bay office market rebound
GEORGE AVALOS, San Jose Mercury News (Subscription)
Tech companies and artificial intelligence upstarts have unleashed a South Bay leasing surge that has produced the region’s best quarter for office space rental activity since the end of the coronavirus outbreak, a new report has disclosed. The rental surge has begun to chip away at the region’s office availability rate, a broad measure of the empty or unwanted office space in the region.
Industry News
Mortgage AI Boom Creates Compliance Gaps, Liability Risks For Lenders
CZARINNA ANDRES, National Mortgage Professional
A compliance-focused webinar held on Thursday, April 2, highlighted increasing risks associated with the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) across the mortgage industry. Speakers warned that many lenders and loan originators are implementing AI faster than their compliance frameworks can support.
Better bets on ChatGPT as the new front door for origination
SARAH WOLAK, HousingWire (Subscription)
Better.com says that its new integration with ChatGPT is more than a flashy plugin. According to CEO Vishal Garg, it’s a tool that could shift how mortgage technology is distributed and adopted across the industry.
Real Estate Technology
Smart Homes, Smarter Questions: What Agents Need to Know About Privacy and Data
BRANDON DOYLE, NAR Realtor News
Smart-home technology has become a standard feature in residential real estate. Video doorbells, smart locks, voice assistants, connected thermostats and app-controlled lighting are now common in homes at nearly every price point. As these devices move from novelty to expectation, they introduce new questions around privacy, data usage and disclosure—questions that buyers and sellers increasingly direct to their real estate agents.
Property News
What You Get: $850,000 Homes in California
ANGELA SERRATORE, New York Times (Subscription)
A condominium in a Spanish Revival-style complex in Los Angeles, a Craftsman house in Long Beach and a home from 1924 in Oakland.
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