Legal Aid challenges all-white North Arkansas settlement 'Return to the Land' in lawsuit
Return to the Land has been building a settlement that promotes racial and ethnical segregation near Ravenden in North Lawrence County. But now, a lawsuit could challenge the settlement's discriminatory application process. "What they're doing is a brazen violation of existing law. It's just no one has sued them or taken any concrete action to stop this from happening," states Kendall Lewellen, the Director of the Fair Housing Project with Legal Aid of Arkansas.
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Trial lawyers group opposes DOT in NC Appeals Court easement dispute
"[T]he relief sought by DOT and other amicus petitioners is not properly obtained from this Court, but instead through more careful and precise drafting of the easement language chosen when unilaterally condemning easements from North Carolina property owners," according to the trial lawyers' court filing. The court filing addressed the "public cost" concerns raised by DOT and the energy providers. "Neither of these public policy arguments should deter the Court from holding DOT accountable to pay for all the rights acquired in the easements that it drafted and thrust upon the landowner," NCAJ lawyers wrote.
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Housing market won't be affordable for at least 7 years: Report
Even if home prices flatten and interest rates fall, it'll take at least seven years for the housing market to swing back toward affordability, according to a new report from Oxford Economics. The economic advisory firm's latest Housing Affordability Index was measured at 77.9 in the first quarter of 2026. Over the next 10 years, Oxford forecasts three different scenarios for its index based on how home prices and mortgage rates shift.
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Addy AI Launches ChatGPT App For Mortgage Pre-Underwriting
"Borrowers are already starting their home-buying journey inside AI," said Michael Vandi, CEO of Addy AI. "The opportunity for lenders is to meet that intent the moment it happens. With Addy AI in ChatGPT, a borrower's first question can become the beginning of a real mortgage workflow, and our AI Agents can help pre-underwrite the loan in 5 minutes."
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Mortgage refinance demand drops 18% as rates hit highest level since August
Mortgage rates continued their climb last week, making it harder for current homeowners to save on a refinance. Potential homebuyers also pulled back a bit, causing total mortgage application volume to drop 8.5% last week compared with the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's seasonally adjusted index.
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Fraudsters scammed family out of NYC brownstone with forged docs they used to impersonate heirs: DA
A sprawling conspiracy to strip a grieving Harlem family of their brownstone has netted charges against 18 individuals and three companies, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced Thursday - a case prosecutors say unraveled only after years of persistent investigative work into one of the borough's most brazen property fraud schemes. The defendants allegedly forged documents, impersonated heirs, and engineered a fraudulent sale of a West 131st Street brownstone to pocket $1.636 million in mortgage and construction loan proceeds.
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Deed Theft Is Surging: How Scammers Use Forgery and AI to Steal Homes in Broad Daylight
Homeowners need to be aware of house title theft, also called deed theft, a type of fraud that threatens an individual's ownership of their home. "Deed theft is rampant in New York City, with criminals illegally scamming people out of their homes in broad daylight," said Christine Clarke, chair and commissioner of the NYC Commission on Human Rights, in a press release announcing the creation of the Mayor's Office of Deed Theft Prevention.
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