They’re back after barely a decade: Escalation clauses in real estate contracts, “naked” contingency-free offers and lowball-priced listings designed to pull in dozens of bidders and turn routine sales transactions into auctions. more

Many Rhode Island communities have fought the state’s Low and Moderate Income Housing Act for limiting their ability to stop development projects. more

Sales of new U.S. homes advanced in March as near record-low mortgage rates helped the industry complete the strongest quarter since 2008, putting the economy on firmer footing. more

Even as U.S. housing rebounds from its worst downturn since the 1930s, production bottlenecks are pushing up building-materials costs, land prices are rising and skilled labor ready to begin work is hard to find. more

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – South County town officials say regulations enacted in 2012 have allowed dozens of small home-improvement projects that were stalled to go forward. more

Rebecca “Becky” Moniz, an agent with Weichert, Realtors – Cress & Co., is the recent recipient of the Kent Washington Association of Realtors Good Neighbor Award. The award honors her efforts, and those of her strategic partners, in supporting Rhode Island’s military community. During the past several years, Moniz has served on the Rhode Island Association of Realtors Realtor Troop Support Tast Force, assisting in raising funds to bring the Military Childhood Education Coalition to Rhode Island, coordinating a partnership with the Yellow Ribbon Reintegration Program to educate deploying military-service members on home ownership and providing advice and home-buying seminars for veterans. Moniz has been with Cress & Co. since 2009 and is the former broker/owner of Young Realty Inc. more

With full-fledged sellers’ markets underway in dozens of metropolitan areas around the country, new research has found curious statistical patterns emerging: Even in cities where listings get multiple offers within days or hours, significant numbers of homes are sitting on the market for six months, 12 months or more with no takers. more

How hot is hot when it comes to housing markets across the country right now? Crazy hot: Some houses sell within days, sometimes within hours, of listing. Then there are the growing numbers that sell even before they formally hit the market – sold through a controversial technique known as “pocket listings.” more

Who says lenders need to charge you a cash down payment when you take out a mortgage in this era of hyper-strict underwriting? more

Moonworks President Jim Moon found business opportunity in the gutter. more