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Zillow Group, Inc. yesterday said that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) had concluded its investigation into the online real estate company's marketing practices, MarketWatch.com reported. The agency had opened an inquiry into Zillow's practice of allowing real estate agents and other professionals, like lenders, to share the cost of advertising on its site, in 2017. Regulators were concerned that this practice, called "co-marketing," violated a 1974 rule called the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act that keeps service providers from funneling customers to each other in exchange for kickbacks. "On June 22, 2018, the Company received a letter from the Bureau stating that it had completed its investigation, that it did not intend to take enforcement action, and that the Company was relieved from the document-retention obligations required by the Bureau's investigation," Zillow said in an SEC filing.

The White House proposed on Thursday to move Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of government custody and back into the private sector, the most comprehensive statement of the administration’s preferences on housing finance reform yet, the Washington Examiner reported. The proposal, included in a broader government overhaul plan, would resemble draft legislation authored by Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) meant to attract bipartisan support. It would require Congress to act, suggesting that the Trump administration doesn’t intend to pursue a major administrative overhaul of the two-bailed out mortgage giants. It calls for allowing Fannie and Freddie to enter the private sector after being in government conservatorship since 2008. Then, they — and their competitors that might enter the market — would be given an explicit government guarantee on mortgage-backed securities that they issue.

For years, Americans could borrow against their homes to pay for a new car, college tuition, or even a trip to the Caribbean, and then deduct the interest on those loans. However, last year’s tax overhaul prohibited interest deductions for home-equity loans and home-equity lines of credit, known as Helocs, unless the funds are used for certain types of home improvements, according to a Wall Street Journal commentary. The change took effect for 2018 and will affect many people. As of March, there were 4.2 million home-equity loans with balances totaling $127 billion, and 9.3 million Helocs with loan balances totaling $419 billion, according to Equifax Inc. The prior tax law allowed homeowners to deduct interest on up to $100,000 of home-equity debt used for any purpose.

As Toys ‘R’ Us prepares to close more than 700 stores around the country, some of them in the Chicago area won't stay dark for long, Crain's Chicago Business reported. The giant toy retailer has found takers for a small group of its stores in the Windy City after conducting two auctions for more than 400 of its locations nationwide. The fortunate few include Regency Centers, the Jacksonville, Fla.-based owner of Roscoe Square, a 140,500-square-foot shopping center on the western edge of Roscoe Village, on the city's Northwest Side. In a recent auction of 273 Toys ‘R’ Us stores and other properties, Ashley Furniture and Huntington National Bank offered to take over part of a 38,600-square-foot Toys ‘R’ Us store at Roscoe Square, according to a June 5 court filing. Regency is taking over the rest of the space, which Toys ‘R’ Us controls through a ground lease. In an earlier auction approved by a bankruptcy judge in April, Toys ‘R’ Us, which has about 30 stores in the Chicago area, was able to sell off leases for stores in Highland Park, Vernon Hills and at Bricktown Square Shopping Center on Chicago's West Side. Read more.

Occupancy issues are at the heart of many significant retail cases, as detailed in the ABI publication Retail and Office Bankruptcy: Landlord/Tenant Rights, available at the ABI Store. 

Investors stung by the collapse of William Jordan Investments Inc., which filed for bankruptcy last year while securities regulators were investigating the firm’s finances, are expected to split at least $2.4 million in cash recovered from the sale of some of its real-estate investments, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. Lawyers who have sold off properties tied to the Laguna Hills, Calif., firm have proposed to distribute some of the sale money in the next few months. It is unclear how far the money will go to repay the firm’s roughly 100 investors, who face July deadlines to submit an estimate of how much money they lost. Regulators have said that the firm’s former president, William Jordan, collected more than $71 million from investors for real-estate loans during a five-year period.