Real estate indicators are starting to shift in favor of home buyers as the housing market sets its sights on spring. Mortgages are getting cheaper, housing inventories are growing, and home prices are rising at a slower pace.

Mortgage rates have been holding steady for the last few weeks. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 4.45 percent last week, according to Freddie Mac. Late last year, mortgage rates were nearing the 5 percent threshold, but several weeks of decreases have offered some relief to home shoppers. The five-year adjustable-rate mortgage has been averaging under 4 percent, landing at 3.90 percent last week, Freddie Mac reports.

Home buyers are responding to the lower rates. New mortgage applications of home buyers across the country surged to the highest level since 2010 during the week ending Jan. 11, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Applications were 9 percent higher than they were the week before.

Housing inventories have grown significantly in many markets too, offering buyers a lot more choices. That is helping to put a tighter lid on home price growth as sellers face greater competition. Homebuilders are reportedly lowering their prices in many areas too. A quarter of newly built homes saw a price cut during the last quarter of last year.

The decrease in mortgage rates is likely to boost home sales this year, compensating for the decline in sales recorded last year while pushing prices up modestly, says NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “With the return of homebuyers, home prices look to rise again in 2019, but with one big difference. For the first time in years, income gains of a projected 3.5 percent will outpace home price growth of around 2 percent. That is healthy and a turn toward better housing affordability,” Yun writes in a Jan. 24 opinion piece in the newspaper The Hill.

Certainly, for home sellers, lower prices may not sound ideal. But housing analysts say sellers need to set a realistic price up front to find a buyer as the market shifts.

“The good news here for sellers is that—with interest rates down and slowing prices—more prospective buyers should be encouraged to get off the sidelines, shop around, and consider making offers,” writes Kenneth Harney, a syndicated real estate columnist for The Washington Post.

Your buyers may say they want a “modern” or a “contemporary” home, but those two words are not interchangeable. So, what do they really mean?

Modern and contemporary styles do share many of the same traits, but they are two distinct styles. And they often get confused, according to an article by Marvin Windows and Doors that sets out to clarify the two styles.

Contemporary tends to refer to architecture of today and, as such, it is constantly evolving. It could contain a mix of aesthetics, including from traditional and even modern architecture. Contemporary homes are often characterized by asymmetrical shapes; mixed materials; open spaces; energy efficiency; curves or sweeping lines; abundant natural light; and a combination of indoor-outdoor spaces where those spaces get nearly blurred.

Modern, on the other hand, tends to center on straight lines and limited details. That’s a big difference from contemporary styles, which use curves and sweeping lines. Modern uses sharper, very sparse lines.

“Modern design is a more honest look at what a building is—load-bearing columns, beams that transfer the weight, and not putting things in for decoration,” says Rebecca Comeaux, an associate at Lake/Flato Architects in San Antonio. “It’s still beautiful, but there’s kind of a level of honesty and simplicity in the design.”

Modern design is marked by rectangular exteriors with flat roofs; clean, straight lines with limited detail; open floor plans; changes in elevation, like split-level spaces; monochromatic color palettes; and spaces that have minimal decoration.

Learn more about residential architectural styles so you—and your clients—can talk intelligently about the differences in REALTOR® Magazine’s Guide to Residential Styles.

You may not be happy with an unfair online review you received that you feel is damaging your business. But you may have little recourse in court to have it removed if the online site chooses not to. The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear a case against the online reviewing site Yelp. The case involved Yelp’s refusal to remove allegedly defamatory reviews from its website, stemming from a 2016 defamation lawsuit.

In the lawsuit, attorney Dawn Hassell accused former client Ava Bird of leaving false, negative claims about her in a Yelp review. Yelp was issued a court order to remove the posted content in question but refused, citing Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act that protected it from censorship. The California Supreme Court sided in Yelp’s favor, ruling they did not have to remove the negative review. The case was taken to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the high court has refused to review the ruling. Therefore, the California Supreme Court ruling stands.

Yelp applauded the U.S. Supreme Court’s dismissal. “We are happy to see the Supreme Court has ended Hassell’s efforts to sidestep the law to compel Yelp to remove online reviews,” Yelp wrote in a statement. “This takes away a tool that could have been easily abused by litigants to obtain easy removal of entirely truthful consumer opinions.”

Section 230 protects web services like Yelp, Twitter, and Facebook from being held liable for user-posted content.