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A spike in foreclosure filings, Ohio’s dueling property tax relief efforts, and a congressman facing eviction. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of July 14-18.

Miss: A Big Uh-Oh. A total of 187,659 residential properties carried foreclosure filings in the first six months of the year, according to new data released this week from ATTOM. That represents a 5.8% increase from the same time-period in 2024 and up 1.1% from the same period in 2023. Rob Barber, CEO at ATTOM, noted, “While the overall numbers remain below pre-pandemic levels, the persistent rise suggests that some homeowners are still facing financial challenges amid today’s housing and economic landscape.” That is not a good data trend, and hopefully foreclosure filings will be in decline for the second half of the year.

Miss: Stop, Please Stop. The Trump administration campaign to discredit Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell ahead of a potential firing went into ridiculous territory this week with James Blair, the White House’s deputy chief of staff, posting an AI-created photo of the central bank chief dressed like Marie Antoinette while Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought wildly overstepped his authority by demanding access to the Fed’s headquarters to find evidence of fraud in the building’s renovations – Vought forgets the central bank is not part of the Executive Branch. Never mind that the Fed has publicly detailed the depth and scope of the renovations and explained why costs are greater than anticipated. President Trump added to the confusion by giving mixed messages on whether he will fire Powell. At this point, the administration’s attempt to demean and slander Powell goes beyond economic policy and has become obsessive to the point of puerility.

Miss: Don’t Drink the Chicago Water. One of the most disturbing stories of the week was based on an investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times that found Chicago officials are failing to adequately warn residents and property owners about the risk of lead contamination in the drinking water within structures built before 1986. To date, the city only notified 7% of the people who were supposed to be alerted. A 2024 study determined two-thirds of Chicago children under 6 years old live in homes with tap water containing detectable levels of lead. This health emergency that is not getting any great level of national media attention, and that needs to change.

Miss: Bumbling Buckeyes. Two big thumbs down to Ohio’s Gov. Mike DeWine and Attorney General Dave Yost for launching rival endeavors to address the state’s contentious property tax issue. DeWine, who vetoed three items in the state budget designed to address high property taxes, formed a Property Tax Reform Working Group to be co-chaired by former legislators who are with identifying how to provide meaningful property tax relief to homeowners and businesses while ensuring that funding for government services remains adequate. Yost is calling on county officials to form a coalition to reform property taxes, declaring, “Lead now, or the people will surely blow up the property-tax system.” That is a reference to a grassroots effort to get a ballot referendum that would permanently end property taxes in Ohio. Clearly, elected officials need to get their act together and come up with a unified plan instead of delaying action or passing responsibility to others.

Hit: A Victory for Veterans. This week, the US Senate unanimously passed H.R. 1815, the VA Home Loan Reform Act, that will give permanent status to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ temporary policy that enables veterans to directly compensate their real estate agents. The bill, which also creates a partial claims program that aids veterans who fell behind on their mortgage payments, previously passed the House of Representatives by unanimous voice vote and is expected to be signed into law by President Trump. For once, Washington lawmakers put their partisan pettiness aside and united on something truly worthwhile.

Miss: Evicting a Congressman. The most embarrassing news out of Washington this week may have involved Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL), who is facing eviction from his luxury penthouse. Independent journalist Roger Sollenberger detailed the eviction effort against Mills – the two-term congressman’s landlord said he has not paid $85,000 in rent since March, adding he has been late in his rent payment 18 times, resulting in more than $850 in late fees. Mills insisted a broken link in his online payment platform was to blame and called Sollenberger “a biased hack” because of his previous affiliation with the left-leaning media outlets The Daily Beast and Salon. For his part, Sollenberger also claimed that Mills “had multiple defaults on an SBA loan and also failed to pay his property taxes that year on the house he put up as collateral for the loan.” Well, if anything, it wasn’t a boring week.

Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].