Articles
Ready to get your read on? Dive into the article archive to help you build wealth through real estate investing. We feature top subject matter experts exploring every facet of the industry.
Articles
Ready to get your read on? Dive into the article archive to help you build wealth through real estate investing. We feature top subject matter experts exploring every facet of the industry.
Foreclosures drop to lowest level in seven years but zombie properties still a problem
The foreclosure rate has fallen to the lowest level in more than seven years, but auctions are still up annually in 19 states RealtyTrac said in its latest U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™ for February 2014. The report which shows foreclosure filings — default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — ...
Where landlords still offer city apartments for under $1,000 a month
Landlords are still offering studio apartments in many cities for around $1,000 a month, according to a new survey from Apartments.com. Even in some of the largest and most expensive cities, rents of around $1,000 a month can be found in nearby neighborhoods or suburbs or by tenants committing to ...
Apartments.com sold to CoStar Group
Classified Ventures, LLC ("CV"), a leading provider of digital marketing solutions in the automotive and apartment rental categories, has entered into an agreement to sell its Apartments.com business for $585 million in cash to CoStar Group, Inc., a leading provider of commercial real estate research and information services. The sale ...
Local Market Monitor’s analysis of what fourth quarter report means for real estate
By Ingo Winzer Local Market Monitor Estimates for GDP in the fourth quarter paint a positive picture, even though total growth was at a modest 2.4 percent annual rate after a 4.1 percent third quarter. Most encouraging is that personal spending was a good part of the growth. Last quarter, ...
Home prices up 12% year over year
Home prices across the country increased 12 percent in January of this year compared to January 2013, marking 23 months of consecutive year-over-year increases in home prices nationally, according to a release from CoreLogic. “The last time January month-over-month and year-over-year price appreciation was this strong was at the height ...
Sales of new homes in January highest in five years
Sales of new homes jumped unexpectedly in January despite bad weather in many parts of the country according to the U.S. Census Bureau, to the highest levels since January of 2008. “I’m hopeful the recovery in home sales will get back on track in the next couple of months,” said ...
A letter from Warren Buffett: What you can learn about my real estate investing
Warren Buffett tells a personal story about two of his non-stock investments in an article on CNN Money. The story involves two real estate purchases, when and why he bought them, and how they have performed over time. "There is one major difference between my two small investments and an ...
Foreclosure filings up slightly for January
Foreclosures were up slightly in January, but still down 18 percent from January of last year, according to RealtyTrac's U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. "The monthly increase in January foreclosure activity was somewhat expected after a holiday lull, but the sharp annual increases in some states shows that many states are ...
Mortgage rates post first increase of 2014
Mortgage rates broke a five-week long streak of declines, with the benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage rate increasing 4.48 percent, according to Bankrate.com's weekly national survey. The average 30-year fixed mortgage has an average of 0.33 discount and origination points. The average 15-year fixed mortgage notched higher to 3.53 percent, and ...
Millionaires moving to increase real estate investment in 2014
Real estate is the top alternative investment millionaires are considering this year according to a new report from Morgan Stanley. “After a year where the Standard & Poor’s Index rose 30 percent, some millionaires are moving money out of traditional, long-only strategies to find outperformance, and turning toward alternatives such ...
What do the growing number of single-family rentals say about the housing market?
Housing Wire magazine has a headline asking whether real estate investor home sales mask a weak housing market, and whether the hype has gotten ahead of the underlying fundamentals. Also, the article asks what has been the real role of large institutional purchases. Writer Trey Garrison interviews several experts, including ...
Home “flips” up 16% in 2013 with average gross profit of $62,000
RealtyTrac's latest report for 2013 shows flips were up, but as many serious investors know, still represented only 4.6 percent of all U.S. single-family sales during the year. Their report shows 156,862 single family home flips — where a home is purchased and subsequently sold again within six months — ...
Another company plans offering in bonds secured by single-family rentals
American Homes 4 Rent is joining the Blackstone Group in providing bonds for investors backed by single-family rental homes, the New York Times and CNBC are reporting. This is part of the growing trend by Wall Street to find a new way to secure debt tied to single family rental ...
Best ski resorts for real estate investing
The folks at RealtyTrac have come up with a fun list of the best places to invest in real estate if you would like to own investment property where you ski. So if you are thinking of investing in your favorite mountain town, here are some stats they put together ...
Company bringing build-to-rent to Texas
American Housing Ventures has acquired 80 acres of agricultural land east of the Austin airport to build single family homes to rent in a growing national trend of build-to-rent ventures that investors are seeing. The company plans to own the homes for the long term and management them, Mark Wolf, ...
Do you know why jumbo mortgages are so cheap?
RealtyTrac says jumbo loans are now cheaper than conventional loans. It may not make sense, until you look deeper at what is really going on. In this story, RealtyTrac outlines that what you are seeing is really an effort to prevent marketplace competition. The government wants to shift the mortgage ...
New home builder confidence levels out and is holding steady
The newly released report from the National Association of Home Builders says builder confidence in the market for single-family homes has leveled out and is holding steady after a slight uptick in December. Real estate investors are watching the new build-to-rent trend that is starting to pop up around the ...
American millionaires hold less wealth in real estate than European and Asian investors
A new report from Savillis says American millionaires hold only seven percent of their wealth in real estate while Asian and European millionaires hold four times that amount. The report defined millionaires as having $30 million or more. The American rich have more of their wealth in financial investments and ...
Denver setting new records in home sales and jobs
The news just keeps getting better for Denver and real estate investors. The latest story from the Denver Post from a report by Metrolist shows single-family home sales in metro Denver last year beat a record set during the housing boom. There were 42,762 single family homes sold last year, compared ...
Apartment Landlords Raising Rents as Supply of Apartments Tightens Up
Apartment landlords raised rents by an average of 0.8% to $1,083 in the quarter according to a newly released report from Reis, Inc. Meanwhile the vacancy rate fell to 4.1% from 4.6% in the same quarter a year ago. "Demand for apartments remains strong," Ryan Severino, a senior economist with ...
Apartment landlords raising rents as supply of apartments tightens up
Apartment landlords raised rents by an average of 0.8% to $1,083 in the quarter according to a newly released report from Reis, Inc. Meanwhile the vacancy rate fell to 4.1% from 4.6% in the same quarter a year ago. "Demand for apartments remains strong," Lower disappointing I oklahoma payment schedule ...
Who are the coming disruptors in the real estate industry?
Ross Gerber writes a thought-provoking piece in Forbes looking at potential disruptors in the real estate investment and home buying space. And, he questions why an industry sector such as real estate, which is so vital to our economy, wastes so much of people's time, energy and money. Changes are ...
What December housing data means to investors
The snapshot reports from various sources help the media promote the message the economy is improving universally and the window for real estate investors may be closing. Looking at trends by market as Altos Research allows us to do does not support such generalized statements. Primary Markets: Reality is “the ...
Good Could Mean Bad for Real Estate Investors in 2014?
In this article we'll explore the potential for one domestic surprise coming with the release of December job data in early 2014, and three foreign oops-a-daisies. The more the four tilt toward oops, interest rates will fall; the more they improve, rates up. Read what I think this really means ...
Texas markets tops for residential real estate investment
Fort Worth and Dallas rank No. 1 and No. 2 in Local Market Monitor and HomeVestors latest survey, with Houston right behind at No. 5. Ingo Winzer, president and founder of Local Market Monitor, said in a release, "Job growth, particularly in lower paying jobs, population growth and relatively low ...
