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.
Nestpick Names San Francisco “Best City for Young Entrepreneurs”
Nestpick, a furnished apartment search engine based in Berlin, Germany, recently released its “2018 Millennial Cities Ranking” report. The report debuted last year, in 2017, and Nestpick conducted the study “in order to pinpoint which cities are successfully attracting this generation and therefore a core future workforce.” The company managing ...
Think Realty Deepens Partnership with OwnAmerica
Affinity Worldwide recently made an equity invesment in OwnAmerica. The purchase deepens the partnership with OwnAmerica and two of Affinity Worldwide’s real estate-related entities, Think Realty and National Real Estate Insurance Group. The terms of the investment were not disclosed. OwnAmerica is a leading platform that operates a national marketplace for Single Family ...
Fair Housing Filings Continue to Rise
According to the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA)’s 2018 Fair Housing Trends Report, incidences of fair housing discrimination complaints rose slightly in 2017 after rising in 2016. It is important to remember that a complaint does not necessarily mean that the allegation is accurate or, in fact, an infraction. The ...
Zillow Research Reveals 3 Outdoor Trends to Showcase in Summer Listings
If your home offers outdoor entertainment options, chances are you will beat the competition when it comes to selling for top dollar in your local market. A new report from Zillow Research indicates homes with outdoor living additions may sell for double-digit premiums over comparable properties without those upgrades. For-sale ...
US Embassy Tbilisi to bring American NASCAR driver, Jennifer Jo Cobb, to Georgia
Jennifer Jo Cobb will take her first lap as an international speaker. The U.S. Embassy Tbilisi will host Cobb from May 26 to June 2. Throughout the week, she will speak in multiple locations to groups of female and male leaders about empowerment, leadership, entrepreneurship, overcoming personal obstacles and the benefits ...
The Best Months and Days to Sell a Home
Although the best month in which to sell your home is officially May, the best day of the year to sell is June 28. According to new data from ATTOM Data, homeowners who sell in May net an average of a 5.9 percent premium on market value. Those who sell ...
Lennar to make Alexa Standard in New Homes
Calling the decision to make a variety of smart-home features standard in its new homes a new “hallmark of why we buy a new home,” David Kaiserman, president of Lennar Ventures, proudly announced the homebuilder will now make Alexa, Amazon’s voice-activated digital assistant, a standard feature in all of the ...
Millennial Buyers are Skipping the “Starter Home”
Millennial home buyers account for about a third of all home purchases today, and many are opting to purchase properties outside of the norm for a first home. “They rented for longer, and now they’re going to where they want to stay,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist for advisory firm ...
California Passes “Solar Mandate” on New Construction
Yesterday, California’s Energy Commission voted to require solar panel installations on nearly all new homes by January 1, 2020. Not surprisingly, solar shares surged upward in the wake of the vote while homebuilder shares fell, since the move will add somewhere between $10,000 and $30,000 to construction costs. However, noted ...
The Promise and Pitfalls of Accessory Dwelling Units as an Affordable Housing Panacea
Apaucity of affordable housing that threatens to inflame a burgeoning homelessness crisis and trigger an exodus of well-paying jobs is forcing local governments to consider creative solutions to this intractable problem. One such solution is to streamline the development of accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in the hopes that real estate ...
The Rise of Infill Development
The need for development is on the rise. Whether it’s in the form of a need for more housing, more commercial space, or more retail space, there is always a need for more development. The question has always been, “Where is it best to develop?” A common phenomenon we are ...
3 Steps to Effective Investing Strategies in a Widening Market
Over the years, our real estate company has found there are three major, universal decisions every investor must face (and make) before pulling the trigger on an investment: picking a property type, choosing a strategy, and selecting a market. Navigating that process has always been crucial to getting good returns, ...
The Future is Now for Artificial Intelligence in Real Estate
From Hollywood to Wall Street, the term artificial intelligence (AI) is an agenda item. Everyone wants at least one peek into how AI will impact their business or industry. It probably comes as no surprise, then, that the giant data company Salesforce is been dedicated to the advancement of AI, ...
Los Angeles and Atlanta Top “Most Popular Neighborhood” Lists
Zillow recently announced its 20 “most popular neighborhoods” results, and Los Angeles, California, and Atlanta, Georgia, are home to the first- and second-place results. Presidio Heights, located in San Francisco, rounded out the top three. Zillow identified neighborhoods with the highest number of page views per listing during the first ...
Hawaiian Volcano Continues Destruction in Big Island Residential Areas
When Kilauea Volcano, a volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island, erupted last week, the flow of molten lava represented a huge danger to the inhabitants of the island, several thousand of whom lived in areas directly in the path of the lava. For example, in Leilani Estates, a subdivision that has ...
FHA Borrowers Can Now Access Solar Panel Installation Loans
More and more homeowners are expressing the desire to install solar panels in their homes, and an increasing number of lenders are working hard to help them obtain the funding to do so. One lender, Guild Mortgage, recently announced it would assist homeowners using FHA loans to purchase their properties ...
Renovation Rockstar: New Orleans Edition
New Orleans-area investors Braden Smith and Chris Leniek are not afraid of much of anything in their unique real estate market, so taking on a two-bedroom/one-bath home in need of a near-total remodel was pretty much par for the course. “We buy run-down properties, fix them up, then sell them,” ...
Renovation Rockstar: First-Time Townhouse Success
When Jason Lipsitz and his business partner, Lee Fondiller, co-owners of South Hill Homes, got a first glance at their very first fix-and-flip deal, they realized that they were in for some serious work. Fortunately, that work came with some pretty serious returns, as well. “We got the lead from ...
Freddie Mac Offering Affordability Incentives to Multifamily Owners
Freddie Mac will offer low-cost loans to owners of multifamily properties who keep their buildings affordable to households earning 80 percent or less of an area’s median income for the duration of the loan. “Freddie Mac is the country’s largest backer of apartment loans,” observed Wall Street Journal writer Laura ...
A New Luxury Trend Strips Down Properties Before Showing
Although most homeowners do not want to start “from scratch” when they move into a home, certain high-end buyers like nothing better, and high-end sellers are accommodating that desire by employing a practice known as “white-boxing” to make their homes a blank canvas for the next buyer. White-boxing involves stripping ...
Regional Spotlight: New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA), is anything but simple. From its 73 “official” neighborhoods that some locals claim do not really exist to its storied history replete with pirates, natural disasters, and one of the country’s first “skyscrapers” (erected in 1807), the city is a beautiful and confusing cultural and architectural ...
A New Room Takes Top Place in Remodeling
A new survey from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) indicates remodeling the bathroom is more important to homeowners than remodeling the kitchen, although both rooms dominate other remodeling projects. The survey, which asked respondents about their remodeling projects in 2017 and what types of changes they made, indicated ...
Building Community in Real Estate
It is not uncommon to hear real estate investors refer to their businesses as “supporting the community.” This statement is highly accurate, given that the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) estimates that there are nearly 28 million small businesses in the country and, of that 28 million, roughly 10 percent ...
Investor Spotlight: Mark Filler of Apex National Real Estate
Mark Filler, founder and CEO of Apex National Real Estate, has already hit some pretty big milestones in his career. After 20 years in the mortgage business and founding (then selling) multiple national companies, the Harvard law school grad and business partner Chris Shaxted, who has 25,000 new construction homes ...
Kevin Ortner, the CEO of Renters Warehouse, is in a unique position to “think big” about rental real estate. After all, his company spearheads one of the most effective, influential outreach programs in the history of the industry via their far-reaching radio presence and Ortner’s own book, Rent Estate Revolution™ ...
