Carole VanSickle Ellis
Rising Home Values Hitting Pre-Recession Peaks
New research from Zillow indicates that seven out of 35 of the largest U.S. housing markets have regained all value lost during the recession, and that could signal a looming turning point in those markets. Zillow considers a market to have recovered to pre-recession values when more than 95% of ...
Today’s Home Buyers Will Sacrifice All Amenities for This Feature
Many homebuyers have an extensive “wish list” for their new home and a few “must-have” items as well. However, according to a survey from Realtor.com of people who closed on a home in 2018, only one in five will stick to those must-have items when presented with a property in ...
FHFA Gives Up on Credit-Scoring Overhaul
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) announced this week it will suspend an initiative dedicated to updating a credit score model used by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The updated model would, the agency hoped, have helped “provide millions of creditworthy Americans who have been unable to be scored with ...
International Real Estate Wire Transfer Scheme: 74 Arrested
74 people were recently arrested in the United States and overseas for alleged wire transfer fraud. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, a “coordinated law enforcement effort” resulted in the arrests and the seizure of about $2.4 million and recovery of about $14 million in fraudulent wire transfers. When ...
Chinese Investors Buying Real Estate with Bitcoin
Chinese bitcoin tycoons are actively working to sell off their cryptocurrency in the United States in order to use the cash to purchase real estate investments. For example, one early adopter recently sold 500 bitcoin in the U.S. (that value is just under $3.8 million at time of publication), then ...
3 Cities Paying New Residents to Relocate
While the national housing market has been officially “in recovery” from the housing crash and Great Recession for quite some time now, some cities are facing a serious population shortage that is being exacerbated as current residents age, retire from the work force, and often move elsewhere. To combat this ...
Many Property Owners Lack Sufficient Disaster Insurance
Hurricane season is underway in the United States, and a lot of homeowners who could get hit by bad weather are not adequately insured against potential damages. According to a Wall Street Journal report, the issue lies mainly in a lack of flood insurance, which usually must be purchased from ...
3 Red Flags for Airbnb Investors
Airbnb is one of the most disruptive short-term rental platforms in the world right now, and that description is both complimentary and pejorative, depending on the source. According to the company’s head of global policy, Chris Lehane, Airbnb uses “technology to create economic empowerment.” However, many city officials (not to ...
Texas Federal Court Warns FHFA Leadership Structure Could be “Unconstitutional”
The leadership structure for the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which was created in 2008 to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is under fire from a Texas appeals court. The court, which is comprised of a three-judge panel, recently ruled that the FHFA “defies the Constitution because it does ...
Nearly One-Third of NAR Members Have Less Than Two Years’ Experience
Despite tight housing inventories and tough competition, more and more people are jumping into real estate as registered realtors. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR)’s 2018 member Profile, just about one in three realtors has two years’ worth of experience or fewer and the realtor population has grown ...
Gary, Indiana, Puts Millions in School Buildings on the Market
For 20 years in some cases, public school buildings in Gary, Indiana, have sat vacant as a target for vandalism, looting, and arson. Now, the Gary School Community Corporation is hoping real estate investors with an eye for community development will come into the area, buy the buildings, and help ...
Smaller Kitchens Could Make a Comeback Thanks to Changing Dining Practices
A recent report from investment firm UBS suggested boldly that the kitchen as we currently know it, a central location in the home used for food preparation and family camaraderie, could soon be gone for good. USB analysts certainly took the speculative process to the extreme as they highlighted the ...
Southwestern Florida Housing Market Struggles with Smelly Algae Invasion
As green algae blooms in the waters of southwest Florida, local real estate professionals are preparing to take a hit. Even if the algae is not presently growing in local waters, real estate deals are falling through and, in some cases, home values are taking a hit. One Sanibel real ...
Former “Foreclosure Capital” Debuts Universal Basic Income Program
In 2012, one in every 135 homes in Stockton, California, was in foreclosure and the city was in bankruptcy protection. Although the area’s housing market is certainly now in recovery mode, local officials believe that many residents still need something extra to help them make ends meet. As a result, ...
3 Worst States for Foreclosure Halfway Through 2018
Although foreclosure starts are still falling midway through 2018, the rates are actually rising in 40% of local markets according to ATTOM Data Solutions’ Midyear 2018 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. The report indicated a total of 362,275 U.S. properties with foreclosure filings. Those filings include default notices, scheduled auctions, and ...
Online Retail Bolsters a U.S. Industrial Building Boom
Every time you make a purchase on Amazon or using another online retailer, you contribute to a real estate boom most people may not notice. “For every $1 billion of digital retail sales, shipping requirements gobble up more than 1.2 million square feet of warehouse space,” reported CBRE head of ...
Hurricane Irma’s Effects Linger in Southwest Florida
When Hurricane Irma blew through the southeast in the early Fall of 2017, it was the strongest Atlantic basin hurricane ever recorded. The hurricane stretched 650 miles from east to west, affected nine U.S. states, and flooded Jacksonville, Florida, and Charleston, South Carolina, before it dissipated. During the storm, millions ...
Freddie Mac Offers Automated Appraisals for Some Condo Buyers
Freddie Mac’s automated collateral evaluation (ACE) program is designed to help borrowers save money on appraisals and make faster purchases in certain scenarios. The ACE program was initially designed to “assess the need for a traditional appraisal by leveraging proprietary models and using data from multiple listing services and public ...
Colorado Mall Fights “Dead Mall” Syndrome with “Experiential Attractions”
As the term “dead mall” becomes increasingly common, the owners and managers of indoor malls are shifting their focus away from anchor stores toward “lifestyle hubs” and other attractions. Food courts are now only the beginning, with many malls offering an entire day’s worth of experiences to attract consumers to ...
Outdoor Showers Could be the Ultimate Upgrade in Certain Markets
Most investors know the value of outdoor living space these days, but many think simply adding a fire pit or a nice patio will suffice to meet picky buyers’ dreams. While this may be true in some markets (after all, Realtor.com recently reported outdoor projects boost home values by “up ...
Amit Aggarwal: Refining A Real Estate Platform
Amit Aggarwal joined Auction.com as its chief technology officer in late 2017, but the experienced senior information technology (IT) leader had his eye on the needs of the national housing market for more than a decade before the hire. As early as 2005, Aggarwal was watching the residential real estate industry, ...
City of Columbus Files Complaint Against Real Estate Investors for Alleged Blight
The city of Columbus, Ohio, has filed a complaint against a Nebraska-based corporation that owns 11 properties in the area. Alleging the corporation is a shield to protect the real estate investors who own the properties from liability, the Columbus city attorney filed a case against three corporations and two ...
Real Estate Professionals Increasingly Reliant on Mobile Devices
According to a new survey from Realtors Property Resource (RPR), and the National Association of Realtors (NAR), about a third of real estate professionals spend about seven hours of their workday on their mobile phones. They’re not necessarily just checking Facebook, either. Respondents said they are using that time for ...
Fed Raises Interest Rates for the Second Time This Year
Citing information indicating “the labor market has continued to strengthen and that economic activity has been rising at a solid rate,” the Federal Open Market Committee of the Federal Reserve opted to increase the federal funds rate by 25 basis points to 2% this week. Most analysts expected the Fed ...
U.S. Homeowner Equity Passes $1 Trillion Mark
Just under two-thirds of homeowners saw double-digit increases in their home equity between March 2017 and March 2018 according to CoreLogic. That increase equated to a total gain of $1.01 trillion, which contributed to a decline in negative equity over the same period. The total number of mortgaged residential properties ...
