Peter G. Miller
Opportunity Zones: Boosting America’s Distressed Neighborhoods?
A lot of small communities are expanding their job base, but what’s happening in these leading towns with between 50,000 and 75,000 people is not true everywhere. We increasingly have a divided economy. At one end are world cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York as well ...
How Fewer First-Time Home Buyers Threaten the Real Estate Market
You can’t have home sales without buyers, and the most important buyers of all are first timers. While it might seem that a sale is a sale, that’s not the case. The chain of transactions that powers the housing sector begins with first-time buyers. Unfortunately, first-timers are a vanishing species ...
Why Mortgage Applications Have to Change
Ah, the continued plight of the American mortgage system. While each year millions of homeowners finance and refinance real estate with few problems, the system is increasingly fraught with new complexities and potential pitfalls. Updates are constantly needed to keep up with a number of outside factors and trends. Without ...
GSE Reform: Housing Finance Savior or Looming Disaster?
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are in play and with them the financial heart of the real estate marketplace. As they evolve – if they evolve – transactions worth trillions of dollars are at stake as well as billions of dollars in potential profits. The battle for Fannie Mae and ...
The New Solar Economy: A Hazy Path Toward Harnessing the Power of the Sun
With the ongoing certainty of sunrise, the use of renewable energy is becoming cheaper, more attractive, and more common. The promise of free fuel coupled with better technology is changing the energy economy by reducing our need for oil, natural gas, coal and nuclear power. Every Tesla and Prius you ...
Will AVMs Create a World Without Appraisers?
The real estate market has had a good run during the past few years, but for one group the story has been different. Appraisers are facing tough times. Their job numbers are in decline, business is being lost to high-tech competitors, management companies are cannibalizing fees, and HUD has questioned ...
