Market & Trends
The world of real estate investing moves quickly. Catch the must-know news, market information, and trends for the industry here.
Back To: All Topics
Market & Trends
The world of real estate investing moves quickly. Catch the must-know news, market information, and trends for the industry here.
Back To: All Topics
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 ...
More Homeowners Turning to Short-Term Rentals as Investment Strategy
About a quarter of all vacation and investment property owners rented those properties out as short-term rentals in 2017, and nearly a third plan to do so in 2018. According to a new report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), nearly half (45%) of investment buyers report they plan ...
Are Smart-Bathroom Upgrades a Smart Investment Move?
The Internet of Things and the advent of smart little helpers like Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home, and Apple Home have brought the concept of smart design out of the pages of science fiction and into our daily lives. Yet for many of us, the idea of a smart home stops ...
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 ...
Breaking Down the Tools of Technology
I recently read the book, Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World, by Eric Metaxas. It is a fascinating read and one that I would highly recommend to anyone interested in the history of organized religion in general or church history specifically. Although I enjoyed the ...
3 Ways to Use Technology to Improve Efficiency in Your Real Estate Business
Real estate investing continues to change as modern technology evolves. I personally have seen real estate education evolve from cassette tapes to CDs to flash drives to now being purely online. The wise real estate and note investor will take advantage of technology to improve their business processes and systems ...
NAR Chief Economist Calls Spring 2018 a Season of “Unmet Expectations”
Citing “supply and affordability constraints” for keeping would-be homebuyers out of the housing market this past spring, National Association of Realtors (NAR) chief economist Lawrence Yun predicted summer would provide a “true test for the housing market this year.” Although spring home sales volumes were relatively low, Yun said he ...
Self Storage Developers Concerned Over Steel Tariffs
In March, President Trump placed a tariff on imported steel, which caused the price of domestic steel to rise. Although in the long term, this could be good news for the steel industry and the national economy, in the short term, a number of industries, including sectors in real estate, ...
Vacation-Home Markets Still in Recovery Mode
Vacation-home housing markets are lagging in the housing recovery. According to Zillow Research, markets with the highest densities of vacation homes are 9% below their pre-crisis peak in values, while homes with low densities of vacation homes are now 14% above. During the housing boom in the early 2000s, vacation-home ...
Biggest Gains in Home Sales Remain on the West Coast
If you sold your home in 2017, you probably had owned it for about eight years and likely made a profit of about 21%. This is according to a new report from Zillow, which analyzed national, regional, and municipal data about housing over the course of 2017. The national numbers ...
Real Estate Developers Predict Increased Emphasis on Health & Wellness
According to a new report from the Global Wellness Institute, the number of “wellness-oriented residential, mixed-use, and commercial properties” has risen 6.4% each year since 2015. The Institute went on to predict that this trend would continue at the same pace through 2022. That real estate will have a cumulative ...
Senior Citizens May Shape the Future Housing Market
Although millennial homebuyers are making up an increasingly large percentage of the buying population in real estate, senior citizens’ housing preferences will continue to determine the nature of the future housing market. This is according to the 2018 State of the Nation’s Housing report from the Harvard Joint Center for ...
Think Realty Magazine July 2018
+ WHAT'S INSIDE Think Realty | News & Events •Better Property Management Through Better Expense Management Design Point | Renovation Rockstar: California Dreamin' • Investing in Smart Bathroom Upgrades Special Focus: Technology | Refining A Platform for Real Estate Empowerment •The Facts, Fictions, and Myths of Real Estate Investing Technology ...
New Research Predicts Rent Hikes for Amazon HQ2 Location
Amazon has made the process around selecting a location for its second national headquarters into an extremely high-profile, yet secretive, process. New research from Zillow makes the stakes higher for investors trying to guess which metro area will be the lucky winner of HQ2. Zillow researchers announced that some cities ...
Emerging SoCal Real Estate Factor Affecting Long and Short-Term Rentals
The Southern California market, like the entire California real estate market, is hot for investments at the moment. Both the traditional and the Airbnb rental strategies can be very lucrative because of the factors driving the local economy. People are both moving to Southern California for the long run and ...
Driverless Car Fad Frees Up Garage Space
As driverless cars become more popular and the technology more advanced, real estate design and values are likely to adapt. According to Justin Thompson, a columnist at Forbes.com, driverless cars could usher in an era where people voluntarily “forego car ownership and/or leasing in favor of [a ride-sharing] system.” If ...
Federal Flood Insurance Program to Expire July 31
The National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), a federal program offering flood coverage to more than 5 million property owners nationwide, will lapse at midnight on July 31, 2018, if it is not extended. The program, which has been extended six times since September 2017, is among the only options available ...
Supreme Court Ruling Makes Way for Fair Housing Suits Against Lenders
A 2017 ruling from the Supreme Court says cities have the right to sue banks and lenders if they can prove violations of the Fair Housing Act caused the plaintiff city direct harm. The ruling, a result of a lawsuit brought against Bank of America, Citigroup, and Wells Fargo by ...
Mashvisor Names Top 5 Markets for Airbnb Investments for June
Airbnb rentals tend to flourish when tourist destinations heat up in the summer months, so it likely will come as little surprise that Mashvisor’s top five markets are all in attractive destination locations. According to the real estate analysts at the rental data company, California cities dominated the short-term rental ...
5 Hardest-Hit Markets for Housing Inventory Shortages
In several major markets, a shortage of existing housing inventory is approaching crisis levels. For real estate investors, that could represent a great opportunity if they have access to off-market leads for properties. According to CoreLogic, metro areas with strong job growth trends are particularly short on available homes for ...
Chicago Condos Attract Owners with Car-Sharing Perks
Amenities and perks could be the difference between a condo investment that fills up quickly with paying residents and one that doesn't. Vista Tower, which will open next year, is erring on the side of perks. They are offering residents access to onsite Tesla vehicles as an amenity that comes ...
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 ...
Leading National Real Estate Investing Event Coming to SoCal
Think Realty will hold a Conference and Expo, July 14 and 15, at the Marriott Irvine Spectrum. The real estate investing event will focus on technology and innovation, while also featuring real estate industry pros, educational breakout sessions on topics relevant to investors, panel discussions, valuable networking opportunities and the latest ...
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 ...
