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
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 ...
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 ...
3 Bathroom Trends Evolving in 2018
Meet the Expert: Katrina Rice is a professional kitchen and bath designer with 84 Lumber’s Kitchen & Bath Design Studio in Eighty Four, Pennsylvania. 84 Lumber’s Kitchen & Bath Design Studios exist in more than 30 of 84 Lumber’s 250 stores nationwide and are staffed by experienced professionals. She is ...
D.C. Congressmen Sleeping on Cots, Can’t Afford Housing
According to a report from the New York Post, some lawmakers are sleeping on cots in their offices in order to save money on renting a D.C. apartment during the times of the year Congress is in session. One representative told the Post, “Washington is too expensive.” He added, “If ...
DocuSign Value Soars After Initial Public Offering
E-signature company DocuSign, which led the charge into digital real estate closings, went public last week. All signs indicate that the company will continue to gain value as more and more real estate professionals realize the value of a digital closing. The company started the initial public offering (IPO) with ...
Doctors Could be the Key to Your Next Commercial Investment
Doctors and medical experts have always tended to be in real estate as well as medicine. They often own the buildings that house their practices and, once they get a taste of the joys of real estate ownership, start expanding their portfolios with both commercial and residential properties. Recently, I’ve ...
Progress Report: The Evolution of the Build-to-Rent Industry
Lately, the hottest topic in real estate investing is “building-to-rent.” Before the housing crash, very few investors would have considered this strategy because everyone wanted to own their own home and lenient mortgage lending requirements made that a very real possibility for most people. Today, however, thanks to the combination ...
The Seattle City Council is considering a new tax law that will charge large employers about $500 per employee and dedication three-quarters of the resulting tax revenue toward building just under 2,000 affordable housing units in the city. The remainder would go toward services for the homeless. Although Amazon is ...
First-Time and Lower-Income Homebuyers to Struggle in 2018
With home values rising, inventory shrinking, and a buying population spurred on by rising interest rates, more and more housing markets are skyrocketing in value. Zillow recently warned that home shoppers have nearly 9 percent fewer homes to choose from than they did this time last year and, furthermore, that ...
Northern Nevada Housing Set Records in April
According to data released by the Reno-Sparks Association of Realtors (RSAR) about March 2018, the local housing market shattered records set before the Great Depression for median home prices for single-family homes. RSAR predicted in the same report prices would keep increasing for the remainder of the year. “We have…a ...
3 Tips for Maximizing the Benefits of 3D Modeling
When you think of three-dimensional (3D) modeling in terms of home design, you probably think of high-end, luxury interior designers and their software. However, 3D modeling can be extremely useful for real estate investors as well as owner-occupants upgrading their homes. Think Realty Magazine talked to Mark Reginelli, director of ...
Think Realty Magazine May 2018
+ WHAT'S INSIDE Think Realty | News & Events •Credit Bureaus Decide to Remove Tax Liens from Credit Reporting Design Point | Renovation Rockstar: New Orleans Edition • Renovation Rockstar: First-Time Townhouse Success 2018 Trends | Perfect Balance •The Future is Now for Artificial Intelligence in Real Estate •Why We ...
Why We Will Live with Labor Shortages in 2018 and Beyond
Look at any major housing market in the country right now, and you will see signs of building. Inventory is short; the housing market is hot, and the cranes are all over the skyline. However, all too often, those cranes are not necessarily moving. In the wake of the housing ...
Western and Southern States Lead Job Growth So Far This Year
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), employment numbers are rising in just about every area of the country. However, the Midwest and Northeast showed far less job growth than the West and South over the period between July 1, 2016 and July 1, 2017. Job numbers are ...
Top 3 Markets for Millennial Homebuyers
Millennial buyers accounted for more than a third of all home purchases in 2017, but the most competitive housing markets in the country do not have much room for them. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), “young home shoppers are relocating to more affordable parts of the country” ...
Freddie Mac to Expand 3% Down Loans for New Homebuyers
Freddie Mac is going into competition with the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) for low-down-payment borrowers, but that is not a bad thing for buyers or investors. Freddie Mac’s new HomeOne program can be applied to first-time homebuyers in any geographic location and any income bracket, putting a 3 percent down ...
Mandarin-Speaking Robots to Partner with Chinese Real Estate Website
If you always wanted to work with Chinese real estate investors but had no idea how you would start the conversation, Singou Technology of Macau (STM) and Chinese international real estate website Juwai.com may have some answers for you. Juwai.com announced this week that it will partner with STM to ...
Tumbleweed Buries Southern California Homes
We’ve all heard about the hazards and inconveniences associated with environmental factors like snow, water, and wind, but you might not be quite so familiar with the perils of tumbleweeds. These spiky balls of dried plant material break off in strong winds and blow around, dispersing seeds. Unfortunately for residents ...
Housing Demand Falls 6.5 Percent Thanks to Late Winter Blues
Fewer home sellers requested home tours and wrote offers last month than they, did in the middle of winter, an unusual break in the traditional spring housing “heat” most real estate professionals have come to expect. According to Redfin’s Housing Demand index, which measures how many customers exhibit behaviors that ...
Retail Vacancy Rates Close in on Record Highs
For the past 10 years, CoStar Group, a commercial real estate services firm, has been tracking how much retail space closes each year. Retail properties are used to sell consumer goods and services, but there is a great deal of variety among this type of real estate. Retail real estate ...
