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
The right software can help you run your real estate business more efficiently. But how do you know the difference between useful features and bells and whistles when choosing a software package? Experts say that sticking to the KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) theory will allow you to buy a ...
In 10 short years, from 2005 to 2015, the number of people turning 65 each year exploded from 2.2 million to 3.5 million. Many of these older Americans are increasingly choosing to rent. With this surge of older renters, developers are building age-restricted or so-called “active-adult lifestyle” apartments. These apartment ...
Home Affordability Drops to 8-Year Low
The Home Affordability Index, which shows national affordability of housing, shares that Q4 2016 was at its lowest level since Q4 2008. The report, issued by ATTOM Data Solutions, parent company of Realty Trac, shows that 29 percent of the U.S. county housing markets were less affordable than their historic ...
Will Trump’s Immigration Policy Lead to Another Foreclosure Crisis?
It’s no secret that President-elect Donald Trump made a lot of promises on the campaign trail and was pretty controversial while he did it. One of the biggest things that he promised voters was that he would take a hard stance on immigration policy; specifically, that he would start deporting ...
Google lawsuit has implications for real estate investors
A challenge to strict Google personnel policy bears watching by real estate investors and others who also often find themselves subject to non-compete, non-disclosure rules. However the court fight plays out, there are lessons to be learned. A Google product manager has brought suit against the search giant, saying that ...
Will Fed Rate Hike Crash the Market Again?
The Federal Reserve finally raised rates for the first time this year at its December meeting and suggested there could be three more rate hikes next year. There are varied opinions about what this could mean for real estate, so let’s tackle it! After threatening to do so for several ...
A New (Female) Buying Power in Real Estate
Women are, once again, changing the face of the housing market, and they’re not waiting for spouses, partners, or anyone else to do so. The buying force represented by single women in real estate is rising and, over the past three decades, the number of “single-female” transactions has risen from ...
Is Villainous ARM Making a Second Grab?
With mortgage rates rising, more and more homebuyers are considering something that most probably thought out of the question: taking on an adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) in order to make a home sooner than they otherwise could. ARMs (and the lenders who originated them) received a large portion of the blame ...
Total U.S. properties with foreclosure filings had a noticeable decrease of 18 percent in November, per a report from ATTOM Data Solutions, parent company of Realty Trac. The total 86,561 foreclosure filings in November was down 18 percent from the previous month and down 17 percent from one year ago ...
BEWARE! If you own an apartment building or other commercial structure that was constructed in the 1950s, ’60s, or ’70s, you need to be aware of potential PCB contamination and any liability associated with it. PCBs could be the new "asbestos" in apartments and commercial buildings, as well as in ...
A Look Ahead to Existing Home Sales for 2017
Existing home sales probably won’t increase much in 2017, according to a new forecast from the National Association of Realtors and its fourth-quarter Housing Opportunities and Market Experience (HOME) survey. A majority of renters - 57 percent - say now is a good time to buy a house but that’s down ...
Rising Home Values Mean Fewer Underwater Mortgages
About 11 percent of U.S. homeowners were underwater on their mortgage during the third quarter, down from 13.4 percent a year prior, Zillow reports. That’s great news if you consider where things stood a few years ago. Back in early 2012, about 15.7 million Americans owed more on their mortgages ...
Starter Home Inventory Continues to Dry Up
The supply of U.S. starter home inventory has dropped off 12.1 percent since a year prior. The steepest year-to-year decline in three years, according to the latest Trulia Inventory and Price Watch. And if first-time buyers are able to find a house they like, it will consume about 38.5 percent ...
Experts Doubt Airbnb-Style Services Hurt Housing Inventory
Do short-term-rental services like Airbnb and HomeAway make it harder for average renters to find affordable housing? Zillow decided to ask housing experts. According to the new Zillow Home Price Expectations Survey, most of them don’t believe short-term rentals are the root of the inventory shortage. Only about 5 percent ...
Just Who Is Treasury Pick Steven Mnuchin?
How much do you know about President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed Cabinet nominee Steven Mnuchin? Senate confirmation will put former Wall Street insider Mnuchin at the helm of the Treasury Department. As chief, he would be in charge of the nation's finances, policy, banking regulations and the IRS. His name would ...
Trulia’s American Dream Survey Reveals 2017 Insights
Renewed Republican optimism. Fewer Millennials believing homeownership is part of their American Dream. And the Sunshine state, Florida, dominating the housing market’s “to watch” list for 2017. These are just a few items revealed in Trulia’s American Dream Survey, with results published in the company’s annual 2017 Housing Outlook Report ...
Home-Flipping Cools Off in Q3 2016
U.S. home-flipping activity decreased in the third quarter of 2016, after hitting a six-year high in the previous quarter, according to a new report from ATTOM Data Solutions. ATTOM Data Solutions is the parent company of RealtyTrac and curator of the nation’s largest fused property database. The Q3 2016 Home ...
Little Movement in Pending Home Sales
Pending home sales — deals involving existing homes where the contract has been signed, but the transaction hasn’t closed—were up slightly in October, according to the National Association of Realtors. The NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index was up 0.1 percent on a monthly basis, and 1.8 percent higher than October ...
Fewer Purchase Loans, More Refi in Q3
Home loan originations were down about 2 percent in the third quarter compared to the second, though up 1 percent compared to a year earlier. The value of the loans was bigger, too—$502 billion, 8 percent higher than the same timeframe in 2015. If you dig deeper into the numbers, ...
New Single-Family Home Sales Down
Sales of new single-family homes—which had been trending up since 2015—dipped 1.9 percent in October, according to the National Association of Home Builders. The NAHB’s report was based on data from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the U.S. Census Bureau. “Though slightly down from last month, ...
As more and more homebuyers look to parents and other sources for the lump sums required to make a down payment on a new home, the idea of down-payment assistance is becoming more familiar in the housing sector. However, any time that assistance goes undocumented with the mortgage lender, you’re ...
Good Times for Sellers … Won’t Last Forever
It’s an amazing time for sellers, but the momentum is expected to shift to buyers by 2018 or 2019, according to a Zillow survey of housing experts. In October, the median U.S. home value of $191,200 was up 6.2 percent compared to a year earlier, thanks partly to a 6 percent ...
A Facebook Face-Off About Housing
Facebook doesn’t shy away from a problem, even one as big as California’s affordable housing crisis. The social media giant recently announced that it would begin combatting its home state’s massive lack of affordable housing squarely in the most expensive metro area in the country, San Jose, where the median ...
Will Trump Really Dismantle Dodd-Frank?
As the Trump presidency takes hold, the debate over Dodd-Frank is growing. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to dismantle the banking reform act. Fed Chief Janet Yellen has promised to defend it. Congress has the power to change it. And, the battle has already begun. The House just passed an ...
Trump Taps Carson for HUD Secretary Position
President-elect Donald Trump has nominated retired neurosurgeon, outspoken Obamacare opponent and former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson for the position of U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). By tapping Carson for the position, Trump diverges once again from the “norm” of appointing individuals with bureaucratic experience in government ...
