Young professionals on the hunt for a new location may find incentives from states—even offers to pay off their student loan debt in exchange for purchasing a home.

Illinois and Maryland recently launched “SmartBuy” programs that will pay off student loan debt for young adults who get a mortgage in the state.

Sound too good to be true? There are eligibility requirements and caps that young pros will have to meet.

For example, Illinois is offering to pay up to $40,000 in student loans or a student loan balance that is 15% of the home purchase price, whichever is lower, Forbes.com reports on the program. The program is also providing up to $5,000 toward the down payment or closing costs. But the purchase price of the home is capped depending on the geographic location and some other factors. The upper limit is between $325,000 to about $500,000. In the Chicago area, eligible homeowners also must have a household income of no more than $109,200.

One potential obstacle to getting this deal: The $40,000 in debt relief must help pay all the student debt with the purchase of the home. No partial payments are allowed. If the home buyer owes more than $40,000, borrowers must pay off the remaining balance themselves. The goal is to help the young homeowner be free of student loan debt when they take on the mortgage.

Maryland has another version of the “SmartBuy” program, which provides a student loan payoff up to 15% of the home purchase price.

Several other states also offer versions of student loan debt reimbursement programs that are mostly geared to attracting more healthcare professionals to the area. For example, the Michigan State Loan Repayment Program will cover up to $200,000 in student loans for primary medical, dental, and mental healthcare providers if they agree to work full-time in Health Professional Shortage Areas at not-for-profit health clinics for two years. The California State Loan Repayment Program will pay student loans up to $50,000 for healthcare professionals who also commit to working in underserved medical communities for two years. View a list of more state offerings at Lifehacker.com.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage continued to drop this week, heading back near the 3% range.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.04% this week, Freddie mac reports. Mortgage rates are still below a year ago and remain at historical lows, which has proven a boon for the housing market, economists note.

“Mortgage rates took another dip this week as the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage decreased by almost ten basis points, week over week,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “The economy is improving on the demand side and on the supply side, a variety of goods and materials remain scarce. As a result of this imbalance, pricing pressures are building and causing inflation to rise. Despite the pause in mortgage rates recently, we expect them to increase modestly for the remainder of this year.”

Freddie Mac reports the following national averages with mortgage rates for the week ending April 15:

• 30-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 3.04%, with an average 0.7 point, dropping from last week’s 3.13% average. Last year at this time, 30-year rates averaged 3.31%.
• 15-year fixed-rate mortgages: averaged 2.35%, with an average 0.7 point, falling from last week’s 2.42% average. A year ago, 15-year rates averaged 2.80%.
• 5-year hybrid adjustable-rate mortgages: averaged 2.80%, with an average 0.4 point, falling from last week’s 2.92%. A year ago, 5-year ARMs averaged 3.34%.

Freddie Mac reports average commitment rates along with average points to better reflect total upfront cost of obtaining the mortgage.

Foreign investment firms are reportedly making a big play for single-family homes in American suburbs.

These overseas investment firms traditionally have targeted office buildings, hotels, and shopping centers internationally. But they are seeing promise in buying or building rental homes—by the thousands—throughout the U.S., The Wall Street Journal reports. They’re targeted suburban neighborhood homes near big cities like Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Phoenix.

Foreign investors account for nearly one-third of institutional investment purchases of single-family rental homes, Alex Foshay, head of international capital markets at Newmark, a real estate services firm, told The Wall Street Journal. Their numbers have been elevated since the COVID-19 pandemic, Foshay notes.

That is contributing to the heated housing markets nationwide. More home shoppers may find themselves competing with these wealthy groups of investors while trying to purchase limited housing stock in suburban neighborhoods.

Last month, Allianz SE, a German insurer, said it was investing to buy more than $4 billion of U.S. rental homes. Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board, in partnership with Pretium Partners LLC, is buying $700 million or around 2,000 U.S. homes.

Foreign investors are being drawn to the single-family rental market for the same reasons that U.S. investment firms are. They’re taking notice of the desire for renters to have more space, access to top suburban schools, and accessibility to suburban housing as the limited supply for new houses and high prices may be preventing some from being able to buy.

Commercial buildings left empty from the COVID-19 pandemic may find a new purpose as affordable housing. Empty hotels from a yearlong lack of travel and tourism as well as empty office buildings due to remote work could drive the trend of repurposing vacant commercial spaces.

“The demand for office space is continuing to change,” Andrew Trueblood, the D.C. Office of Planning director, told FOX Business. “I would say it has accelerated what we’re already beginning to see in terms of you don’t need…as much space per person, and especially as there is more opportunity to telework.”

These empty commercial spaces can be converted into affordable apartment buildings—at a time when calls within the housing industry are growing louder for more inventory to meet demand.

However, the process could prove expensive to convert empty buildings, and there are zoning challenges to address, too.

That said, “it wasn’t particularly difficult, it was just expensive…one of the most expensive things we did is we cut 25% of the floor space out of this building to create these courtyards that opened up the interior of the building for light,” explained John E. Akridge, a real estate developer in Washington, D.C., about one such conversion project with a Coast Guard warehouse.

Last summer, Ben Carson, who was the U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary at the time, said that the growth of remote work could “free up a lot of commercial space, which can be converted to affordable housing.” George Ratiu, realtor.com®’s senior economist, had called the office-to-residential conversion a potential “win-win solution in some cities where you’re seeing declining lease renewals and a massive shortage of housing.”

But while some buildings may stand empty for now, the urban office sector is largely expected to rebound. Trueblood notes to FOX Business that “there will still be a presence and still be need for office space” in the future. However, more firms may look to lessen their office footprint to accommodate hybrid work schedules. Urban planners say that looking at repurposing any empty space could potentially help meet the demand for greater affordable housing.

Even prior to COVID, some transformations were already taking place. For example, aging factories, office buildings, and department stores in Cleveland had been repurposed to higher-end apartments—even some offering waterfront views. About 60 buildings in the city have been converted using state and federal tax credits. What’s more, about 2.5 million of Cleveland’s 4.5 million square feet of empty commercial space in the mid-2000s have been turned into housing or hotels, according to the Downtown Cleveland Alliance.

This March, a New York state lawmaker introduced legislation to allow the state to buy financially distressed commercial buildings and convert them into housing for low-income and homeless individuals. The bill, if approved, would allow the state government to purchase and convert office buildings and hotels that are up for sale.

Small-town living has become increasingly appealing to more Americans. Even prior to the pandemic, rising home prices were prompting more consumers to move farther away from city centers in search of greater square footage and to make their housing dollars stretch more.

In a 2020 survey from Gallup, nearly half of U.S. adults said they would prefer to live in a small town or rural area, a 9% increase compared to 2018.

“We’ve seen home shoppers prefer larger homes with more outdoor space as a result of the pandemic, and home-shopping interest has [especially] increased in areas that offer outdoor activities such as beaches or skiing,” says Danielle Hale, realtor.com®’s chief economist.

For its 2021 edition that ranks the most affordable small towns in the country, realtor.com® evaluated metros with populations under 50,000 and factored in median home list prices, year-over-year list price changes, and ownership costs as a percentage of income. To ensure geographic diversity, they also limited their list to one small town per state.

The following small towns topped their list as most affordable for 2021:

1. New Ulm, Minn.

• Median listing price: $139,900

2. Lexington, Neb.

• Median listing price: $145,000

3. Houghton, Mich.

• Median listing price: $149,500

4. Spencer, Iowa

• Median listing price: $92,500

5. Wahpeton, N.D.

• Median listing price: $179,900

6. Wapakoneta, Ohio

• Median listing price: $145,000

7. Los Alamos, N.M.

• Median listing price: $307,500

View the full top 10 list at realtor.com®.

©National Association of REALTORS®
Reprinted with permission

Spaces can be disinfected less frequently under the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s new coronavirus health guidelines for homes and facilities, but regular cleaning and mask-wearing are still important. Instead of excessively disinfecting every counter, doorknob, and nook, cleaning with soap and water may suffice in most situations. “Disinfection is only recommended in indoor settings, schools, and homes where there has been a suspected or confirmed case of COVID-19 within the last 24 hours,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said at a recent White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing.

The CDC still recommends businesses clean high-touch surfaces, including pens, counters, tables, doorknobs, light switches, handles, stair rails, elevator buttons, desks, keyboards, phones, toilets, faucets, and sinks “at least once a day or as often as determined is necessary.”

“Cleaning with products containing soap or detergent reduces germs on surfaces by removing contaminants and may also weaken or damage some of the virus particles, which decreases risk of infection from surfaces,” the CDC notes on its website. “When no people with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 are known to have been in a space, cleaning once a day is usually enough to sufficiently remove virus that may be on surfaces and help maintain a healthy facility.”

The CDC announced last May that surfaces are not the primary way viruses are spread. A few months later, the CDC confirmed that COVID-19 is mostly spread through the air by lingering droplets exhaled from infected individuals. But the agency’s new guidance doesn’t mean you should stop cleaning: The CDC recommends cleaning high-touch surfaces at least once a day. If the prevalence of COVID-19 is high in your area—and your space is frequently occupied by outsiders—a stepped-up cleaning routine may be more necessary. Also, Walensky said that transmission can be reduced by wearing face masks correctly and through regular hand-washing in businesses.

“Cleaning practices are beneficial for everybody, but mostly for employees and the people who work there and for customers who use the facility, so I think that they should probably continue,” Adrian Popp, an infectious disease specialist at Huntington Hospital, told Inc.com. “It’s good practice, period.”

Wealthy baby boomers are increasingly buying properties in the same housing developments as their friends, even if it means moving hundreds of miles away from the place where they first met, real estate pros tell The Wall Street Journal.

Groups of empty nesters are looking to create communities and preserve or recreate their social circles as they move to new cities. For example, seven units at the Pendry Residences in Park City, Utah, were purchased by a group of friends from the same country club in San Diego, the developer says. At Clear Creek Tahoe in Nevada, seven couples from Silicon Valley bought lots next to each other.

“They want to look for a surrogate for that kind of community support that they would have had with their family as they grew older,” Michael R. Solomon, a marketing professor at Saint Joseph’s University who’s studied the baby boomer generation, told the Journal. “It’s a support network. It’s also driven—maybe subconsciously—by wanting to avoid the specter of being stuck by yourself in a nursing home.”

More baby boomers are bypassing the continuing care communities that their parents once lived in, Solomon notes. Instead, they’re buying homes where they can age in place and targeting states that offer lower taxes and have easier access to amenities like the beach or a golf course. Once baby boomers settle in these areas, they’re asking their friends to join them. The primary reason baby boomers cite for selling their home: To purchase a similarly sized home closer to family members and friends, according to the National Association of REALTORS®’ 2021 Home Buyer and Seller Generational Trends report.

Knowing the neighbors can help people settle into a new community. Sometimes, these arrangements occur with a group of friends who pick a place together, or they can happen more by chance. For example, Tom and Lori Williams told the Journal that they weren’t planning to buy real estate until after a visit to the Coachella Valley with their friends. At the time, they lived outside of Sacramento, Calif. But soon after visiting their former friends, the Williams closed on a three-bedroom, single-story home for $1.17 million in a La Quinta, Calif., golf community outside of Palm Springs. They didn’t even bother to consider other communities or neighborhoods in the area. “It’s nice to know somebody when you’re going to a new city,” Lori Williams told the Journal. “We had an instant kind of an ‘in.’” Several other families from their old community in San Diego have since relocated and purchased in the Williams’ new neighborhood.

Watch out in Miami, Los Angeles, and Tampa, Fla.: These places can be hotbeds for termites, according to Orkin’s 2021 Top 50 Termite Cities List.

Orkin, a national pest control company, reports an uptick in termite treatments across the country over the past year.

“With people spending more time at home in 2020, termites and termite damage were likely observed more frequently than in previous years,” Orkin said in its study. “Parallel to this, 2020 held a record-breaking number of storms and hurricanes offering what termites need most in life—moisture.”

The wood-chewing insects have been blamed for causing costly damage to homes. They can also derail a real estate transaction or lead to re-negotiations if found during inspections.

Orkin compiled a list of where termites can be the most problematic. The rankings are based on where Orkin performed the most first-time customer termite treatments—for both residential and commercial properties—from February 1, 2020, to Jan. 31, 2021.

1. Miami
2. Los Angeles
3. Tampa, Fla.
4. Washington, D.C. (up two spots from 2019)
5. Atlanta
6. West Palm Beach, Fla. (+1)
7. New York (-3)
8. New Orleans (+1)
9. Orlando, Fla. (+1)
10. Dallas (+2)
11. San Francisco (-3)
12. San Diego (-1)
13. Raleigh, N.C.
14. Houston (+1)
15. Baltimore (+1)
16. Phoenix (-2)
17. Philadelphia (+2)
18. Charlotte, N.C.
19. Indianapolis (+5)
20. Greenville, N.C. (+6)
21. Nashville, Tenn. (-4)
22. Cincinnati
23. Chicago (-3)
24. Norfolk, Va. (+1)
25. Pittsburgh (+4)

To see the entire list, visit the article published on Orkin’s website.

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Pest Protection: Termites

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“Weather conditions directly impact termite swarms,” says Glen Ramsey, Orkin entomologist. “Most subterranean termites swarm in the spring and summer, while dry-wood termites typically swarm in the late summer and fall.”

Property owners should beware that termites like to gravitate to wooden structures, such as porches and decks; firewood leaning against the house; soil that stays damp long-term from leaking faucets or water retention areas near the foundation; and dead trees or other landscaping near the house.

Orkin says the following are signs of a possible termite infestation:

• A temporary swarm of termites in your home, in the soil, or around the exterior of the house;
• Cracked or bubbling paint;
• Wood that sounds hollow when tapped;
• Mud tubes on the interior or exterior of walls or wooden beams;
• Discarded wings from swarmers.