Jul 31
Where’s the Nation’s Safest Metro? Hint: There’s No Kids The fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States has 110,000 residents, 42 golf courses, and more golf carts than New York has taxis. The Villages, Fla., whose population is largely made up of retirees over 55, is a retirement community that has sold more than 50,000 …
Jul 30
Home Sales Take Unexpected Turn Following three consecutive months of gains, pending home sales slipped 1.1 percent in June, the National Association of REALTORS® reports. NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, was at 102.7 in June, down 7.3 percent from year-ago levels. Any reading above 100 on the index …
Jul 29
Increase in FHA Fees are Sinking Deals The Federal Housing Administration’s rate increases in mortgage insurance have caused buyers to walk away and transactions to fall through, according to the National Association of REALTORS®’ second Survey of Mortgage Originators, which includes questions to lenders about the impact of changes to the FHA program. In recent years, …
Jul 28
Get Home Buyers Moving? What’s finally getting some home buyers off the sidelines? A recent poll of more than 1,000 prospective home buyers conducted by Discover Home Loans asked what changed to finally move them into the home buying process. Here were their top 10 most common responses: “I needed a bigger home”: 25% “I …
Jul 25
Fastest-Moving Real Estate Markets Austin is hot, and we’re not talking temperature. The Austin, Texas, metro area has the fastest moving real estate market in the U.S., according to ZipRealty’s second quarter report, with properties spending a median of 10 days on the market. ZipRealty analyzed housing market trends in 23 metro areas across the …
Jul 24
How to Turn Home Owners Into Sellers Now that the economy is improving, some home owners feel hemmed in to the houses because they don’t want to give up the rock-bottom interest rate they procured in recent years. Essentially, they’re being locked in by the low interest rates — as low as 3.3 percent …
Jul 23
What Consumers Want Smart Homes to Do When it comes to smart homes, consumers are more interested in their security features than the gadgets that control the homes’ appliances. New research by Icontrol Networks, a home technology company, shows that 90 percent of 932 respondents recently surveyed say that security is one of the …
Jul 22
Language Skills Boost Agents Real estate agents across the country are leveraging their second-language skills to get ahead in their local markets, particularly as the number of international home buyers grows in the U.S. About 15 percent of real estate professionals report speaking a second language, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. According to …
Jul 21
New Effort to Reduce Impact of Windstorms On Monday, the U.S. House passed the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Act (H.R. 1786) to reauthorize funding for three years to study windstorms and how to reduce their impact. “When a family loses their home in a windstorm, they don’t just have to rebuild their house — …
Jul 18
Decline in Foreclosures Reaches ‘Important Milestone’ Foreclosure activity in June was down 16 percent from a year prior, marking the lowest level since July 2006 — before the housing bubble burst — according to RealtyTrac’s Midyear 2014 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report. The report showed a much-improved picture: Foreclosure filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions, …
Jul 17
Housing Affordability Continues to Soften as Prices Rise Rising home prices pushed housing affordability down in May compared with last year, making homes a little less affordable to the average family, according to the National Association of REALTORS®’ latest Housing Affordability Index. The median price for a single-family home rose to $213,600 in May, up …
Jul 16
Baby Boomers Aren’t Downsizing Yet Baby boomers aren’t showing any signs of leaving the single-family home market that has defined their generation’s real estate habits, despite many predictions that they would by now. As boomers hit age 65 and become empty nesters, many housing analysts forecasted that a huge wave of them would downsize and …
