Jun 06
Make Mortgage Approval Easier With new mortgage rules and regulations in place, buyers may face more obstacles when applying for a mortgage. “Buying a home is likely the biggest purchase anyone will make, and community bankers are an excellent resource to help guide consumers through the process,” says John Buhrmaster, chairman of Independent Community …
Jun 05
‘Ferris Bueller’ house finally sells The memorable modernist home seen in the classic movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” has finally sold, some five years after coming onto the market. The buyer, whose identity was not disclosed, paid $1.06 million for the boxy two-building estate located in Highland Park, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. …
Jun 04
Home Owners Doing Record Number of Cash Deals A record number of home owners are using the increased equity in their current homes to buy their next homes in cash and avoid the mortgage process altogether, Bloomberg reports. About 29 percent of non-investment buyers used cash to fund their housing transactions in the first …
Jun 03
Trouble Looms for 2 Million Borrowers About 2 million borrowers with modified mortgages are facing interest rate hikes, according to Black Knight’s April Mortgage Monitor Report. What’s more, about 40 percent of those borrowers currently remain underwater, owing more on their mortgage than their home is currently worth. The lack of equity is one of …
Jun 02
Foreclosures Drop to Lowest Level Since Great Recession Over the last 12 months, completed foreclosures have fallen to the lowest level since the Great Recession began in 2007, according to CoreLogic’s April National Foreclosure Report, which shows completed foreclosures fell to 599,000 nationwide. Completed foreclosures – the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure …
May 30
When a Home Poses an Environmental Risk Real estate professionals often must evaluate environmental risks associated with property deals. Identifying, assessing, and minimizing such risks has become more complicated in light of several recent developments: most notably, changes to risk evaluation standards; a renewed regulatory emphasis on environmental compliance and enforcement; and a spate of …
May 29
Luxury Sales Heat Up Across the Country Luxury home sales, particularly sales of the priciest 1 percent of homes, are surging. Sales of the most expensive homes in many local markets are up 21.1 percent this year, after a 35.7 percent gain last year, the real estate brokerage Redfin reports in its 2014 “Luxury …
May 28
Maybe Staging Isn’t That Important… Staging may not be important and may not raise residential sales prices, according to researchers at the College of William & Mary. The study polled 820 home buyers who were shown a series of six virtual tours of a single property, each focusing either on wall color or furnishings. …
May 27
Townhouse Market Softens With Fewer First-Time Buyers Townhouse construction continues to slow, which likely is due to weakening demand from first-time home buyers, a segment of buyers who are typically are drawn to such housing units, according to a new analysis by the National Association of Home Builders. Single-family attached starts totaled 13,000 in …
May 23
More Home Owners Remodel to Raise Home’s Value Home owners are remodeling their homes to increase the value, but they also are showing more desire to stay and enjoy their remodels before they move on. Fifty-three percent of U.S. home owners say they are remodeling to increase the resale value of their home, but they …
May 22
Housing Affordability Slips, But Not Everywhere Housing affordability continued to fall across the country as the median price of single-family homes rose due to a continued lack of housing inventory, according to the latest National Association of REALTORS® Housing Affordability Index. The median single-family home price was $198,200 in March, up 7.4 percent from year-ago levels. …
May 21
Home-Price Appreciation to Slow Down Through 2016 Home values are expected to appreciate by 4.4 percent on average through the end of the year, but that rate will slow to 3.8 percent in 2015 and 3.4 percent in 2016, say 106 economists, real estate experts, and investment and market strategists surveyed by Pulsenomics …
