Mar 21
Bidding Wars to Heat Up This Spring Likely to be a hallmark of this year’s spring home selling season: Bidding wars. As home listings are scarcer and buyer demand remains high, home shoppers are finding a lot more competition this spring, particularly in hot markets like the San Francisco Bay area, Denver, and Boston. …
Mar 20
3 Sources of Odors That Offend Buyers Your sellers may have “nose blindness.” The term refers to the process of adapting to the smells around you and becoming so desensitized to them that you learn to ignore them or become less sensitive to them, says Dr. Richard Doty, director of the Smell and Taste …
Mar 17
What to Watch for in Home Renovations Home renovations can help boost the resale value of a property, but they also can expose homeowners to costly repairs or even make them physically sick, if they don’t take some precautions. Help your renovating clients be on the lookout for some of these dangers that could …
Mar 16
Owners Overestimating Home Values The gap continues to widen between what homeowners say their home is worth and appraisers’ valuations. Homeowners’ estimates of values were, on average, 1.69 percent higher than appraisers’ home value opinions in February, according to Quicken Loans’ National Home Price Perception Index. The gap has been detected every month since …
Mar 15
What’s the House Size? No One Is Really Sure Just how large a house really is may depend on whom you ask, The Wall Street Journal reports. That’s because appraisers, developers, builders, real estate professionals, tax assessors, and architects all measure spaces differently. No universal standard exists for calculating a home’s square footage. Further, it …
Mar 13
Mortgage Rates Zoom to 2017 High The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage surged to its highest average of the year this week, reaching 4.21 percent, Freddie Mac reports in its weekly mortgage market survey. “The 10-year Treasury yield rose about 10 basis points this week,” said Sean Becketti, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “For the first time in …
Mar 10
Rising Rates Will Impact Home Prices Americans have, so far, stood resilient to rising mortgage rates, but a bigger impact will come soon, say Goldman Sachs economists. Housing’s share of the economy rose above normal levels from November to January, despite mortgage rates surging 60 basis points at the time. Still, economists caution that …
Mar 09
If Pets Could Pick a Home, They’d Pick Here Pet owners in some states do a better job than those in others creating a thriving home for their furry friends, according to a new survey by Care.com. Care.com recently looked at a variety of data about pet care to rank the states based on …
Mar 07
Homeowners Turn to Their Equity Again As home values rise fast, homeowners are starting to realize they have a lot of wealth tucked into their homes, and it’s become enticing to tap into it. Since the housing crash, homeowners have been shy about accessing any of their home equity, even those who still had money …
Mar 03
What Home Buyers Wish They’d Known Nearly half of American homeowners recently surveyed said they would do something differently if they were to go through the home buying process again, according to the NerdWallet’s Home Buyer Reality Report, which analyzed the steps more than 2,200 Americans took to home ownership. If you want …
Mar 02
All-Cash Sales Falling Nationwide All-cash sales are on the decline, accounting for 32.4 percent of total home sales in November 2016, down 4.5 percentage points year over year, according to CoreLogic’s most recent housing data. That’s a significant drop from January 2011, when cash sales were at their peak: a whopping 46.6 percent of …
Mar 01
Parents May Need a New Mortgage Perspective Parents are having a tough time saving money. Fifty-one percent of parents recently surveyed say their mortgage was having a “major impact” on their ability to save, according to Bankrate’s Money Pulse survey for February. “It’s probably not as much about the mortgage as it is …
