Jul 08
Retail Rents on the Rise as Vacancies Dwindle The U.S. retail real estate market is heating up, with shrinking vacancies allowing landlords to raise rents. At strip malls, vacancies fell to 10.3 percent in the second quarter and are nearly a percentage point lower than a post-recession high set in the third quarter of 2011, …
Jul 01
Minorities to Drive Household Growth Minorities are projected to make up nearly half of first-time home buyers by 2025, and account for more than one-third of U.S. households by then, according to a study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. The Joint Center is expecting the number of households to rise …
Jul 01
4 Reasons Why Buyers Should Be Happy Home shoppers may find there’s good reason to breathe a sigh of relief this summer, according to the real estate brokerage Redfin. They pointed to higher inventories, fewer bidding wars, and slowing home prices as welcoming signs for home buyers this year. In particular, home buyers this summer …
Jun 30
Tech Tools REALTORS® Love the Most Real estate professionals are pouring more money into mobile technologies to make their businesses more efficient and expand their reach to clients, according to the 2013-14 REALTOR® Technology Survey conducted by NAR’s Center for REALTOR® Technology. The survey, based on more than 1,200 responses, found that brokers spent …
Jun 30
Government’s Flagship Foreclosure Program Extended to 2016 The Obama administration announced Thursday that it will extend its Making Home Affordable Program to help home owners avoid foreclosure, as well as use Treasury funds to ramp up construction of affordable rental housing. The Making Home Affordable Program will now be extended through December 2016. More …
Jun 26
Homes With Deepest Discounts For home buyers who want to score the biggest discounts on a distressed property, they better be prepared to start the bidding. Distressed properties with the biggest price discounts are those scheduled for public foreclosure auction, and they are typically homes built between 1950 and 1990 that are now vacant, according …
Jun 25
Solar-Panel Leases Turning Off Buyers The leasing of solar panels for a home’s rooftop is growing in popularity because home owners can start saving on their utility bills without paying any upfront money for the system, which typically can cost thousands of dollars to install. But the fine print of these leasing contracts may …
Jun 24
First-Timers: Take a Class, Save on Your Loan The Federal Housing Administration will be ending its public comment period in mid-August on a proposed program that would allow first-time home buyers to get a discounted mortgage if they enroll in housing counseling classes. The program, called Homeowners Armed with Knowledge (HAWK), was announced last …
Jun 23
Tech Features Coveted by Baby Boomer Buyers Access to high-speed Internet, nearby grocery stores, and hospital/medical centers were the top three community features desired by Baby Boomers in a recent survey. Philips and the Global Social Enterprise Initiative (GSEI) at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business asked 1,000 consumers age 50-80 about the use of …
Jun 20
10.6M Homes at ‘Very High Risk’ of Natural Disasters About 10.6 million homes, or 8 percent of the 131 million homes in the U.S., have a “very high risk” of being struck by natural disasters, according to RealtyTrac’s Natural Disaster Housing Risk Report for 2014. The report assigns a natural disaster risk score to …
Jun 19
Builders Turn to Agents in Finding Qualified Buyers Builders are increasingly reaching out to real estate professionals, hoping to build stronger ties so that agents will bring them more qualified buyers for their new-home inventories, RISMedia reports. Some builders are even stepping up their bonus programs and commissions for real estate professionals. About two-thirds …
Jun 18
10 Safest States in the U.S. Massachusetts was recently named the safest state in the U.S. by WalletHub, a personal finance social media network. In honor of National Safety Month, WalletHub set out to find the safest states by taking into account 26 key metrics, including workplace safety, climate disasters, crime, traffic accidents, employer …
