Housing Trends
Since the financial crisis of 2008, and the resulting housing market crash, fewer American families have been able to purchase homes.
A report by The Pew Charitable Trusts finds that has meant more families are today carrying an increasingly heavy rent burden. Rent-burdened households are those spending 30 percent or more of their monthly income on rent.
The Pew researchers say these families are slower to transition to homeownership and are more financially fragile than ...
The number of homes for sale rose in the first quarter for the first time in years, according to real estate marketplace Trulia. But it’s not good news for first-time homebuyers.
The increase in housing inventory -- a gain of 3.3 percent -- was due only to the supply of premium homes rising by more than 13 percent. Buyers looking for an entry-level home still have fewer to choose from, and those that are on the market are a lot more expensive than last year.
The Trulia In...
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The cost of putting a roof over your head continues to go up. Not only are home prices still rising, but the cost of rent rose 0.5% in June, according to a report from Apartment List.
"Our national rent index was essentially flat from June to December of last year, but has been steadily climbing since then," the authors write. "Rents grew at a rate of 0.5% between May and June, which is generally in line with the monthly growth that we’ve seen over the course of this yea...
Roughly 4.5% of mortgages across the U.S. were in some stage of delinquency -- 30 days or more past due including those in foreclosure in June -- according to property information provider CoreLogic, down 0.8% from the same month a year earlier.
Additionally, the foreclosure inventory rate -- which measures the share of mortgages in some stage of the foreclosure process -- came in at 0.7%, down 0.2 % from June 2016 and the lowest since July 2007.
“After peaking at 3.6% in...
Let's start by conceding that buying a house these days is a lot different than it used to be. Before the housing crash, you could be pretty confident that if you purchased property it would rather quickly appreciate in value.
It was looked at as an investment, a smart place to put your money. But a lot of people who purchased a home at the top of the market in 2007 owe a lot more on their mortgage than their homes are worth.
Today, people can still make money buying ...
Lettiann Southerland is a Kansas City area real estate agent and a foodie. Despite the fact those two things have little in common, she has combined them in a new book, "Homes that Cook: Best Kept Secrets for Buying, Selling and Creating a Home."
The book offers tips for selling your home but also includes more than 100 pages of recipes and cooking tips.
"I have taken two very happy areas of my life and combined them in a book of real estate buying and selling tips along ...
A government report shows that despite rising prices and declining available homes, Americans are finding ways to purchase a home of their own.
The Census Bureau reports the percentage of Americans who own a home rose to 64.2 percent in the fourth quarter of last year from 63.7 percent a year earlier. It's the first rise in more than a decade.
The report also shows that millennials, for the most part, are driving the home-buying trend. To do so, they have faced rising ren...
It may only be February, but the spring home buying season is getting underway. If you're trying to sell your home this year, it may be helpful to understand who is doing the buying and why.
It can no longer be assumed that homebuyers are motivated by tax reasons. The tax breaks for homeownership aren't nearly what they once were, thanks to the new tax law passed in December.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR), a group with a big stake in consumers continuing to p...
Another decline -- the second in a row -- for mortgage applications.
The Mortgage Bankers Association’s latest weekly survey shows a slight decline – 0.5 percent – during the week ending September 22.
The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index was up 3 percent from a week earlier, while the Refinance Index dropped 4 percent, pushing the refinance share of mortgage activity down to 50.8 percent of total applications from 52.1 percent the week before.
The adjustable-rate mortgag...
Sellers remain firmly in the driver's seat in most real estate markets across the country as the 2017 home shopping season gets underway.
That's because in most housing markets, the inventory of available homes for sale continues to fall. Zillow reports the average home value was up 7% last month, when compared to February 2016. At the same time, the average inventory of available homes was down 3% year-over-year.
Tampa, Seattle, Dallas, and Orlando saw home values rise t...
It's almost as if you could hear the hammering and earth-moving without let-up last month.
Figures released by the Commerce Department show construction of privately-owned housing shot up 25.5% in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,323,000. That rate is also 23.3% higher than October 2015.
The increase was broad-based, with the Northeast, Midwest, South, and West rising 44.8%, 44.1%, 17.9%, and 23.2%, respectively.
Groundbreaking for single-family housing ju...
Industry experts attending the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) International Builders' Show in Orlando, Fla., expect the 55+ housing market will continuing growing in the years ahead.
"We know, anecdotally, over the past few years that the 55+ housing market has been growing and is likely to continue to grow for the next decade, and now we have new numbers that back that up," said Paul Emrath, NAHB's vice president of survey and housing policy research. "The...
One way to get a read on where the housing market is going is to look at what kinds of houses are being built.
Not so much what builders are putting up – those tend to be driven by what's efficient and what's profitable. But if the homeowner is the one choosing the design, what are they choosing?
Houseplans.com gets about 8 million visitors a year who browse among the home designs and, if something strikes their fancy, they can purchase the plans. CEO Jamie Roche...
Applications for mortgages are up for the second week in a row, rising 0.8% during the weekend ending January 13. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey includes an adjustment for the New Year’s holiday.
The Refinance Index shot up 7% from the previous week, pushing the refinance share of mortgage activity to 53.0% of total applications from 51.2% the previous week.
The adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) share of activity was 5.7% of total appl...
Suburban areas across America are dotted with one subdivision after another, where residents are required to belong to a homeowner association (HOA). Residents pay a fee and, in return, receive some level of services.
It might be something as simple as maintenance of common areas. In some communities, the fee might take care of amenities like swimming pools and tennis courts. In some developments, the HOA has responsibility for repairing and maintaining roads.
In other wo...
The U.S. housing market appears to have cooled a bit in recent months but one small segment – you might say tiny segment – is enjoying enthusiastic growth.
It's the “tiny house” movement, the exact opposite of the “McMansion” trend that lured so many people into buying more house than they could afford in the 1990s.
Tiny houses are just that – dwellings that range from 200 to 800 square feet. They are popular with singles, naturall...
Two numbers go a long way toward explaining the U.S. housing market this summer.
The first number is 13, as in an additional 13% of consumers were actively shopping for a new home last month. The second number is five – there are 5% fewer homes available for sale.
The result of those two numbers, says realtor.com's chief economist Jonathan Smoke, is an ever-tighter housing market that is pushing up home prices. Prices are rising, he says, because demand far outpaces suppl...