Homeowners are eyeing their kitchens and bathrooms when it comes to home sprucing. The median spending cost on kitchen remodels rose 10 percent year over year in 2017, according to home remodeling website Houzz’s latest study, “2018 Houzz & Home: Overview of U.S. Renovation.” Other bathrooms and master bathrooms were the second and third most popular rooms, respectively, that homeowners claimed they wanted to renovate.Four in five reno
Some homeowners are hitting the million-dollar mark after selling their home. Researchers from PropertyShark, a real estate data firm, analyzed 31 cities to see which areas had the most millionaires as a result of purchasing a home before 2001 for less than $1 million, and then selling it after 2001 for $1 million or more.The highest share of home-sale millionaires were from San Francisco, such as homeowners who bought a home prior to the dot-c
Cost-cutting is a rising priority for mortgage lenders, according to Fannie Mae’s Chief Economist Doug Duncan. Faced with declining profits, mortgage lenders are looking to court more business to make up for the lower share of homeowners who are refinancing. Mortgage rates are up about 80 basis points since last September, which has decreased the incentive for homeowners to refinance. Further, existing- and new-home sales were both down in Apri
The ultrarich’s biggest spending category tends to be on real estate, according to realtor.com®. So where are the richest people in America settling down and buying a home?“In terms of neighborhoods, [the ultrarich] are either going for aspirational places or looking for the next hottest place,” Dolly Lenz, founder of Dolly Lenz Real Estate in New York, told realtor.com®.Realtor.com®’s data team sought to find the priciest ZIP codes an
Counter to the national trend, several housing markets saw foreclosure starts rise year over year last month, according to a new report from ATTOM Data Solutions, a real estate data firm.Forty-three percent of local markets saw an annual increase in May in foreclosure starts. Foreclosure starts were most on the rise in Houston, which saw a 153 percent jump from a year ago. Hurricane Harvey struck the Houston metro area in August 2017, tying with
More than 90 percent of builders say that rising lumber prices are hampering the affordability of new homes, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. Recently surveyed builders say that the higher construction costs are causing more prospective buyers to back out of purchasing a new home as well.Builders are blaming the rising construction costs on the increase in lumber prices over the past year an
Home prices are increasing at a faster rate than wages in 64 percent of U.S. markets, according to a new analysis released this week by real estate data firm ATTOM Data Solutions.Median home prices nationwide have risen 75 percent since the first quarter of 2012, while average weekly wages have risen just 13 percent over the same time period, according to the analysis. The counties where median home prices require the highest share of average wag
Borrowers found lower mortgage rates again this week, marking the third decrease in rates in the past four weeks.“After a sharp run-up in the early part of 2018, rates have stabilized over the last three months, with only a modest uptick since March,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “However, existing-home sales have hit a wall, declining in six of the last nine months on a year-over-year basis.”The National Association
The Trump administration has proposed ending the government’s long conservatorship of mortgage financing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which was among a sweeping proposal for reorganizing the government unveiled Thursday. Under the proposal, which still requires congressional approval, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be converted to “fully private entities.”Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been under U.S. conservatorship since 2008.
Commercial real estate practitioners stand to benefit from a Supreme Court ruling Thursday giving states the authority to make online retailers collect sales tax. The decision, stemming from online retailer Wayfair Inc.’s lawsuit against South Dakota over such a state law, potentially erases internet sellers’ advantage over brick-and-mortar stores, which are legally required to charge sales tax to customers. Without this advantage, both conve
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