Author: Brad Beckett

I like to overpay for rental properties.  That’s not a typo.  Hear me out. By Daniel Hart All too often we fixate on one metric alone; sales price.  It’s the measurement that we’ve been conditioned to use as an indicator of our success or failure.  We all want a great deal, and for many of us a discounted sales price is our goal, but should it be?  Sometimes, yes, but “it depends”. The sales price does not always need to be a concern.  At first read this may sound ludicrous.  How could the sales price not matter?  Well, it might…

For readers of this site this data will not be surprising.  According to recent Census data, cities in the South & West regions of the U.S. experienced the most growth from July 2020 to July 2021 – with the top 15 fastest-growing cities/towns located in these regions.  Breaking it down, 8 of the 15 fastest-growing large cities or towns by percent change were in the West  and 7 were in the South.  The South and West also contained the top 15 cities with the largest numeric gains. “While only 4% of all cities and towns had a population of 50,000…

A recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis says that, in April, personal income increased $89.3 billion, or 0.4% at a monthly rate, while consumer spending increased $152.3 billion, or 0.9%. Interestingly, the personal saving rate dropped slightly to 4.4% in April compared with 5% in March.  Also, note the 26.9% drop in fuel spending thanks to higher gas prices. Click here to read the full report at the BEA.

The U.S. government is reporting that total construction spending in April, 2022 was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,744.8 billion, which is 0.2% lower than March’s revised estimate and 12.3% higher than one year ago.  Residential construction came in at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $891.5 billion in April, which is 0.9% higher March’s revised estimate. Click here to read the full report at the U.S. Census Bureau.

According to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI), U.S. house prices rose 18.7% from Q1 2021 to the first Q2 2022.  The seasonally adjusted monthly index for March was up 1.5% from February.  The FHFA produces the nation’s only public, freely available house price indexes (HPIs) that measure changes in single-family house prices based on data that cover all 50 states and over 400 American cities and extend back to the mid-1970s. “High appreciation rates continued across housing markets during the first quarter of 2022…Strong demand coupled with tight supply have kept prices climbing. Through…

There is a lot of misinformation out there about landlords and profit margins from their investments.  Today’s infographic from the National Apartment Association rightly calls supposedly large profit margins a “misconception” which is why they chose to explain where $1 of rent really goes.  Indeed……Stay safe & and have and Happy Friday!! Hat tip to the NAA.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index reported a 20.6% annual gain for March, 2022.  Their 10-City Composite annual increase came in at 19.5% and their 20-City Composite posted a 22.2% year-over-year gain.  March’s reading was the highest year-over-year price change in more than 35 years of data. “Mortgages are becoming more expensive as the Federal Reserve has begun to ratchet up interest rates, suggesting that the macroeconomic environment may not support extraordinary home price growth for much longer. Although one can safely predict that price gains will begin to decelerate, the timing of the deceleration is…

Rental information site Zumper recently released their latest monthly National Rent Report showing that their median national rent for 1-bedroom apartments in May, 2022 was $1,414 (another all-time high), up 12.8% year-over-year and the median two-bedroom rent was $1,758 up 13.9%, year-over-year.  Be sure to check out their list of the top 100 metro areas. Click here to read the full report at Zumper.

As part of a three-part series, Omaha REIA’s “REIA Radio,” talked with National REIA’s Charles Tassell who shared valuable insights into legislation and how government involvement in regulating the real estate industry is affecting affordable housing. A successful investor himself, Tassell also shares smart ways to invest and how to get your children involved from an early age.  Ted is joined by Omaha’s very own Jeri Schlickbernd, who, along with her husband were featured in the Summer 2021 issue of the RE Journal. Click here to listen at Omaha REIA.

Who doesn’t love a good beach town?  And where there’s a beach town, there are general short-term rentals and other investment properties.  The folks over at Realtor.com recently crunched the numbers to come up with the nation’s most affordable beach towns where buyers “can live the dream without draining their bank accounts.”  To get their so-called dream list, they looked at the median home list prices of more than 1,300 towns located on America’s coastlines that had at least 30 homes for sale in April, 2022 (not including pending transactions).  Then, they focused on the fun things to do – …