Author: Brad Beckett

If you enjoyed watching the hit Netflix show “Schitt’s Creek” here is the listing for you.  According to the Wall Street Journal (reposted on Realtor.com) the 80-acre town of Nipton, California is up for sale.  The town, located on the on the California side of the Mojave Desert, is about an hour away from Las Vegas and is on the market for $2.75 million.  The WSJ says Nipton has seen a variety of prospective buyers, including a group of believers in the existence of a ninth planet who thought it would make a good place to hide out when the…

As of May 31, the SBA’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was closed to new applicants.  The Wall Street Journal reported that the program closed as funding was on track to be exhausted, marking the end of the $961 billion emergency fund.  The Small Business Administration’s website officially says the PPP ended on May 31, 2021, however, existing borrowers may be eligible for PPP loan forgiveness.  Offered as an SBA-backed loan program that helped businesses keep their workforce employed during the COVID-19 crisis, it was created under the Cares Act in March 2020.  It offered loans that could be forgiven provided…

Redfin says demand may have peaked for 2021 as pending home sales and mortgage purchase applications have both pulled back in recent weeks.  However, their report points out that a record high of 50% of homes sold for more than their listing price, up 23 percentage points from the same period one year earlier.  In addition, a record-high 58% of homes that went under contract had an accepted offer within the first two weeks on the market. “We are seeing some early signs that the market has reached its maximum temperature…Mortgage purchase applications and pending sales have decreased, which may…

Rental information site Zumper recently released their monthly National Rent Report showing that their median national rent for 1-bedroom apartments was $1,254 and the median two-bedroom rent was $1,544.  Compared to this time last year these figures are up 3% and 4.8%, respectively.  Be sure to check out their list of the top 100 metro areas. “The COVID-19 pandemic has caused one of the largest waves of migration in recent memory. Expensive coastal markets have seen precipitous rent drops as high-income earners eluded strict lockdown orders, while smaller cities not often thought of as destinations experienced population booms that drove…

We recently posted about how sales of new single-family houses were down 5.9%.  The NAHB’s Eye on Housing says higher building costs, longer delivery times, and general unpredictability in the residential construction supply-chain are now having measurable impacts on prices.  In fact, the NAHB has estimated that higher lumber costs alone have been increasing the price of new homes by 10’s of thousands of dollars. “Higher costs have priced out buyers, particularly at the lower end of the market. A year ago, 45% of new home sales were priced below $300,000. In April 2021, only 27% of new home sales…

On a recent episode of the Rental Property Owner & Real Estate Investor Podcast, Brian Hamrick talked with Allison Koetsier about why it’s important to have a clear investment strategy & goal, the biggest mistake she sees first-time investors make, and why you need to build a great team.  They also discuss Exit Strategy and taking a holistic view of your portfolio to position it for your heirs and Legacy Wealth. Allison was also the featured REIA member in the Spring issue of National REIA’s RE Journal. Click here to listen at the RPOAonline.org.

According to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI) Quarterly Report, U.S. house prices were up 12.6% from the first quarter of 2020 to the first quarter of 2021. In addition, House prices were up 3.5% compared to the fourth quarter of 2020. FHFA’s seasonally adjusted monthly index for March was up 1.4% 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.  The FHFA’s…

The National Association of Realtors is reporting that pending home sales were down 4.4% in April, 2021.  The NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index (a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings) dropped 4.4% to 106.2.  However, they report that year-over-year contract signings were up 51.7%.  Indeed… “Contract signings are approaching pre-pandemic levels after the big surge due to the lack of sufficient supply of affordable homes…The upper-end market is still moving sharply as inventory is more plentiful there.”  Said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist Click here to read the full report at the National Association of Realtors.

Monday, May 31st is Memorial Day.  For most Americans the three-day weekend will mark the unofficial start of summer.  However, the solemn significance of the day is often forgotten.  It is actually a national day of remembrance for those men & women who, while wearing the uniform of this great country, paid the ultimate sacrifice defending freedom & liberty around the globe. Today’s infographic reminds us that Memorial Day is about more than just cookouts and 3-day weekends, it’s about a path paved by others to enjoy the freedoms we so often take for granted.  We hope you have a…

According to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, the rate of home price increases reported a 13.2% annual gain in March, 2021.  Their 10-City Composite annual increase came in at 12.8% and the 20-City Composite posted a 13.3% year-over-year gain.  The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Indices are one of the leading measures of U.S. residential real estate prices, tracking changes in the value of residential real estate both nationally as well as in 20 metropolitan regions. “These data are consistent with the hypothesis that COVID has encouraged potential buyers to move from urban…