Author: Brad Beckett

According to recent data from the Associated General Contractors of America, construction employment increased by 84k jobs in October, with jobs added in both nonresidential and residential categories.  However, employment related to infrastructure experienced a decline.  The AGC cautioned that the pandemic is causing a growing number of construction projects to be canceled or delayed. “The employment data for October is good news, but our latest survey found that only a minority of contractors expect to add to their workforce in the next 12 months,” said Ken Simonson, the association’s chief economist.” Click here to read the full report at…

The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) says that 80.4% of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by November 6th, 2020.  This figure is 1.1% lower than those who paid rent through November 6, 2019 and compares to 79.4% that paid by October 6th, 2020.  The data comes from the NMHC’s Rent Payment Tracker which uses data from 11.4 million professionally managed apartment units across the country. “November’s opening rent payment figures show that the additional support apartment residents received over the summer, coupled with generous, innovative approaches put into place by property owners and managers, continue to…

On a recent episode of the Rental Property Owner & Real Estate Investor Podcast, Brian Hamrick talks with Mike Bonadies, a landlord and co-owner of a New Jersey-based property management company about the dirty and gritty side of investing in real estate.  Notably,  the unglamorous aspects that most rental owners have to deal with, such as septic clean ups, eviction clean-outs, pre-1920’s construction and investing in C & D, and even F properties.  Mike owns 25 units of small multi-family and mixed-use, and he manages 225 units. His maintenance and preservation company has worked on over 600 units and foreclosures,…

According to new research from Redfin.com, 29% of their users looked to move to a different metro area in Q3, 2020.  Santa Barbara (CA) tops the list followed by followed by Louisville (KY), Buffalo (NY) and several other affordable metros in the South & Northeast with positive net in-flow (the number of people looking to move in minus the number of people looking to leave).  Indeed… “Remote work has opened up a whole new world of possibilities when it comes to buying a home,” said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather. “Many residents of expensive areas like New York or Los…

According to a recent study by Entrata, 59% of renters used all or some of their stimulus checks to cover rent during recent lockdowns resulting from the Coronavirus. Their survey was conducted with 1037 adult renters and collected between August 11th and September 3rd. “COVID-19 has affected people all over the world, and U.S. renters are no exception,” said Chase Harrington, president and chief operating officer. “Our study shows that renters struggled to pay their full rent during the lockdown period, but in many cases, residents and management were able to come together to find a compromise and help ensure…

According to the latest U.S. Home Equity and Underwater Report from ATTOM Data Solutions, 6.7 million residential U.S. properties are considered equity-rich, meaning that the combined estimated amount of loans secured by those properties was 50 percent or less of their estimated market value.  However, ATTOM says there are 3.5 million, or one in 17, mortgaged homes in Q3 considered to be seriously underwater, representing 6% of all U.S. properties with a mortgage.  And, at least 25% of all properties were seriously underwater in 115 zip codes: “Among 8,679 U.S. zip codes that had at least 2,000 properties with mortgages…

According to the latest CoreLogic Home Price Insights (HPI) report, home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased 6.7% year-over-year in September. Interestingly, CoreLogic predicts that home prices will increase on a month-over-month basis by 0.2% from September 2020 to October 2020, and on a year-over-year basis by only 0.2% from September 2020 to September 2021. “COVID has contributed to the acute shortage of inventory as the pace of new construction slowed and older prospective sellers postponed listing their homes until after the pandemic. Once the pandemic passes or a vaccine is widely administered, we should see a noticeable pick-up in…

Hopefully, as you read this we will know the final results of 2020’s presidential election.  Either way, one thing is certain – the barrage of political ads came to an abrupt halt by Wednesday morning.  In that vein, today’s infographic from Statista reminds us that when it comes to ads, TV is still tops – although social media is hot on its tail.  Interestingly they point out that daily newspaper print ads were the least noticed, with only 19% saying they had seen them.  However, websites, apps and search engines reached more people than billboards and other outdoor ads.  Indeed….Stay…

How many times have you seen a great quote and copied it down to share?  Real estate investors do this all the time and for our industry there are a lot of inspiring quotes from successful people who have “been there, and done that.” The Motley Fool recently put together a list of 33 real estate investing quotes that they say will help keep you “in the game.”   Indeed, here are few of the ones we liked…get ready to cut-n-paste: “Ninety percent of all millionaires become so through owning real estate. More money has been made in real estate than…

We have been closely watching the rent control issue for quite a while and have some good news to report from last Tuesday’s election.  For the second time in two years voters in California have said no to expanding rent control.   Proposition 21 would have allowed local governments to put rent control in place for many types of housing, including single family homes and condominiums.  The LA Times says Prop 21’s failure means that “landlord groups have convinced voters that stricter limits on rent hikes are not a solution to California’s housing affordability problems.”  In addition they point out that…