Author: Brad Beckett

According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal (reposted on Realtor.com),  a new trend of “built to rent” subdivisions are spreading across the county.  The WSJ says these new subdivisions are managed more like apartment buildings and have designated staff for repairs & maintenance.   In addition, data currently shows that built-to-rent home make up 6% of newly built homes, however experts have suggested that the number of these homes built annually will double by 2024.  Indeed… “In the past few years, the model has taken off around Phoenix and elsewhere—and is likely to become a dominant force in…

The Equity Trust Company, a leader in Self-Directed IRAs and a National REIA preferred benefits provider, recently released their list of the top 10 most & least expensive real estate markets.  Their Trust Self-Directed Real Estate Market Report  reveals how & where Equity Trust clients used their IRAs and other retirement accounts in the past year to invest in real estate with tax advantages.  Interestingly, they point out that you might assume states with the most expensive real estate would be at the top of their “most expensive” list.  However, that wasn’t always the case.  Indeed… “After analyzing purchase prices…

With home sales white-hot across the country,  Realtor.com says not all markets are “turbocharged” to the same degree.  The crunched the proverbial numbers to identify the metros where homes are flying off the market at the fastest pace, as well as the ones where they’re taking the longest to sell.  Their data show that four of the five fastest-moving metros were in the Western U.S., as Californians who are able to work from anywhere looked for more affordable areas.  However, parts of the Midwest and Northeast are also seeing homes move at a fast clip. “For buyers looking for a…

Reuters is reporting that the attorneys general of 22 states recently urged the U.S. Supreme Court not to end the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s residential eviction moratorium that has been challenged by landlord groups who (rightly) say the CDC far exceeded its authority.  The groups asked the Supreme Court to issue an order stopping the CDC’s national ban on evictions, currently set to expire on June 30th.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said it would not lift Judge Friedrich’s stay order.  The D.C. Circuit said the CDC eviction ban was likely lawful, but…

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting that the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) was 0.6% in May, 2021.  Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 5% before seasonal adjustment. Click here to read the full release at the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

What kind of homes are owners and renters living in?  Using data from the latest American Housing Survey, today’s infographic from the Census Bureau illustrates how owners & renters occupy housing of different types and sizes.  Who knew????  Have a safe and Happy Friday!!! Hat tip to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) says that 77% of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by June 6th, 2021.  This figure is 3.8% lower than those who paid rent through June 6, 2020.  The data comes from the NMHC’s Rent Payment Tracker which uses data from 11.7 million professionally managed apartment units across the country – representing a wide variety of market-rate rental properties that can vary by size, type and average rental price. Click here to read the full report at the NMHC.

According to Arbor’s Q1 2021 Single-Family Rental Investment Trends Report, if there were three real estate headlines to come out of the pandemic, they would focus on work-from-home trends, online retailing and single-family rentals (SFRs).  Adding to that, they say that by the end of the year SFRs may be the only one of the three to avoid some post-pandemic reversion. In fact, Arbor goes on to to say that SFRs are now increasingly filling the role that starter homes had for previous generations and professional residential operators are quickly racing into the sector.  Indeed… In major metropolitan areas, activity…

According to ATTOM Data’s latest Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report, zombie foreclosures represent only one of every 12,256 homes in Q2, 2021, which they say are just a minuscule portion of the nation’s 99 million residential properties. The report says 223,671 properties were in the process of foreclosure in Q2 of this year, up 27.5% from first quarter but still down 13.3% from the second quarter of 2020.   In addition, the number of Zombie homes sitting empty (8,078 in Q2) was up quarterly by 21%, and annually by 5.6%. “The latest numbers show a spike in zombie properties…

Realpage.com says that while there is lots of talk about inflation there is some good news – the incomes of apartment renters are rising.  They report that median household incomes for market-rate renters signing new leases jumped to a record high of $64,656 in April 2021 – which is up 5.5% from two years ago.  The data was taken from apartment renter applications from those signing leases each month. Their figures exclude government stimulus money and only includes income from recurring sources. “This is yet another reminder (of many) that market-rate apartment affordability is a non-issue at a macro scale…