Author: Brad Beckett

Local Market Monitor, a National REIA preferred vendor, recently released their monthly National Economic Outlook where they share their thoughts on developments taking place in the U.S. economy. National Economic Outlook By Ingo Winzer (October, 2020)  In April, the number of jobs in the economy sank an unheard of 13 percent compared to last year. By July the loss was ‘only’ 7.7 percent and the possibility of a further quick recovery seemed possible as states re-opened their economy. But in August the loss was still 6.9 percent and now in September still 6.4 percent. The monthly improvement is becoming smaller…

Airbnb says that “trust is the real energy source” that drives them and part of maintaining that trust has been through implementing smart community policies and new technologies to protect their hosts, guests, their homes and neighborhoods.  With that in mind, Airbnb recently issued a new policy prohibiting one-night reservations over the upcoming Halloween weekend for entire home listings in the United States or Canada.   In addition, they have also implemented high-risk detection systems that will flag potentially problematic reservations for a manual review. Airbnb says they have already identified and proactively cancelled nearly 9k high-risk reservations in the U.S.…

Black Knight is reporting that during the first week of October, active mortgage forbearances fell 649k, representing an 18% reduction from the prior week and the largest single-week decline since the start of the pandemic. In addition, their McDash Flash Forbearance Tracker shows the national forbearance rate coming in at 5.6%, down 1.2% from the week before. As of October 6th, there are 2.97 million homeowners in COVID-19-related forbearance plans, representing $614 billion in unpaid principal. “Though the market continues to adjust to historic and unprecedented conditions, these are clear signs of long-term improvement…” Click here to read the full…

The Visual Capitalist reminds us that millions of Americans eat fast food every day – and some of us might even eat too much of it!  Today’s infographic takes a look at the venerable fast food industry and illustrates the 50 largest fast food chains by revenue.  As you might have suspected, McDonald’s is king of the pile.  Stay safe & healthy and have a Happy Friday! Hat tip to the Visual Capitalist.

The National Multifamily Housing Council (NMHC) says that 79.4% of apartment households made a full or partial rent payment by October 6th, 2020.  This figure is the same share who paid rent through October 6, 2019 and compares to 76.4% that paid by September 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. “Our initial findings for October show that despite ongoing efforts by apartment community owners and operators to help residents facing financial distress through creative and nuanced payment plans, rent relief and other…

The Wall Street Journal (reposted on Realtor.com) says lower taxes are among the reasons why wealthy buyers from high-tax states like California & New York are buying homes in Puerto Rico where luxury developers are reporting that business is brisk.  According to the WSJ, sales of Puerto Rican luxury houses and condominiums have been spiking during the Coronavirus pandemic with developers reporting increasing sales volume & prices compared with 2019.  Of course it might also help that Puerto Rico doesn’t only has an income tax but doesn’t have any federal or local income taxes (for qualified residents). “As awful as…

According to data from ATTOM Data’s most recent U.S. Home Sales Report, homeowners who sold in Q2 had owned their homes an average of 7.95 years, slightly up from Q1 and nearly the same as the peak of 7.96 years back in Q4 2019.  ATTOM says that metros with the longest average homeownership tenures were along the east and west coasts.  Interestingly, while the report showed that 55% of metros saw declines in average homeownership tenure from Q1 to Q2, there were areas with significant increases. Click here to read the full report at ATTOMdata.com.

Redfin is reporting that the median home sale price increased 14% year over year to $319,769, which they say is not only the highest on record but the largest increase since August, 2013.  Their data is based on housing markets in 434 U.S. metro areas during a 4-week period that ended on September 27th.  Indeed… Among their key findings: Pending home sales climbed 30% year over year. New listings of homes for sale were up 5% from a year earlier. Active listings fell 28% from 2019 to a new all-time low. 45.8% of homes that went under contract had an…

National apartment listing site ABODO recently reported that the median nationwide rent price for one-bedroom units in October was $1,111 with two-bedroom units coming in at $1359.  However, despite the slight increases ABODO says the Coronavirus pandemic has brought economic disaster to many small businesses.  Indeed… “Rents aren’t going up because landlords are reticent to raise rents because of the pandemic. People still need a place to live and evictions have been dampened by federal and local regulations and laws. Even if tenants aren’t currently paying, landlords may not be able to evict, and therefore there is not any rent…

Rental information site Zumper recently released their National Rent Report for October, 2020 showing that their median national rent for 1-bedroom apartment was $1,231 (down 0.1%) and the median two-bedroom rent was $1,489 (down 0.1%).   Year to date, one-bedrooms were up 0.6% and two-bedroom rent were up 0.7%.  Zumper says expensive cities continued to decrease in rental prices, with yearly drops largely led by the nation’s seven most expensive cities: San Francisco, New York, Boston, San Jose, Oakland, Los Angeles and Washington D.C.  Indeed… “Decreases in these cities and other expensive markets contributed to the continued trend of historically expensive…