Author: Brad Beckett

The St. Louis Federal Reserve’s FRED site is a virtual treasure trove of data – especially housing data.  Recently, FRED announced that there were adding a new real estate data component, manufactured homes.  FRED says this market is separate & smaller than the widely watched single-family homes market, but price data for manufactured homes have several interesting characteristics they feel need to be part of the discussion.  Indeed… “First, manufactured homes are more uniform than other homes. For example, single-family homes come in a variety of sizes, they have tended to become larger over time, and the size composition of…

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 4.5% annual gain in May.  Their 10-City Composite annual increase came in at 3.1% and the 20-City Composite posted a 3.7% 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. “More data will obviously be required in order to know whether May’s report represents a reversal of the…

According to ATTOM Data Solutions’ recently released U.S. Foreclosure Market Report, the number of properties with foreclosure filings hit an all-time low with 165,530 filings reported.  Nationally, 0.12% of all housing units (one in every 824 housing units) had a foreclosure filing in the first half of 2020.  In addition, ATTOM broke down the numbers to reveal the top 10 metros (out of 220) with increasing foreclosure activity compared to a year ago. “Foreclosure starts and completions were already declining rapidly last year because the housing market and the economy were riding so high. Now they’re down to lows not…

The National Multifamily Housing Council recently put together some important facts about the adverse effects of extending the current eviction moratoriums.  They recognize that the Coronavirus pandemic has caused serious economic pain for millions of American families.  However, they point out that without long-term solutions that support renters affected by COVID-19, the economic crisis could become a housing crisis rivaling 2008.  Bottom line:  Extending eviction moratoriums should not be part of those policy solutions and would cause more harm than good while rippling through the entire economy.  Indeed… “Building owners rely on rent payments to pay their mortgages, property taxes,…

The U.S. Government is reporting that sales of new single-family houses in June, 2020 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 776k, which is 13.8% higher than May’s revised rate, and is 6.9% higher than one year ago.  The median sales price of new houses sold in June was $329,200 with an average sales price of $384,700.  There were an estimated 307k new houses for sale at the end of June representing a 4.7 month supply at the current sales rate. Click here to read the full release at the U.S. Census Bureau.

According to the latest Yardi Matrix Multifamily Report, the average U.S. rent in June was $1,457, down $2 from May.  In addition, they point out that rents decreased 0.4% year-over-year (the first time since December 2010) with average U.S. rents declining by 0.8% in the first half of 2020 and 0.4% in Q2. Indeed “A few months ago, many were hopeful that economic expansion would return by July, but with a rise in cases in many southern states, the economic recovery will likely be pushed out further than many initially hoped.” Click here to read the full report at YardiMatrix.com.…

The National Association of Realtors is reporting that existing home sales jumped 20.7% in June to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 4.72 million (11.3% lower than one year ago).  Total housing inventory at the end of June was 1.57 million units, up 1.3% from May and down 18.2% from one year ago. Total unsold inventory was at a 4-month supply at the current sales pace with properties remaining on the market for around 24 days. The median existing-home price for all housing types was $95,300, up 3.5% from June, 2019. Click here to read the full report at the National…

Dogs biting the mailman might seem like a classic joke, but for those who carry the mail or deliver packages the threat for bodily harm is real.  According to Statista, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) annually documents the number of attacks on its letter carriers.  In fact, in 2019 it was nearly 6k!  Today’s infographic takes a look at that data to discover the worst cities in America for dog-vs-mailman attacks.  No word on cat attacks…..  Happy Friday!! “The USPS provides a number of recommendations for dog owners to prevent these incidents such as keeping dogs in a separate and…

According to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI), U.S. house prices were down 0.3% in May and were up 4.9% from one year ago.  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 HPIs are built on tens of millions of home sales and offer insights about home price fluctuations at the levels of the nation, census division, state, metro area, county, ZIP…

According to data from the Tax Foundation, pass-through businesses (sole proprietorships, S corporations, and partnerships) make up a majority of businesses across the United States.  As many real estate investors know, owners must pay individual income tax on income earned from these businesses.  The Tax Foundation took a look at the marginal tax rates for the whole country to illustrate that many pass-through businesses face marginal tax rates close to 50%.  Indeed… “In 2018, pass-through firms made up over half of nearly every state’s private sector employment. The share of private sector employment provided by pass-through firms ranges from 49.7…