Author: Brad Beckett

Along with 2020’s decennial U.S. Census comes reallocation of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.  The constitution specifies that all 435 seats in the U.S. House are reallocated among the states every 10 years based on the results of a census.  The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) recently ran a story about current population projections and estimates of which states would be gaining/losing representation.  While it is somewhat Ohio-centric, they do post a chart featuring all 50 states with their projected individual gains & losses.  Indeed… Click here to read the full story at Cleveland.com.

Rental information site Zumper recently released their National Rent Report for January, 2020 showing that the median national rent for 1-bedroom apartment was $1,217 (down 0.4%) and the median two-bedroom rent was $1,460 (down 0.3%).   Year to date, one bedroom prices are down 0.3% and two bedroom prices are up 0.6%.  Zumper analyzes rental data from over 1 million active listings across the United States. Data is aggregated on a monthly basis to calculate median asking rents for the top 100 metro areas by population, providing a comprehensive view of the current state of the market. The report is based…

According to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI), U.S. house prices rose .2% in October as well as being up 5% from October 2018. 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…

The U.S. government is reporting that total construction spending in November was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1,324.1 billion, which was 0.6% higher than October’s revised estimate. However, November’s figure is 4.1% higher than November, 2018.  Residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $536.1 billion in November, up 1.9% from October’s revised rate. Click here to read the full release at the U.S. Census Bureau.

How did the rental market fair in 2019?  ABODO’s recently released 2019 Annual Rent Report breaks the market down and shows where prices increased, decreased and what trends emerged.  They also drill down into the most and least expensive markets and what to expect in 2020.  Be sure to look at their entire dataset. Click here to read the full report at ABODO.com.

Foreclosure rates hit a 14-year low in November, according to Black Knight’s latest “first look” report.   In fact, November’s 33,500 foreclosure starts marked a 26% year-over-year decline, and was the lowest monthly volume since they began tracking in 2000.   While delinquencies rose in November, they remained nearly 5% below one year ago.   Black Knight derives its data from their loan-level database representing the majority of the national mortgage market. Click here to read the full report at Black Knight.

Welcome to 2020….time to shake that midweek-new-year’s grogginess.  And, what better way than with a fresh cup of coffee.  So, what is it about coffee that perks us up and gives us that much needed boost of energy?  Today’s infographic from CoffeeCorner tells us 30 interesting facts about coffee, or rather its main ingredient, caffeine.  Happy Friday!!! Hat tip to coffeecorner.com.

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 3.3% annual gain in October.  Their 10-City Composite annual increase came in at 1.7% and the 20-City Composite posted a 2.2% 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. “October’s U.S. housing data continue to be reassuring,” says Craig J. Lazzara, Managing Director and Global Head of…

The FTC recently fined the owners of a rental search site in California $6 million for defrauding over 500k Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) recipients by asking them to pay for access to supposed exclusive listings that in reality didn’t exist.  Inman is reporting that WeTakeSection8.com claimed to have exclusive access to listings that accepts the HCV and then charged $49 for a two-month access or $14.99 for a one-week access for listings that were either outdated, didn’t exists or not even approved for Housing Choice Vouchers.  In addition, Inman reports that The Federal Trade Commission says Section 8…

With the ever-increasing lack of affordable housing in this country the last thing we need is more rent control – especially in urban areas where across the board demand is high and supply is low.  A recent story in Multi-Housing News reminds us that while rent control “seemed to be on the ropes a few years ago” it started rearing its ugly head in places like New York, California and Oregon – all of which passed new rent control measures in 2019 and likely paving the way for others to follow suit. “Unfortunately, what passes for action to alleviate the…