Author: Brad Beckett

America’s suburbs are experiencing growing pains from a large flow of new residents, which is straining schools, traffic and other resources.  A recent story in  the Wall Street Journal (reposted on Realtor.com) highlights these struggles as well focusing on area outside of Raleigh, NC where this phenomenon is taking place.  We also had a recent post here featuring an interview with the article’s author. “In the early 2010s, after the financial crisis walloped the housing market, average growth rates in cities with populations greater than 250,000 outpaced the suburbs. But over the past five years, the average annual growth in…

According to the latest Yardi Matrix, U.S. multifamily rents rose slightly in June, coming in at $1,465 with year-over-year growth increasing slightly to 3.3%.  Yardi says rents “rose robustly” in Q2 with the market’s consistent growth once again showing no signs of waning.  Indeed… “Absent an unforeseen exogenous event, demand for multifamily shows no signs of abating. That doesn’t address whether rent growth can remain elevated, but rents have stayed at above-trend levels during several years of robust supply increases and ongoing issues with affordability, so it seems foolish to discount the market’s potential to maintain its performance over the…

You could say that sales taxes are the one tax that truly affects every person – it’s the classic consumption tax.  It is also the one politicians often reach for to ratchet-up for their favorite pet project. That being said, the folks over at the Tax Foundation recently put together some numbers showing combined sales tax rates (state & local where applicable) for each state.  Interestingly, there are five states that do not have a state sales tax and there are some with a sales tax but no income tax.  It all adds up and it certainly helps determine an…

The U.S. Census Bureau recently released their 2018 Characteristics of New Housing Report that provides annual statistics on the characteristics of new privately-owned residential structures. The report also includes characteristics such as the number of bedrooms & bathrooms, location of the laundry room, presence of an HOA, the buyer’s source of financing and square footage. Click here to see the report in full detail.

We are hearing more and more about the coming 5G mobile phone service that’s supposed be the latest end-all-be all (isn’t that what they said about 4G???). The folks over at Digimorphing recently put together this handy infographic to help us understand all the advantages of this coming technological great leap forward. Yes, indeed……Happy Friday!! Hat tip to infographicjournal.com.

There has been a lot of discussion about inventory and the lack thereof in the housing market.  Data has shown that nationwide there is a general lack starter-homes in the market.  The folks over at howmuch.net recently crunched the numbers to compare the median home value versus the median value of a starter-home in each state. “Owning a home has long been a cornerstone of the American Dream. Before settling into a “dream home,” many first-time homebuyers look for a “starter home” instead. A starter home refers to a smaller, less expensive house that fulfills the buyer’s present needs, but…

We like to keep an eye on those things that affect your bottom-line and energy costs are one of those items that everyone feels.  A recent report from the NAHB’s Eye on Housing sifted through data from the U.S. Department of Energy to come up with the average monthly electric bill by state.  According to their research, the average monthly residential electricity bill in the U.S. was $111.67 in 2017.  Interestingly,  electricity accounts for 55% of total utility costs and 9 percent of all housing costs in 2017. Click here to read the full report at the NAHB’s Eye on…

According to recent data, 55% of Americans now live in the suburbs.  The WSJ’s Valerie Bauerlein and CNBC’s Diana Olick recently discussed how the suburbs are dealing with the inflow of new millennial residents…..Indeed, but can the suburbs keep up? Click here to watch at CNBC.com.

According to the latest CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI) Report, home prices (including distressed sales) were up 3.6% year-over-year in May, 2019.  CoreLogic predicts that home prices will increase by 5.6% on a year-over-year basis from through May, 2020.  The CoreLogic HPI Forecast is a projection of home prices using the CoreLogic HPI and other economic variables. Values are derived from state-level forecasts by weighting indices according to the number of owner-occupied households for each state. “The recent and forecasted acceleration in home prices is a good and bad thing at the same time. Higher prices and a lack of…

This will raise the hair on your neck….Remember the story we posted a couple years ago about the HVAC guy finding a secret room?  Well, now we’ve learned about a Utah contractor that refused to build a secret soundproof-room for a man recently arrested for the murder of a University of Utah college student.   According to the Deseret News, the contractor realized an eerie connection to a murder investigation when he saw a picture of investigators excavating parts of the very same home he had recently visited for an estimate.  Thankfully, they also reported that when the suspected murderer asked…