Author: Brad Beckett

How much is the land under a house worth?  That’s the question a new working paper from the Federal Housing Finance Agency seeks to answer.   The document, entitled “The Price of Residential Land for Counties, ZIP codes, and Census Tracts in the United States,” measures the land price per acre by year for counties, ZIP codes, and census tracts in the U.S. by using over 16 million appraisals of single-family homes submitted to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac between 2012 and 2018.  According to the release, the report will be updated later this year to include a property’s “land share”…

RENTCafe is reporting that, while rent prices are in fact growing across the country (up 3.2% year-over-year), it’s the lowest annual growth they’ve seen in more than 6 months.  The average apartment rent for March came in at $1,430, which they say is consistent to last spring’s growth levels and signals the end of the “sluggish winter season.”  They also point out that 92% of the country’s largest 253 cities saw rents grow year-over-year.  RENTcafe gathers their data from the Yardi Matrix, the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development…

The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson, was recently on the FOX Business channel to talk about the more than $25 billion (yes, billion) that has been committed to opportunity zones so far across the nation.  As you may know, Opportunity Zones are hot right now and we’ve had several posts about their game-changing potential! Click here to watch the full clip on FOXBusiness.com. Click here to learn more about Opportunity Zones.

Congress has recently started to undertake a major overhaul of the National Flood Insurance Program.  Real Estate News’ Kathy Fettke says it’s been in desperate need of reform for years as storms grow more severe and the program falls into more debt.   She says the while new plan is expected to increase insurance rates in flood-prone areas, it could also impact home values in those areas as well.  However, the cost to insure individual homes in these flood-prone areas will more accurately reflect the ongoing risks. “The government created the flood insurance program decades ago, after private insurers stopped offering…

Where are all the new homes being built?  Realtor.com points out that while home construction across the country is slowing down there are areas where foundations are being poured, frames are being erected, and contractors are contracting!  To come up with their list they list they analyzed census data to find the most residential construction permits for single-family homes, condos and co-ops, apartments, townhouses, and duplexes. Despite the fact that new homes tend to be more expensive than existing ones—about 26% pricier, thanks to high labor, materials and land costs—they help to keep runaway home prices at least somewhat in…

So, just when mortgage rates started to climb back towards 5% they’ve now retreated down into the low fours.  A recent Wall Street Journal article (reposted on Realtor.com) says the four percent mortgage is back after experiencing its biggest drop in over a decade.  They report that mortgage rates have been declining along with the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note that was  spurred on by the Federal Reserve’s decision to pause interest rate increases.  Interestingly they say that roughly half of current mortgages are originated by nonbank firms, which, unlike banks, don’t have other lines of business or…

Zillow is now firmly in the home mortgage business with their recent launch of Zillow Home Loans.  Late last year, HousingWire reported that Zillow had acquired Mortgage Lenders of America.  Now they’re reporting that they’ve rebranded the operation and will finance home buying & selling through their just announced Zillow Home Loans.  HousingWire says it is the latest move in a two-year effort to reshape how Zillow conducts its business. Recall that last year Zillow also got into the home-flipping business with its Instant Offers platform.  Indeed… “…Since our inception, Zillow has been empowering people with information and resources to…

For over 6 years the National Association of Realtors has issued their annual Home Buyers and Sellers Generational Trends Report.  This report provides insights into differences and similarities across generations of home buyers and sellers. It’s good data…these are your customers!  Happy Friday!!! Hat tip to the NAR and by all means, click here to read their full report.

We recently posted about how potential homebuyers were having trouble finding the right home and what factors were holding them back.  Well, one of those factors was features.  In a follow-up, the NAHB’s Eye on Housing dug through their 2019 What Home Buyers Really Want  report and found, among many things, that 91% want a laundry room – more than any other home or community feature!  Interestingly, Energy Star rated windows were a close second. Click here to read the full story at the NAHB’s Eye on Housing.

National apartment listing site ABODO recently reported that the median nationwide rent price for one-bedroom units in April was $1,063 with two-bedroom units coming in at $1,325.  ABODO uses over 1 million listings across the United States to calculate the median 1-bedroom rent price by city, state, and nation and then track the month-over-month percentage change. To avoid small sample sizes, they restrict their analysis to cities meeting minimum population and property count thresholds.  Be sure to check out their extensive city list. “As usual, stay tuned since rapid economic changes can translate into a quickly altered national rent picture.”…