Author: Brad Beckett

The U.S. Census Bureau is reporting that total construction spending in May was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.3 trillion, which is 0.4% above April’s revised estimate.  During the first five months of 2018, construction spending amounted to $497.1 billion, which was 4.3% higher than the same period in 2017.  In addition, residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $553.8 billion in May (0.8% higher than April) and nonresidential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $451.5 billion in May (0.3% higher than April). Click here to read the full report on…

National apartment listing site ABODO recently reported that the median nationwide rent price for one-bedroom units were up 3.9% coming in at $1,008.  Two-bedroom units came in at $1,230, which is down 2.71% year-to-date.  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. “June capped a 6-month slide that looked like it might continue into July. This didn’t exactly happen as both…

We love hearing success stories like this….Man didn’t expect to buy his first rental property at the first Sheriff’s Sale he ever attended….he was warned about investing in another property he had his eye on…and he bought it anyway.  Now Salman Chaudhry owns 13 single-family homes in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and he shares with Brian Hamrick about  how his investments turned out. Click here to listen at the RPOA’s website

Rental information site Zumper recently released their National Rent Report for July showing that the median national rent for 1-bedroom apartment rose slightly to $1,209 (up 1%) while the two-bedroom average barely grew, coming in at $1,442 (up 0.4%).  However they do report that, year over year, one and two bedrooms are up 4% and 3.7% respectively.  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…

Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies recently released their annual State of the Housing Report – released annually since 1988.  They report that over 40 million housing units have been built over the past 30 years, accommodating 27 million new households, replacing older homes, and improving the quality of the nation’s housing stock. Among their findings: “Homeownership rates among young adults are even lower than in 1988, and the share of cost-burdened renters is significantly higher, with almost half of all renters paying more than 30 percent of their income for housing. Soaring housing costs are largely to blame. The…

According to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices, home prices once again are showing no signs of slowing down as they continued to rise across the country over the last 12 months.  The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a 6.4% annual gain in April.  Their 10-City Composite annual increase came in at 6.2% and their 20-City Composite posted a 6.6% year-over-year increase.  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…

You don’t need to watch Tarek & Christina to know that it’s what you put into that flip that maximizes your ROI (return on investment).  Along those lines, the folks over at Keeping Current Matters looked at data from HGTV to come up with the top 4 renovations to maximize your flip’s ROI.  Number 1?  Give that bathroom an upgrade and laugh all the way to the bank!  Happy Friday!! Hat tip to Keeping Current Matters.

Odds are, you probably don’t live in one of these neighborhoods, but you might….However if you own rental property in one of them you might be sitting pretty.  In that vein, the folks over at Realtor.com put together a list of the 10 most expensive neighborhoods in the country.   To come up with their list, their team pulled median listing prices fromJune 2017 to May 2018 (12 months) to find the ZIP codes with the highest home prices.  They included only ZIP codes with an average of at least 12 listings per month, to make sure the results weren’t skewed…

Editor’s note:  We’ve had some previous posts about service animals…Kevin’s piece is a good refresher: Beware of False Service Animals by Kevin Coughlin One of the most effective public policy campaigns of the last few decades has been the one that taught us not to park in spaces reserved for the disabled. A combination of robust public education and stiff penalties has helped make it universally understood that able-bodied persons should avoid parking cars there. A newer push is underway to curb the growing practice of people passing their pets off as service animals. While most people associate the conflicts…

The National Association of Realtors recently reported that, for the second month in a row, sales of existing homes were down.  May’s adjusted annual rate was 5.43 million, which is a decline of 0.4% from April’s number.  The Realtors said the lack of market supply was driving these lower numbers.  In addition, the median existing-home price in May was $264,800 – which is an all-time high and marked the 75th straight month of year-over-year price gains. “Closings were down in a majority of the country last month and declined on an annual basis in each major region,” he said. “Incredibly low…