Author: Brad Beckett

A closely watched ballot initiative in California was defeated in November’s election.  Proposition 10 would have allowed cities to expand rent control by allowing local governments to set rent control policies for their cities, contrary to current law – which was upheld by the failure of Proposition 10.  According to the SF Chronicle, the measure was placed on the ballot by tenant advocates who had failed for years to persuade the CA state legislature to curb rising rent.  Indeed….How restricting supply and hamstringing landlords would lower rent prices is beyond our comprehension abilities.  Then again this is California, and sometimes…

Get ’em while they’re hot…The good folks over at Realtor.com, like everyone else, have been watching shrinking inventory drive up home prices all across the country.  To that they, they crunched the numbers and took a “deep dive” into their listings to find those housing markets where home prices are growing at the fastest clip.  To come up with their list, they analyzed the increase in median list prices on realtor.com from 9/17 to 9/18 in the largest 300 metros.  Then they ranked the places that saw the biggest percentage change in home prices during that span and limited it…

Rental information site Zumper recently released their National Rent Report for November showing that the median national rent for 1-bedroom apartment was $1,203 and the median two-bedroom rent was $1,432.  Year over year, both one and two bedroom prices are up 2.3% and 2.9%, 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 the market. The report is based on all data available in the…

The U.S. government is reporting that total construction spending in September was estimated at $1,329.5 billion, which is nearly identical to August’s revised estimate and 7.2% higher than September, 2017.  Residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $556.4 billion in September, 0.6% above August’s revised estimate. a

National apartment listing site ABODO recently reported that the median nationwide rent price for one-bedroom units in November dropped slightly to $1,019 (down 0.8%) with two-bedroom units coming in again at $1,266 (down .24%).  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. Click here to read the full report on Abodo.com.

According to the latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, home prices continued their ascent, with a 5.8% annual gain in August.  Their 10-City Composite annual increase came in at 5.1% and their 20-City Composite posted a 5.5% 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 estate both nationally as well as in 20 metropolitan regions. Click here to read the full report at S&P Dow Jones Indices.

The U.S. government is reporting that the national vacancy rates in Q3 2018 were 7.1% for rental housing and 1.6% for homeowner housing.  The rental vacancy rate was virtually the same as Q2 and 0.4% lower than the third quarter of 2017.  The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.6%, which is 0.1 percentage points higher than the the second quarter 2018, but is the same as one year ago.  The U.S. homeownership rate was 64.4%, which was not statistically different from the second quarter 2018 or one year ago. Click here to read the full report at Census.gov.

According to the NAR’s 2018 Profile of Home Buyers & Sellers, single female buyers continue to be a powerful force in the market, while low inventory, rising interest rates and increasing home prices remain, holding back first-time buyers despite notable interest in buying a home.  That being said, the typical buyer was 46 years old with a median household of $91,600.  The typical home seller was 55 years old, with a median household income of $98,800.  Happy Friday!!! Hat tip to the NAR.

A recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis notes that September marked the 10th anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers, marking the critical stage of the financial crisis.  They say that many economists argue that one of the main reasons why the subsequent recession was “great” was due to high levels of leverage and debt, particularly in the financial and household sectors.  To that end,  they’ve tracked the evolution & composition of domestic debt in the U.S. going back to 1990. “While total domestic debt has not fallen substantially in the last 10 years, there have…

Owning a 2nd home or a vacation rental can be very lucrative as well as having a great place to get away.  A recent report from Realtor.com points out that not only do many second-home markets have solid returns, but some even post profits that rival or surpass those in the nation’s hottest markets.  So, of course they put pen to paper to find the country’s most profitable vacation-home markets.  They looked at the 500 largest metropolitan areas (limited to two per state) where second homes made up at least 12% of all of the properties and focused on all…