Author: Brad Beckett

According to the latest CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI) Report, home prices (including distressed sales) were up 6.9% year-over-year in April, 2018.  In addition, prices were also up 1.2% from March.  The CoreLogic HPI forecasts that home prices will increase by 5.3% (year-over-year) from April 2018 to April 2019, and 0.2 % on a month-over-month basis.  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 best antidote for rising home prices…

Real estate investors are in the best position to meet the needs of those seeking good quality housing.  That’s why we’ve had several posts about where people are moving to & from across this great nation.  Today’s infographic from the U.S. Census Bureau shows how the West and South are leading the way in population growth….and they all need places to live.  Happy Friday!! Hat tip to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Leave it to Realtor.com to identify the few places in America where prices are actually going down.  In fact, there are only 27 of the country’s 350 metros that saw price drops.   They do, however, point out that in each of these areas there was some sort of legitimate reason for the decline – whether it was from overbuilding, mass job losses, natural disasters, you name it. To come up with their top-10 list, Realtor.com compared two years of median list prices in the 350 largest metros areas over the 12-month periods of May 2016 to April 2017 and May…

National apartment listing site ABODO recently reported that the median nationwide rent price for one-bedroom units were down 3.9% year-to-date, coming in at $1,005.  Two-bedroom units came in at $1,220, which is down 2.7% 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. Click here to read the full report on Abodo.com.

Which cities are best positioned for price growth for houses, condos and apartment units this summer?  Recently, HouseCanary analyzed the top-100 MSAs to see which ones had the highest year-over-year price growth for those three investments.  They found that price growth is strongest in cities out West and in Florida, and less robust in the Southeast, while parts of the Northeast may require even more digging to find a good investment deal. In addition they suggest paying attention to where people are moving and try to secure investment properties in those markets. “If you’re looking for strong investment opportunities across…

We’ve posted about this before…people are fleeing California in large numbers.  The reasons are numerous (high taxes, onerous regulations, lack of job growth, etc) but in this study’s case it’s the high cost of housing (especially in San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles and San Diego) that is being examined.  Along that vein, Trulia has this to say about the Golden State;  “you need a lot of gold to live there.”  However they also add (somewhat apologetically) that “Tales of an impending mass exodus from expensive California markets are unsubstantiated from Trulia’s search data since there doesn’t seem to a…

Rental information site Zumper recently released their National Rent Report for June showing that the median national rent for 1-bedroom apartment rose slightly to $1,198 (up 1.1%) while the two-bedroom average grew 1% to $1,436.  However, Zumper says “there were lots of cities spread throughout the country with year over year growth rates that are over 10%, an upswing that will most likely continue into the hot moving season.”  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…

The National Association of Realtors is reporting that pending home sales declined 1.3% in April, marking their lowest level over the past year.  The NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index declined 1.3% to 106.4 in April, down from March’s revised number.  A sale is listed as pending when the contract has been signed but the transaction hasn’t closed, though the sale usually is finalized within one or two months of signing. “Pending sales slipped in April and continued to stay within the same narrow range with little signs of breaking out,” he said. “Feedback from Realtors®, as well as the underlying…

The U.S. Census Bureau is reporting that total construction spending in April was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.3 trillion, which is 1.8% above March’s revised estimate.  During the first four months of 2018, construction spending amounted to $387 billion, which was 6.6% higher than the same period in 2017.  In addition, residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $556.3 billion in April (4.5% higher than March) and nonresidential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $458.0 billion in April (0.8% higher than March). Click here to read the full release at…

According to the latest Yardi Matrix, U.S. multifamily rents rose $4 in May to $1,381.  However, year-over-year, the increase fell to 2% (down from 2.5% in April) which was the largest one-month drop in basis points in over 6 years.  They report that rents continue to grow moderately in most metros and are weaker than last year’s increase for the same period. “May’s performance continued a two-year pattern of rent deceleration primarily attributable to pressure from deliveries in most metros. That has taken a toll on occupancy rates and growth, even in markets with strong demand. With more than 600,000…