Author: Brad Beckett

The U.S. Government is reporting that privately owned housing starts in February were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of  1,236,000. This is number 7.0%  below the January’s revised estimate and is 4% lower than February 2017.  Interestingly, single-family housing starts in February were at a rate of 902k, which is 2.9% above January’s revised figure.  February’s rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 317k.  Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in February were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,298,000.  This is 5.7% below January’s revised rate of 1,377,000, but is 6.5% higher…

Each year millions of Americans (roughly 84% of the population) will don the color green on March 17 to celebrate the patron saint of Ireland, St. Patrick.  The folks over at the History Channel have put together this useful graphic to help us all understand “St. Patrick’s Day by the Numbers.”  Happy Friday! And, more importantly, Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Hat tip to the History Channel.

According to their latest weekly survey, the Mortgage Bankers Association is reporting that refinance share of mortgage activity decreased to its lowest level since September 2008, representing 40.1% of total applications, down from 41.8% the previous week. Also in decline were the adjustable-rate mortgages (ARM), whose share of activity decreased to 7.1% of total applications.  The MBA weekly survey covers over 75% of all U.S. retail residential mortgage applications, and has been conducted weekly since 1990. Click here to read the full report at the Mortgage Bankers Association.

What are the best and worst states in which to be wealthy?  For what it’s worth, the folks over at GOBankingRates took a look at data from all fifty states and ranked them based on criteria such as;  property crime, education, income taxes, property taxes and the average income of the top 1%. Indeed…this list is definitely debatable. “One conclusion that could be drawn is that more rural states appear to offer a more attractive life for the 1 percent — but not in an entirely consistent fashion.” Here is the complete list of the best states for the wealthy…

According to the latest Yardi Matrix, U.S. multifamily rents remained steady in February, rising $1 to $1,364.  Year-over-year, rent growth was 2.7% through February, which down 10 basis points from January.  Interestingly, Yardi is forecasting a slowdown and they add that a growth of 2.7% is very close to the long-term average. “Rents have barely budged over the last eight months. Average U.S. rents hit $1,363 in July, and have remained within a $2 range—between $1,363 and the all-time high of $1,365 set in August 2017—ever since. We expect growth to remain moderate this year, as metros deal with a…

We’re all familiar with investing in our own backyards, but how do you invest out of state?  Places where there might be more opportunity and better, possibly untapped, markets.  In a recent Investment Community of the Rockies (ICOR) podcast they tackle that very subject with Dave Newman, who has been successfully investing out of state for the last 10 years.  Listen as they discuss his upcoming partnership with Invest Success to bring you the best education on how to buy poroperties for pennies on the dollar. Click here to read more or listen on icorockies.com.

The folks over at Keeping Current Matters crunched the numbers, using data from CoreLogic, to focus on home price appreciation from December 2012 through December 2017.   The data show that nationwide, cumulative appreciation over the five-year period was 37.4%, with Nevada experiencing the largest high of 66% and the lowest in Connecticut at of 5%.  Now, align this data with sales and inventory and you can draw your interesting conclusions about where the market is heading. Every day, thousands of homeowners regain positive equity in their homes. Some homeowners are now experiencing values even higher than before the Great Recession.…

The world’s largest home improvement retailer, The Home Depot, recently announced that they will be donating $50 million to train 20k+ people as construction workers over the next decade in order to ease a shortage of workers adversely affecting building industry, driving up home prices & associated costs.  The funds will flow through the Home Builders Institute to train veterans and U.S. Army soldiers who will soon be returning to civilian life, high school students and disadvantaged youth. “It’s important that we support the trades,” Home Depot CEO Craig Menear said in an interview. “Not only do we sell product…

According to their 2017 Q4 U.S. Home Flipping Report, ATTOM Data Solutions says that in 2017, 207,088 single family homes & condos were flipped representing their highest level since 2006.  The 207,088 homes that were flipped in 2017 represented 5.9% of all single family home & condo sales in 2017, up from 5.7% of all sales in 2016 and represents the highest level since 2013. “The surge in home flipping in the last three years is built on a more fundamentally sound foundation than the flipping frenzy that we witnessed a little more than a decade ago,” said Daren Blomquist,…

National apartment listing site ABODO recently reported that the median nationwide rent price for one-bedrooms dropped slightly to $1,038.  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. Looking back to 2017 rent trends, one-bedroom rents followed the same downward slope in the first three months of the year, before picking up in April as temperatures — and the market — heat…