Author: Brad Beckett

A new report from RealPage and Axiometrics says apartment demand surged to a near-record volume in Q2 2017, saying essentially that occupancy is full and the annual pace of rent growth has stabilized.  The report says apartment occupancy as of mid-year stood at 95% (which they say is essentially full performance).  Rents for new-resident leases rose 1.8% during the second quarter.  Nationally, monthly rent now averages $1,339. “Today’s strong demand for apartments reflects the combination of solid job formation, continued limited loss of renters to home purchase, and widespread availability of appealing new apartments,” said Greg Willett, chief economist for…

With inventories at record lows and home prices edging higher Realtor.com recently put out a list of the 20 hottest markets so far this summer.  They looked at the nation’s biggest metro markets to determine which are buzzing with activity – in particular the number of listings at their time on the market. Red-hot California shamelessly dominates the list, however there are seven cities in the Midwest. “The housing market has now gone 24 months in a row seeing inventory drop on a yearly basis, the longest streak in over two decades,” said Javier Vivas, manager of economic research at…

As the oldest millennials are entering their mid-30’s they find themselves front & center in the U.S. housing market due to being the largest living generation of adults in America, today.  But, are they finally moving from being predominate renters to homeowners?  A recent study from apartment rental site ABODO looks at their buying patterns to see where they’re actually buying homes and where they’re not, as well as other interesting factors & data about this shape-shifting generation.  Either way, we’re pretty sure this won’t be the last post on the matter. Some takeaways: Nationally, 32.1% of Millennials are homeowners…

Bad drivers are seemingly everywhere.  And when pressed, we all probably consider ourselves good ones…right?  Well, the folks over at QuoteWizard recently ran the numbers for America’s most 75 populous metros to see which has the best and worst drivers.  They sampled incident stats from users of their website with over two million data points from 2016.  The final rankings are sum of weighted means calculated from these parameters:  Accidents, Speeding tickets, DUIs, and Citations (running a red light, using a cellphone while driving, etc.). The top 10 cities with the WORST drivers? Sacramento, CA Salt Lake City, UT Riverside,…

For the month of April, the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index reported a 5.5% annual gain.  Their 10-City Composite annual increase came in at 4.9% and their 20-City Composite posted a 5.7% year-over-year gain.  Seattle led the way with a 12.9% year-over-year price increase, followed by Portland at 9.3%, and Dallas with 8.4%.  Seven cities reported greater price increases in the year ending April 2017 versus the year ending March 2017. “The question is not if home prices can climb without any limit; they can’t. Rather, will home price gains gently slow or will they crash…

The National Association of Realtors said real estate is “the foundation of wealth building for the middle class and a critical link in the flow of goods, services and income for millions of Americans.”  Indeed, and since it accounts for 19 percent of the nation’s GDP, it’s clearly a major driver of the U.S. economy.  Happy Friday!

A new report from Trulia suggests that falling home inventory levels are strongly correlated to the length of time on the market and have possibly led to an effect of “hurried buying.”  Trulia’s quarterly Inventory and Price Watch, which looks at the nation’s 100 largest metros, found that inventory levels fell 8.9% over the past year and are now 20% lower than they were 5 years ago.  In addition, they say more first-time buyers have been pushed out of the market due to upward pricing pressure from a lack of inventory – which in itself, correlates to fewer homes on…

Black Knight Financial Services recently released their April, 2017 Home Price Index (HPI) reporting that U.S. home prices were up 6% year over year in April and up 1.2% for the month.  The HPI value for March was $275k – all time high! Eighteen of the nation’s 40 largest metros  hit new peaks – Atlanta, GA; Austin, TX; Boston, MA; Charlotte, NC; Cincinnati, OH; Columbus, OH; Dallas, TX; Denver, CO; Houston, TX; Kansas City, MO; Los Angeles, CA; Nashville, TN; Portland, OR; San Antonio, TX; San Diego, CA; San Francisco, CA; San Jose, CA; and Seattle, WA.  The Black Knight…

The Chicago Tribune is reporting that a recent surge in homicides & shootings in parts of Chicago’s South and West sides has not hurt real estate investor interest in those neighborhoods.  The data was from an analysis presented at a recent forum where it was revealed that apartment buildings (in particular) remain in demand. “…one reason investors generally are drawn to low-income neighborhoods is that about a third of the apartment residents in those areas are using vouchers funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to pay a portion of their rent. For investors, those vouchers guarantee…

In a recent report, Redfin discovered that one in three recent home buyers made an offer sight-unseen.  The report surveyed over 3k people in 11 metropolitan areas (over the past year) who bought or sold a home, attempted to do so or plan to do so soon.  They sought to better understand the perspectives and experiences of people who were recently in the market to buy/sell a home, and to reveal potential market trends.  Once again we see millennials popping up as an important element of the data. Their key findings: 33% of people who bought a home in the…