Author: Brad Beckett

GeekWire is reporting that a proposed class action lawsuit against Zillow and their Zestimate valuation tool was thrown out by an Illinois judge in late August.  The proposed class action would have been on behalf of “all current owners of real estate property located in Illinois whose property(ies) are listed on Zillow’s website.”  One of the plaintiffs included the homeowner who launched an individual suit against Zillow back in May, but subsequently dropped her suit in favor of joining the class action.  The proposed class action lawsuit centered on the notion that Zillow was acting as an unlicensed appraiser through…

For those who love college football there’s nothing like good tailgate party.  Now with Fall fast approaching, the folks over at Redfin crunched the numbers and ranked the factors that make for a great tailgate experience to come up with the top 10 schools for tailgating.  They used Power 5 conferences and along with the following criteria;  Football program revenue, stadium capacity, winning percentage over the last 7 years, walkability score, and the median home sale price (and some other factors). In addition, Redfin’s real estate agents played safety, by weighing in on their local college’s tailgating experiences to ensure…

HousingWire is reporting that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recently announced changes to its reverse mortgage program that raises premiums, tightens loan limits and ultimately puts the program on a stronger financial footing.  The new changes will only affect new borrowers.  A reverse mortgage allows older homeowners to tap their home’s equity and typically doesn’t have to be paid off until death or sale of the property.  Key points: Most new borrowers will pay bigger premiums upfront but lower ones over the life of the loan, lessening the risk to taxpayers if seniors live longer than predicted.…

An often overlooked area of any home or rental property might just be the dryer vent.  According to the U.S. Fire Administration, there are about 2,900 dryer fires every year resulting in over $35 million in property loss.  What’s the leading cause of those fires? Failure to clean their vents.  Once these vents get clogged with lint it not only takes longer to dry clothes (increasing electricity costs) but greatly increases the odds of a fire.  Bottom line, landlords; make sure this is on your routine punch list. Key Facts: 2,900 home clothes dryer fires are reported each year and…

National apartment listing site ABODO recently reported that the median nationwide rent price increased in September to $1,018 for a one-bedroom apartment.  Nationally, Cleveland, Ohio saw the greatest increase in rent over the month of August, with median one-bedroom rents jumping 12.8%, from $619 to $698.  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…

Well it’s finally here…the ceremonial end of Summer.  Monday is Labor day so here’s a quick infographic with some statistics about the U.S. labor force, courtesy of MoneyTips……Happy Labor Day Weekend! Hat tip to MoneyTips.com.

The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index reported a 5.8% annual gain for June, 2017.  Their 10-City Composite annual increase came in at 4.9% and their 20-City Composite posted a 5.0% year-over-year gain.  Seattle once again led the way with a 13.4% year-over-year price increase, followed by Portland at 8.2%, and Dallas with a 7.7% increase.  Nine U.S. cities reported greater price increases in the year ending June 2017 versus the year ending May 2017. “The trend of increasing home prices is continuing,” says David M. Blitzer, Managing Director and Chairman of the Index Committee at S&P…

Black Knight Financial Services recently released their June, 2017 Home Price Index (HPI) reporting that U.S. home prices were up 6.2% year over year in June and up 0.9% for the month.  The HPI value for June was $281k – once again a new high!  In addition, home prices in twelve of the nation’s 20 largest states reached new highs;  Georgia, Indiana, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.  The Black Knight HPI utilizes repeat sales data from the nation’s largest public records data set, as well as its market-leading, loan-level mortgage performance data,…

Disaster Recovery By Jeff Watson As I write this post, the disaster in Texas due to hurricane Harvey continues to unfold. It is causing major devastation, the impact of which will be felt for years to come. I recently spoke to a client of mine who has over 30 years of experience in the property and casualty adjusting arena. He shared with me some important initial steps that homeowners in any sort of disaster should immediately enact. Once there is damage to your property, you need to file a claim with your homeowner’s insurance carrier immediately. Unless your homeowner’s policy…

A recent article on Builder.com addressed the issue of legalized drug use, and in particular, “as more states decriminalize pot, how do companies address marijuana use by employees?”  Good question…Especially as more & more real estate investors venture into this field of investing while many others may have employees who choose to legally partake.  Interestingly, according to government statistics, over 22 million Americans used marijuana (in some form) in the past 30 days.  Wow… “An increase in drug usage affects one of builders’ biggest pain points: the labor shortage. There was a time when there were enough people looking for…