Author: Brad Beckett

Earlier this week CNBC Realty Check’s Diana Olick visited The Home Depot’s disaster command center in Atlanta, GA with an update on the incredible relief operation taking place there.  As Hurricane Irma made landfall, The Home Depot began working around the clock to support coastal communities in the path of the storm. The company’s merchandising, operations and supply chain teams are working continuously to move truckloads of product to stores on the Florida coast.  They also continue to support their associates and communities impacted by Hurricane Harvey. Inside Home Depot’s disaster command center from CNBC. Click here for updates on Home Depot store closures…

The Most Valuable Dollar Bill The story of a cruise ship, a bad habit, and the most valuable $1 bill you will ever own By Christian Bryant My business partner Terry Lodge and I attended the recent National Real Estate Investors Association Cruise Conference. Our goal was to bring back as much of the investor education we received there to our members as possible. But surprisingly, one of the most valuable lessons we learned this year came from a random observation made while Terry was searching for a cigarette. Let me back up and say, if you are in any…

Rental information site Zumper recently released their National Rent Report for September showing that the median national rent for 1-bedroom apartment was $1,183 and $1,402 for a 2-bedroom apartment.  San Francisco continues to dominate their National Rent Index of 100 cities at $3,390/$4560 with Ft. Wayne, Indiana rounding out the bottom at $480/$580. Be sure to take look at their entire data set which 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…

Late last week Equifax, one of the top 3 credit reporting bureaus in the country, announced a “cybersecurity incident” that potentially impacts over 143 million U.S. consumers.  They said that criminals gained unauthorized access to their systems from mid-May through July 2017 and may have gleaned names, social security numbers, birth dates, and much more.  They have set up a special website to determine if someone’s information was compromised and are offereing free credit-monitoring and ID theft protection or one year. The information accessed primarily includes names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers.…

Once again we’re talking about millennials…….And now we learn that a recent survey found that more millennials cite wanting a better space for their dog (when buying their first home) than they do for marriage and having children. Indeed……Happy Friday! Hat tip to the AKC.

The NAR’s Economist’s Outlook blog is reporting that properties sold in May-July of 2017 were on the market less than 31 days in over half of the country.  States with the lowest days onthe market include Washington (20 days), Kansas & Colorado (21 days), and California (22 days).  There were seven states where properties tended to sta on the market longer than two months;  Wyoming, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Vermont, and Connecticut. Click here to read the full report on the NAR’s Economist’s Outlook blog.

In their latest U.S. Home Equity & Underwater Report, ATTOM Data Solutions (parent company of RealtyTrac) reports that the number of equity-rich homes has been steadily increasing while the number of seriously delinquent homes has leveled off.   There are 14 million equity rich U.S. properties representing 24.6% of all U.S. properties with a mortgage.  That number is up from 24.3% in the previous quarter and up from 22.1 percent in Q2 2016.  There are 5.4 million seriously underwater properties representing 9.5% of all properties with a mortgage.  That number is down from 9.7% in the previous quarter and down from…

CNBC is reporting that property owners in Miami Beach, FL are facing huge fines resulting from tenants illegally listing their units on short-term rental site Airbnb.  As if that weren’t enough, some tenants were changing locks and making other physical alterations to accommodate its use as a short-term rental.  The story gets more interesting when a justifiably upset owner challenges Airbnb who in turn said it wasn’t responsible to determine if properties were legally allowed to be on their site.  Making matters worse, they were slow to remove the illegal listings from their site after it was brought to their…

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…