Author: Brad Beckett

The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development is reporting that sales of new single-family houses in December 2016 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 536k.  This number is 10.4% below November’s rate of 598k and is 0.4% below December 2015. The median sales price of new houses sold in December 2016 was $322,500; the average sales price was $384,000.  The seasonally adjusted estimate of new houses for sale at the end of December was 259,000. This represents a supply of 5.8 months at the current sales rate.  An estimated 563k new homes were…

This week’s infographic is really a no-brainier.  The folks over at association management company REIA Resources recently put this great graphic together illustrating just a few of the awesome benefits of joining a real estate investors association, or REIA as they’re commonly known.  You really do get “a bang for your buck” when you become a part of a local community of real estate investors.  Click here to find a REIA near you! Hat tip to REIA Resources.

CNBC’s Diana Olick is reporting that real estate investors are partly responsible for the 400% surge in Home Depot stock since 2009 – the year the Dow crossed the 10k mark.  She says that as homes fell into disrepair after the foreclosure crisis, investors quickly moved in to make repairs and rehab  distressed properties by utilizing materials & resources that The Home Depot was able to readily provide.  It’s just one more example of the important role real estate investors play in the U.S. economy. “…the home improvement giant has been on a run since more Americans are putting money…

With Super Bowl LI scheduled to take place on February 5th in Houston, Texas, HousingWire recently reported that short-term rental prices have skyrocketed in H-town.  Citing rental rates taken from Airbnb for the last weekend in January versus one week later it’s apparent that property owners are cashing in – one home is listed as high as $6,120 for just one night!  However, when you consider tickets to the Big Game are going for several thousand dollars it puts it in a different context. Click here to read the full story on HousingWire. Click here to see the cities where…

Atlas Van Lines recently released their 2016 Migration Patterns Study providing a snapshot of interstate moves throughout the U.S. and Canada.  They report that in 2016, 26 states registered as balanced (meaning that moves in and out of the states were roughly equal), 15 as outbound, and 9 as inbound, in addition to Washington, D.C.  Idaho was 2016’s inbound highest percentage leader and Wyoming topped the outbound percentage list.  Overall, there were over 75k interstate moves, down from 2015. Top 10 Inbound: Idaho (63%) Oregon (62%) North Carolina (61%) Tennessee (60%) Alaska (59%) Washington (58%) Michigan (57.2%) Washington D.C. (57.1%)…

Realtor.com recently set out to determine which markets in the U.S. have the lowest inventory of homes for sale  – a situation they say is getting worse when it comes to inventory.  They did a “deep dive” into the nation’s 150 housing markets to come up with their top 10 list.    Each city on their list shows the percentage of housing stock for sale as well as the percentage of decrease in inventory from 2016.  It’s interesting data that definitely is worth a look. “More than two-thirds of the markets are seeing less inventory now compared to a year ago,” says…

The National Association of Realtors reported that 2016’s existing home sales closed out the year as one of the best in a decade, despite sales for December being down 2.8%.  Those numbers showed that while sales were down, they were still 0.7% higher than one year ago.  For 2016, total existing-home sales (single-family homes, town-homes, condominiums and co-ops) were at 5.45 million sales (surpassing 2015) and was the highest number since 2006 (6.48 million).  The median existing-home price for all housing types in December was $232,200, up 4.0% from December 2015 and marked the 58th consecutive month of year-over-year gains.…

Remodeling Magazine recently released their 30th annual Cost vs. Value report that they say offers “an unbiased, third-party report on how much it really costs for a professional to do a typical remodeling project, as well as how much a real estate pro believes that project will increase a home’s value if it’s sold within a year of when the work was completed.”  Indeed, they compare 29 popular remodeling projects & upgrades with the value they retain when the property is sold in 99 U.S. housing markets. “As was the case last year, putting loose-fill insulation in an attic is…

Black Knight’s “first look” at December 2016 mortgage data reveals that the inventory of loans in active foreclosure nationwide declined by more than 200,000 in 2016.  December saw nearly 60k foreclosure starts which represented a 24% decline from December 2015.  Black Knight uses performance statistics derived from its loan-level database representing the majority of the national mortgage market for their reports.   Click here to read the full report on bkfs.com.

Last year, data powerhouse CoreLogic reported that 2015 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data showed that collateral was noted as the third most-frequently-cited reason for denials (13.7%) for nearly 450k first-lien purchase mortgage applications on one- to four-family, owner-occupied homes.  Interestingly, they now report that when viewed geographically, the data reveal wide variations at the state level in collateral-related loan denials, ranging from 7% in Delaware and 8% in Alabama, all the way to 20% in Ohio & Hawaii and 22% in Michigan. “Although there were no specific details on why collateral was listed as a cause of denial, often…