Author: Brad Beckett

In a recent Real Estate News for Investors podcast, Kathy Fettke discusses the new No-Smoking rule in public housing and how it might affect landlords who accept Section 8 vouchers (Housing Choice Vouchers).  Total run-time is less than 5 minutes. Click here to hear more of Kathy’s podcasts on NewsforInvestors.com

We’re always on the lookout for a bargain – no matter what we’re buying in America we’re wired to find the best deal.  So where are the top 10 cities with homes on the market that have seen the most price cuts?  The folks over at Realtor.com ranked the 300 largest metro areas by share of homes for sale that experienced priced reductions over the past year.  This is an interesting list because there are a multitude of reasons why homes could be seeing price reductions. However, good data means better information for that next deal. “A price reduction can…

Attom Data Solutions (parent to RealtyTrac) recently released their Q3 2016 U.S. Home Equity and Underwater Report, which shows that over 13 million U.S. homeowners (23.4%) were equity rich (with a loan-to-value ratio of 50% or lower).  However their report also showed that over 6.1 million homeowners were seriously underwater.  The following infographic from Attom shows where the Home Equity Rich are getting richer and the Home Equity Poor are getting poorer….Happy Friday! Click here to read the full report on RealtyTrac.com.

What are America’s next top food towns?  Our friends over at Realtor.com once again put pen to paper and came up with an awesome list of up and coming cities with unique dining experiences worth a culinary road-trip.  To come up with their list, they took the largest 500 cities in the country, dropped the top 50, and then analyzed the remaining 450 based on number of chef-led restaurants, microbreweries, food markets, small coffee shops and much more.  Some are surprises and some we already knew about (Asheville comes to mind).  Mmmmmm… The next top 10 food towns are: Asheville,…

President-elect Donald Trump recently said he would nominate Dr. Ben Carson to be the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  Carson of course accepted and the media frenzy and political commentary has already begun.  One recent piece from the Manhattan Institute’s City-Journal stands out among the crowd.  In “Laying a New Foundation at HUD,” Manhattan Institute Vice president Howard Husock says that “public housing is a paramount example of long-term government dependency.”  He then lays out the five major changes Carson could make right away to improve public housing in America. Charles Tassell, Chief Operating Officer of…

According to the latest Investors Business Daily’s Economic Optimism Index, economic optimism rose 3.4 points to 54.8 – the highest reading in a decade.  The IBD’s Economic Optimism Index is a composite of three major sub-indexes that track views of near-term economic prospects, the outlook for personal finances over the coming six months and views of how well government economic policies are working.  Interestingly, it also shows a clear partisan divide between Republicans and Democrats, especially, whose sentiment is the lowest since October 2008.  Overall, this portends to be good news for the economy! Click here to read the full…

Information powerhouse CoreLogic recently released their monthly U.S. Home Price Insights (HPI) Report that shows home prices are up 6.7% in October (year over year) and up 1.1% from September 2016.   In addition, CoreLogic’s HPI Forecast indicates that home prices will increase by 4.6% through October 2017, and increase monthly by 0.2%. “Home prices are continuing to soar across much of the U.S. led by major metro areas such as Boston, Los Angeles, Miami and Denver.  Prices are being fueled by a potent cocktail of high demand, low inventories and historically low interest rates,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO…

Attom Data Solutions (parent to RealtyTrac) recently released their Q3 2016 U.S. Home Equity and Underwater Report, which shows that over 13 million U.S. homeowners (23.4%) were equity rich (with a loan-to-value ratio of 50% or lower).  However their report revealed that over 6.1 million homeowners (10.8%) were seriously underwater (those owing at least 25 percent more on outstanding mortgages than the estimated market value of the home).   Interestingly, the share of seriously underwater homeowners was 20% or higher in seven of the 88 metro areas analyzed in the report: Las Vegas (25%); Akron, Ohio (24.2%); Cleveland, Ohio (22.8%); Toledo,…

Rental information site Zumper recently released their National Rent Report for December showing that the median national rent for 1-bedroom apartment was $1,129 and $1,340 for a 2-bedroom apartment.  San Francisco continues to dominate their National Rent Index of 100 cities at $3,300/$4500 with Toledo, Ohio rounding out the bottom at $440/$550. “During this past month, we continued to see the polarizing trend in the rental market that has emerged in the past few months, as rents in the most expensive markets were mostly flat or down, while rents in many other major markets were on the rise.” Click here to read…

As if being poor weren’t bad enough, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has decided to ban smoking in all units of public housing (approximately 225k), across the country.  The new rule is to be implemented over the next 18 months and was first proposed by HUD in the Fall of 2015.  Of course residents who choose to smoke can go outside and/or to designated areas.  Their rationale, as is often the case with regulations is this kind, is to help the children. “Every child deserves to grow up in a safe, healthy home free from harmful second-hand…