Author: Brad Beckett

As we know, our friends to the north are generally not known for their free-market economics – and real estate is no exception.  Recently, the Canadian city of Vancouver, British Columbia enacted a vacancy tax on property owners who leave homes vacant (except their primary) for a year or more.  The measure was conceived as a solution to increase the amount of available rental housing and could cost owners as much as $20,000 a year on a home valued at million dollars.  The city’s rental vacancy rate has been around 1% for the past five years.  So basically, Vancouver is…

The Commerce Department reported this week that privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in August were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,139,000.  This is 0.4% below the revised July rate of 1,144,000 and is 2.3% below August 2015.  Single-family authorizations in August were at a rate of 737k – this is 3.7% above the revised July figure of 711k.  Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were at a rate of 370,000 in August.  Privately-owned housing starts in August were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,142,000.  This is 5.8% below July but…

Drones are hot…and they’re not the radio-controlled toys you might remember from your childhood.  While the advantage of utilizing Drone photography and aerial video are just becoming practical for Realtors, the same benefits hold true for Real Estate Investors as well.  When was the last time you relished the thought of climbing up a ladder to inspect a roof?  How about getting a good view of a chimney?  Now imagine if you could get a better image from all angles without ever setting foot on a ladder at all?  That’s where using drones can really payoff and contribute to your bottom line…

Attom Data Solutions (parent company of RealtyTrac) recently released their Q2 2016 U.S. Home Flipping Report, which shows over 51k U.S. single family home and condo sales were completed flips in the second quarter of 2016, up 14% from the previous quarter and up 3% from a year ago – representing the highest number of home flips since Q2 2010 (a six-year high).  Homes flipped in 2016’s 2nd quarter accounted for 5.5% of all single family and condo sale, down from 6.7% in the first quarter. “We’re starting to see home flipping hit some milestones not seen since prior to…

What are the best & worst city to raise a family?  That’s the question WalletHub recently put to the test by analyzing 150 of the most populated U.S. cities based on 36 key metrics that take into account essential family dynamics such as the relative cost of housing, the quality of local school and health care systems, and the opportunities for fun and recreation.  The top five?  Overland Park, KS; Madison, WI; PLano, TX; Sioux Falls, SD; and Virginia Beach, VA.  Click on the interactive map below for each city’s ranking. Source: WalletHub Click here to see the full list…

Believe it or not, next week is the Autumnal Equinox (the first day of Fall is 9/22) and it’s time to think about lawn-care for the upcoming cooler months.  The following infographic from The Home Depot lays out why Fall is the perfect time and what exactly must be done to prepare yard for the winter months to be in good shape when Spring rolls around.  Happy Friday! Hat tip to The Home Depot.

What’s median time a home stays on the market?  The folks over at the NAR’s Economist Outlook site recently analyzed the data back to the late 80’s to find that over the last 2 years (2014 & 2015) the median has been four weeks!  This is the shortest median time on time on the market in 20 years.  It should be noted that a lack of inventory is partially to blame for this record amount. Click here to read more on the NAR’s EconomistOutlook.org.

Coming on the heels of numerous reports about tenants home-sharing their apartments without landlord knowledge or approval, Forbes is reporting that Airbnb has been working on a new program that will bring owners and landlords of multifamily buildings into its home-sharing service.  Airbnb calls it the Friendly Building Program, a new initiative that will let building owners sign up to work with Airbnb and tenants to allow home-sharing on their properties according to mutually agreed upon rules.  Airbnb will collect and pay applicable taxes and as well as paying the hosts and the landlords – reportedly around 5% – 15%…

This week data powerhouse CoreLogic released their National Foreclosure Report showing that there were 34k completed foreclosures in July, down 16.5% from one year ago.  Across the country, 0.9% of all homes with a mortgage are in the foreclosure inventory, compared with 1.3% in July 2015.  Overall, there were 355k homes in some stage of foreclosure.  Interestingly, five states account for nearly 40% of all completed foreclosures.  They are;  Florida (57k), Michigan (45k), Texas (27k), Ohio (23k), and California (21k). “Loan modifications, foreclosures, and stronger housing and labor markets have each played a role in bringing the foreclosure rate to…

Good data is essential in making any investment decision.  Recently, the National Association of Realtors put together the following interactive-infographic showing July’s national price & sales data for existing homes, single-families, and condos/co-ops and how it is changed over the past 12 months. Click here to read the full report on Realtor.org.