Author: Brad Beckett

Trulia is reporting that data released by this month by the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey show that, nationally, metros with the lowest incomes experienced the highest income growth.  This comes on the heals of recent census data showing that the median U.S. income rose by 5.2% last year.  This could mean higher home prices in areas that have yet to be affected by the housing recovery. “Many of the metros that saw the highest income growth have been in places that have been slow to recover from the recession,” said Trulia’s chief economist, Ralph McLaughlin.” Click here…

The National Association of Realtors are reporting that existing home sales eased up in August for the second consecutive month despite mortgage rates near record lows.   The Realtors say that higher home prices and not enough inventory are behind the decline of 0.9% – representing an annual rate of 5.33 million homes.  The median existing price for all housing types in August was $240,200, up 5.1% from one year ago.  August’s price increase also marks the 54th consecutive month of year-over-year gains. “Hopes of a meaningful sales breakthrough as a result of this summer’s historically low mortgage rates failed…

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development recently released a report on their Rental Assistance Demonstration program that says it’s on track to accomplish its primary goal of attracting substantial new capital that will stabilize the physical and financial conditions of public housing properties across the country.  The Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) was created in order to give public housing authorities (PHA’s) a powerful tool to preserve and improve public housing properties and address the $26 billion dollar nationwide backlog of deferred maintenance. The report found that by October of 2015, participating PHA’s  successfully generated $2.5 billion in new…

What U.S. states give you the most “bang for your buck?”  The folks over at Keeping Current Matters took data from the Tax Foundation to put together this handy infographic about the cost of living in our 50 states.  The best $$ bangs?  The MidWest and the South……Happy Friday! Hat Tip to Keeping Current Matters.

Recently the data-crunchers over at Realtor.com looked at 30-years worth of data on six major types of disaster (earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, wildfires, and floods) to come up with a pretty comprehensive disaster index for all counties in the United States.  Their conclusion;  while you cannot escape the risk for natural disaster there are areas that are more prone for a perfect storm of instances of multiple disasters.  The graphic below illustrates the top 20 U.S. counties with the highest risk while the report itself is quite extensive and worth a look. “In the South, recent catastrophic floods in Louisiana claimed…

Forbes is reporting that twenty-one states have filed suit against the federal government arguing that last year’s new overtime rules promulgated by the U.S. Department of Labor are a violation of the constitution and exceeds congressional authority.  The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Texas, accuses President Obama of pushing through a near-doubling of the salary level (to $913 a week or more than $47,000 a year) up to which employers are required to pay overtime.  The new rule is to take effect this December. Click here to read the full story on Forbes.com Click here to read the court…

Real estate resource site Trulia recently released their 3Q 2016 Inventory and Price Watch report that shows U.S. home inventory 6.7% over the past year – marking the fifth straight quarter of decreases. Trulia says this decline pushes home affordability further out of reach for more Americans.  In addition, the number of starter and trade-up homes on the market nationwide has dropped by 10.7% and 9.2%, respectively, with premium home inventory dropping just 3.2% over the past year. “As inventory continues to fall nationally across starter, tradeup, and premium home segments, starter homebuyers will need to dedicate a larger share…

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…