Author: Brad Beckett

Where are Millennials buying their starter homes?  Kathy Fettke discusses this issue and why investors should be paying attention to new data recently released by Ellie-Mae about the buying habits of millennials.  After all, there are over 75 million of them and they are poised to make a significant impact on the U.S. housing market in the coming years. Click here to hear more of Kathy’s podcasts on NewsforInvestors.com

The pest control and rodent removers over at Orkin recently released their 6th annual Top 50 Bed Bug Cities list.  Topping the list this year was Baltimore, MD.  Their list is based on treatment data (residential & commercial) from metro areas where Orkin has performed the most bed bug treatments from 12/1/15 – 11/30/16. Baltimore Washington, D.C. Chicago New York Columbus, Ohio Los Angeles Detroit Cincinnati Philadelphia San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose Click here to see the entire list. “Bed bugs are great hitchhikers because they travel from place to place with ease, including luggage, purses and other belongings. Bed bugs can…

Local Market Monitor (a National REIA preferred vendor) recently released their National Economic Outlook for 2017 where they predict; “the economy will grow at a slower rate, home prices will continue to rise, but more people will want to rent. This isn’t much different from 2016 but the risk of investing will be higher in some local markets.” National Economic Outlook – January 2017 January 3, 2017 By: Ingo Winzer Three things to keep in mind for 2017: the economy will grow at a slower rate, home prices will continue to rise, but more people will want to rent. This…

Using data from the 2015 American Community Survey, the NAHB’s Eye on Housing blog recently discussed how the average owner-occupied home in the U.S. is 37 years old and that the age of housing stock is not evenly distributed across the country.  In fact, they conclude that the geographic distribution (see map below) of owner-occupied housing is strongly correlated with population changes – especially in states with faster population growth, which tend to have newer housing (go figure). “The age of the housing stock is an important remodeling market indicator. Older houses are less energy-efficient than new construction and ultimately…

Water heaters…those potential time-bombs in that flip you just bought or that aging old friend in your basement.  If you need to replace one, what do you replace it with?  And, they can consume an inordinate amount of energy!  So how how do you find out which one is best for your property?  The folks at Home Depot put together this useful graphic to help us comprehend and discover what might be best solution for your situation.  Happy Friday! Hat Tip to The Home Depot.

A recent analysis from Trulia has found that nationwide home sales have been failing at an increasing rate – with starter homes being at most risk.  In the 4th quarter of 2016 alone failures were 4.3%.  Furthermore, they report that on an annual basis the failure rate has nearly doubled to 3.9% in 2016, up from 2.1% in 2015.  To determine this, Trulia took the daily status of all listings for the first two months of each quarter from Q4 2014 through Q4 2016 and then tagged any properties that went from “Pending,”or “Active Contingent” back to “For Sale,” or…

Early this month, Zillow recently released their list of what they believe will be the ten hottest real estate markets of 2017.  Topping that list is Nashville, Tennessee, which Zillow predicts will see homes appreciating by 4.3% (Nationally, Zillow expects home values to appreciate 3% over 2017).  For their analysis, Zillow looked at cities with quickly rising home values, low unemployment rates and strong income growth. Zillow’s top 10 hottest housing markets for 2017 are: Nashville, Tenn. Seattle Provo, Utah Orlando, Fla. Salt Lake City, Utah Portland, Ore. Knoxville, Tenn. Ogden, Utah Denver Sacramento, Calif. “The growth and demand for…

Data powerhouse CoreLogic recently released their National Foreclosure Report showing that nationwide foreclosure inventory declined 25.9% in November (year over year).   There were 26k completed foreclosures in November representing a 25.9% decrease from November 2015.  Across the country there were approximately 325k homes in foreclosure, which represent 0.8% of all homes with a mortgage – compared with 465k (1.2% of all homes) in November 2015.  According to the report, the five states with the highest number of completed foreclosures were Florida (48k), Michigan (31k), Texas (25k), Ohio (22k) and Georgia (20k).  Taken together, these five states account for 36% of…

7 Reasons Why Smaller Multifamily Homes  are Great for Real Estate Investors By Richard ‘Monty’ Montgomery Reader Question: Monty, my wife and I are 32 years old and have just finished restoring a big Victorian two-family home in New Jersey. We took on a bit of debt, but I just paid all of the credit cards down and completely paid off a pretty big loan. We currently owe around $280,000 on the mortgage and it is worth around $350,000. Our other two-family is hitting on all cylinders. Debt is looking good and we once again have a good amount…

National apartment listing site ABODO recently released their Annual Rent Report highlighting national trends for 2016-2017.  Using over a million listings from all across the U.S., they determined the average price of a 1-bedroom apartment for each city, state as well as the whole country.  They report that the average renter in 2016 paid $1,001 per month.  It’s interesting data especially when you correlate it with the reports we’ve seen from other sources. “…if 2016 was any indication, rents in 2017 will continue to rise. The continuing revitalization of aging urban cores — especially in the South and the Midwest…