Author: Brad Beckett

The NAHB’s Eye on Housing is reporting that the size of new single-family homes continued their trend of decreasing in size during the fourth quarter of 2016.  According to the report, the median single-family square floor area was 2,453 square feet, and the average (mean) square footage for new single-family homes was 2,661 square feet.  Bottom line; over time, houses are just plain getting bigger… “The post-recession increase in single-family home size is consistent with the historical pattern coming out of recessions. Typical new home size falls prior to and during a recession as some home buyers tighten budgets, and then sizes rise as high-end homebuyers,…

Forbes recently teamed up with National REIA preferred vendor Local Market Monitor to come up with the top 20 markets where population, jobs and home prices are growing.  In her weekly podcast, Kathy Fettke breaks that list down and further discusses what these cities have to offer – as well as her take on the investment climate in these cities. “Many cities on this list are good for both rental investing and a place to call home. The states with the most hot spots are Texas and Florida but there are three cities in California, and one in the Northeast…

This week we saw another President’s Day come and go.  For some it was a day off, but for many it was just another workday.  However it’s actually a celebration of George Washington’s birthday, celebrated on the 3rd Monday of February (his actual birthday is 2/22, 1732).  The day is now known as a President’s Day and honors all presidents of the United States…..The National Association of Realtors put together this cool graphic showing the median single-family home price at the time each President was sworn in since 1969 (nearly 50 years!)….Happy Friday!

For some the word gentrification conjures up images of displacement and for most it’s what happens when rundown neighborhoods get a massive upgrade.  Either way, you cannot deny that when a neighborhood that’s in severe decay is transformed into something vibrant & dynamic it is a good thing.  To that end, Realtor.com recently put together a list of the fastest gentrifying cities in the nation. They looked at cities with populations of 50k and then zoomed in on the census tracts of lower-income areas and did a deep dive with the data using a formula based on demographics and rehab…

A recent survey by closing cost data & technology provider ClosingCorp found that over half of homebuyers are still surprised by closing costs, in spite of the year-old TRID rules that were supposed to help consumers better understand costs when buying a home.  The survey interviewed 1,000 first-time and repeat homebuyers who had purchased a home between January 1, 2016 and January 1, 2017. “As more and more Millennials become first-time homebuyers, TRID or Know Before You Owe has made it easier for them to understand the costs and fees they’ll face at closing. Yet there are still surprises during…

In their recently released report of the top 2016 U.S. Growth Cities, U-Haul reports that Madison, Wisconsin is the number one growth city for locations with a population more than 50k, with arrivals accounted for 53% of one-way U-Haul traffic. U-Haul Growth Cities are calculated by the net gain of one-way U-Haul truck arrivals over departures for a calendar year.  Their migration trends data is compiled from more than 1.7 million one-way U-Haul truck rental transactions that occur annually.  Just imagine keeping track of all those rentals! “U-Haul migration trends data is among the most sought after in the industry…

Online real estate marketplace, Ten-X recently released their latest U.S. Apartment Market Outlook which included their top five Buy and ‘Sell U.S. markets for multifamily real estate.  The report also says that the “apartment sector remains strong after years of booming growth, but may now be primed for a slowdown after far surpassing its prior cyclical peak.”   They rate Sacramento, CA, Las Vegas, Atlanta, Phoenix and Dallas as the top markets that investors should consider buying multifamily assets, while San Francisco, New York City, San Jose, Calif., Miami and Milwaukee are places where investors should consider selling them. “While many…

The NY Fed’s Center for Microeconomic Data is reporting that total household debt increased by 1.8% in the fourth quarter of 2016, rising $226 billion to reach $12.58 trillion, only $99 billion short of its peak in Q3 of 2008.  The CMD’s latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit provides unique data and insight into the credit conditions and activity of U.S. consumers. Based on data from the New York Fed’s Consumer Credit Panel, a nationally representative sample drawn from anonymized Equifax credit data, the report provides a quarterly snapshot of household trends in borrowing and indebtedness, including data about…

The National Association of Realtors recently released a new Aspiring Home Buyers Profile that said affordability was the main hurdle for potential buyers.  According to the report, non-owners said that affordability of homes was the number one reason they don’t currently own.  Specifically, half of those surveyed said that they could not afford to buy, roughly one fifth said they wanted the flexibility of renting, and a small percentage did not want the responsibility of owning a home at all.  The Aspiring Home Buyer Profile is an in-depth examination of the consumer preferences of non-homeowners, defined as those that rent…

Are the big boys on Wall Street taking notice of home flippers?  That appears to be the case as Inman is reporting that Wall Street and some online lenders are bundling loans for home flippers into “fix-and-flip” mortgage bonds, which offer a new avenue for hedge funds, private equity firms and big players to invest in the housing market.  Mortgage bonds (aka mortgage-backed securities) allow large investors to buy mortgages in bulk, which potentially frees up the balance sheets of lenders so they can make more loans.  Hang on…this ought to be interesting. “About one-third of flips were financed in…