Author: Brad Beckett

An Illinois homeowner has filed a lawsuit against Zillow claiming that its Zestimate tool has repeatedly undervalued her property and hinder its sale.  According to a report in the Washington Post; the lawsuit may be the first of its kind and alleges that despite Zillow’s denial that Zestimates constitute “appraisals,” the fact that they offer market-value estimates and “are promoted as a tool for potential buyers to use in assessing [the] market value of a given property,” shows that they meet the definition of an appraisal under state law. The suit alleges that Zillow should be licensed to perform appraisals…

Local Market Monitor (a National REIA preferred vendor) recently released their National Economic Outlook for May, 2017 where they share their thoughts on developments in some of the important sub-sectors of the U.S. economy. National Economic Outlook – May 2017 May 12, 2017 By Ingo Winzer I noted last month that the number of jobs in the retail sector, while still higher than  a year ago, is only growing very slowly. Statistics from April point to the same disconcerting conclusion, so we’ll now examine more closely what’s going on here. There are two important reasons: when people buy less stuff,…

Data powerhouse CoreLogic is reporting that in February, 5% of all mortgages were in some stage of delinquency – down from 5.5% from one year ago.  In addition, loans that were 30-59 days past due (early-stage delinquencies) were 2.1% and the share of mortgages 60-89 days past due was at 0.7%.  Both of these two figures are virtually unchanged from a year ago. Key takeaways: Early-stage delinquencies were unchanged from a year ago The current-to 30-day transition rate increased in February 2017 from a year earlier The New York City metro area had the highest delinquency rate at 7.6% San…

We’ve shared several posts lately about taxes and their impact on our economy. Today’s infographic from the U.S. Census Bureau highlights selected major state’s sales taxes where each makes up a large portion of the state’s total tax revenue.  Happy Friday!!

We’ve had several posts about investing in student housing and in areas with colleges & universities.  Recently, Redfin put together their list of the 20 best college towns in which to buy an investment property.  They compiled their list using schools on the U.S. News and World Report National Universities Rankings and their own data (walk score, list prices, etc).  The bottom-line;  these are the most affordable college towns with schools that also offer low tuition and a high-quality education. “It’s always great to invest in a location where there is a large pool of tenants, which is exactly what…

Rental information site Zumper recently released their National Rent Report for May showing that the median national rent for 1-bedroom apartment was $1,169 and $1,390 for a 2-bedroom apartment.  San Francisco continues to dominate their National Rent Index of 100 cities at $3,370/$4500 with Toledo, Ohio rounding out the bottom at $480/$580. “As we head into peak moving season, renters will be up against a higher apartment turnover rate,” said Zumper CEO Anthemos Georgiades. Click here to read the full report on Zumper.com.

The NAHB’s (National Association of Home Builders) Q1 2017single-family 55+ Housing Market Index (55+ HMI) shows that thr 55+ housing market remains firmly in positive territory, indicating that more builders view conditions as good than poor.  The 55+ HMI is based on a survey that asks if current sales, prospective buyer traffic and anticipated six-month sales for that market are good, fair or poor (high, average or low for traffic).  As more and more baby-boomers retire and downsize it’s important for investors to pay attention to this demographic – especially as they sell their old homes and look for places…

According to the latest Yardi Matrix, multifamily rents posted solid gains in April to an average of $1,314, which is 2% higher than one year ago.  The Matrix Monthly is comprised of data gleaned from 121 markets covered by Yardi Matrix. “Now rents are peaking and have become difficult to afford for the average resident in many metros, while supply is at cyclical peaks. We expect upwards of 363,000 units to come online in 2017, with the number of deliveries declining in 2018 and 2019.” Click here to read the full report.

Recently on the ICOR Real Estate Investing Podcast, Troy Miller sat down with Frank Rolfe, the 5th Largest Park Land Owner in the US (200+ parks), to talk about building a mobile home park empire.  Rolfe started with just one park, and then partnered with Colorado Investor, Dave Reynolds to expand that into a multi-million dollar portfolio of commercial property.  There are roughly 44k trailer parks in the United States and building new ones has become an ongoing challenge – regulatory, politicians NIMBY opposition etc.  This is a good listen and an interesting opportunity for investors. Click here to listen…

Corelogic released their Home Price Index and HPI Forecast for march 2017 showing that home prices are up 7%, year over year (which includes distressed sales) as well as increasing 1.6% month over month.  In addition,  CoreLogic’s HPI Forecast predicts that home prices will increase by 4.9% on a year-over-year basis from March 2017 to March 2018. “Prices in more than half the country have already surpassed their previous peaks, and almost 20% of of metropolitan areas are now at their price peaks.”  Said Dr. Frank Nothaft, Chief Economist for CoreLogic. Click here to read the full report on Corelogic.com.…