Author: Brad Beckett

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, as of Q3 2016, 1.55% of all mortgages nationwide were in some stage of foreclosure. States such as Florida and California saw foreclosures increase early in the crisis but they have fallen steadily since their peaks with foreclosure inventory rates down to 2.48 percent and 0.60 percent, compared to highs of 14.49 percent and 5.83 percent, respectively. It took Florida a few years to work through its judicial foreclosure backlog and the sheer size of the foreclosure stock, but since 2012, the percentage of loans in foreclosure has fallen quickly as its local housing…

What are the best cities across America for Thanksgiving feasts?  Home-finding site Trulia recently put that question to the test and came up with the three best cities in each U.S. region that are “truly the best places to induce the infamous Thanksgiving food coma.”  To compile this list, they sifted through neighborhood amenities data to find grocery stores, farmers markets, butcher shops, bakeries, etc. and THEN they looked for areas with the highest number of wild turkeys! While their list is a fun and whimsical way to look at Thanksgiving, we believe the best place for Thanksgiving is wherever…

Investing in Real Estate consistently ranks at the top of annual investment surveys, so it was no surprise to learn that 16% of single family rentals are owned by an investor living in another state.  Now, new data from ATTOM Data Solutions (parent company of RealtyTrac) shows that 3.4 million single-family investment homes nationwide are owned by someone living in another state – representing 16% of all SFR’s.  The five states with the most investment homes owned by out-of-state investors are California, Florida, Texas, New York, and Illinois. Click here to read the full report on RealtyTrac.

Is winter the best time to buy single-families?  According to a new report from HomeUnion, the winter “off-peak” season is the best time of the year to acquire single-family rentals (SFR’s).  In fact, they found that investors pay 7.2% less per sq. ft. during the winter versus spring & summer as well as seeing a higher average cap rate.  They attribute this fluctuation partly to concerns about schools – with more buying activity in the summer months resulting in higher home prices. “Based on seasonal cap rate fluctuations, our study conclusively found that early winter is the best time to…

The Commerce Department reported that privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,229,000. This is 0.3% above September’s rate of 1,225,000 and is 4.6% above October 2015.  Single-family authorizations in October were at a rate of 762k; this is 2.7% above September’s 742K.  Authorizations of units in buildings with five units or more were 439k in October.  Privately-owned housing starts in October were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,323,000. This is 25.5% above September’s number and is 23.3% higher than October 2015.  Single-family housing starts in October were…

Here’s a list you’ll want to see;  National real estate brokerage RedFin set out to discover America’s best cities that were built for the perfect pub crawl.  Using walking score data and locating a lot of bars/pubs, they determined the best route for hitting the most bars in succession in every city in America (believe it or not).  They made sure bars were no further than 300 meters (around 1000 feet) apart and literally constructed a walking list for each city in the top 10.  Be sure to read the full story on RedFin to see the individual maps…they’re pretty…

Last month we learned about the 10 hottest markets for millennials.  Combine that with the NAR’s latest Profile of Home Buyers & Sellers, where the median age of all first-time home buyers is 31 years old and you’ll see that “older” millennials (25-36 years old) are diving head-first into homeownership market.  Happy Friday…. Hat tip to Keeping Current Matters

Realtor.com says that flipping is back and it’s better than ever!  In fact they report (like many others) that the number of flipped properties is reaching levels not seen in a nearly decade.  So, Realtor.com’s number-crunchers put their pencils to paper and identified the largest 100 markets by ratio of flips to all home sales and came up with America’s most “flipworthy” hotspots. They are: Deltona, FL Stockton, CA Nashville, TN Tampa, FL New Orleans, LA Los Angeles, CA Knoxville, TN Providence, RI Phoenix, AZ Denver, CO “Flipping activity is hot again, due to the fact that we are seeing…

The Mortgage Bankers Association predicts that it expects to see $1.10 trillion in purchase mortgage originations during 2017, an 11% increase from 2016.  On the flip side, the MBA says that refinance originations will decrease by 40%.  They attribute this to strong household formation, job growth, rising wages, and continuing home price appreciation into the foreseeable future. Click here to read the full report on MBA.org.

Last week we saw the SFR market’s “hidden gems” and now, drawing from their Q3 2016 Single Family Rental Market Report, RealtyTrac recently identified 22 markets they consider the best for high rental yields with low vacancy rates out of the 473 U.S. counties analyzed in their report.  To get their list they limited it only to counties with an investment property vacancy rate below 3% and a gross annual rental yield (annualized rental income divided by median sales price) of 10% or more.  RealtyTrac says that many of these counties are “a bit off the beaten path” so to speak…