Author: Brad Beckett

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…

Home-finding site Trulia recently conducted a report on homeownership entitled “When it comes to the American Dream of homeownership, immigrants are closing the gap on the native-born.”  They showed that the homeownership rates for immigrants has slowly gained ground against US-born residents.  In addition, they they found that states where immigrants have resided in the U.S. for the longest periods of time there are higher rates of immigrant homeownership.  The report uses data from the U.S. Census Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey.  There is a lot of good information that can be gleaned from this report, but…

Why Single-Family Rental Homes Are Best For Investors By John Triplett NationalREIA You can often hear discussions at local real estate investor clubs about the relative merits of investing in single-family homes or in multifamily homes. With the trends today, single-family homes are proving to be the best for many real estate investors, according to veteran investor Larry Arth. In a recent interview, Arth set out the reasons single-family homes for rent work so well for so many investors. “If you find a need and fulfill it, you have a good business.” Based on that statement, “There has proven to…

Is Airbnb a threat to the hotel industry?  We have seen industry disruption before  – and no I don’t mean the buggy-whip and candlestick makers from around the turn of the 20th century.  I’m talking about how Uber and Lyft have revolutionized getting a ride from point A to point B – remember YellowCab?  So is it now time for the hospitality industry to be disrupted?  A recent article in US News & World Report explores that subject and concludes that, no, they’re not a threat to the hotel industry per se….However they have started to grab a larger share…

What cities across the US are the most stressed-out?  Using 11 metrics covering such items as sleep, working hours, commute time, unemployment rate and even the number of yoga centers per capita, recently the number-crunchers over at Realtor.com came up with a top 10 list.  And, in case you wondered about the opposite list – with the most relaxed cities – they covered that as well.  So if you’re looking for a relaxing area to call home, look no further than the upper mid-west.  The entire list in itself is pretty interesting. “Where you live can have a major effect…