Author: Brad Beckett

The Commerce Department reported this week that privately-owned housing starts in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,211,000. This is 2.1% above the revised June estimate of 1,186,000 and is 5.6% above the July 2015 rate of 1,147,000.  Single-family housing starts in July were at a rate of 770k – this number  is 0.5% above the revised June figure of 766k. The July rate for units in buildings with five units or more was 433k. Privately-owned housing units authorized by building permits in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,152,000.  This is 0.1% below…

New research from the Pew Research Center says that a record number of Americans are living in multigenerational family households.  They report that in 2014, 60.6 million people, or 19% of the U.S. population, lived with multiple generations, all under one roof.   Multigenerational living is defined as a household that includes two or more adult generations, or one that includes grandparents and grandchildren.  The most common type of multigenerational household consists of two adult generations, such as parents and their adult children.   That group composed of 29.7 million people in 2014. Click here to read more at PewReaserch.org.

Last week we posted about the 3.3 million HELOC’s that were schedule to reset over the next few years.  Now we’re starting to see some of the data come in about those lines of credit.  According to a recent article on Realtor.com (which was also in the WSJ) the bill is coming due for many of those homeowners with payments increasing by hundreds of dollars per month due to these resets.  Interestingly, some banks have started taking additional steps to lessen risk by no longer permitting interest-only payments on new HELOC’s. “While delinquencies for Helocs are rising, charge-offs…

The Mortgage Bankers Association recently reported that delinquency rates for mortgage loans on one to four-unit residential properties fell to their lowest level since 2006, while foreclosure rates fell to their lowest level in 16 years.  The data was part of the their 2nd quarter National Delinquency Survey which showed that the delinquency rate fell 11 basis points to 4.66% of all loans outstanding.  The percentage of loans with started foreclosure actions fell to 0.32% – the lowest since 2000. “The mortgage delinquency rate tracks closely with the nation’s improving unemployment rate. In the second quarter, the mortgage delinquency rate…

Almost a year ago we reported the same thing;  Bankrate.com’s annual survey of the best way to invest money that you wouldn’t need for more than 10 years once again puts real estate at the very top.  The results show that 25% Americans chose Real Estate, 23% Cash, 16% Gold, 16% Stocks, 5% Bonds, 9% said they don’t know and 6% said something else.  Indeed……..Happy Friday… “Houses are tangible. You can physically see and feel the product. So you know where your money is going: It’s going into that house…With stocks, you have no clue where your money is going.” …

The National Association of Realtors are reporting that home prices continued their meteoric rise across the country with the median existing single-family home price reaching $240,700 in the 2nd quarter of 2016 – up 4.9% from the second quarter of 2015.  The honor of the highest median home price in the nation goes to San Jose, CA which now tops $1 million.  In case you were wondering, San Francisco wasn’t too far behind coming in at $885,600.  Overall, total existing national home sales rose 3.8% to a seasonally annual rate of 5.50 million in the second quarter of 2016 –  4.2%…

Are you thinking about getting into the short-term rental business?  A recent article in the Wall Street Journal discussed the ins & outs of purchasing a vacation home that can also serve as cash-generating short-term rental.  The article suggests that the time might be right with rising rents and low borrowing costs. “Vacation homeowners make an average of $28,000 a year in rental income, according to results of a quarterly survey released in March of 1,253 owners who list on HomeAway.com, VRBO.com and VacationRentals.com.” Click here to read “How to Finance a Vacation Home That’s Also a Short-Term Rental,” Wsj.com…

This week data powerhouse CoreLogic released their June 2016 National Foreclosure Report showing that nationwide foreclosure inventory declined by 25.9% with completed foreclosures declining by 4.9%, compared with June 2015.  The actual number of completed foreclosures decreased from 40k in June 2015 to 38k in June 2016 – representing a 67.5% decrease from its peak of 117,813 in September 2010.  In addition, the nationwide foreclosure inventory was approximately 375k homes (1% of all homes with a mortgage and the lowest since 10/07) compared to 507k in June 2015.  June’s foreclosure inventory rate was the lowest for any month since August…

Rental information site Zumper recently released their National Rent Report for August which shows that U.S. rental prices continue their steady appreciation.  Nationally, one and two bedroom unit prices increased 4.3% and 4.5% year to date, respectively.  Their data shows that for July the national median price of one bedroom units was $1,158 with two bedroom rents only increased 0.1%, settling at a median price of $1,369.  Each month, Zumper analyzes rental data from over 1 million active listings from the top 100 U.S. metro areas.  As for their top 10 list, no surprises there….San Francisco continues to dominate. Click…

Recently, RealtyTrac performed an analysis of open home equity lines of credit (HELOC) that originated during the 2005-2008 housing bubble.  They found that there were nearly 3.3 million HELOC’s scheduled to reset at fully amortizing monthly mortgage payments during the years 2015 through 2018.  They also found that over 1.8 million of the resetting HELOC’s were on homes that were seriously underwater. The graphic below shows markets with the most resetting HELOC’s both by sheer number of HELOCs scheduled to reset (size of the bubble) and by the percentage of resetting HELOCs that are on homes seriously underwater (color of…