Author: Brad Beckett

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…

Real Estate brokerage Redfin recently ran the numbers from over 1 million homes across 14 metro areas to determine how “Walk Scores” affects home sale prices.  In particular, they were looking for the value of one point using that scale.  They found that increasing a home’s Walk Score by just one point can increase the price of a home by an average of $3250, or 0.9%.  Interestingly, the results greatly differed by metro areas. “56 percent of millennials and 46 percent of boomers prefer walkable communities with a range of housing amidst local businesses and public services. And like everything…

ATTOM Data Solutions (parent company of RealtyTrac) recently released their 2016 Schools and Housing Report, which shows that homes in zip codes with at least one good elementary school have higher values and stronger long-term appreciation than those in zip codes without any good elementary schools.  The report analyzed data from nearly 19k elementary schools in over 4k zip codes with a combined 45.9 million single family homes & condos.  A good school is defined as any with an overall test score at least one-third above the state average….Happy Friday! “While good schools are one of the top items on…

9 out-of-the-box questions and tactics multi-family investors should consider using By Richard Montgomery Summary: Investing in multi-family housing and apartments requires extra investigation, sometimes called due diligence by attorneys. This extra investigation and these questions are beyond what a real estate investor may do normally for a typical commercial real estate investment. As a real estate investor, once you go beyond multi-family rentals such as duplexes or fourplexes, you enter the commercial real estate area.   Here are 9 out-of-the-box questions you should be asking, or at least consider asking, before you purchase that multi-family or apartment building. DEAR MONTY:…

According to the latest Yardi Matrix the average national apartment rental rate rose $4 in July, reaching another all-time high of $1,217.  Rents were up 4.6% year to date and were up 5.5% year-over-year.  The leaders in year-over-year rent growth are Sacramento, Seattle, Los Angeles; Portland (Oregon) and California’s Inland Empire. “July’s numbers show that the big picture about the multifamily market continues to be positive. Rent growth of 5.5% is a very solid foundation, and the vast majority of metros across the country are seeing healthy rent growth by historical standards. Although it is beginning to weaken in a…