Author: Brad Beckett

The U.S. Department of Commerce is reporting that construction spending during August, 2016 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.142 trillion, which is 0.7%  below July’s estimate of $1.15 trillion and 0.3% lower than one year ago.  Total construction spending through August was $755.0 billion, which is 4.9% higher than in August, 2015.  Breaking this down a little, private residential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $449.2 billion in August, 0.3% below July’s revised  estimate of $450.4 billion.  Private nonresidential construction was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $422.4 billion in August, 0.4…

Information powerhouse CoreLogic recently released their monthly U.S. Home Price Insights Report that shows home prices are up 6.2% in August (year over year) and up 1.1% from July 2016.   In addition, CoreLogic’s HPI Forecast indicates that home prices will increase by 5.3% through August 2017, and increase monthly by 0.4%. “Home prices are now just 6 percent below the nominal peak reached in April 2006,” said Dr. Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “With prices forecasted to increase by 5 percent over the next year, prices will be back to their peak level in 2017.” Click here to read…

Recently financial information site GOBankingRates.com surveyed 61 of America’s 100 most populous cities to determine which cities they believe are the best and worst for owning rental property.  Using data from Zillow and the U.S. government, they looked at four major factors in their evaluation;  Employment Growth, Population Growth, Increase in home values, and Years to pay off property.  As with all data like this, take it with the appropriate amount of salt. Click here to read the full story.

By now everyone’s heard of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin – heck, you might even own some.  And no doubt you’ve probably come across the term “blockchain” and wondered what in the world it could possibly be.  Interestingly, the concept of a blockchain was actually created for cryptcurrencies and started with Bitcoin.  In a nutshell, blockchain is a digital, decentralized ledger that keeps a record of all transactions that take place across a peer-to-peer network without a need for a centralized third party.  The exciting and potential uses for this new technology are now being explored.  The folks at PwC put together…

Remember when elevators first started appearing in new homes?  Now the dumbwaiter, a home feature of the nineteenth century might be experiencing its own resurgence.  The Wall Street Journal recently reported that dumbwaiters are making a comeback in new homes and high-end renovations.  Citing data from Realtor.com, they report that 45% of homes with dumbwaiters were built after 1999 versus 8% that were built between 1850 & 1950.  However, they’re not cheap and can cost anywhere from $4k to 12k a pop.  And, as with any emerging technology or trend, the early adopters pay for that privilege.   Either way, it’s…

Black Knight Financial Services released their Home Price Index (HPI) report for July showing home prices were up 0.4% from June and up 5.3% from one year ago.  Currently at $266K, the U.S. HPI has risen over 33% from the market’s bottom and is now within just 0.8% of a new national peak.  The report also shows that home prices in nine of the nation’s 20 largest states and 14 of the 40 largest metros hit new peaks in July. Click here to read the full report at Black Knight.

A recent article on Bloomberg poses the question;  Are mobile homes a solution to an affordable housing shortage?  When you consider that the average sales price of a new mobile home was $68k compared to $380k for a new site-built home it does makes some sense.  Interestingly, mobile homes are highly concentrated in the South however California leads the nation with over 500k of them.  The article even suggests that a re-branding is in order to over come past stigmas – asking, are they the new “tiny house?”  Either way, the manufactured home industry has come a long way in…

Crowdfunding is hot….and getting hotter.  We’re even starting to see more & more success stories and positive media about it.  Recently, an article on Bloomberg talked about how home flippers have turned to crowdfunding for their funding needs with great success.  Using platform sites such as RealtyShares, LendingHome, PeerStreet and Patch of Land home flippers and developers have learned that financing can be quicker and easier than going through traditional banks. “[A house flipper] crowdfunded nine deals totaling more than $9 million through RealtyShares over the last two and a half years. A July deal for $1 million took him…

Trulia is reporting that data released by this month by the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2015 American Community Survey show that, nationally, metros with the lowest incomes experienced the highest income growth.  This comes on the heals of recent census data showing that the median U.S. income rose by 5.2% last year.  This could mean higher home prices in areas that have yet to be affected by the housing recovery. “Many of the metros that saw the highest income growth have been in places that have been slow to recover from the recession,” said Trulia’s chief economist, Ralph McLaughlin.” Click here…

The National Association of Realtors are reporting that existing home sales eased up in August for the second consecutive month despite mortgage rates near record lows.   The Realtors say that higher home prices and not enough inventory are behind the decline of 0.9% – representing an annual rate of 5.33 million homes.  The median existing price for all housing types in August was $240,200, up 5.1% from one year ago.  August’s price increase also marks the 54th consecutive month of year-over-year gains. “Hopes of a meaningful sales breakthrough as a result of this summer’s historically low mortgage rates failed…