Author: Brad Beckett

A California couple that purchased a property out of foreclosure were later denied a permit to rebuild (the previous house was destroyed by fire) because the local planning authority declared the property to be entirely within a Stream Environment Zone – apparently because of a small creek and some runoff towards the rear of the parcel.  The Pacific Legal Foundation is currently suing the planning authority, on their behalf, in federal court claiming a violation of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Shown below is the media release issued by the Pacific Legal Foundation: Lake Tahoe regulators sued for…

CoreLogic is reporting that in the 3rd quarter of 2015 mortgaged residential properties with negative equity stood at 4.1 million, or 8.1%.  That figure was down 20.7%  year over year from 5.2 million homes, or 10.4% , compared with 3rd quarter of 2014.  Negative equity (aka “underwater” or “upside down”) means that more is owed on mortgages than the home is worth.  A decline in home value, an increase in mortgage debt or a combination of the two can bring on this situation. “Home price growth continued to lift borrower equity positions and increase the number of borrowers with sufficient…

Last month during a routine tax-lien sale in Franklin County, Ohio (home of Columbus) the county treasurer offered 800 properties for sale however no one bought them. The Columbus Dispatch is reporting that the county found a buyer four days later but only after they removed nearly a fourth of the portfolio.  In addition, Cuyahoga County (home to Cleveland) suspended its tax-lien sale on 3,500 properties earlier this year after an offer didn’t meet expectations.  While there are a lot opportunities in these type of sales, discerning investors know when to buy and when to stay away. In fact: “Some…

This week Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies released its 2015 report on Rental Housing that claims a record number of renter households face severe affordability problems, as rents grow faster than incomes and increased supply fails to meet demand.  The report also calls for more efforts from the public sector (surprise) as well as the private sector to expand the range of rental housing options.  Editorial note;  That certainly sounds like opportunity! “Rental housing is home to a growing share of the nation’s increasingly diverse households. But even with the strong rebound in multifamily construction, tight rental markets…

Over at Realtor.com, their chief economist came up with a list of the top 10 up-and-coming metropolitan markets in the United States.  Using past trends and seasonal variations of housing and economic data for the 100 largest markets in the country, they ran them through a statistical model that predicts future values for home sales & prices. Then they identified markets where forecasted growth was greater than or equal to the U.S. average. Realtor.com’s Top 10 Real Estate Markets to Watch in 2016: Providence, RI St. Louis, MO San Diego, CA Sacramento, CA Atlanta, GA New Orleans, LA Memphis, TN…

The Scotsman Guide is reporting that tax relief for sellers in short sales as part of negotiations taking place this week in Washington. “There could be a reduction [through a short sale]  of anything from $40,000 to $400,000, depending on where we are in the country,” said Charles Tassell, chief operating officer for the National Real Estate Investor Association. “When the IRS treats that reduction as income and then gives the person a bill as if that were income, this is somebody who is already in financial straits.” Tax relief could soon come to sellers in short sales Scotsman Guide 12/9/15…

This week property information provider Corelogic reported that October’s (year over year) foreclosure inventory was down 21% and that completed foreclosures declined 27.1%.  The data was released as part of their October 2015 National Foreclosure Report.   The number of completed foreclosures decreased as well from 51k in October 2014 to 37k in October 2015 . In addition, they report that October’s foreclosures were down 68.2%  from the peak of 117,543 in September 2010. Some key takeaways: Five states accounted for almost half of all completed foreclosures nationally;   Florida (86k), Michigan (59k), Texas (30k), Georgia (25k) and California (24k) Four…

There has been a lot of discussion about millennials entering the housing market and whether they prefer renting or actual home ownership.  Recently , real estate news site Inman had an interesting take on the issue – they posit that the current marketplace is seeing aging baby boomers who are “house rich” trying to sell to those who are “credit poor.” “The millennial generation — most likely with a FICO credit score that hasn’t been built up yet — is trying to buy homes from existing long-term residents. Those long-term residents know they have “profit” accumulated in their asset; it’s…

Freddie Mac announced this week that all data from all fixed-rate single family mortgages would be added to its Single-Family Loan-Level Dataset that now includes 21.5 million mortgage loans originated through the end of 2014.   Previously, their publicly available dataset only included loan-level and actual loss data on 30-year fixed-rate single-family mortgage loans.  The expanded dataset contains approximately 3.3 million loan-level credit performance data on 15- and 20-year fixed-rate single-family mortgages originated between January 1, 2005, and December 31, 2014, plus approximately 18.2 million 30-year fixed-rate single-family mortgages originated between January 1, 1999, and December 31, 2014. In their media release Freddie Mac said…

Recently the NAHB’s Eye on Housing site together a heat map that shows owner-occupied home improvement spending by zipcode.  These numbers are garnered from a statistical model relating improvement spending to five key variables (number of homes in the area, the share built in 1960s, share built in the 1970s, owners’ average income and level of education) for calendar year 2015.  The estimates show total spending on improvements, as well as improvements per occupied home in the area, in each zip code. Click here to read the full article at Eyeonhousing.com.