Author: Brad Beckett

On a recent episode of the Rental Property Owner & Real Estate Investor Podcast, Brian Hamrick talks with Andrew Hinton, who is nearing completion of an office to apartment conversion, about his experiences, both good & bad.  Andrew discusses his challenges working with architects, engineers, and city inspectors, and the delays he’s encountered along the way. He also shares the silver lining that makes it all worthwhile. One of the after effects of the Covid-19 pandemic has been an increase in people working from home, and a decrease in the need for office space. This has had a dramatic effect…

We’ve seen a number of these rent vs. buy stories over the years.  Realtor.com says that making the leap to buying has gotten a lot harder as home prices and mortgage rates have skyrocketed.  In fact, they say there aren’t many places left where buyers have lower monthly mortgage payments than what they would have paid renting.  With that in mind they put pen to paper to come up with the top markets to rent and the top markets where owning makes more sense. Either way, real estate investors are ready to meet those needs. “The Realtor.com annual Rent vs.…

Rental information site Zumper recently released their latest monthly National Rent Report for September, 2023.  According to their data, rent for 1-bedroom apartments was $1,511 (up 0.5% year over year) – the smallest year-over-year increase they’ve seen in over two years. Be sure to check out their list of the top 100 metro areas. “Rents are now almost flat year-over-year—something that would’ve been unimaginable even a year ago.”  Said Zumper CEO Anthemos Georgiades. Click here to read the full report at Zumper.

According to the latest Federal Housing Finance Agency’s (FHFA) House Price Index (HPI), home prices home prices rose 0.8% in July. In addition, they report that prices rose 4.6% from July 2022 through July 2023. The FHFA HPI is the nation’s only collection of public, freely available house price indexes that measure changes in single-family home values based on data from all 50 states and over 400 American cities that extend back to the mid-1970s. “U.S. house prices continued to appreciate in July, consistent with the trend observed over the last several months…Regionally, all nine census divisions posted positive price…

The latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index reported a 1% annual change for July, 2023.  Their 10-City Composite increased 0.9% and their 20-City Composite increased 0.1%, year-over-year.  In addition, 19 of their 20 major metro markets reported month-over-month price increases. “We have previously noted that home prices peaked in June 2022 and fell through January of 2023, declining by 5.0% in those seven months. The increase in prices that began in January has now erased the earlier decline, so that July represents a new all-time high for the National Composite. Moreover, this recovery in home prices…

The National Association of Realtors is reporting that pending home sales fell 7.1% in August, 2023.  The NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index (a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings) came in at 71.8 in August.  The NAR says all four U.S. regions saw year-over-year declines in transactions. “It’s clear that increased housing inventory and better interest rates are essential to revive the housing market.”  Said the NAR’s Chief Economist, Lawrence Yun. Click here to read the full report at the National Association of Realtors.

Statista says gas prices vary widely across the United States. State-specific costs for transportation and distribution can drive up prices, like in Alaska & Hawaii.  However, state taxes also play a large role, for example explaining the price of gasoline in a high-tax state like California. Interestingly, Statista points out that current prices are still below the all-time high recorded on June 14, 2022 ($5.02).  Stay safe and have a Happy Friday!!! Hat tip to Statista.

The U.S. Government is reporting that sales of new single-family houses in August, 2023 were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 675k, which is 8.7% lower than July’s revised rate and is 5.8% higher than one year ago.  The median sales price of new houses sold in August was $430,300 with an average sales price of $514k.  There were an estimated 436k new houses for sale at the end of August representing a 7.8-month supply at the current sales rate. Click here to read the full report at the U.S. Census Bureau.

Each month we post inflation data (CPI) from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  Recently we came across an interesting site that allows you to calculate inflation for any year as well as comparing the value of a dollar with various years.  Interestingly, Inflation has averaged 0.93% per year since 1635, causing an overall price difference of 3,583.02%.  There is a lot of interesting data in this site. Click here to read more at the CPI Inflation Calculator. (hat tip to Joe)

According to Black Knight’s latest Mortgage Monitor, the total U.S. loan delinquency rate (loans 30 days+ past due but not in foreclosure) as at 3.17% in August, up by 4 basis points and is nearly a full percentage point below its 2015-2019 same-month average.  In addition, serious delinquencies (90+ days past due) continued to decline, falling 20K from July to 448K – the lowest level since June 2006. Click here to read the full report at Black Knight.