Buyers are doing everything from tapping into their retirement savings accounts to taking financial gifts from family and friends in order to bring more money to the closing table. Bankrate.com recently surveyed more than 2,500 adults about their home purchase to find the top ways they’re saving.About 47% of first-time home buyers said they saved on their own to purchase a house. But others also sought help elsewhere, such as through a fir
Housing inventories grew tighter in August following what had been a year of improvement, and median listing prices saw their largest July-to-August drop since 2012, realtor.com® reports in its latest housing report. Consumers are growing cautious over the economy, realtor.com®’s August 2019 housing trend report explains.Inventories of homes for sale fell 1.8% year over year in August, the first time in a year that inventories have dropped."T
A strong housing market over the last few years has put the foreclosure crisis in the rearview mirror, but many Americans are still haunted by their past housing challenges. New data shows that they should be able to comfortably leave their past behind them.In 2018, there were more than 600,000 homes in foreclosure in the U.S., the lowest number since the days of the 2008 financial crisis. Foreclosures peaked at 2.9 million in 2010.Homeowners who
Mortgage rates, which remain near three-year lows, stand to help not only homebuyers but current homeowners who want to unlock potential savings through mortgage refinancing. In fact, homeowners who purchased property as recently as a year ago could reap significant financial benefits by refinancing today.Eighty percent of mortgages originated in 2018 have an interest rate at least 0.75 percentage points higher than today’s 3.4% average. But t
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.49% this week, the lowest average since October 2016, Freddie Mac reports. “Mortgage rates continued the summer swoon due to weaker economic data,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “While economic growth is clearly slowing due to rising manufacturing and trade headwinds, economic fundamentals are still solid for U.S. consumers. The unemployment rate is low, housing affordability is
Millennials are jumping into homeownership in larger numbers, and they’re firing up home prices as they hunt within limited supplies, real estate data firm CoreLogic reports.Overall, home price gains had been shrinking over the last year, but increases reversed course and annual gains started trending higher this summer. Home prices increased 3.6% in July compared to a year ago. That is higher than the 3.4% increase in June. CoreLogic economist
Only about 1.4% of the population has a perfect 850 on their FICO credit score. “Achieving a perfect credit score is largely out of your hands,” Riley Adams, a licensed certified public accountant and senior financial analyst for Google, told Apartment Therapy. It can take years to build up a perfect credit score of paying bills on time and paying off debts.Apartment Therapy recently asked financial experts how consumers can improve their sco
Hurricane Dorian, which has been pummeling parts of the Bahamas for the past 24 hours with wind gusts up to 150 miles per hour and a storm surge of 18 feet, is nearing the Eastern Seaboard. Hundreds of thousands of people in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina have been ordered to evacuate before the storm heads up the coastline. Housing help and other aid is already on standby as the storm’s full impact nears.The National Association of
Some markets have a strong allure for buyers with their job markets and lower home prices and are seeing an uptick of new residents."With prices now having risen for seven consecutive years, affordability has become top of mind and is driving people not just in their local markets, but when they’re shopping to relocate," says Danielle Hale, chief economist of realtor.com. However, "it’s not just the cheapest markets that are attracting attent
The share of homes selling at or above list price has returned to levels comparable with the early 2000s, according to a new analysis from CoreLogic, a real estate data firm.Annual home price growth began to slow in the third quarter of 2018. As such, the share of home buyers able to negotiate a better price began to rise.In the second quarter of 2018, the share of homes selling at or above list price peaked at 43% of total sales, which is
This website includes images sourced from third party websites including Adobe, Getty Images, and as otherwise noted.
