Outdoor projects can help boost a home’s value by up to 10 percent, according to a new realtor.com® report. Outdoor showers, barbecue stations, entertainment pools, and firepits are the top projects that realtor.com® researchers found with the biggest potential increases to a home’s price.For its research, realtor.com® analyzed listings at its site for summer-related outdoor features in single-family homes listed for $150,000 or more.An ou
What makes a state great for homeowners? According to SmartAsset, a personal finance site, home price growth as well as affordability, and low foreclosures, property taxes, closing costs, and low burglary rates are among the characteristics that make homeownership an attractive investment.To find all of that, you may want to look in the Midwest, according to the analysis. But Western regions also hold quite a few spots on SmartAsset’s “Best S
Home prices are increasing at a faster rate than wages in 64 percent of U.S. markets, according to a new analysis released this week by real estate data firm ATTOM Data Solutions.Median home prices nationwide have risen 75 percent since the first quarter of 2012, while average weekly wages have risen just 13 percent over the same time period, according to the analysis. The counties where median home prices require the highest share of average wag
Borrowers found lower mortgage rates again this week, marking the third decrease in rates in the past four weeks.“After a sharp run-up in the early part of 2018, rates have stabilized over the last three months, with only a modest uptick since March,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “However, existing-home sales have hit a wall, declining in six of the last nine months on a year-over-year basis.”The National Association
Home prices are climbing across the country, and that has made homeowners more bullish when it comes to the prospects of selling. Seventy-five percent of more than 2,700 households recently surveyed say it’s a good time to sell a house; 68 percent say it’s a good time to buy, according to the National Association of REALTORS®’ second quarter Housing Opportunities and Market Experience (HOME) survey.“Hopefully this strong seller optimism
An audit from the Office of the Inspector General shows that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development had inadequate oversight of lead-based paint reporting and remediation in its public housing and Housing Choice Voucher programs.The OIG audit accused HUD of failing to make sure that public housing agencies completed required lead-based paint inspections. For homes built after 1977, the OIG says HUD did not require public housing age
Homebuilders report that some of their attempts to add new homes are being blocked by local zoning boards and neighboring owners who are trying to stop new development.“A lot of cities are reaching a crisis of affordability and supply of housing,” Rachel Meltzer, an urban policy professor at The New School in New York, told realtor.com®. “But cities can really use [zoning] to direct how housing is built.”Growing groups of neighborhood ac
The majority of renters aren’t happy with the location of where they live, according to a new survey by RentCafe of more than 2,000 renters. Eighty-three percent of renters say they live in less than their ideal location, but cost of rent was their number one concern in moving. Sixty percent of the renters surveyed say they are not able to pay anything more than the actual rent or a maximum of $100 more to live in their preferred location.The n
The majority of homeownership conversations focus on the impact from millennials, but senior citizens may actually have more influence in shaping the future market, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University’s 2018 State of the Nation’s Housing report. The median age of homeowners is on the rise, increasing from 50 in 1990 to 56 in 2016. Americans over the age of 65 were the only age group who had a higher
As more home buyers relocate from the North to the South, two Florida counties now top the list of the nation’s fastest-growing luxury markets, according to realtor.com®’s May 2018 Luxury Home Index.The top 5 percent of the priciest homes in Sarasota (North Port, Fla.) and Collier (East Naples, Fla.) counties rose 19 percent and 14 percent, respectively, in May. Broward County, where Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is located, ranked number 19 on the
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