The winter months have proven to be a sluggish time for home sales. January was the third consecutive month in which existing-home sales posted a drop, the National Association of REALTORS® reported Thursday. All regions of the U.S. saw a drop in sales except for the Northeast.Total existing-home sales, which are completed transactions on single-family homes, townhomes, condos, and co-ops, dropped 1.2 percent in January compared to December
Laundry rooms and Energy Star–compliant windows topped the list of what buyers considered the most “essential” or “desirable” features in a home, according to the National Association of Home Builders’ 2019 “What Home Buyers Really Want” report, released at the NAHB International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas this week. Most of the features that new homeowners or aspiring buyers ranked highest related to helping them save in
Samsung debuted its most extensive new lineup of smartphones, taking on Apple amid a slowing market with new low-end and premium models, 3-D cameras, an in-screen fingerprint scanner and faster 5G connectivity.At simultaneous launch events in San Francisco and London on Wednesday, the South Korean technology giant introduced four new phones: the Galaxy S10, S10+, S10e, and S10 5G. The S10 and S10+ are direct successors to last year's S9 and S9+,
Housing affordability concerns will likely limit single-family-home building from making any significant gains in 2019, said economists at a Tuesday session during the 2019 International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas.“This is a crisis,” Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, told attendees about the rising costs of homeownership that are pricing many buyers out. Home price appreciation has outpaced wage ga
A discerning eye saved a group of Philadelphia real estate investors from a near tragedy when touring a property. One more step down a booby-trapped stairway inside the home could have left a member of their team critically injured.Ekrem Uysaler told the media that he and his investor team were looking at a property on Jan. 2 in South Philadelphia when one member of the team spotted a small trip wire at the first stair of the stairway, which was
Many homeowners show a reluctance toward refinancing, believing that some offers from banks may be “too good to be true.” But their suspicions may be costing them thousands of dollars in savings, according to a new study in the February Issue of The Review of Financial Studies from Columbia Business School researchers.Fifty-one percent of 550,000 borrowers who were sent preapproval applications through the Home Affordable Refinance
Spacious areas can sometimes feel cold and unwelcoming. How can you make a large living room with high ceilings feel more inviting? Houzz, a home remodeling website resource, provides some of the following tips:Leverage tall potted plants.For a room with tall ceilings, incorporate tall plants. It’ll help fill in vertical height gaps while also drawing the eyes up to help accentuate the high ceilings.Paint two-tone walls.To make the ceiling feel
Home inspections have been uncovering much-needed property repairs. More than 1 million repairs needed more than $11,000 in costs, according to a February review of 50,000 home inspection reports by Repair Pricer, a home repair estimating resource.Nearly 55 percent of homes analyzed across the country had doors that needed adjusting, which could be an indicator of foundation issues, the report showed. More than half—or 54 percent
Google's appetite for real estate is growing. The tech giant’s CEO announced this week that the company is building new data centers and offices and plans to expand to several key locations across the country this year. It plans to spend $13 billion this year in real estate.“With this new investment, Google will now have a home in 24 total states, including data centers in 13 communities,” wrote Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO, in a blog post
Amazon announced Thursday that it has halted plans to build a second headquarters in Long Island City, N.Y., blaming political and community opposition for its decision.The reversal comes three months after Amazon picked two cities as homes for its HQ2 project—Long Island City and Crystal City, Va.—promising to bring 25,000 new, high-paying jobs to each area. A booming housing market in those areas was expected to follow.Indeed, in the time s
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