Mortgage rates have hovered at multi-month lows in recent weeks, but this week, rates inched up across the board. However, economists say they expect overall borrowing costs to remain low, despite the slight uptick.“Rates moved up slightly this week while mortgage applications decreased following last week’s jump in rates—indicating borrower sensitivity to changing mortgage rates,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.
Many homeowners may be one leaky or burst pipe away from a financial crisis.Nearly 20 percent of homeowners admit they have no money put aside for an emergency home repair, according to a survey of more than 1,400 homeowners by HomeServe USA. Yet more than half of the respondents say they’ve had a home repair emergency in the last 12 months.“Part of that can be attributed to the fact that the median age of a home is about 40 years, so th
Foreclosures are still disappearing from most markets. In March, foreclosure filings posted a 7 percent increase from the month prior, but economists say that percentage needs to be put in perspective: Activity is still down from prerecession levels. Foreclosure filings are also down 21 percent from a year ago, according to a new report from ATTOM Data Solutions, a real estate data firm. CoreLogic, another real estate research company, recently s
More consumers are flipping homes again, but investors are acting differently than they did during the housing boom. Short-term investors are focusing more on adding value than speculating on prices, according to a new report from CoreLogic, a real estate data firm. CoreLogic defines a home flip as the purchase of a property with the intent to sell within a two-year period for profit.The U.S. flipping rate was 10.9 percent of all home sales in th
More real estate investors are taking into consideration the impact of climate change on their properties, according to a joint report from the Urban Land Institute and global investment management firm Heitman. The report is based on a series of interviews with institutional investors, investment managers, consultants, and other stakeholders to identify how they are factoring climate risks into their purchase decisions.“The interviews revealed
The recent plunge in mortgage rates may help the market for home loans surge to a 14-year high, according to recent housing forecasts. In the past month, mortgage rates have posted their biggest drop in a decade, with the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaging 4.08 percent last week, according to Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage market survey.The rate decline has enticed more home buyers to enter the market, prompting mortgage demand to r
Rental costs across the country have surged, jumping 13 percent over the past five years for a two-bedroom place, according to Apartment List data.But in some locations, the typical renter is paying $10,000 or even $30,000 a month. Realtor.com®’s research team pinpointed the cities where residents are paying the highest amounts of rent in the country. They analyzed two-bedroom rentals listed on realtor.com® in March and calculated the me
Homeowners are sprucing up their homes more this year, tackling several home improvement projects. Eighty-eight percent of homeowners recently surveyed say they performed a major home repair in the last year, and more than half said they managed multiple major repairs or home improvement projects, according to a new analysis by Porch.com, a home improvement website.Homeowners spent an average of $4,958 on home repairs and improvements in the past
Several cities in recent years have been adopting ordinances to punish or arrest people for sleeping on the streets. But a recent court ruling may set a precedent nationwide to make such ordinances illegal.The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals—which covers nine states in the western U.S., including California and Washington—ruled that cities can’t criminalize people for camping or sleeping in public without any place to go. The lawsuit—
Homeowners are paying more for property taxes. Nationwide, the average property tax bill was $3,498 in 2018, up 3 percent compared to a year ago, ATTOM Data Solutions, a real estate data firm, reports in a new analysis. The effective tax rate was 1.16 percent in 2018 (which is the average annual property tax).New Jersey, Illinois, Texas, Vermont, and Connecticut had the highest effective tax rates in the country in 2018, the analysis showed.“Pr
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