The smart home has come a long way in just three years. In 2014, two-thirds of consumers with broadband were not familiar with smart-home services or products or where to buy them, according to a white paper from the Consumer Electronics Association and Park Associates. Now, 86 percent of consumers “are confident they know what it means when someone says they have a smart home,” according to a survey conducted by Finn Futures of about 1,000 U
A vacant home can easily become the target of thieves or vandals, and the damage they leave behind can be big and expensive.Denise Supplee of SnapLandlord.com recalls an incident when she was helping a client sell a vacant home and the property was ransacked by thieves who wanted the copper tubing on the pipes.“They ripped it all out and then there was water damage,” Supplee says. “And because no one really visited that home, the water dam
Buyers may be getting more opportunities to purchase a home on spec again. Following the housing crash, builders mostly put the brakes on spec building, waiting until a contract was in hand before they started construction. But now, 10 years after the crash, home builders reportedly are cautiously venturing back into spec-home building in order to meet the increase in buyer demand, particularly among the entry-level market.“There’s very stron
Appraisals in April were, on average, 1.9 percent lower than what homeowners expected. That means on an average home price of $236,400, homeowners misjudged their price by about $4,500.The gap between appraiser and homeowner views on price is spreading wider, according to the latest National Quicken Loans Home Price Perception Index. April marks the fifth consecutive month that the gap between price opinions has widened. In March, homeowners esti
Some sellers have a house full of belongings that they need to dispose of before putting their home on the market. In these cases, an estate sale may be necessary to get rid of the items quickly while also putting some extra cash in your pocket.Don’t… Throw anything away. Likewise, don’t casually give items to friends and family, thinking they’re not really worth much. Let the estate sale pro review your assets before you decide to dispo
Forty-nine percent of those who don't own their homes say they expect to purchase a home within the next five years. Ten percent say they plan to buy within the next year, according to a recent survey by Gallup of more than 1,500 adults. An additional 20 percent of non-homeowners say they plan to become homeowners within 10 years.That leaves only 28 percent who say they have no plans to buy a home, according to the Gallup poll.The percentage of
The student housing market is hot. Sales of this market segment are outperforming the rest of the commercial sector in the first quarter. In fact, if investors continue to buy and sell student housing at the current rate, they’re on track to match the record acquisition volume of 2016.Investors purchased and sold $1.1 billion in student housing properties in the first quarter of 2017, according to CBRE, a real estate services firm.For the past
Mortgage volume is starting to rise again, and home buyers are fueling the increase.Total mortgage application volume, including for refinancings and home purchases, rose 2.4 percent last week on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday.Home buyers are seemingly undeterred by higher home prices and the limited number of homes for sale. Mortgage applications to buy a home increased 2 percent last week and ar
Businesses have been knocking down walls to create an “open office” that fosters interaction and collaboration with coworkers. But the trend may have backfired.New research shows employees suffering from “visual noise,” the activity or movement around their field of vision, may experience dampened analytical thinking, creativity, and productivity.“If we see a bunch of people gathering in our peripheral vision, we wonder, ‘What are th
Can senior-living communities be generated organically as boomers age? A look at Morningside Heights, a residential neighborhood in northwest Manhattan near Columbia University, indicates this might be a strategy for aging in place in a more fluid way.The community is what the New York City Department for the Aging calls a naturally occurring retirement community, or “a multiage housing development or neighborhood that was not originally built
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