General News - Real Estate, Updates, News & Tips

New-Home Starts Rise, but Still Not Enough

Builders can’t build fast enough as home buyer demand continues to surge. But rising material costs are proving a challenge, making it more difficult to keep new homes within buyers’ and builders’ budgets.Still, the construction of single-family homes rose 4.2% in May, despite the rising costs. But they are poised to slow again as single-family permits—a gauge to future construction—declined to the lowest pace since September 2020, the

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Higher Prices Cause Home Flipping Rates to Fall

Investors are growing concerned that it may be more difficult to make money in flipping homes amid a frenzy of home buying activity lately that has sent home prices climbing.Home flipping profit margins dropped in the first quarter. Only 2.7% of all single-family homes and condos in the first quarter were considered a house flip—transactions that occurred within 12 months of one another. That is down from 4.8% during the fourth quarter of

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Lumber Prices are Dropping Fast

Lumber prices are falling quickly from record highs, and that may be happening at the right time for the new-home market. Home builder sentiment sank to its lowest level since August 2020, with builders blaming increasing material supply challenges for their outlook, according to a newly released report from the National Association of Home Builders. Builders said that declining availability for softwood lumber and other building materials i

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Rental Prices Climb to Highest Level in 2 Years

U.S. median rental prices have surpassed pre-pandemic growth and are now at their highest point in two years, according to realtor.com®’s latest Monthly Rental Report.Monthly rents rose 5.5% year over year and averaged $1,527 in May. One-bedroom and two-bedroom rentals climbed to the highest levels since May 2019 at $1,718 and $1,422, respectively. Rents for studio apartments rose for the first time in the last 10 months, reaching a median of

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Welcome Broker-Partner Kyron Johnson

About Kyron Kyron Johnson has been in the real estate business as a licensed broker since 2008 and licensed as an attorney since 2005. As a native to the Ventura County area, he is very familiar with the area market and its many quirks. He enjoys helping clients find the property that suits them best, and there's nothing more rewarding to him than a satisfied client.iPro was founded on the idea of building a better living with champion real estat

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Cities with the Biggest Spike in Homeownership

The pandemic has undeniably fueled interest in real estate and homeownership. Some metro areas have seen a bigger rise than others.“The pandemic drove increased home buying interest in the types of livable communities that offer home buyers good value for their money and a decent number of homes to choose from,” says Danielle Hale, realtor.com®’s chief economist. “Some markets like Albany, Sacramento, and Buffalo clearly benefited from a

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Tech Companies want to Make Holograms Part of Routine Office Life

Companies from Google to WeWork want to help employers cut down on Zoom fatigue with a new approach to communications: holograms for the workplace.Alphabet Inc.’s Google in May revealed Project Starline, an effort to create a video-chat system with screens that give participants three-dimensional depth.WeWork last month announced a partnership with ARHT Media Inc., a hologram technology company, to bring holograms to 100 WeWork bui

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More than 8 of 10 Homes Sold at or Above List Price

With a low supply of homes for sale, sellers are finding quicker sales and fetching higher offers. Eighty two percent of homeowners who sold in the last six months accepted offers at list price or above, according to a new survey of about 1,600 homeowners conducted by Homes.com.What’s more, homes are selling fast too: A quarter of home sellers said they had five or fewer showings before finding a buyer. Twenty-six percent had between six and 10

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30-year Mortgage Rates Average 2.96% this Week

Mortgage rates dropped again this week and have now remained below 3% for the last eight weeks, opening further opportunities for home buyers to lock in historically low rates.“The economy is recovering remarkably fast and as pandemic restrictions continue to lift, economic growth will remain strong over the coming months,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.Freddie Mac reports the following national averages with mortgage rates

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Homeowners See Nearly 20% Equity Jump in a Year

Existing homeowners may be feeling richer since they've received a notable boost to their home equity over the last year. Homeowners with a mortgage have seen their equity climb nearly 20% year over year, according to a new report from CoreLogic, a real estate research firm.In the first quarter of 2021, the average homeowner gained about $33,400 in equity over the past year, the study shows.Idaho, California, and Washington saw the largest equity

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