After inventory and affordability challenges in 2018, prospective home buyers may have better chances of scoring a property this year. Affordability will remain an issue in some high-priced markets, says realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale, but overall, the national market is looking brighter for buyers who have stayed on the sidelines. Here’s why.More homes are for sale. For the last few years, a limited number of listings has giv
As the threat of natural disasters increases—from hurricanes in the Gulf to wildfires in California—the real estate industry has learned that many homeowners in hazardous areas don’t have insurance policies that will fully cover the cost to rebuild. Such financial burdens add to affected homeowners' anxiety, while also forcing insurance carriers to re-evaluate the accuracy of their coverage.Homeowners who are underinsured may be more likely
Hackers recently gained access to the personal data of about 54,000 mortgage borrowers on loans originating from Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Capital One, HSBC, and other lenders. While the loans were being acquired by an investment firm, documents with borrowers’ information were apparently exposed online with no password or other protections. Security experts are unsure how much personal data hackers were able to access, and many of the victims ma
A Chicago real estate agent who rallied her community to book dozens of hotel rooms for more than 100 homeless people during last week’s polar vortex received a $50,000 donation from Walmart, which was presented to her on Wednesday’s episode of “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”Candice Payne of 5th Group Realty & Management, who was invited to the show to speak about her heroic efforts, told Degeneres that she was moved to act partially
Borrowing costs were cheaper this week, as mortgage rates continued inching down. “The U.S. economy remains on solid ground, inflation is contained, and the threat of higher short-term rates is fading from view, which has allowed mortgage rates to drift down to their lowest level in 10 months,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “This is great news for consumers who will be looking for homes during the upcoming spring homebuy
As rate hikes ease and growth in home prices slow, Americans are gradually becoming more confident about their purchasing power in the real estate market, according to Fannie Mae’s newest monthly consumer housing survey. And though this shift is relatively small now, economists are hopeful that it foreshadows a larger, more positive turn in consumer sentiment.The share of Americans who say now is a good time to buy a home increased 4 percentage
Women have grown more powerful as a homebuying force over the last few decades, and they tend to take on more financial risk than their male counterparts, according to a new report from personal finance website SmartAsset. In 348 of 402 metros analyzed by SmartAsset, women had a larger loan-to-income ratio than men.SmartAsset ranked the places where women are buying the most homes by looking at the percentage of mortgages approved for women and c
Seniors choosing to age in place—staying put in their current homes—are creating a barrier to young adults buying their first homes, according to Freddie Mac’s February Insight. About 1.6 million existing homes are being held off the market due to seniors’ decision to age in place and remain in their current home, the report notes.Researchers note that those 1.6 million units are roughly the same as the number of new single-family an
Homeowners should have felt richer in 2018. Equity rich properties comprised 25.6 percent of U.S. properties with a mortgage in 2018, according to a newly released report from ATTOM Data Solutions, a real estate research firm.In the fourth quarter, more than 14.5 million U.S. properties were considered equity rich, where the combined estimated amount of loans secured by the property was 50 percent or less of the property’s estimated market valu
Luxury home shoppers can have high expectations for what they want in a home. “The higher the price point, the more features buyers expect and that desire intensifies,” says Alec Traub, a real estate professional with Redfin in Los Angeles.Many of these high-end homes share some traits. Redfin recently highlighted some of the top amenities it's noticing on more luxury shoppers’ wish lists, including:Greater privacy: Buyers purchas
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