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
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
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
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
Cooling inflation and slower global economic growth prompted mortgage rates to drift down to the lowest levels in a year, Freddie Mac reports.“While housing activity has clearly softened over the last nine months and the lingering effects of higher rates from last year are still being felt, lower mortgage rates and a strong job market should rekindle demand for the spring home buying season,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist.F
Nearly 60 percent of millennial singles say that homeownership makes a potential mate a lot more attractive, according to a new survey conducted by realtor.com®. Women were more likely than men to find homeownership attractive (48 percent versus 43 percent).“Attractiveness is in the eye of the beholder, and this survey data suggests that many beholders find homeownership attractive, perhaps using it as a signal for financial savviness and succ
Mortgage rates can vary across the country. LendingTree, an online loan marketplace, analyzed just how much mortgage rates could vary across state lines.The average offered interest rate for all 50 states is 4.84 percent and the average offered loan amount is $224,297, the study found. But homeowners in California, New Jersey, Washington, and Massachusetts tend to snag the lowest interest rates. The average interest rate in California is 4.74 per
Most markets across the country are still seeing home prices inch up, although at a slower pace than in previous quarters. The national median single-family home price in the fourth quarter of 2018 was $257,600, up 4 percent from a year ago, the National Association of REALTORS® reported Tuesday.Regional BreakdownHere’s how existing-home sales fared across the country in the fourth quarter of 2018:Northeast: Existing-home sales were at an
Tax season is here, and many homeowners may have questions about what they can and can’t write off under the new tax code.One big change: Homeowners who used to write off property taxes and interest paid on their mortgage may no longer be able to entirely. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll pay higher taxes. HouseLogic, the National Association of REALTORS®’ consumer-facing website, offers guidance and worksheets on the chang
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