The decorated model home may be waning in popularity as more builders look to slash it from their budgets.
“While the days are gone when a builder would feature several decorated models at each new-construction community, does that mean model homes are a thing of the past?” BUILDER Online asks in a recent article.
Some homebuilders say a model home is no longer necessary.
Seattle is tied for having the nation’s fastest-rising home prices, according to the latest data from S&P/Case-Shiller.
The Seattle area tied with San Francisco and Tampa, Florida for posting biggest increase between September and October, at 1.3 percent, according to the data released Tuesday.
The index measures the nation’s top 20 metros. Year-over-year, Seattle home prices were 8.8 percent higher in October than in October 2014. That put Seattle fifth, behind only San Francisco, Portland and Denver (all 10.9 percent) and Dallas (9.3 percent).
Certain amenities that home buyers now consider “nice-to-have” may soon move into the “must-have” category in the coming years. Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate on its Clean Slate blog post recently featured three amenities that are likely to grow in demand among home shoppers.
Sure, buyers may like the house they’re considering, but do their pets? It’s a question that’s coming up more frequently, and it’s causing builders to put the needs their clients’ four-legged friends front and center.
From designing homes with amenities including ‘smart’ pet doors and elaborate washing and grooming areas, to creating separate living spaces for pets, it’s clear that pets are an important factor when helping clients buy or remodel a home.
Home inspectors are hired to perform an objective evaluation of a home’s condition, but at times, their discoveries can prompt the buyer to terminate a sale contract.
Dylan Chalk, owner of Seattle-based Orca Inspection Services LLC, writes that, in his experience, the following three issues kill the most deals…
Low mortgage rates, declining home prices, and homes that are lingering on the market longer are three main reasons why the next three months could be the best time to buy so far this year, says Jonathan Smoke, Realtor.com®’s chief economist.
“The spring and summer home-buying seasons were especially tough on potential buyers this year with increasing prices and limited supply,” Smoke says. “Buyers who are open to a fall or winter purchase should find some relief with lower prices and less competition from other buyers.”
RealtyTrac recently released its Q3 Zombie Foreclosure and Vacant Property Report, which shows 20,050 residential properties in the foreclosure process – but not yet repossessed – were vacant “zombie” homes as of the end of the third quarter of 2015, down 27 percent from the previous quarter and down 43 percent from a year ago. Vacant residential properties in the foreclosure process accounted for 1.3 percent of all vacant residential properties, with bank-owned homes (REO) accounting for another 1.9 percent of all vacant properties as of the end of the third quarter. The report shows a total of 1.5 million vacant U.S. residential properties, 1.8 percent of all 84.7 million U.S. residential properties.
Home prices are rising rapidly, but economists are deflating concerns that another “housing bubble” is brewing.
A recent report from CoreLogic shows that twice as many metro markets are considered “overvalued” – prices are inflated relative to incomes — in the second quarter of this year compared to the first three months of the year. But economists say it’s not a housing bubble because bubbles eventually burst and home prices this time around aren’t likely to fall.
A survey conducted exclusively among millennial as part of the Responsive Home project – a venture between Builder magazine and Pardee Homes to design, build and sell the ideal home for the 21st century buyers – identifies the driving factors behind new age home buying habits and de-bunks millennial home buying myths.
Foreclosures are falling fast. Since reaching a peak in September 2010, the number of foreclosures has plunged 68 percent – from 117,225 nationwide to 38,000 as of July, according to CoreLogic’s July 2015 National Foreclosure Report, released recently.
In the past year alone, foreclosure inventory has fallen by nearly 28 percent and completed foreclosures have dropped about 24 percent. Completed foreclosures are the total number of homes actually lost to foreclosure.
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