Category Archives: Buyers

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Home Prices Are Climbing Faster and Faster, but This Is Not a Bubble

Prices Rising

This spring buying season is off to a strong start—in fact, prices are going up faster than they were just a few months ago, according to nearly every recent metric. So does that mean we’re in a bubble?

Nope, that’s just what happens when demand increases faster than supply. After all, existing-home sales were up 9% year over year in March, according to the National Association of Realtors®. Inventory is also increasing, but not as fast as sales, resulting in a tight supply getting even tighter.

Read the article…

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The 5 Hottest Single-Family Markets Are…

The national housing market is regaining steam after a slowdown in late 2013 and early 2014 and a handful of areas are seeing a surge in home prices and sales growth.

Auction.com highlights the “hottest” major single-family markets based on current and expected future housing measures. Of the 49 largest U.S. markets, the five emerging at the top of the rankings have shown consistently strong demand, home price appreciation, and economic and demographic growth. Three of the top five ranking markets are located within the Southwest region, and two are located in the Southeast.

Read where they are…

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The 20 Most Active Housing Markets

United States

Home buyers are turning out in markets across the country for the spring selling season, and some markets are seeing more action than others.

Homes are selling faster too. The median number of days on the market fell to 89 in March – 13 percent lower than a year ago.

Read about the 20 markets that had homes selling at some of the fastest speeds, and see where Seattle is on the list…

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The Top 10 Features for New Homes

Important

The outdoor kitchen and two-story foyers are starting to lose favor among new home shoppers, while energy efficiency and bigger closets are gaining in popularity, according to a new survey from the National Association of Home Builders. NAHB asked builders to rank home features from 1 to 5 on how likely they were to include them this year in single-family homes they build this year.

Read the NAR article…

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Kirkland, Bellevue among nation’s priciest for high-end homes

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If you own a home in Kirkland or Bellevue, you live in one of the nation’s top 10 luxury markets, according to a new report by Redfin. Though the Eastside cities rank high, they are nowhere near Miami Beach, where the average luxury home sold for $8.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2013.

Read the Seattle Times article…

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Millennial Buyers May Need Parents’ Help

More millennials are finally leaving their parents’ homes to form their own households, but they may need financial help to do it.

A new report by consumer lender loanDepot shows that about two-thirds of parents – or 67 percent – will use savings to help their children buy a home. loanDepot surveyed 1,000 parents and 1,000 millennials (those between 18 and 38 years old) to find out about parents’ financial assistance in a home purchase.

Read more…

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Why Age 61 Is Important to Real Estate

United States

By age 61, the majority of people feel free to choose where they most want to live, according to a new study by Merrill Lynch, “Home in Retirement: More Freedom, New Choices.”

“Throughout most of people’s lives, where they live is determined by their responsibilities,” according to the report. “Most careers demand that people live within a reasonable commuting distance from where they and/or their spouse work. However, as people enter their 50s and 60s, they begin to cross what this study reveals to be the ‘Freedom Threshold.'” That’s the age when people say they can finally choose where they want to live, according to the survey of more than 3,600 retirees.

Read the article…

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Gen Y Shaping Housing Trends

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Gen Y — those 34 and younger — make up 32% of home buyers. That’s a larger share than any other segment of buyers, according to NAR’s latest “Generational Trends” report. The percentage would be even higher if four factors weren’t working against younger buyers, says NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. See highlights here. Dig into details on attitudes and incomes of each generation of buyers here.

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Top Reasons People Want to Move

House with BHHS Sign

One in three U.S. households say they plan to move in the next five years, according to a survey conducted by the Demand Institute of 10,000 households’ current living situations. And it’s the location of the home that will be driving most of those moving decisions — more so than the physical home itself.

Seventy-five percent of the households surveyed cited one or more location-related reasons for why they were moving. The top reasons were the desire for a safer neighborhood (30%); being closer to family (27%); a change of climate (26%); being closer to work (25%), and moving for a new job (23%).

Read the details…

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Foreclosures on a Free Fall, 66% Below Peak

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Foreclosures are making up a much smaller share of many markets’ housing inventories and slowly falling back in line with historical norms. Completed foreclosures totaled about 39,000 nationwide in December 2014, a 13.7 percent year-over-year decrease and a 66 percent plunge from the peak in September 2010, according to CoreLogic’s December National Foreclosure Report.

What’s more, the 12-month sum of completed foreclosures for 2014 — 563,294 — is at its lowest point since November 2007, according to the report. Completed foreclosures have fallen every month for the past 34 consecutive months. Historically, prior to the housing crisis, completed foreclosures averaged 21,000 per month nationwide.

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