There are three dominant trends in real estate that sellers should be aware of going into the new year. CNNMoney recently asked industry insiders to share what will be important when it comes to selling a home in 2016. Read the 3 trends…
Category Archives: Sellers
Seattle home price increase ties for No. 1 in U.S.
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).
Home Amenities Likely to Grow in Demand
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.
5 Fall Staging Ideas for Your Listing
Spruce up your listing with some easy and quick touches that will make buyers feel more welcome this fall. Here are a few ideas…
3 Home Inspection Deal-Breakers
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…
Vacant ‘Zombie’ Foreclosures Down 43% in Third Quarter 2015 Compared to a Year Ago
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.
This Isn’t a Housing Bubble: Here’s Why
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.
Foreclosures Down 68% From Peak
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.
International Buyers Flow Into U.S. Housing Market, China Tops List
This year, for the first time since the National Association of Realtors has tracked foreign buyers of U.S. real estate, buyers from China have surpassed for the first time Canadians, Europeans, Mexicans and Middle Eastern home buyers as the top overseas purchasers of homes in the United States. Chinese investment in U.S. residential real estate has grown from a measly $50 million in 2000 to an eye-popping $28.6 billion in the year ending in March 2015, up 72 percent from a year earlier, double the amount spent a year earlier, surpassing all other foreign buyers. All told, overseas home buyers spent a record $104 billion buying U.S. homes in the 12 months ending in March 2015, with Chinese buyers leading the pack. In the 2014 survey, foreigners spent $92 billion on U.S. homes over a 12-month period, up 35 percent from a year earlier. Chinese buyers are now the biggest international buyers of U.S. real estate in terms of dollar volume, total units, and average price paid. Moreover, 76 percent of Chinese buyers pay cash.
MBA Forecasts Housing Demand Over Next 10 Years
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) has just released a paper, Demographics and the Numbers Behind the Coming Multi-Million increase in Households, forecasting housing demand over the next ten years. Their study used date from 1975 – 2014 a period encompassing several market and housing cycles and the short version of its conclusion was the “By 2024, demographic and economic changes will bring what could be one of the largest expansions in the history of the U.S. housing market – 15.9 million additional households.” Even if household formation remains at 2014 low rates, demographic changes alone should account for 13.9 million new households by 2024.
Managing The Real Estate Details 