Tag Archives: ownership

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Property Tax Rates Highest for Homeowners Who Have Owned Between 5 – 15 Years

Prices Rising

RealtyTrac®, the nation’s leading source for comprehensive housing data, recently released its first-ever U.S. Property Tax Rates Report for 2014, which provides average property taxes and effective property tax rates for single family homes in more than 1,000 counties nationwide as well as by state and metropolitan statistical area.

The report also provides a breakdown of average property taxes in 2014 and effective property tax rates — which is the average property taxes for single family homes in 2014 divided by the average estimated value of single family homes as of the end of 2014 — by number of years owned and by property value range.

Read the article…

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Real Estate’s Most Loyal Age Group

Americans age 65 and over are holding onto home ownership instead of downsizing into rentals or moving to senior centers, Bloomberg Businessweek reports.

Indeed, the largest jump in buyers this year was among people between the ages of 65 and 74. This age segment increased to 13 percent of all buyers from 10 percent a year earlier, according to National Association of REALTORS® data.

Read the article…

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College Grads May Be Key to Cities’ Growth

About a quarter more young college grads live in a major metro area today than in 2000, double the percentage increase in cities’ total populations, according to a report by the City Observatory.

College graduates aren’t just moving on to the usual big cities, like New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Instead, the biggest magnets for college grads lately has been Houston, Denver, San Diego, Nashville, Salt Lake City, and Portland, Ore., to begin their careers, according to a report by City Observatory. In fact, in Denver alone, the young professional population is up 47 percent since 2000, nearly double the percentage increase in the New York metro area.

Where these young grads call home is giving a big boost to the cities’ economies.

Read the article…

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Suburbanites Are Happiest, Poll Finds

City centers and downtowns may be growing in demand among millennials and retiring baby boomers, but a new poll says residents are still happiest in the suburbs.

Americans who live in suburban areas are the most satisfied with the place they live, according to the Atlantic Media/Siemens State of City Poll. Eighty-four percent of suburbanites rated their community as “excellent” or “good” compared to 75 percent of urban dwellers and 78 percent of rural residents, according to the poll of more than 1,600 U.S. adults.

Read more…

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Despite Predictions, Baby Boomers Aren’t Downsizing Yet

Baby boomers aren’t showing any signs of leaving the single-family home market that has defined their generation’s real estate habits, despite many predictions that they would by now. As boomers hit age 65 and become empty nesters, many housing analysts forecasted that a huge wave of them would downsize and move into an apartment, condo, or townhouse.

But Fannie Mae researcher Patrick Simmons says that isn’t happening yet.

Read the National Association of Realtors article…

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Millennials will Soon be a Force to be Reckoned with in Housing Markets

Family

The U.S. homeownership rate dropped for the ninth year in a row in 2013, thanks in no small part to the fact that millions of 20- and 30-somethings were still living with their parents, according to the latest “State of the Nation’s Housing” report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

The decline in homeownership rates from 2004 to 2013 was most dramatic among 25- to 34-year-olds (down nearly 8 percentage points) and 35- to 44-year-olds (down 9 percentage points). Some 15.3 million adults in their 20s and 3.1 million in their 30s were still living with their parents last year, helping bring the homeownership rate down to 65.1 percent.

Read the article on Inman News…

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Do You Really Understand Your Home’s Equity?

As a homeowner, you probably think you know all about what your home is worth, what your interest rate really means, what you are paying out every month, and how to access your equity if you needed to.

But do you really? If your home is worth $20,000 more today that it was when you purchased it, does that mean you are entitled to all 20,000 of those dollars? Does having equity in your home automatically mean you can sell for a profit? Would you know what your best option was if you needed some equity in a pinch? Check out the these scenarios for a quick equity tune-up…

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Here’s Why Owning Your Own Home Really is a Good Investment

Home

According to a recent Gallup poll, more Americans are beginning to view real estate as a viable long-term investment. Thirty percent of those surveyed early last month took this view, up from 25% just a year ago. Gallup credited an improving housing market as being the chief driver of the change in popular opinion on this matter.

But, wait. Some experts, notably Yale economics professor Robert Shiller, disagree heartily with this view. In interviews over the past couple of years, Shiller referred to his research in which he studied home price appreciation from 1890 to 1990. He found that, considering costs of construction and inflation, homes really didn’t appreciate in value at all.

Does that mean that buying a home is a lousy move? Not at all, and here’s why…

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Do you know why buying a home is cheaper than renting?

Neighborhood

Buying costs less than renting in all 100 large U.S. metros, according to the Rent vs. Buy Report from Trulia.

Rising mortgage rates and home prices have narrowed the gap between renting and buying, though rates have recently dropped and price gains are slowing.

Low mortgage rates have kept homeownership from becoming more expensive than renting. In some markets, like San Francisco and Seattle, rents have risen sharply; rising rents hurt affordability relative to incomes, but rising rents make buying look cheaper in comparison.

Trulia says that at a 30-year fixed rate of 4.5%, buying is 38% cheaper than renting nationally, versus being 44% cheaper at the start of 2013.

Read more…

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5 Reasons It’s Better to Own Than Rent

Checklist

There are plenty of valid reasons to own instead of rent, especially in the current low rate environment. Let’s take a look at why homeownership simply makes more sense than renting, especially over a long-term basis.