Movin’ On Up: How Much More Will a Larger Home Cost per Month?
Growing families and households looking for more space this home-shopping season probably already anticipate paying more each month for that larger home. But just how much their monthly mortgage payments rise depends largely on where they’re looking to live and how much more space they want.
When Up Means Down: What Happened with Mortgage Interest Rates After the Fed’s Hike?
Why, when key benchmark interest rates as set by the Federal Reserve rose, did mortgage interest rates fall? The answer is two-fold.
Time to Tweak Regulations in Dodd-Frank, but Keep Homeowners Safe
My colleagues at Zillow and I created the Zestimate in 2006 just as the housing market was inflating into a bubble. Millions of estimated home values became a lens through which to watch the crash and subsequent recovery. Using that data, Zillow first reported from the rubble of the housing market bust that U.S. homeowners were underwater by more than a trillion dollars, and almost a third of homeowners with a mortgage owed more on their loans than their homes were worth.
Dismal Growth in Coal Country Home Values
Coal mining jobs stood at 57,919 in the middle of 2016, down a devastating 61.4 percent from 1990. And home values in coal-mining counties have been stagnant in recent years.
February 2017 Market Report: Inventory Still Low as Home Shopping Season Begins
Median U.S. home values rose 6.9 percent in February compared to a year ago, the 55th consecutive month of annual home value growth and the 18th month in a row in which annual appreciation exceeded 5 percent, according to the February Zillow Real Estate Market Report.
A Picture’s Worth: Where to Maximize Take-Home Pay and Job Opportunities
Where we live has an enormous influence on how we balance the competing demands of living, working and playing. We all (well, most of us) need to work, and communities with stronger labor markets widen our options. We all need a place to live, too, but housing is more costly in some places than in others. And our capacity for play comes out of everything left over from the fruits of our labor after taxes and housing costs – the price we pay to live in a civilized society.
No Construction: Why Yesterday’s Luxury Home Remains Today’s Luxury Home
Reversing a trend from prior decades, homes built when the housing bubble first started to inflate and through the height of the housing boom have held their value better than older, existing homes over the same period. But a lack of new construction in more recent years means those homes that were new a decade ago still remain “new” relative to other existing homes, and are not depreciating in value fast enough to replenish the quickly dwindling supply of livable, but older, more-affordable homes.
Lack of New Homes Helping Drive New Construction Prices to Record Highs
Anemic new home construction activity in the wake of the housing bust is doing more than constricting overall inventory of homes for sale – it’s also helping push up both the price of those new homes that are built and the overall age of homes that do sell.
Live, Work and Play: Where to Maximize Take-Home Pay and Job Opportunities
Where we live has an enormous influence on how we balance the competing demands of living, working and playing. We all (well, most of us) need to work, and communities with stronger labor markets widen our options. We all need a place to live, too, but housing is more costly in some places than in others. And our capacity for play comes out of everything left over from the fruits of our labor after taxes and housing costs – the price we pay to live in a civilized society.
Tax Relief: The (Non)Impact of Vancouver’s Real Estate Tax on the Seattle Market
In August 2016, the government of British Columbia, Canada, enacted a 15 percent tax on foreigners buying homes in the rapidly growing city of Vancouver. Most now agree that the Vancouver housing market has slowed substantially since last summer, but the data remain inconclusive as to any specific effects on international buyers of Vancouver homes. And there is less agreement on whether the tax has pushed would-be buyers of Canadian homes to instead consider U.S. homes south of the 49th parallel, especially in nearby Seattle.
