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.
Q4 2016 Negative Equity Report: Improvement Continues, But at a Much Slower Rate
The annual pace at which negative equity receded slowed dramatically in 2016, further proof that even as the housing market continues to put the boom and bust behind it, some scars will take a lot longer to heal.
The Whens of Our Sales: Strategy Tips for Timing the Housing Market When Selling A Home
For the second year in a row, listing near the end of the selling season looks to be the best option for those sellers looking to both earn the highest return on their home and sell it quickly.
Q4 2016 Homeownership Rate: Western Home Buyers Help 2016 End on a High Note
After reaching its lowest point in decades mid-way through 2016, the U.S. homeownership rate registered two straight quarterly gains and finished the year at 63.7 percent, according to U.S. Census Bureau.
An expected slowdown in the pace of home value growth in a number of pricey, fast-moving markets means it may take longer going forward to break even financially when buying a home in those areas compared to renting it.
December 2016 Market Report: What Could Flattening Rents Mean for 2017?
A months-long streak of accelerating home value growth was met with an equally long stretch of flattening rents to end 2016, a trend with interesting implications for the housing market as a whole as attention turns to the busy 2017 home shopping season to come.
Homes in Black Neighborhoods Twice as Likely to be Underwater as Homes in White Neighborhoods
Nationwide and in a number of large metro markets, the negative equity rate in largely black communities is double or more the rate in majority white communities. The disparities reflect the wide gulf that exists between white America and communities of color and their very different experiences throughout the housing boom, bust and recovery.
How Much is Every Home in America Worth? A Lot.
The combined, total value of every home in the United States is expected to climb to a record high of more than $29.6 trillion in 2016, up 5.7 percent from a year ago. And the total amount collected by landlords from the nation’s renters in 2016, while dwarfed by the value of owned homes nationwide, is also growing and nothing to sneeze at.
