‘The ongoing recovery in home prices is broadly based,’ Case-Shiller says The numbers: U.S. home prices rose in April as the housing market continues to contend with a scarcity of for-sale listings. Homeowners’ unwillingness to sell is pushing up home prices, despite elevated mortgage rates. The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller 20-city house-price index rose 0.9% in April, as compared with the previous month. Home prices were s
Homebuying tumbles to a 28-year low in May.“Numerology” tries to find reality within various measurements of economic and real estate trends.Buzz: Deep discounts on California homes shrank this spring – especially to the south – as the purchasing pace is almost historically sluggish.Source: My trusty spreadsheet reviewed May’s homebuying report from the California Association of Realtors.Fuzzy math: Is the springtime pri
There’s good news coming for millions of renters. But there is still a long way to go to cool housing costs in the economy.After years of eye-popping price increases, renters may finally be getting some relief.Rent prices fell 0.5 percent in May compared with the year before, according to data from Realtor.com released Monday. The firm’s tracking showedthat to be the first year-over-year drop since early inthe pandemic, when strong
Tax strategist David A. Perez helps real estate investors plan ahead to minimize their tax burden. Find out how his strategies can work for both active and passive investors Would you like to minimize your IRS tax burden and perhaps even reduce it to zero? If so, you need more than your typical tax preparer or CPA. You need a tax strategist who helps you plan your tax strategy long before you ever consider filing your taxes. I rece
Mortgage loan servicers collecting payments on loans guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac completed 2.36M 'home retention actions' during the COVID-19 pandemic Loan servicers collecting mortgage payments on loans backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac kept millions of borrowers from being foreclosed on during the coronavirus pandemic, a report released Friday by the mortgage giants’ federal regulator shows.Unlike the 2007-09 housing bust
Home construction surged in May and prices have ticked up, even with interest rates at a 15-year high. The resilience has surprised some economists. Gianni Martinez, 31, thought that it would be fairly easy to buy an apartment.Mortgage rates are now hovering around 7 percent — the highest they’ve been since 2007 — thanks to the Federal Reserve’s efforts to tame inflation. Central bankers have lifted their official policy rate to about 5 p
Rates are still above 6.5%, a key affordability threshold.Despite a dip for the third consecutive week, mortgage rates are still above 6.5%—a key affordability threshold—and remain much higher than they were just two years ago. Freddie Mac reports that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.67% this week. A year ago, rates averaged 5.81%, and in early 2021, they were in the 2% range.The dramatic change in rates has created a “mortgage r
Find out the bright spots that are on the horizon for housing. Existing-home sales increased slightly in May, even as buyers continue to face severely limited options on the market. Total existing-home sales—completed transactions including single-family homes, townhomes, condos and co-ops—rose 0.2% month over month in May, the National Association of REALTORS® reported Thursday. Still, sales are down 20.4% from a year ago as low inventory r
If you're just starting out, here's how to choose your investment property and increase its value for maximum return on investment Whether the amount you can invest is $10 or a million dollars or more, it’s important to understand the fundamentals of real estate investing, how to get started and, most importantly, how to select investments that will yield the maximum return. Brian Davis and Denise Supplee are the founders o
Average homeowner equity per borrower dropped by 1.9% in the first quarter of 2023 For the first time in more than a decade, the average U.S. homeowner with a mortgage has less home equity than they did a year earlier.Among the roughly 63% of U.S. homes with a mortgage, average homeowner equity per borrower was $274,070 in the first quarter, down 1.9% from the same quarter last year, according to real estate data tracker CoreLogic.The last t
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