Real Estate - Real Estate, Updates, News & Tips

Urgency Increases for First-Time Buyers

New buyers are gradually increasing their stake in the housing market. First-timers comprised 32 percent of existing-home sales in March, up from 30 percent a year ago and 29 percent in 2014.The looming threat of interest rate increases may be prompting more buyers to enter the market this year. But also, sustained job and income growth is playing a role, according to last month's REALTORS® Confidence Index. The aging of the millennial generat

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Will Tax Changes Benefit Homeowners and Investors?

As the White House shifts its focus to tax reform, analysts are examining who will benefit from the proposal announced Wednesday afternoon. The New York Times reported yesterday that this week’s stock market surge could be attributed to President Donald Trump’s call to cut the corporate tax rate to 15 percent, from 35 percent. However, the article goes on to note that optimism on Wall Street doesn’t always translate to growth on Main Street

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Mendenhall Urges Lawmakers to Keep Incentives for Homeowners

As the Trump administration unveils its plan to reform the U.S. income tax system, NAR President-elect Elizabeth Mendenhall visited key lawmakers on both sides of the aisle yesterday to remind them of the central role the mortgage interest deduction and other tax code provisions have long played in incentivizing Americans to become homeowners. Removing or diluting those incentives, which make it possible for millions of Americans to own a home, w

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REALTORS: Use the Power of Gratitude to Spark Loyalty

It's important to thank your customers for their business, and that couldn't be easier with the rise of social media as a mass communications method. Gratitude should be at the core of a marketer’s brand, says Bardi Toto Drake, author of “The Power of Asking.” She encourages marketers to avoid “bragging and selling” strategies but instead find ways to show gratitude to increase business. She offers some of the following tips on how in a

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Buyers Rushing Toward New Construction

Sales of newly built single-family homes increased for the third consecutive month, posting a strong showing to the spring selling season, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. Single-family new-home sales rose 5.8 percent in March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 621,000 units.“The March sales numbers are the second highest on record since the Great Recession, which is especially encouraging considering the poor weather conditions t

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Home prices hit 32-month high

Results from the composite of single-family home price indices calculated every monthKey Takeaways The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a 5.8 percent annual gain in February, up from 5.6 percent last month and setting a 32-month high.February’s S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Index numbers set a fourth consecutive all-time high — the highest HPI seen in a wh

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Growth in Office Rents Slowing Down

Amid a surge in new supply, vacancy increases in many major U.S. office markets are slowing price hikes, according to Cushman & Wakefield, a real estate services firm. Nationally, average asking rents for office space rose 1.8 percent between the first quarter of 2016 and the same time period in 2017, the slowest annual rate of growth since 2011, according to data firm Reis Inc.The office market is not expanding at a rate in line with the res

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Cities Becoming the Next Big Tech Hubs

Move over, Silicon Valley, because there are some new tech hubs gaining clout. And where the technology industry goes, real estate booms are sure to follow.The tech boom in Silicon Valley has prompted more U.S. cities to focus on attracting new jobs in the industry, but these are places where most Americans can also afford to live comfortably, according to realtor.com®. The number of people moving to Silicon Valley has dropped by 27 percent betw

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More Expect Home Prices to Keep Rising

Sixty-one percent of U.S. adults believe home prices in their local area will rise over the next 12 months, the highest percentage since Gallup began collecting such data in 2005. That also marks a big difference between 2008 and 2012, when no more than one-third of Americans believed home prices would increase.Residents in the western region of the U.S. are the most optimistic, with nearly three-quarters of residents saying they expect price inc

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'Fake Architect' Scam Channels 'Seinfeld' Plot

A man in upstate New York posing as a registered architect allegedly duped businesses and municipalities out of more than $200,000 since 2010. New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman said the scam was similar to a storyline that appeared on the hit 1990s TV show "Seinfeld."Paul J. Newman allegedly drafted architectural renderings for more than 100 commercial and residential properties in Albany, Rensselaer, and Saratoga counties. Newman is

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