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When’s the best time to put your home on the market? Depending on which part of the country you live in, there are several factors that could influence how long your home will be listed before it sells, and how much buyers will pay. This article from Builder highlights new data from Zillow that pinpoints the best home selling time frames for several cities around the U.S.
Housing market dynamics, including low inventory, make the buying season more pronounced in some parts of the country. Sellers in the highly competitive Seattle, Portland, Ore., and Denver markets saw between a 1.5% and 2.5% boost to final sale prices when they listed in early May. The lack of new homes for sale in these markets elongates the home-buying season as many buyers are forced to consider several homes and make multiple offers. Less than half of buyers got the first home on which they made an offer, according to the Zillow Group Report on Consumer Housing Trends.
Weather patterns also affect the exact best window to sell in different areas. Sellers in Texas, California and Florida will find themselves with more flexibility in list timeframe, as many regions without distinct climate changes show little variation in sale price based on listing month.
“With 3% fewer homes on the market than last year, 2017 is shaping up to be another competitive buying season,” said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Svenja Gudell. “Many home buyers who started looking for homes in the early spring will still be searching for their dream home months later. By May, some buyers may be anxious to get settled into a new home— and will be more willing to pay a premium to close the deal.”
According to this Market Tracker article by Redfin Chief Economist Nela Richardson, last month was the fastest, most competitive month for the U.S. housing market since Redfin began tracking these metrics seven years ago.
In June, the typical home went under contract in 41 days, the shortest time on record, and four fewer days than we saw last June. And 25.9 percent of homes went off the market in just two weeks, up from 22.6 percent last year.
This year’s speed and competition have been driven by a mismatch between supply of and demand for homes that has grown wider each month.
Months of supply dropped to its lowest level at 2.8 months, indicating buyer demand outstripped supply by the widest margin we’ve seen in seven years. Buyers responded to the tight competition by making aggressive offers. The average sale-to-list price percentage hit 95.5, a the highest ratio we’ve seen, up from 94.9 percent last year. And 23.6 percent of homes sold above the list price, up from 22.2 percent last year.
“Now that most Denver real estate agents have been navigating this this tight inventory, competitive market for a solid two years, a rhythm has emerged and just about every hot home that hits the market here follows it,” said Redfin agent Michelle Ackerman in Denver, the nation’s fastest market, where the typical home went under contract in six days last month. “Homes are listed on Thursday, with a deadline for offers on Monday. Many homes are technically under contract by Monday but that status is often not reflected in the MLS until Tuesday. So homes are actually selling even faster than reported.”
June’s hot market ushered in a 5.5 percent year-over-year increase in home prices, following two consecutive months with price growth below 5 percent.
Four Florida cities led the nation in price growth. Tampa prices rose 16.9% to $194,000 and in Orlando the median sale price rose 16.7% to $210,000.
The Pacific Northwest was another region that saw strong price acceleration last month. Portland median sales prices rose 12.3% to $347,000, Tacoma was up 12.0% to $285,000 and Seattle was up 11.4% to $462,500.
A third of metros saw sales surge by double digits from last year.
The next time you receive a monthly credit card statement, take a look at the minimum payment due – and think about aiming higher. This article from Daniel Goldstein of MarketWatch explains why – especially if you’re thinking about purchasing a new home.
Paying the minimum balance only on your credit cards, even if it’s on time, may not be enough anymore to get the best home loans.
That’s because starting in June, Fannie Mae, one of the biggest government-sponsored buyers of mortgages, says when it comes to buying home loans it will now favor borrowers who are making efforts to pay down their credit cards, rather than just pay the monthly minimums. Fannie Mae’s counterpart, Freddie Mac may also follow suit.
“It’s not a bad thing to have credit cards, but you have to use them wisely,” said Mindy Armstrong, product manager for Fannie Mae. The new moves would make it easier for borrowers who might be on the cusp of approval for their loan to be bought by the agency to get an OK, she said. “This trended data approach could get them into the approval bucket,” Armstrong said.
The agency said last October that with the cooperation of two of the biggest credit reporting agencies, TransUnion and Equifax, it will begin looking at credit card data going back as far as two years (24 months) beginning on June 25.
The so-called trended data, which includes amount of payments made and total amounts remaining on the balance, will only include revolving credit card accounts, but not other consumer debt payments, such as mortgage loans or student loans. The trended credit data that will be available to lenders will include the minimum payment due, the actual payment amount, and the balance each month.
U.S. News surveyed people across America to find out how much professional sports teams factor into their decision of where they call home. Here are the details from Devon Thorsby.
In a Google Consumer Survey of 2,000 people across the country, U.S. News asked how important it is to have access to professional sporting events in your hometown. Fifty-five percent of respondents said it was not a significant factor, with 42 percent of respondents replying that pro sports were not important at all. Only 17.8 percent of respondents rated professional sports of significant importance to them in their hometown.
While Americans largely seem unconcerned with having pro athletes represent their hometown, they seem to be buying into the sports hype when you look at a stadium’s impact on real estate. A study by Trulia found homes surrounding Major League Baseball stadiums are, on average, valued 15 percent higher than the rest of their metro area. Sports may not be a priority for most Americans, but employment opportunities, increased media attention and greater revenue for nearby businesses from people attending the games leads many to fall on the “pro” side of having a pro team.
“[National Football League] teams do bring dollars to town – people come to watch games, they bring media attention,” says David Weidner, managing editor of the Home Economics Research Team at Trulia.
Depending on the city, sport and team, professional sports can have a profound impact on real estate – not just in the neighborhood the stadium resides in but also in the city as a whole. Keep these three details in mind if you’re looking to benefit from the growth of pro sports in your hometown.
The three rules for real estate remain location, location, location – even for stadiums. Even the billionaires who own professional sports teams aren’t immune to the need for a good location. A ballpark, stadium, arena or any other pro sports facility can only have a significant impact on its neighborhood when it embraces the community, and vice versa.
Earlier this year, Trulia examined home values near every MLB park and NFL stadium. The reports examined which stadiums had both positive and negative impacts on nearby home values compared to the rest of the metro area.
Stadiums located downtown tended to boost home values more than those located on the outskirts of the city or in the suburbs. Weidner notes planning for stadiums is key to generating a positive impact: “Thinking a ball park is just going to drop in and suddenly all the home values are going to take off” is a big mistake on the part of teams and community planners.
Weidner points to the stadiums for the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers, which are both located in the Dallas suburb Arlington, Texas. Home values near the Cowboys’ AT&T; Stadium are 4.9 percent less than the rest of the metro area, while homes near the Rangers’ Globe Life Park in Arlington are valued at 28.7 percent less than the rest of the metro area.
Lennar and Village Builders are further strengthening their commitment to offering their unique The Home Within a Home multigenerational homes in the Houston area. This Houston Business Journal article by Paul Takahashi highlights the reasons why.
Lennar has expanded its multigenerational home options in Houston.
About three years ago, the Miami-based homebuilder launched The Home Within a Home line in Houston, which offers two homes under one roof – ideal for families with aging parents or other dual-living arrangements.
Lennar’s “The Home Within a Home” features a 2,200-to-3,500-square-foot main home, and a separate 500-to-600-square-foot private suite with its own living room, kitchenette, bedroom and bathroom. They range in price from the $250,000s to the $500,000s.
Lennar’s The Home Within a Home is geared toward multigenerational living: Families with elderly parents, a recent college graduate, a relative with a disability or an adult child with special needs. As a family’s lifestyle changes, The Home Within a Home suite can be transformed into a home office, entertainment space, in-home gym, a hobby room or a guest suite to host visitors for extended stays.
Initially, Lennar and its Houston subsidiary, Village Builders, opened a couple of Home Within a Home models in two communities across Houston. However, Lennar and Village Builders found that more families are looking at multigenerational home options in recent years.
Today, about a quarter of adults ages 85 and older and a quarter of young adults ages 25 and 34 live in a multigenerational household, according to a Pew Research study from 2012. Those figures have increased in the past three decades, according to the study.
Lennar also found that increased housing and health care costs for seniors is driving more families to consider multigenerational home options.
As a result, Lennar decided to redesign and relaunch the The Home Within a Home line, offering nine floor plans. Lennar recently opened 20 The Home Within a Home model homes, and can build these homes in 40 communities across Houston.
Single-family housing starts are up 16.8% for the first four months of 2016, compared with the same period in 2015, according to this Wall Street Journal article by Anna Louie Sussman and Ben Leubsdorf, which highlights a 6.6% increasing in starts for the month of April.
Home building in the U.S. rebounded in April, a sign the housing recovery could be finding traction after a slow first quarter.
Housing starts rose 6.6% from a month earlier to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.172 million in April, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.
The uptick was driven by a jump in starts in the Midwest, and a pickup in multifamily construction. Demand for housing has been steady, bolstered by historically low interest rates and ongoing job creation.
Starts on single-family homes, which account for roughly two-thirds of new construction, rose 3.3% in April. Starts on multifamily buildings with five or more units, which include apartments and condominiums, rose 10.7% to 373,000.
New applications for building permits, a bellwether for forthcoming construction, rose 3.6% to 1.116 million, from a downwardly revised March rate of 1.077 million.
Lennar’s Heritage at Cadence, a new community for active adults in Henderson, Nevada, is highlighted in this VEGAS INC article by Eli Segall that covers the renewed popularity of Las Vegas area communities designed for retirement living.
Whether you call them active adult, age qualified, age restricted or age privileged, senior housing developments are making a comeback in Las Vegas.
But this time around, don’t look for the standard type of senior project that was built for years in Las Vegas – a sprawling, mini-city anchored by golf courses – to pop up again anytime soon.
Investors are building or planning a handful of new 55-and-over residential projects in the Las Vegas area, after not breaking ground on such developments for years.
Southern Nevada became a top U.S. retirement spot years ago, luring people with sunshine, low taxes, entertainment and new communities where residents could hit the links, socialize with people their age and not be bothered by teenagers or screaming kids.
Developers aren’t flooding Las Vegas with new 55-and-over projects these days. But with the economy on the mend, the elderly population soaring and the homebuilding sector back to life, some are back at it.
In the southeast valley, Lennar had sold about 40 homes in Heritage at Cadence by late April. Among other things, it’s offering houses with a garage big enough to fit an RV, Las Vegas division president Joy Broddle said.
Lennar’s community is planned for 900 to 1,000 homes, with prices ranging from around $300,000 to $450,000, Broddle said.
Miami-based Lennar is one of the largest homebuilders in the country and has developed 55-and-over communities around the United States, but Heritage is its first in the Las Vegas area, Broddle said. As she sees it, Cadence’s proximity to Lake Mead is among reasons it would attract retirees.
“That is a huge draw,” she said.
Lennar is building a 23,000-square-foot recreation center in Heritage and plans to have pickleball courts, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, a ballroom, a café and a full-time activities director.
Here’s some terrific advice from Hitha Herzog, writing for U.S. News, about some things around your home you should consider tossing out. Not because they may be taking up valuable space in your home, but because they could be costing you more money than they need to be.
Here are some ways to say goodbye to old stuff without causing a hole in your wallet:
Ditch the ancient electrical items and appliances. If you are a gadget and appliance aficionado, you live for new product launches. The opposite extreme is keeping outdated items in heavy rotation. According to a study from Energy.gov, appliances account for 13% of your household’s energy costs; even more if you don’t have EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) Energy Star-compliant items. The worst offenders include: dishwashers, air conditioners and washers and dryers. If your gadgets are more than 5 years old or your appliances are so ancient they aren’t Energy Star-certified, consider tossing or replacing them.
Say “no” to magazine purchases and subscriptions and go digital. If you still get magazines sent to your home every month, you aren’t alone. On average, around 14 million people still subscribe to news magazines, according to a Pew Research Center study. This number is far less than it was 10 years ago and continues to decline as more people get their news digitally. In addition to causing massive clutter in your home, your average magazine costs $3.99. If you’re grabbing three per week, you could spend well over $600 per year. Take this advice and go digital: It’s cheaper and more environmentally friendly.
Replace regular light bulbs with LED lights. LED lights may not be on your radar yet, but they should be. LED bulbs last close to 20 years. While they may initially cost more than regular bulbs (they run, on average, $15 to $22), you won’t have to replace them as frequently.
Throw out and replace old cosmetics often. Few things are worse than having to replace items from your makeup bag. But using old makeup not only leads to disappointment (items lose their potency over time), it could cause you to spend more to compensate for the loss in effectiveness. Studies have shown that makeup immediately oxidizes and degrades the minute you open the packaging, and after a couple of months, it can accumulate bacterial and fungal growth. Do yourself and your wallet a favor: Throw out and replace anything that’s more than a couple of months old, before bacteria wrecks your perfect skin and annual beauty budget.
At a certain point in your life, downsizing to a smaller home makes sense for a number of reasons. This U.S. News article by Maryalene LaPonsie highlights three reasons why downsizing makes sense financially.
Many people tout downsizing as a way to free up time and focus on more important and less material pursuits, but there are financial perks to the process as well. Whether you move to a smaller house or simply clear the clutter from the one you have, here are three ways downsizing possessions can upsize your bank account balance.
Immediate inflow of cash. While people understand they can make money by selling excess items, they may underestimate the potential value of what’s in their house. “We don’t realize the pieces of art we were given for our wedding now have a $5,000 to $10,000 price tag,” says Jacquie Denny, founder and chief development officer for Everything But The House. Denny encourages people to consider downsizing early rather than leaving it as a task for heirs to complete.
Reduced long-term financial costs. Beyond an immediate influx of cash, downsizing can also lead to long-term savings. Lower property taxes, fewer maintenance costs and less space to fill with furniture and home décor can all keep more money in a person’s pocket.
Increased possibility of a secure retirement. Naturally, having lower living costs means more opportunity to save for retirement and other life priorities. It could even pave the way for an early exit from the workforce in some situations. At that point, workers may find they can easily shift careers or reduce hours without sacrificing their lifestyle. Others may keep their same hours and use money previously budgeted for housing for other purposes such as travel or college costs.
