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Lennar recently grand opened four new collections of new homes within Beacon Park, the second of the Great Park Neighborhoods in Irvine, California. This article from Builder highlights the community’s developer, FivePoint Communities, and some exciting new technology that was introduced for Great Park home shoppers.
California-based Great Park Neighborhoods’ new marketing campaign is using cutting-edge technology to help buyers personalize their home search.
Its “Find Your Home” campaign kicked off this summer at the grand opening of Great Park Neighborhoods’ Beacon Park community. Using customized technology-enabled keychains, more than 25,000 Beacon Park visitors were able to tour 47 new model homes and collect information about their favorite models. By scanning the keychains over bright orange beacons in the models, visitors created a personalized new-home brochure for easy access on a computer or handheld device.
The virtual online model home brochures generated by RFID is a first for the housing industry, says Jann Rowe, vice president of marketing for FivePoint, the community’s developer.
“With just a tap of a personalized keychain, homeshoppers left the grand opening knowing they could continue to explore and compare their favorite floor plans on any computer, tablet or mobile device,” she says.
With little fanfare, the U.S. construction sector is heating up, turning it into a growth engine for the economy.
“Private construction is on a roll,” said Patrick Newport, U.S. economist for IHS Global Insight.
Construction played a pivotal role in the second quarter, adding 1.3 percentage points to the solid 3.7% annual gross domestic product.
The momentum in the sector is still going strong into the third quarter, dispelling fears of a pull back, according to government data released Tuesday.
“The overall impression from the past few months is that the construction sector overall is the strongest part of the economy, with spending up at a remarkable 26% annualized rate in the three months to July,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
Outlays for U.S. construction projects rose 0.7% in July, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $1.08 trillion, the highest level since May 2008, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday.
Construction is up 13.7% over the past year. What’s behind the surge? Private sector non-residential building, which is up 1.5% in the month and has jumped 18.2% over the past year.
For the first seven months of the year, construction is up 10.8% from last year. Both single-family and multifamily residential are double-digits ahead of last year’s pace, Newport said.
Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased by 6.9% in July 2015 compared with July 2014, according to CoreLogic.
On a month-over-month basis, home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased by 1.7% in July 2015 compared with June 2015.
“Home sales continued their brisk rebound in July and home prices reflected that, up 6.9% from a year ago,” said Frank Nothaft, chief economist for CoreLogic. “Over the same period, the National Association of Realtors reported existing sales up 10% and the Census Bureau reported new home sales up 26% in July.”
Including distressed sales, only Colorado has more than 10% year-over-year growth. Additionally, only 10 states have experienced increased growth in the last year that matched or surpassed the nation as a whole; those states are: Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Nevada, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Washington.
Fifteen states reached new price peaks since January 1976 when the index began including Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Iowa, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
Only two states experienced home price depreciation: Massachusetts (-2.1%) and Mississippi (-0.8%).
“Low mortgage rates and stronger consumer confidence are supporting a resurgence in home sales of late,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “Adding to overall housing demand is the benefit of a better labor market which has provided millennials the financial independence to form new households and escape ever-rising rental costs.”
Excluding distressed sales, home prices increased by 6.7% in July 2015 compared with July 2014 and increased by 1.5% month over month compared with June 2015.
After the global financial crash, it seemed like the housing market would take years to work through its inventory of unwanted single-family homes – and it did. Investors bought hundreds of thousands of homes at low prices, often out of foreclosure, and put these homes out to rent. Now, however, there are far fewer homes available for sale, and many developers are turning to new construction to create new rental housing.
Northern Nevada’s largest home builder, Lennar, opened its latest community of new, single-family, detached homes, in March, in Sparks, Nevada. The 80 new homes at Frontera at Pioneer Meadows are available to rent, starting at $1,499 a month for a 1,210-sq.-ft. home and rising to $1,999 for 2,182 sq. ft., according to data from ApartmentGuide. “Customers are now able to benefit from Lennar’s superior homes and experience a convenient rental lifestyle,” according to Lennar.
The number of single-family homes intentionally built to be rental housing is still a tiny fraction of the home building overall, but it is growing quickly from effectively zero to become a new sector of the market for new development. “Last year, approximately 25,000 detached homes were built for rent. We believe that number will increase significantly over the next several years,” according to “A New Opportunity to Build Detached Homes for Rent,” a report from John Burns Real Estate Consulting, based in Irvine, Calif.
Currently, one-in-10 households live in single-family rental housing – that’s 12.7 million of the total 120 million households now living in the U.S., according to Burns. To serve these renters, leading master-planned community builders are likely to develop new, detached homes for rent, Burns forecasts.
With the inevitable rise in interest rates coming this year, this article from Reuters highlights predictions from economists about the continued strength of the U.S. housing market for the remainder of the year and into 2016.
The U.S. housing market is probably strong enough to stand up against an interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve this year, with stabilizing home prices supporting sales, a Reuters poll of top economists showed.
Of 22 economists surveyed, all but two said the market could withstand the Fed’s expected rate hikes. They pointed to job creation and growing demand for houses from millennials as factors contributing to the market’s resilience.
“Rates are very reasonable now, and the signal the Fed will give when they begin raising their key lending rate will push more people into the market,” said Rajeev Dhawan, director of the economic forecasting center at Georgia State University.
The survey forecast the S&P/Case Shiller composite index of prices in 20 metropolitan areas would rise at an average pace of 5.0% this year, unchanged from June’s poll.
Home prices were seen rising 4.2% in 2016, down from 4.5% forecast in June, according to the poll.
Economists say home price increases of about 5% are just strong enough to raise equity for homeowners to encourage some to put their properties on the market and help address a persistent shortage of houses available for sale.
The increase is also not big enough to price out first-time home buyers, economists say.
According to a report from the National Association of Realtors, more single women are purchasing homes than single men. This article from The Journal News of Westchester County, New York, also covered by USA Today, reveals some of the motivations for single women who are deciding to become first-time homeowners.
Single women are buying homes at nearly twice the rate of single men. They now account for 23% of first-time buyers and 16% of repeat buyers, according to the 2014 National Association of Realtors Profile of Homebuyers and Sellers. Single men make up 15% of first-timers and 8% of repeats.
“You’re in the suburbs of Manhattan, so you’ve got highly capable women who are working in the city and are looking to invest, and real estate is still a great investment for people,” said Denise Friend of Better Homes and Gardens Rand Realty in White Plains, N.Y.
In the expensive, tough-to-crack market of New York’s Westchester and Rockland counties, single women recount different motivations and various ways they’ve made the purchase work financially.
Julia Kushnir bought a multifamily house in Yonkers because she wanted an income-producing investment. Erika Klein purchased a house in Nyack when interest rates dipped too low to pass up. Jackie Garrecht, Carolyn Kiel and Maryann Boyd just felt ready for something to call their own, and preferred owning to renting.
In all cases, building equity has been an empowering experience they’re glad they undertook.
“I felt like renting would be kind of like wasting money,” said Garrecht, 31, who had been living with her parents in Sparkill when she decided to strike out on her own. “I had the money, and I thought I’d rather use it for a down payment.”
An inheritance from her grandfather helped her purchase a condo in Valley Cottage this summer.
Boyd, 31, also bought a condo in Valley Cottage. She’d been living in the New City house where she grew up but, after her parents’ death and her sister’s marriage, she decided to get her own place.
“I have a dog and it’s very hard to find a rental when you’re a pet owner,” she said. “And I had just started a good job.”
But following through was stressful, Boyd said: “It was harder because I didn’t have someone with me for the emotional part of it.”
Solo buyers sometimes need a confidence boost, according to Irene Amato of A.S.A.P. Mortgage in Cortlandt, who said she asks clients to imagine the worst-case scenario. She reminds them that job losses or other unexpected financial problems might also impede their ability to pay rent.
“It’s just getting over the fear of owing that mortgage,” she said. “And telling them they can always sell or rent. They forget that.”
RealtyTrac’s U.S. Home Sales Report for July indicates a continued strengthening of the housing market’s recovery, with sales of homes in foreclosure dropping to an all-time low for the report.
The RealtyTrac July 2015 U.S. Home Sales Report shows that sales of properties in-foreclosure and cash sales were down from a year ago to multi-year lows, while year-to-date U.S. home sales in 2015 are at an eight-year high, and the U.S. median home price in July was at an 82-month high.
The sale of properties sold while in the foreclosure process (not including bank-owned properties) accounted for 6.4% of all single family and condo sales in July, down from 6.6% of all sales in June and down from 8.0% in July 2014 to the lowest monthly share since January 2000 – the earliest that data is available.
All-cash buyers accounted for 22.6% of all single family home and condo sales in July, down from 23.7% of all sales in the previous month and down from 26.5% of all sales in July 2014 to the lowest percentage of cash sales in a month since July 2008 – a 7-year low, and down from the most recent peak of 39% in February 2013 (highest going back as far as RealtyTrac has national data, January 2000).
A total of 1,344,129 single family homes and condos sold in the first six months of 2015, according to public record sales deeds collected by RealtyTrac, the highest number of sales in the first half of any year since 2007.
The U.S. median home sales price in July was $189,500, up 2% from the previous month and up 2% from a year ago to the highest level since September 2008.
Out of 161 markets analyzed for home sales prices (excluding non-disclosure states), 10 metros (6%) reached new home price peaks in July, and 20 percent of the 161 metro areas analyzed have hit new home price peaks in 2014 or 2015.
What are the big U.S. cities that more people are moving to – and moving away from? This article from The Washington Post looks at new Census Bureau data for the 10 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. – New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Philadelphia, Washington, Miami, Atlanta, Boston and San Francisco – to plot annual migration totals from city to city.
In any given year, about 8.5 million people move from one metropolitan area to another within the United States – from the Washington, D.C., region up to New York, or from New York to Philadelphia and farther away. These major moves – distinct from the kind you make across town, or even from the city to the suburbs – make up a relatively small share of all migration. Only about one in five movers today decamps for another metro area entirely.
But these moves are where the metro bragging rights lie.
You can see how regional proximity plays a big role in metro migration trends. More than 13,000 people head from Dallas to Houston each year, with a similar amount moving in the opposite direction. But the two Texas cities don’t see much in the way of migration to and from the other major metro areas in the chart, and they stand apart for sending particularly few people to New York.
Summer is starting to turn to Autumn, and football season is here. So for many of us, we already have some very important Sunday (and Saturday) traditions that we’re excited to get back into. This article from BrightNest suggests a few other great ideas on how to start some fun new Sunday traditions around your home.
Sunday is supposed to be the most relaxing day of the week. (Day of rest ring a bell?) But sometimes the thought of Monday morning can make Sunday a downright scary, anxiety-ridden 24 hours. Break the cycle by bringing some tradition back into your Sunday.
We’re not saying you have to get dolled up in your “Sunday finest,” but bringing a few fun activities into your day will make the end of the weekend sweeter and Sunday less scary.
For example, try hosting a family dinner. Try out a new recipe or go with a Sunday classic like a pot roast. Don’t wanna spend Sunday night doing dishes? Turn family dinner into a potluck brunch.
Try doing chores on Saturday so Sunday is a play day. Instead of reserving Sunday afternoon for cleaning and organizing, which makes the day a snoozeville, play like a little kid. If you love board games, invite friends over for an epic scramble match. Or, go outside. Take a walk through nature, bring your dog to the park or splash at the pool. Have fun!
