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This Monday saw the release of the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), which indicated that builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes in August rose to its highest reading in nearly ten years. Here are some of the details of the report, from The Wall Street Journal.
A gauge of homebuilder sentiment rose to its highest level since November 2005, reflecting growing confidence in a steadily improving U.S. housing market.
An index of builder confidence in the market for new single-family homes rose one point to a seasonally adjusted level of 61 in August, the National Association of Home Builders said Monday. A reading over 50 means most builders generally see conditions as positive.
The index has been positive for the past year, following five months in early 2014 when sentiment hovered in negative territory.
”The overall message from the survey…is very upbeat,” wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, in a client note. “We see nothing here to change our view that a real recovery in the housing market is finally under way.”
With the Federal Reserve expected to raise interest rates as early as September, economists said potential homeowners are hoping to get into the housing market before mortgage rates rise and mortgages get more expensive.
The current-sales component of the index rose this month to 66 from 65 in July. Expectations for sales over the next six months stayed steady at 70. A measure of traffic from prospective buyers rose two points to 45.
A storm shelter in Oklahoma. A place to park your RV in Idaho. A wet bar in Kansas. A mountain view in Colorado. These are just some of the most sought after home features by state, based on Realtor.com home listings.
Diversity is one of the United States’ greatest assets – and that’s true even in home design! Especially in home design, in fact. From coast to coast, the way we like to live varies enormously. Sitting in a covered patio sipping cocktails after a refreshing dip in the pool, Texans may wonder what kind of house their Delaware compatriots live in. Are they chilling in their master rooms? Cowering in their storm shelters? Swinging on their gazebos?
Well, wonder no longer, friends, because we’ve pinpointed the distinctive housing features of each state.
Our data team took a deep dive into our 1.5 million active listings of single-family homes for sale and parsed out over 200 individual features from their listing descriptions. From there, we finalized the top five features for each state and picked the one with real local flavor.
Enacted by Congress in 1970, the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires each of the three major U.S. credit reporting companies – Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion – to provide you with a free copy of your credit report once every twelve months, at your request. It’s important to continue making that request, and the credit reporting companies have made it easy – with a central website, a toll-free phone number or a mailing address to order your free annual credit report. Be sure to exercise that right, in order to ensure that the information on your report is always correct and up to date. What should you do if you find an error? This article from MarketWatch provides a step-by-step guide.
A high credit score can save you thousands of dollars over your lifetime of borrowing money. The opposite is true of a low credit score. You can end up paying far more than you should because of a low number. But sometimes there are errors made and something that shouldn’t be on your credit report shows up, putting a negative impact on your score.
Fortunately, with any information that’s inaccurate or unconfirmed, there are actions consumers can take to potentially remove it from their credit history. Credit reporting agencies are required to investigate if a consumer raises a dispute. If the credit-reporting agency is unable to confirm the information with the company that reported the debt, then it must delete the information from the consumer’s credit report. In most cases, the unconfirmed information will be deleted from your credit report within 30 days.
If you want to dispute something on your credit report, here’s what you should do.
First, send a dispute letter to the credit reporting company (Equifax, Experian or TransUnion). The FTC has a sample dispute letter you can use as a template. The letter should include your name and address, the specific items you are disputing, the facts as you see them and why you are disputing the information. Be sure to formally state your request to have the information removed or corrected. Include copies of supporting documents but the keep the originals. You may also want to include a copy of your report with the disputed item highlighted. Send the letter by certified mail and request a return receipt. This way you will know when the credit reporting company received your dispute and the 30-day investigation period begins.
This article from Chuck Jaffe, senior columnist for MarketWatch, offers some great financial advice for college students as they build the foundations of their adult lives. And even if you’re already an adult who’s way past the point of building that foundation, there’s solid financial advice here we can all learn from.
Our job as parents is to inspire our children to take ownership of their finances, rather than simply to educate them. The more we get children excited about the potential and importance of their finances, the more they will take charge responsibly. Here are some financial realities that graduates will face in life.
Having savings govern your spending habits turns out better than if spending determines how much you save.
One area where our kids do not have it easier than we did concerns controlling spending, and the ability to develop good habits easily.
Children – as much or more than all consumers – are assaulted around the clock by a huge effort to get them to spend money. Our forebears had to go to a store, and only had to protect their dollars from frivolous spending during business hours; today it’s possible to blow the paycheck within minutes of coming home with it.
There’s nothing wrong with spending money, but it shouldn’t drive all other decisions.
Too many people save only whatever they have left when they’re done spending each month, leaving little or nothing left to pay for their future. If they instead spent money only in line with what they already have saved, they’ll forever be inside of their budget.
Age is an opportunity.
Youth gives new college grads a chance to get ahead, rather than be forced into a lifetime of playing catch-up.
Gene Natali, co-author of “The Missing Semester,” said kids should be encouraged “to save their first $1,000 as fast as they can, and then to put that money away, because it will give them a margin of error to work with for the rest of their lives.”
Believe that you can make it financially, and then work to make it a reality.
Too many people think they will never pay off the debt or escape from their financial misdeeds, so they keep pushing these obligations down the road, trying to ignore the mounting evidence that they’ve impaired themselves and their family for life.
There’s no reason to let a tough financial situation reach rock-bottom until you have some epiphany on how to progress. Instead, start from a position where you believe those financial dreams are possible, work to achieve them and then protect them from anything that could crush them.
Years before they’re ready to start looking for a new home, perhaps even as early as childhood, there are many homebuyers who have a clear picture of the type of home they want to own. But for others, that decision process begins only when they actually start touring their potential new homes. One of the hardest decisions that some families have to make is whether a one-story or a two-story home will be best for them. Here’s the (one-)story from NewsOK.com.
Disputes about whether to buy a horizontal or vertical home are hardly infrequent. Mark Nash, a longtime real estate broker and author of “1001 Tips for Buying and Selling a Home,” said homebuyers who have mixed feelings about housing styles should make sure they visit at least two horizontal properties and two vertical ones.
”Picking one over the other can be a huge decision with significant implications for how you live,” Nash said.
Whether you’re 25 or 65, it can be tough to plan for your future housing needs. But attempting to look ahead is worth the effort, Nash said. He encourages homebuyers to plan ahead at least three to five years.
”People nearing retirement have a lot to consider when choosing a house. At this age, problems with health or mobility can surface at any time,” Nash said.
On the other end of the spectrum, Nash said couples with young children should think ahead to when their kids will be preteens or teenagers. Those for whom affordability is a major issue may wish to choose a two-story house with extra bedroom space for the changing needs of their offspring.
Homebuyers should also factor in the investment potential for ownership of a one-level home. Now that the oldest boomers are well into their Medicare years, Nash said demand is increasing for single-floor living among pre-retirees and retirees. The result: ownership of one-level homes should prove a good investment over time, so long as they’re located in popular neighborhoods.
You can also think through the advantages of a second-floor “hideaway.” Perhaps you already work from home or expect to start doing so in the next few years. If so, Nash recommends you consider the advantages of a second-story office where you can concentrate with few interruptions. For similar reasons, many homeowners enjoy a tucked-away upstairs room where they can pursue a hobby.
When selling a home, sometimes a little extra money and effort can add a lot of value, and make a big, positive difference in your home’s selling price. In this article, ABC News reports on a New Jersey couple who had trouble selling their home, and how the network’s “Good Morning America” program brought in a home design expert to see if things could be turned around for them. The article also offers some valuable advice on how to add value to your home before putting it up for sale.
Homes that smell good are more likely to sell. Those looking to make a sale should invest in scented candles, fresh flowers or consider baking cookies immediately before an open house. All prove effective.
Pictures are key. Make certain online photos of the home are taken in good light and from good angles. All clutter should be removed from rooms (and don’t forget to remove photos and magnets from refrigerators). Don’t hesitate to get up on a ladder or add extra lights to the room when you take your photos – and make sure you are using a good camera. If you don’t have one, borrow one. Many would-be buyers of homes carefully study online photos in advance and won’t even bother checking out a home in person if they deem the pictures unattractive.
Move your furniture around to give the illusion of more space. And consider including some furniture in the sale of your home in a bid to close the deal or boost the asking price. It can be a win-win for the buyers and sellers.
If you’re selliing your home, is it important to also sell your potential buyers on the school district? It depends on where you live, according to a new Trulia survey. MarketWatch reports on the survey’s findings in this article.
The quality of a school district is a hot topic in some real-estate markets – and barely warrants a mention in others.
Local schools are an important factor for families with children, according to a new survey by the real-estate website Trulia, with one in five Americans indicating that their ideal home is located in a great school district. Among parents of children under the age of 18, the percentage of home buyers who want to live in a great school district jumps to 35%, compared with 12% for those without kids. It pays to brag about your local school district if it’s highly rated, according to Trulia chief economist Selma Hepp.
Looking at homes for sale on the Trulia website from June 2014 to June 2015, Hepp analyzed how frequently the word “school” was mentioned in listings in the 100 largest U.S. metros and the frequency with which the word “school” was mentioned alongside a positive adjective such as “great,” “winning,” “award-winning,” “excellent,” “good” or “best.” Hepp also looked at the relationship between property prices and listings that promoted school quality.
In metro areas with the highest share of listings referring to local schools, up to three out of 10 listings mention schools. Orange County, Calif., and San Jose, Calif., had the highest rates of school mentions at 28% and 25% of listings, respectively. Orange County and San Jose were also the No. 1 and No. 2 districts where listings mentioned the word school with a positive adjective (6.9% and 4.4% of the time, respectively). Las Vegas listings had the fewest mentions of nearby schools; that city attracts more retirees and international buyers than parents with school-aged kids.
Warning: this article may contain some math. Sorry, parents.
While our students are getting ready to go back to school, and our lists of school supplies and other things they need for the school year are growing, it’s important to remember that any high credit card balances you accumulate can have an affect on your credit score. This article from U.S. News educates us on the details.
Parents are no doubt well aware that hasty back-to-school shopping can do serious damage to their bank accounts, but there’s another reason to be mindful of how much money those clothes, books, crayons and markers are costing you.
Overspending on supplies could easily wind up hurting your credit score. That’s because carrying a high credit card balance will negatively skew what’s known as your credit utilization rate.
This rate – essentially how much debt you are carrying versus how much credit has been extended to you – is the second most important component of major credit scoring models, including the widely known FICO and VantageScore credit scores. (The most important factor used in score calculations involves whether or not you pay your bills on time.)
For best scoring results, “you do not want your utilization as a whole or on individual accounts to be greater than 30 percent” of the available credit limits, says Rod Griffin, director of public education at credit bureau Experian. “That’s the maximum.”
Any percent over that threshold will be treated as a sign that you’re overextending your finances. For lenders, it’s a red flag that you could run into trouble making payments on any or all of your loans down the line, Griffin says.
To ensure those designer backpacks and expensive scientific calculators don’t negatively skew your ratio and send your score tumbling, a few things need to happen. First, you’ll want to know how much debt you’re carrying on your credit cards, especially if you plan on applying for any loans shortly after your back-to-school shopping is complete.
Knowing this information will help you determine how much you can afford to charge without going over that important 30 percent threshold – and it will let you know if a particular card needs to be put on ice.
Also make sure to pay down any card that’s bumping up against its credit limit as soon as possible, since that high balance is most certainly already causing your score to suffer.
Next, be sure to stay on budget so you can avoid revolving a balance and paying interest on those purchases.
“Ideally, you would be paying your bills in full each month,” Griffin says. “The lower your utilization, the better for scores generally.”
To keep costs under control, spread school spending out over time. When it comes to clothing, for instance, consumer savings expert Andrea Woroch suggests buying summer clearance items now. Then wait for fall clothing to go on sale.
Finally, you’ll need to pay off any school-related expenses by your statement’s closing date – as opposed to its due date – because that’s typically when credit card issuers report balances to the three major credit bureaus.
If you’re planning to sell your home, here’s some great news from the National Association of Realtors, as reported in The Wall Street Journal.
The National Association of Realtors said that home prices in the second quarter rose in 163 out of 176 metro areas, continuing their upward trajectory even as economists warn of looming affordability problems and a limited supply of homes for sale.
The median existing single-family home price rose to $229,400 in the second quarter, up 8.2% from a year earlier. That was a slightly faster rate of increase than the 7.1% price rise seen in the first quarter.
Real-estate agents this year reported a hot spring selling season that bled into the summer with dwindling home supply, the return of bidding wars in some cities and trigger-happy buyers eager to get a home loan before a long-expected rise in mortgage rates.
Home prices rose the fastest in the stretch of cities extending up the east coast of Florida between Port St. Lucie and Titusville, with the median sales price in those areas rising about 20% from a year earlier. Raleigh and Greensboro, N.C., also saw strong double-digit gains.
Californian cities continued their reign atop the list of most-expensive markets, with San Jose commanding a median sales price of $980,000.
