Located just west of Downtown Portland, Lennar’s newest community Quatama Park is now pre-selling new townhomes at pre-model pricing. Quatama Park offers prospective buyers two distinctive homes to choose from with prices starting from the $200,000’s.
“We are so excited for this new attached townhome community which plans to celebrate a grand opening this fall,” said Marketing Manager for Lennar Portland Sia Howe. “This community is a great opportunity to buy new in this area at a great price!”
With two distinctive floorplans to choose from, these homes range in size between approximately 1,407 to 1,572 square feet of living space. Quatama park is set in a great location near to Lexington Park, Sutherland Meadows Park and Seminole Park along the Bronson Park, offering a great opportunity for families to get outdoors. Additionally, Quatama Park is only two miles away from Beaverton Creek, where residents can enjoy some fun in the sun while the weather’s still warm.
Residence One is a three-story attached townhome that provides three bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms atop approximately 1,572 square feet. Enter on the main floor to the one-bay garage or foyer and take the stairs to the second level where you’ll find the main living space. An open concept layout features the living room, dining room and kitchen with wraparound counter for added space seamlessly interconnecting. All three bedrooms are on the third story, where the master bedroom comes complete with a walk-in closet and private bathroom.
Residence Two is another three-story attached town home that provides two master bedrooms and two-and-a-half bathrooms atop approximately 1,407 square feet. Enter through the foyer or one bay garage on the first level to the main living, open-concept space. On the third level are dual master suites.
Thanks to Lennar’s Everything’s Included® program, Quatama Park residents will enjoy upscale features at no added cost. Among these are hardwood flooring throughout the main living area, quartz countertops, stainless steel appliances programmable thermostats, air conditioning, tankless water heaters and so much more.
For more information on this community or to sign up for the interest list visit Quatama Park online.
With hundreds of communities nationwide and homes designed for first-time, move-up and luxury homebuyers, Lennar has grown to become one of the nation’s leading and most respected homebuilders and proudly remains steadfast in their commitment toward quality, value and integrity. Lennar has a longstanding history of building exceptional homes in only the most well planned and desirable locations throughout the country.
Do you know what your debt-to-income ratio is? If the answer is no, don’t worry, you’re not alone. If the answer is yes, then learn even more about the importance of this number during your home-buying process. Zillow Porchlight has shared why understanding your debt-to-income ratio (DTI) is important when qualifying for a mortgage and how you can help lower it.
Understanding DTI
Put simply, DTI is a calculation of your monthly debt payments divided by your gross monthly income.
Lenders calculate DTI in two ways, and both are important. First, they’ll add together all your expected housing expenses (your new mortgage, including taxes and insurance) and divide that by your gross (pre-tax) income. That’s called your front-end DTI.
Second, they do the same calculation but include all of your monthly expenses, like minimum payments on credit cards and auto loans. That’s called your back-end DTI.
For conventional mortgage loans (loans not insured by the government), mortgage lenders are generally looking for 28 percent or lower for the front-end DTI, and 36 percent or lower for the back-end.
“Some lenders may be a little stricter, and others less so,” says Cara Pierce, who’s worked as a housing financial specialist with Atlanta-based ClearPoint Credit Counseling Solutions for 19 years.
Why DTI matters
Your DTI ratio is important, Pierce says, because it’s what lenders use to determine how much money they will loan you.
If you’re already using 10 percent or more of your gross income to pay your monthly living expenses, such as car payments and credit card minimum payments, you’d have less than 26 percent for your other housing expenses to stay under 36-percent DTI on the back end.
A DTI higher than 36 percent doesn’t mean you won’t qualify. In fact, Fannie Mae purchases loans from lenders with back-end DTI ratios as high as 45 percent. But you may want to re-evaluate how much you want to spend on a home — or if it’s even the right time to buy.
Can I lower my DTI?
Lowering your DTI could help you get a lower interest rate “because less debt is generally viewed as a good thing,” notes Investopedia.
So if you still want that more expensive home, there are two ways to lower your DTI.
First, pay down debt. Even paying a little over the minimum payment each month on accounts will help. “If you have a $100 a month payment and can’t afford $200, just pay $125,” advises Pierce. “That will make it faster for you to pay off the debt.”
Alternatively, you could look for ways for you or your household to raise your income or consolidate your debt.
Either way, it’s important to know how lenders calculate DTI, and how a high DTI ratio could affect your chances of being approved for a loan. “People don’t understand DTI because it’s a math equation,” says Pierce, “but it’s a number that lenders will use to approve or deny loan applications.”
According to CBRE Group, Inc.’s annual report, Scoring Tech Talent, San Francisco remains the nation’s leading tech market. As competition for talents grows, cities far outside of Silicon Valley are attracting workers looking for an affordable cost of living and new job opportunities. Michael Gerrity for World Property Journal reports on the top tech cities and the influential factors that help shape them into the markets they are today.
Tech Talent Scorecard
Established tech markets, namely the San Francisco Bay Area, Washington, D.C., and Seattle, once again dominated the top spots on the 2016 “Tech Talent Scorecard,” with New York and Austin rounding out the top five–a boost for Austin, which ranked #8 last year. Rankings for the Tech Talent Scorecard are determined based on 13 unique metrics including tech talent supply, growth, concentration, cost, completed tech degrees, industry outlook for job growth, and market outlook for both office and apartment rent cost growth.
The top 10-ranked cities on the Tech Talent Scorecard were all large markets, each with a tech labor pool of more than 50,000. In the number 6-10 slots were Dallas/Ft. Worth, Boston, Raleigh-Durham, Atlanta and Baltimore. Rounding out the top 15 were Phoenix, Toronto, Chicago, Orange County California and Minneapolis.
Top Momentum Markets
Meanwhile, small markets took dominant positions on the list of top “momentum markets,” which ranks cities based on tech talent growth rates between 2010 and 2015. Charlotte and Nashville, which saw tech talent growth rate increases of 75 percent and 68 percent, respectively, topped this year’s list.
“Tech talent growth rates are the best indicator of labor pool momentum, and it’s easily quantifiable to identify the markets where demand for tech workers has surged,” said Mr. Yasukochi.
The top 10-ranked momentum markets and their associated tech talent growth rates were:
Are you paying more for less space? If you’re a renter that’s highly likely according to a recent CNN Money report by Kathryn Vasel. While apartment sizes may be shrinking, rental rates have seen 7% growth in the last 5 years.
The report analyzed data from buildings in the 100 largest U.S. cities that have at least 50 units. The biggest losers were new studio apartments, which have shrunk by nearly 18% since 2006 to an average 504 square feet this year. One bedroom apartments are also getting smaller: shriveling 5% to 752 square feet from 794 square feet 10 years ago.
But not everything in the rental market is getting smaller. Two-bedroom apartments have held relatively steady, increasing 1% to 1,126 in the last 10 years. Developers have faced higher construction costs recently, especially in bigger cities, thanks in part to rising land costs and increased regulations. Fitting more units in a building tends to bring a higher return on investment (similar to when airlines pack more seats on a plane).
Developers had hit the pause button on building in the wake of the 2008 housing crisis. The average size of a rental took its biggest hit from 2011 to 2012 when the size shrunk 2.8% in a single year.
Demand for rentals has been on the rise as Millennials delay homeownership, baby boomers look to downsize, home prices continue to rise and more people choose to live in cities.
“Most of the new apartments that are going up are in central areas, downtown, and there isn’t a lot of space there, so developers are building up,” said Ama Otet, RentCafe’s real estate editor.
But rents have been rising faster than wages recently, which has created an affordability issue for many renters. Last week, a report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University showed more than 21 million people spend at least 30% of their paycheck on rent — a record high.
For over 60 years we’ve had the privilege of helping hundreds of thousands of families across America move into the next stage of their lives with a new Lennar home. And now, we’re honored to be considered one of the strongest homebuilding companies by Argus Research. In this recent 24/7 Wall St. article, Chris Lange explains how innovative product offerings in desirable locations across the country have help to position Lennar as one of the strongest companies among its peers.
Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN) received high praise from an independent research firm that believes that this homebuilder could rise to the top of its peer group, given recent trends. Argus is initiating coverage of Lennar with a Buy rating and a $59 price target.
Although sales of new homes are on track to grow for the fifth straight year in 2016, Argus believes that the market is still in the middle stages of its upcycle, given the severity of the preceding downturn. Additionally, the firm pointed out that mortgage rates remain buyer-friendly, and it does not expect the current cycle to peak until new home sales reach at least 700,000 units, well above the 502,000 new homes sold in 2015.
Specifically, over the past five years, as the U.S. housing market has recovered from recession, Lennar has posted compound annual revenue growth of 25.2%, net income growth of 35.1% and per-share earnings growth of 40.6%.
In 2016, Argus expects new home sales in the United States to rise for a fifth straight year, since bottoming at a very depressed 306,000 units in 2011, down from, 283,000 in 2005. While five years of improvement would be considered a lengthy upturn under typical circumstances, Argus expects the current recovery to continue for at least several more years, given the severity of the preceding downturn.
In the report, Argus detailed:
In addition to benefiting from the middle stages of an industry upcycle, Lennar, in our view, is one of the strongest companies in its peer group. We think the company is well established in many of the nation’s stronger geographic areas for housing, and also think it is very creative in its offerings. For example, it sells its homes under the “Everything’s Included” platform, where the company’s most popular upgrades and features are already included in the purchase price. In addition, it offers The Home Within a Home, which have attached apartments on the first floor with a separate private entrance, letting elderly parents or adult children live more independently in the home.
Lennar’s Innovation at Storey Park offers an unprecedented level of high-tech standard features and amenities including solar, home automation and whole-home connectivity. In this new CE Pro article, Jason Knott explores how these new smart home features benefit Orlando area home shoppers .
In yet another signal that U.S. homebuilders are catching on to the value of technology in new homes, Lennar Corp.(NYSE: LEN), the second-largest homebuilder in the U.S., recently debuted a high-tech community in Orlando with standard amenities such as rooftop solar, home automation and wall-to-wall connectivity as standard features.
The community, named Innovation at Storey Park, is a gated enclave of 144 new homes with prices starting from the $270,000 range. It features Lennar’s “Everything’s Included” standard amenities policy, which has quite a bit of technology.
The homes come standard with home automation that includes locks, lights and a wireless alarm system. Among the products are:
Other tech-based amenities include USB ports and multimedia access throughout the home, prewiring for cable and Internet, Leviton occupancy sensors, Energy Star appliances and an AO Smith Voltex 50-gallon hybrid electric water heater.
The community will also come with SunStreet solar panels standard, which is a first in the state of Florida, according to Lennar. Homeowners can pay a flat monthly fee for a system that generates up to 60 percent of their anticipated electricity needs. Innovation at Storey Park has cottages, manors and estates.
“The average home in this country is 38 years old – long before people heard of the Internet,” says Brock Nicholas, president of Lennar’s Orlando division. “Our new homes reflect how people live today and come standard with the lifestyle conveniences once reserved for custom-built private estates.”
During the Worldwide Developers Conference this week, Apple released more detail about HomeKit – software that allows smart home products to be compatible with iOS devices. Samantha Murphy Kelly for Mashable reports how select new home builders, including Lennar, will leverage HomeKit to bring a whole new level of smart home technology to homebuyers.
New homebuyers today have many things to choose from: wood floors or tile, granite or stainless steel countertops, central air or window units. But later this year, you’ll be able to decide if you want to make your space a fully Apple-supported smart home, built from the ground up.
Tucked into Apple’s two-hour-long new product presentation at its Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this week was a blink-and-you-missed-it tidbit that hinted largely at where the smart home industry is headed. In fact, three home builders — Brookfield Residential, Lennar and KB Home — are now committed to building homes later this year that come with built-in Apple HomeKit infrastructure.
HomeKit is Apple’s software framework that smart gadget builders use to make their devices iOS-compatible. For customers, the label means the device (say, a smart light bulb) will work seamlessly with the iPhone and Siri.
For homebuilders, though, HomeKit bestows confidence that a set of devices will work within a specific platform. With that knowledge, rather than the owner adding smart home gadgets such as automated locks, cameras, blinds, thermostats and air quality monitors to a home piece by piece, homebuilders can install the devices before you move in and make sure the infrastructure is equipped to handle them.
“The framework is already in place through the product manufacturers, who have included wireless capabilities in their products for years,” David Kaiserman, president of Lennar Ventures, which builds homes in 20 states, told Mashable. “So we’re closely working with a handful of manufacturers — such as Schlage (door locks), Honeywell (security and thermostat) and Lutron (lighting) — who have made the decision to have their products also work with HomeKit. By installing smart products as part of our homes during construction, we are making home automation a reality for many who have been intrigued by it but haven’t been able (or willing) to retrofit on their own.
Lennar’s Everything’s Included® program will soon include a whole new level of home technology – enabling the entire family to do more and use less by living smarter. Sign up now to receive the latest updates by email.
Virginia Tech researchers have developed FutureHAUS, a new concept in building that combines state-of-the-art technologies with cutting-edge building techniques. The research and innovation of FutureHAUS attempts to improve flexibility and options for new home builders. As Mike Black for TecHome Builder explains, this new concept has the potential to influence the future of smart home building as new technologies become more essential in every room our homes.
Researchers at Virginia Tech have developed a concept home called FutureHAUS that utilizes the newest in home technology, including efficient systems and home automation, in a way that can teach traditional builders.
Each smart concept room is being completed in stages as part of a modular cartridge, as they call it. “What we came up with is a concept that uses what we call cartridges, which are basically entire walls of technology. So we have the whole-kitchen cartridge, bathroom wall-modules, equipment storage walls and etc.,” says Joe Wheeler, FutureHAUS project leader.
These cartridges are used to help builders understand how they can also install these pre-finished, pre-wired cartridges. They mimic modular building in that entire rooms are shipped from the factory to the job site, but the research teams believe their concept improves on modular building techniques by improving flexibility.
Increasing Flexibility and Options
“What we are doing with the FutureHAUS research is using the cartridge components as a proof-of-concept for the Internet of Things (IoT) home of the future,” says Wheeler.
For a single-family home, after the home’s slab is cast and set, the builder and integrator installs the cartridges into place, depending on the layout, and then frame the house around the cartridges. By initially installing the cartridges according to the home’s layout, builders are able to immediately see potential trouble spots that may not have been apparent during the design phase and make changes before the home is built.
The cartridges allow builders and integrators to increase job-efficiency by visualizing tech placement to understand how different systems are meant to come together and connect.
Imagining enjoying hot fresh doughnuts at home, without waiting for dough to rise or running to the nearest bakery. In honor of National Doughnut Day we’re letting you in on the secret for how to make the easiest homemade doughnuts.
What you need:
Canned refrigerator biscuits
Cooking oil
Skillet or deep fryer
1½ inch round cutter A round cutter set like this one is a great tool to have on hand in the kitchen for doughnuts, biscuits, cookies and more.
Toppings of choice (optional) Glaze, frosting, cinnamon-sugar, sprinkles, and powder sugar are a few options.
Steps:
Pop open a can of biscuits and lay on a cutting board. Using a small round cutter, remove the center of the biscuit for your doughnut holes. Kids can help with this task while you’re heating up the oil.
Enlist the kids to help make the holes
If using a skillet, add about an inch of oil and heat to 350 degrees. Use a thermometer to check the temperature frequently and adjust as needed. The oil should be hot enough to achieve a nice golden hue, but not so hot that the outside burns before the inside cooks.
Heat oil to 350 degrees
Carefully slide your biscuits into the hot oil. Cook in small batches to not overcrowd the pan. These will cook quickly – only a minute or two on each side. Sacrifice a doughnut hole from the first batch for a taste test.
Cook a minute or two on each side
Remove your beautifully cooked doughnuts from the oil and place on paper towels or a cooling rack.
While still hot, you can opt to roll doughnuts around in a simple cinnamon-sugar mixture. Or allow the doughnuts to cool a bit before adding an icing or glaze, and of course, sprinkles.
Treat yourself for breakfast or whip some up for a quick afternoon snack. Happy National Doughnut Day!
Do you have tips for an easy homemade treat? Let us know in the comments below.
