Growing incomes and low mortgage rates are helping to prop up housing affordability and offset rising home prices, according to the newly released National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index. A quarter-point drop in interest rates in the second quarter helped to make homes more affordable to more consumers. Between the beginning of April and the end of June, 59 percent of new and existing homes were affordable to f
Two of the largest institutional landlords announced Thursday that they plan to merge in a $4.3 billion deal. Invitation Homes, the rental home wing of private equity firm Blackstone Group, and Starwood Waypoint Homes will own about 82,000 single-family properties in more than a dozen major markets under the merger, which still needs to be approved by stockholders. The combined company will operate as Invitation Homes.Other institutional investor
The couple that kidnapped and killed Arkansas real estate agent Beverly Carter in 2014 used an app to give a false impression of where they were calling from. According to Carter’s son, Carl Carter Jr., the couple made it seem like they were calling from out of town and were looking for a home because they were relocating. “In fact, they were just calling from right down the road,” says Carter Jr., who shared several details about his mothe
About TomYou have questions and concerns – Tom Dunlap is the San Diego REALTOR® with the answers and solutions.You can count on him for: Extensive knowledge of the San Diego real estate market: Tom and his team have covered every corner of San Diego County, working with both buyers and sellers… and they study the sales statistics and inventory carefully, so they can tell you when the price is right – or wrong. Years of experience in help
Scott Stratten of UnMarketing on how to stand out from the crowdKey Takeaways "If you are your unique self, if you are your authentic self, you have no competition."SAN FRANCISCO — What does it mean to provide service so exemplary that the word “service” itself becomes synonymous with your brand?Scott Stratten of UnMarketing shared a story on stage at Inman Connect San Francisco about the Ritz-Carlton hotel chain and how real estate agents
One of the nation’s largest cannabis companies bought an entire town in the deserts of California. American Green Inc. announced that it is purchasing all 80 acres of Nipton, Calif., and plans to turn the town into a commercial oasis centered around marijuana.The town currently includes an Old West–style hotel, a few homes, an RV park, and a coffee shop. Fewer than two dozen residents live there.American Green Inc. plans to make the town “g
The link between good health and greater productivity may not seem to be too big a stretch, but science has long struggled to establish the connection with hard data. Now, researchers at UCLA, University of California Riverside, and Washington University have done so with a small sample of workers at commercial laundry plants in the Midwest. Researchers found that employees who saw their health improve due to participation in an work-sponsored
Higher home prices are a likely culprit for part of the 1.5 percentage point dip in Fannie Mae's Home Purchase Sentiment Index in July. Buyers may be losing confidence in their ability to purchase a home as the national median home price surged to $263,800 in June, a record high.But the decline in selling sentiment was actually the biggest drag on the index in July. The net share of 1,000 consumers surveyed who say now is a good time to sell a h
More people are looking to experience farm life without buying an entire farm. That has prompted an emerging type of community that is catching on from coast to coast centered around food production, dubbed “agrihoods.”Suburban agrihoods began appearing in the U.S. in the 1990s. At first, developers offered them as an alternative to golf-centered communities.“What we learned over time was the majority of buyers in golf course developments
Homeowners continue to say that their homes are worth more than appraisers’ opinions, according to the latest reading from Quicken Loans’ National Home Price Perception Index. Consumers believed their properties to be worth 1.55 percent more than what appraisers said they were in July.That said, the gap is narrowing between these differing opinions. In June, homeowners’ estimates were 1.7 percent higher than appraisers’ opinions.There
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