Share Of Women In Construction At An All Time High

An abundance of nearby graveyards may help scare up neighborhood home values or bury them – an indication that there are usually other variables at play in determining local home values than just the number of and/or proximity to the nearest cemeteries, according to a Zillow analysis. Whether local homeowners are spooked or soothed by the prospect of hundreds of nearby neighbors eternally resting in peace is a matter of personal tolerance – some may enjoy the quiet, others may shiver when things go bump in the night. Similarly, the value of their home relative to other homes in their area may prove heavenly or hellish if there’s a boneyard nearby. For example, living residents of the Seward Hall neighborhood in the Nashville metro area – home to 15 cemeteries – will find themselves at an expensive disadvantage if (when?) their dead neighbors decide to reanimate: Their homes are generally worth $320,300 more than the typical Nashville-area home. The Glendale neighborhood in the New...

It's wildfire season again in California, and with blazes burning across the state and thousands of homes at risk, the governor has declared a state of emergency. Hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate, and if a significant number of them can't go back, the state's housing shortage will likely make a bad situation even worse. Gov.  Gavin Newsom  declared a statewide emergency late last week. Currently, roughly 34,000 firefighters are battling multiple blazes, including the Kincade fire in Northern California's wine country, the Tick fire north of Los Angeles, and the recently ignited Getty fire in northwestern L.A. Millions have had their power cut off by the state's struggling power utility, which has been blamed for sparking previous blazes. This all comes just a year after the deadliest, most destructive wildfire season in the state's history. The Kincade fire has led to nearly 200,000 evacuations and the destruction of 40 homes in ...

America’s relatively  low mortgage rates  spurred another increase in pending home sales in September, as the index rose 1.5%, according to the  National Association of Realtors . The Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, increased to 108.7 in September, rising from  August’s 107.3. Contract signings compared to a year earlier increased 1.5% from last month’s increase, but jumped 3.9% from 2018, NAR said. Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, said historically low mortgage rates played a significant role in the two straight months of gains. “Even though home prices are rising faster than income,  national buying power  has increased by 6% because of better interest rates,” Yun said. “Furthermore, we’ve seen increased foot traffic as more buyers are evidently eager searching to become homeowners.” That being said, the index revealed that activity in the nation’s four major regions was split as the PH...

First-time homebuyers are motivated to buy a home, with about 60% saying they would relocate to another city or state if the cost of a home was lower than their current location. So which generation was the most willing to move? Surprisingly, it wasn’t Millennials. Actually, Gen Z, the generation that comes after Millennials born between 1996 and 2010, being the most apt to move at 70%, according to a new analysis from  TransUnion . In fact, Millennials didn’t even come in second. Gen Xers, born between 1965 and 1980, were the second most likely to move in order to buy a home at 65% and Millennials, born from 1981 to 1995 came in third at 61%, Joe Mellman, TransUnion senior vice president and mortgage business leader, said in an interview with HousingWire. The next three years are expected to produce more first time homebuyers than any point since the recession. The next three years, from 2020 to 2022, TransUnion analysis predicts the market will see at least 8.3 million new...

Just over two years ago,  Department of Housing and Urban Development  Secretary Ben Carson told the crowd at the 2017  Mortgage Bankers Association  Annual Conference in Denver that HUD was working with the  Department of Justice  to address the use of the False Claims Act to extract massive settlements out of lenders. And now, two years later, Carson delivered on his promise,  announcing Monday  that HUD and the DOJ have reached an agreement that will see the DOJ back away from  Federal Housing Enforcement  lending enforcement and leave enforcement mostly to the FHA itself. According to HUD and the DOJ, the FHA will typically handle lending enforcement through “administrative” means. The goal of the move, according to Carson, is to bring banks back to FHA lending. Many of the nation’s largest banks, including  JPMorgan Chase  and  Bank of America  moved away  from FHA lending in recent years after...

Sheila Dillon, Boston’s housing chief and director of neighborhood development, said she expects a flood of apartments will hit the market in December when the city’s ban on investor units being used as short-term rentals goes into effect. “We’re hoping that the units returning to the market will be in the thousands,” Dillon  told  the Boston Herald this week. Boston last year banned the use of investor units for short-term rentals via  Airbnb  and other websites. In November 2018, Airbnb sued Boston in federal court over what it called “draconian” regulations. The company settled the suit in August by agreeing to add a function to its website that asks hosts to enter a city-issued registration number starting Sept. 1. Hosts that don’t provide the number by Dec. 1 will be blocked. Dillon said an earlier estimate from Airbnb put the number of investor units – measured as units that are rented for most of the year, implying the owners don’t live there – at about...

There’s a disconnect between widespread climate change fears and the actions homeowners are taking to mitigate their property risks, a new study finds. Eighty-one percent of more than 500 consumers recently surveyed say they are worried about climate change, and many are concerned about the impact of changing weather patters on their homes, according to ValuePenguin, a firm that offers consumer financial products. But those concerns don’t appear to be weighing as heavily on consumers’ financial or housing choices. Only 44% of consumers surveyed say they factor in an area’s disaster history when home shopping. Further, 47% of homeowners say they aren’t fully confident that they have adequate insurance to protect their homes from a natural disaster. Yet 42% say they wouldn’t pay more to insure their homes from climate change risks. While climate change comes under more scrutiny in the media, most consumers don’t appear to be letting it influence their real estate decisions...

The nation’s  mortgage rates  continue to hover near historical lows, which has spurred an increase in  purchasing demand . However, as more home buyers enter the market, America’s lack of housing inventory has begun to  put pressure  on home prices nationwide. Redfin ’s latest  migration report  indicates that in the third quarter of 2019, more and more Americans expressed interest in relocating to housing markets that offered them more affordable housing. This was seen in Sacramento, where 43.4% of home searches made on Redfin’s site came from homebuyers living outside of its housing market. This translates to an inflow of 6,896 non-local homebuyers, according to Redfin. In this metro, the median home price sits at $415,000, while this may seem expensive, it’s one of the most affordable markets for homebuyers living in northern California. But as more homebuyers head to the relatively affordable market, Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief ec...

Home prices increased in September, rising only 0.2% from the  previous month  but up 4.6% from 2018, according to the latest monthly House Price Index from the  Federal Housing Finance Agency . The FHFA monthly HPI is calculated using home sales price information from mortgages sold to or guaranteed by,  Fannie Mae  and  Freddie Mac . Because of this, the selection excludes high-end homes bought with jumbo loans or cash sales. The report explains that across the nine census divisions, the New England division saw the strongest appreciation growth, rising by 0.9% in September, whereas the East South-Central division experienced no growth, as appreciation declined 0.8%. However, the FHFA highlights that the 12-month changes were all positive, with the Middle Atlantic and Pacific divisions posting the smallest gain of 3.9%, and the Mountain division leading the way with a 6.5% increase. These are the states located in each division mentioned: New E...

Home renovation spending reached a  record high  this summer, according to Harvard University’s  Joint Center for Housing Studies . Although they expected those numbers to continue to soar through the end of 2019, the JCHS now says it expects a complete stall come 2020. (Image courtesy of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Click to enlarge.) The Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity released by the Remodeling Futures Program at JCHS said that annual gains in homeowner spending for improvements and repairs will dissipate by the second half of 2020. To that point, the LIRA states that the annual home improvement and maintenance expenditures will post a modest decline of 0.3% through the third quarter of 2020. “Continued weakness in existing home sales and new construction will lead to sluggish remodeling activity next year,” said Chris Herbert, managing director of the JCHS. “Slowdowns in other key indicators of improvement spending—project ...

In September, America’s home sales climbed 8.1%, representing the largest year-over-year increase since 2016, according to the  RE/MAX  National Housing Report. RE/MAX reports that September’s annual increase was the largest September increase since 2013. Although this was accompanied by an August-to-September decline of 17%, it was still significantly less than the month-to-month plunge of 24.4% in September of last year. Once again, buyer demand outpaced home sales, resulting in the largest inventory decline in over a year.  The report indicates that the number of homes for sale dropped 6.1% from 2018’s level, marking the third consecutive month of annual declines. According to RE/MAX, September posted a 3.2-month supply of inventory, falling from a 4.2 month supply in September 2018. Homes spent 46 days on the market, which is one day longer than they did last year. The median price for a home was $254,000 in September, rising 4.5% from last year, which i...

Builder confidence in the single-family market jumped 3 points in October to 71 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. That is the highest level since February 2018 and up from 68 in October of last year. Anything above 50 is considered positive sentiment. Of the index’s three components, current sales conditions rose 3 points to 78, sales expectations over the next six months jumped 6 points to 76, and buyer traffic rose 4 points to 54. U.S. homebuilders are loving today’s lower mortgage rates, which are bringing buyers back and boosting sales. Builder confidence in the single-family market jumped 3 points in October to 71 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, or HMI. That is the highest level since February 2018 and up from 68 in October of last year. Anything above 50 is considered positive sentiment. “The housing rebound that began in the spring continues, supported by...

 Neighborhoods located within a half-mile of public transit services outperformed those in areas farther from public transit based on a number of factors, according to a report released today by the  American Public Transportation Association (link is external)  and the National Association of Realtors®. “ The Real Estate Mantra – Locate Near Public Transportation ” highlighted the critical role public transportation plays in determining real estate values, revealing that commercial and residential real estate market sales thrive when residents have mobility options close by. The report explored seven metropolitan regions – Boston; Hartford; Los Angeles; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Phoenix; Seattle; and Eugene, OR – that provide access to heavy rail, light rail, commuter rail and bus rapid transit. Residential properties within these areas had 4-24% higher median sale prices between 2012 and 2016, the report found. Commercial property near public transit also witnessed value...

The U.S. foreclosure rate fell to the lowest level in two decades in July as a strong labor market made it easier for Americans to pay their bills. The share of mortgages in foreclosure fell to 0.4%, compared with 0.5% a year earlier,  CoreLogic  said in a report on Tuesday. Other measures including the delinquency rate also fell. The share of mortgages with payments 30 days or more  overdue  fell to 3.8%, compared with 4.1% a year ago, CoreLogic said. “The fundamentals of the  housing  market remain very solid with foreclosure rates hitting lows not seen in over 20 years,” said Frank Martell, CoreLogic’s CEO. “We expect foreclosure rates may very well drift even lower in the months ahead as wage growth and lower mortgage rates provide support for homeownership.” Low mortgage rates spur gains in home prices as borrowers qualify for bigger mortgages. That increases the equity held by existing homeowners because it boosts values. The average equity per...

Last month, the  California Association of Realtors   predicted a slow down  for the state’s housing market in 2020.  According to a recent report by  CoreLogic , cooling home sales are already here. In fact, August marked the fewest home sales for that month in four years. “California home sales edged moderately lower in August, marking the twelfth month out of the last 13 in which sales were lower than a year earlier as some would-be buyers remained priced out and others stayed on the sideline, hesitant to buy near a potential price peak,” the report stated.  CoreLogic estimated that during August about 42,440 new and existing houses and condos sold in California. That number is down 0.2% from the previous month and down 2.8% from August 2018. While the number of sales declined, so did the median home price in comparison to its June 2019 peak of $509,000. According to CoreLogic, the median price paid for all new and existing houses and condos sol...

The nation’s  low-interest-rate environment  has spurred an increase in borrowing demand, as mortgage rates, which came in at  3.57%  last week, continue to hover near historic lows. As demand climbs,  LendingTree , an online lending marketplace, has conducted a study to determine how many borrowers are successful during the application process. To do so, the company delved into data from more than 10 million mortgage applications using the most recent HMDA data available for 2018. According to their findings, nearly 1 in 10 mortgage borrowers were denied during the application process. On a national level, this means only 9.8% of loan applications were denied in 2018. LendingTree says purchase mortgage denials are now at the lowest level since the financial crisis — and the lowest since at least 2004. Tendayi Kapfidze, LendingTree’s chief mortgage economist, said most reasons for application denial are financial, but some are not borrower-specific, s...

The housing market is signaling there will be an economic recession by the 2020 election, according to Benn Steil, director of international economics at the  Council on Foreign Relations . “Looking back at the years preceding the 2008 financial crisis, a critical warning sign was the surging gap between the growth in home prices and household income,” Steil wrote in a blog post with former CFR analyst Benjamin Della Rocca on the think tank’s website. “Today, a parallel dynamic is playing out.” In 2018, as in 2005, housing-price growth began slowing, with significant price drops occurring in several major markets, the post said, linking to a  story  on New York home prices in “near free-fall” from earlier this month. Household income has been growing, but it hasn’t come close to keeping up with the increase in home prices. For example, the median annual household  income  in August rose 1.3% from a year earlier, Sentier Research said earlier this month. T...

Latinxs are becoming homeowners  at a higher rate  than the overall U.S. population, beginning to close a gap with the white homeownership rate that has tripled since the start of last century. Affordability and racial inequity combined to exacerbate the disparity during the past 12 decades. The typical Latinx[1] household in the U.S. earns 75.7% of the typical white household. But Latinx wealth – a household’s total assets – is a paltry 12.2% of white household wealth. Household Wealth by Race Race [2] Median household income Median household net worth (wealth) Share of white household income Share of white household net worth (wealth) White $                 67,937  $               171,000 100.0% 100.0% Black $                 41,511 ...