The cost to maintain a home is something financial experts recommend budgeting for early on, in preparation for choosing which house to buy. On average, homeowners spend 1 percent of their overall home cost in maintenance every year, according to a new study by Porch.com.The upkeep costs can vary based on style, age, type, and even location of the home. The average cost to maintaining a home each year is about $16,000, according to Porch.com’
Higher mortgage rates and rising home prices are making housing more expensive for homeowners this year compared to last year. In San Jose, Calif., for example, the average homeowner is paying $500 more for monthly mortgage payments than a year ago, jumping from $4,100 to $4,600, according to a new analysis by Bloomberg.In nearly one-third of metro areas, buyers paid an average $50 hike in monthly mortgage payments in the first quarter of the yea
You’ve heard of buyer’s remorse; but without your market expertise and sales skills to back them up, sellers who choose to sell their home on their own just may experience “seller’s regret” when they see how much less they get for their properties. FSBOs earn an average of $60,000 to $90,000 less on the sale of their home than sellers who work with a real estate agent, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. Here’s the br
Mortgage rates were mostly in a holding pattern this week, but still eked out the first increase since early June.Overall, mortgage rates this summer have been dropping the past few weeks after sharp rises this spring. “A record number of people quit their job last month, most likely for a new opportunity with higher wages and better benefits,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “This positive trend, along with these lower
More luxury home sales occurred in the first half of 2018. Transactions that were $1 million–plus were up 25 percent year over year, according to realtor.com®’s Luxury Home Index. That marks the largest leap in luxury home sales since January 2014. Luxury is defined as the top 5 percent of all residential home sales in a given market.In the 91 luxury markets analyzed, the entry-level price rose 4.6 percent year over year. Seventeen of those
South Dakota is the best place to retire in 2018, according to the latest retirement rankings from Bankrate.com. South Dakotans still ranked highest for well-being, which is based on their perceptions of social, community, health, and financial security. Plus, South Dakota residents don’t have to pay income taxes when they live in the second most tax-friendly state in the country—a perk for seniors living on a fixed income.Bankrate.com accou
One of the fastest growing cybercrimes in the U.S. is wire fraud in real estate. About 9,600 people were victims of wire fraud in the real estate and rental sector in 2017, with losses of more than $56 million, according to FBI data.The highest reported fraud in real estate last year was Business Email Compromise/Email Account Compromise. Fraudsters will assume the identity of the title or real estate agent and forge the person’s email and othe
Foreclosures can take a long time to process, but they are getting faster. Properties foreclosed in the second quarter took an average of 720 days from the first foreclosure notice to completion. That is down from 883 days a year ago, according to a new report released by ATTOM Data Solutions, a real estate data firm.The states with the longest average timelines for foreclosures completed in the second quarter were: Hawaii: 1,553 days Florida: 1,
The gap continues to narrow between homeowners’ and appraisers’ perceptions over home values. The latest Quicken Loans Home Price Perception Index shows that the average home appraisal in June was only 0.25 percent lower than what owners had estimated—this puts the two different value perceptions at their closest since February 2015.Homeowners provide their home value estimate at the beginning of the refinance process; that is then matched
Despite housing prices on the rise in many places, real estate is still considered a bargain in a handful of cities, according to a new analysis released by SmartAsset, a personal finance website. SmartAsset analyzed data of 200 cities by using a model that projects home value per square foot based on how desirable a city is to live in, considered its livability score. Researchers factored in livability metrics like crime, unemployment, weather,
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