Many of the nation’s premier urban meccas come at a steep price to home buyers and renters. But researchers at realtor.com® have pinpointed affordable alternatives to the country’s hottest locales.They uncovered budget-friendly counterparts to some of the nation’s most expensive metros, referring to them as “metro matchups.” They are places comparable to urban meccas in many ways but whose housing prices largely remain below $350,000.
Builders are paying more for new-home lots, and those expenses will be passed on to home buyers. Single-family lot prices remained at record levels last year, with half costing $45,000 or more, according to a National Association of Home Builders analysis of Census Bureau data. It’s the second consecutive year that lot prices have been at record highs; the previous record was in 2006, during the housing boom, when lots averaged $43,000.Rising l
Baby boomers say they want to move to a home that has a multicar garage and that’s near their grandchildren, according to the latest Del Webb Baby Boomer Survey, sponsored by national home builder PulteGroup Inc. The age at which baby boomers expect to retire is getting younger, down from 65 in 2013 to 63.7 in 2017, according to the survey of more than 1,000 adults between the ages of 50 and 65. Thirty-eight percent say they plan to purchase a
Mortgage applications dropped across the board last week as interest rates surged to their highest levels since July, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. Total application volume dropped 2.1 percent week-to-week on a seasonally adjusted basis, the MBA reported Wednesday.Most of the drop in applications came from those looking to refinance, the group that tends to be the most rate sensitive. Refinance applications dropped 4 percent last
For the fourth consecutive month, the gap between homeowner and appraiser opinions on property values narrowed. Still, homeowners tend to believe their homes are worth more than appraisers do.In September, homeowners’ opinions on home prices tended to be 1.14 percent higher than appraisers, according to the latest National Quicken Loans Home Price Perceptions Index.There is a fair amount of variation in price perceptions across the country, ho
Fannie Mae’s Home Purchase Sentiment Index matched an all-time high in September, as consumers show optimism for buying and selling. The index now matches the record high that was set in June.“The biggest driver for the increase in the [index] is the rebound in the ‘good time to buy’ sentiment, which outweighed the largest drag—a sizable reduction in the net share of consumers expecting home prices to rise over the next year,” says Do
More borrowers are being dishonest on their mortgage applications.Mortgage fraud risk is up by nearly 17 percent in the most recent 12-month period, according to CoreLogic, a real estate data firm. “Occupancy” fraud is rising the fastest, in which applicants deliberately misrepresent their intended use of the property. For example, a client may tell a lender that they plan to live in the house when they really intend to rent it out. Applicant
The federal government is investigating a number of predatory lending schemes targeting thousands of veterans who have Veterans Administration mortgages. Officials say the scams aim to convince borrowers to repeatedly refinance, ultimately paying more on their loans. Some lenders also are being accused of using teaser interest rates, “cash out” windfalls, and lower monthly payments, using marketing materials that sometimes resemble Department
Homeowners who earn a high income are showing a preference for the suburbs—and even the far-out “exurbs”—over downtown living. A Census Bureau analysis of the 53 largest U.S. metros shows that only 3 percent of homeowners employed full-time who make more than $75,000 annually live downtown, while 11.4 percent live in inner-ring neighborhoods. But 14 percent live in the exurbs, and 71.5 percent are in the suburbs.In 2015, a $75,000 salary
Retiring baby boomers are less likely to be mortgage-free compared to people their age in previous generations, according to Fannie Mae. That could hurt boomers’ financial security and exacerbate the housing affordability crisis.Slightly less than 50 percent of the oldest baby boomer homeowners in 2015 were mortgage-free, 10 percentage points lower than the number of Silent Generation homeowners who were in the same age group in 2000 and mortga
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