The U.S. Senate approved a bill Tuesday to keep the National Flood Insurance Program operating for four more months. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill, which cleared the House last week, into law before midnight Tuesday, when the program expires.“We applaud lawmakers for taking this needed action to prevent disruptions to closings in thousands of communities across the country,” Elizabeth Mendenhall, president of the Natio
Owners can often conserve more money once housing costs and living necessities are all covered. However, a new study shows those who rent can barely get by in some cities.PropertyShark and RentCafe teamed up for a study on discretionary income and analyzed the top 50 largest cities where an owner or a renter can save the most money after paying living costs. For living costs, estimates for food, health care, entertainment, and transportation were
Contract signings rose in all four major regions across the U.S. last month, a sign that dwindling home sales—which have plagued the market at an unusual time of year this summer—will reverse course in the coming months, the National Association of REALTORS® reports.NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, increased 0.9 percent month over month in June to a reading of 106.9. “After two str
While pending home sales were on the rise in June, closed sales of existing and newly built properties dropped. Home prices, too, showed signs of slowing growth, though they are still increasing. Some housing experts say the fall in sales may be tied to the rapid run-up in home prices.In Southern California, for example, new- and existing-home sales dropped sharply in June compared to a year ago, and more listings there are undergoing price redu
New-home buyers now rank all-white kitchens—once the most in-demand aesthetic—as their second choice, below natural wood cabinetry, according to a new survey from homebuilder Ashton Woods. Respondents to the survey, who are prospective buyers planning to purchase in the next 10 years, picked distressed wood cabinetry as their third most popular choice.They also said living space is more important to them than bedroom size. Sixty-one percent s
Many would-be move-up buyers are staying put in their current homes, unable to afford the increasing prices of larger properties. But they're learning a strategy to save for their next home—by becoming “accidental investors.“ More investment property owners today are everyday homeowners renting out their current home to take advantage of rising rental rates and save for a bigger home, CNBC reports.Some real estate professionals are recommen
More homeowners are staying put in their residences longer, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. In 2008, the median time homeowners stayed at the same address was six years; in 2014, that surged to 10 years. “I’m seeing people bottled up in their homes because they have nowhere to move to,” says Dowell Myers, an urban planning and demography professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “We have burge
The U.S. homeownership rate posted another increase, reaching 64.3 percent in the second quarter, up a tenth of a percentage point from the first quarter, the Commerce Department reported this week. The rate has increased 0.6 percentage points over the past year.Younger Americans, specifically those under the age of 35, are behind most of the recent increases in the ownership rate. The homeownership rate of this younger buyer group increased to
More often than not, people choose to communicate with each other through text or email as opposed to having a conversation over the phone. While text and email can be more efficient for some types of communication, certain nuances are lost without having a verbal conversation, says marketing strategist and customer service expert Marc Gordon.“The fact is that the telephone allows us, as a species, to communicate in our most natural form,”
Mortgage rates reversed course this week, rising slightly over the past week and reaching their highest level since late June, Freddie Mac reports.“The next few months will be key for gauging the health of the housing market,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “Existing sales appear to have peaked, sales of newly built homes are slowing and unsold inventory is rising for the first time in three years.”Affordability pressur
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