The higher your credit score, the better your chance to snag a lower mortgage rate and potentially save tens of thousands of dollars over the life of a loan. But one missed payment or a default can instantly bring a credit score down.“Depending on your credit history, a 15- or 20-point shift could mean the difference between being approved or declined or better terms or higher costs,” Rod Griffin, the director of public education at Experian,
Austin, Texas, topped the list as the hottest job market nationwide for the second year in a row, according to new rankings of 381 metro areas from the Wall Street Journal and Moody’s Analytics. Nashville, Tenn., made it to the second spot, up from number seven a year ago.Austin has carved a reputation as a booming tech hub and college town that has low unemployment and high wage growth. Apple Inc. has been among the latest companies to bring m
Today, American households are more likely to include pets than children under the age of 18, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Housing Survey. The share of households with kids stands at 27%, while the share of households with pets is at 68%. As a result, investors in residential real estate are targeting this large demographic of pet owners by making their rental properties more appealing and pet-friendly.Pet-friendly rentals can
Mortgage rates are falling fast, and they could sink even lower. Mortgage News Daily reported that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.34% on Monday, a rate last reached in 2012 and briefly in 2016.Long-term mortgage rates loosely follow the 10-year Treasury yield. Coronavirus fears are hitting financial markets and prompting bond yields to move lower; mortgage rates are following suit.“When rates fall this quickly, it’s not so much th
Lighting can set the right mood in a home and make it feel more welcoming, and achieving that doesn’t always require an electrician. Curbed.com asked three designers to provide their best tips for improving the lighting in a home. Here are a few of their suggestions.Match the lightbulbs. Change the mismatched types of lightbulbs, particularly old compact fluorescent bulbs, Jenny Guggenheim, owner of Guggenheim Architecture and Design Studi
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.49% this week, Freddie Mac reports. “The low mortgage rate environment continues to spur homebuying activity, with applications to purchase a home up 15% from a year ago,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “We’ve seen new residential construction surge over the last few months, on pace to reach the highest level in more than a decade. This is a good sign for the inventory-starved
Existing-home sales have been fluctuating in recent months, but one clear trend is emerging: First-time home buyers are making a move into the housing market as low mortgage rates prove to be an enticing incentive.Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of REALTORS®, says he’s encouraged by the upturn in first-time home buyers in NAR’s latest existing-home sales report. First-timers comprised 32% of sales last month, up fr
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In nearly half of federally designated “Opportunity Zone” areas, median home prices rose annually more than the national rate. Median home prices in these areas climbed 9.4% from the fourth quarter of 2018 to the fourth quarter of 2019, according to new research from ATTOM Data Solutions. Researchers examined about 3,700 zones that had sufficient sales data to analyze (those that had at least five home sales in each quarter from 2005 to 2019)
Total housing starts fell 3.6% in January, but that’s not what housing economists were focused on with the latest data release from the Commerce Department on Wednesday. Instead, it was the gauge on future home building—housing permits—that had them upbeat about what could be coming. Housing permits last month climbed to the highest level since March 2007.Still, it wasn’t all great news to the industry: Housing starts dipped to a seasonal
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