Today, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) announced that existing-home sales decreased significantly in November, to the lowest figures since April 2014. Existing-home transactions are comprised by sales of single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops; according to NAR, they fell 10.5 percent to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 4.76 million in November, compared to a similarly disappointing number of 5.32 million in October. Together, these declines represent home sales that are down 3.8 percent from only a year ago. Continue reading →

Today, the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB) released their monthly housing market index (HMI) with a figure of 62. November’s number represents a three-point drop from the HMI a month ago, and reveals that confidence in homebuilding has gone down. Continue reading →

Recently, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) released their 2015 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers assessing the characteristics of homebuyers and their home purchases in the past year. For the report, NAR sent a 127-question survey to 72,206 homebuyers in July 2014; these homebuyers had to have bought their home between July 2013 and June of 2014. NAR received 6,572 responses to their study. Continue reading →

The recently released Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2016 report from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the Urban Land Institute (ULI) suggests that established hubs like New York and Washington, D.C. are losing steam, and developing cities in quieter markets may well be on their way to becoming the next great American metropolises. Continue reading →

As the improving economy allows American cities to renovate and rebuild, existing home prices consequently rise, and in many cities flagrantly price out low-income families. This phenomenon has led to segregated communities, and has behooved inclusionary measures to ensure integration in American neighborhoods. Continue reading →

In its aftermath, the American housing bubble left millions of discarded single-family homes. Slowly but surely, these homes have come off the market in the past few years. Some were bought, and countless others were purchased by investors and put out to rent. Currently, the number of homes for sale in the United States is dwindling considerably, and developers have turned to creating entire neighborhoods of single-family homes not to sell, but to rent. Continue reading →

Fannie Mae just made getting a mortgage easier with the release of their HomeReady mortgage. The new program will make homeownership possible for people who were previously deemed unqualified for loans.   Continue reading →

A survey conducted by The Collingwood Group, a Washington, D.C.-based business advisory firm, reveals that an increasing amount of millennials consider homeownership with absolute earnestness. The firm surveyed a random group of 650 people between July 5 and July 8, 2015 for the study. Continue reading →