Top 5 REALTOR® Updates | Week of August 10th
Check out these fives real estate updates to help you stay in-the-know with the latest happenings in our industry.
1. Top 10 Cities With the Smallest—and Largest—Homes (Aurora, CO is #1 for largest!)
We wanted to know where in the U.S. people live small and where they live big. So our data team analyzed our 1.8 million listings of single-family homes and condos for sale in major metropolitan markets. The result was two top 10 lists on either end of the scale, based on median square footage.You’ll see that the nation’s smallest homes tend to be located in the Northeast, which is more densely populated and also has more homes from a time when people just built smaller. Read More...
At a time when for-sale inventories remain constrained, a growing number of vacant homes are being held off the market nationwide. The bulk of these 3.8 million vacant homes are bank-owned properties or homes that are in badly need of repair. Some of these abandoned homes, known as "zombie foreclosures," were abandoned by their owners before the foreclosure process was finished. RealtyTrac reports that in the second quarter there were about 127,021 "zombie foreclosures," which numbered at 24 percent of all active foreclosures. Read More...
3. Seller, Buyer Confidence Dips Slightly
Consumer attitudes toward home buying and selling stumbled last month, according to Fannie Mae's July 2015 National Housing Survey, a poll of 1,000 Americans. The number of consumers who say now is a good time to buy a home fell to 61 percent – an all-time survey low – while the number of consumers who said now is a good time to sell a home dropped 7 percentage points to 45 percent. The drop in sentiment comes at a time when more consumers are reporting a dimmer outlook with their personal finances and the direction of the economy, according to the survey. Read More...
4. Foreclosure Rate Drops to 2007 Levels
The foreclosure rate continues to recede, with foreclosure inventories nationwide falling nearly 30 percent and completed foreclosures dropping nearly 15 percent in the past year, according to CoreLogic's June 2015 National Foreclosure Report, released Tuesday. The number of foreclosures nationwide fell 63 percent from their September 2010 peak of 117,119. Completed foreclosures are the total number of homes that are actually lost to foreclosure. Since September 2008, about 5.8 million completed foreclosures have occurred across the country.More home owners are staying current on their mortgage payments. Read More...
5. New-Home Market Expected to Strengthen
New-home sales have been edging up since 2012, and the builder's trade group predicts that sales will to continue to rise for the rest of the year and into 2016. "Strong job gains are bolstering housing demand," notes economists at the National Association of Home Builders' Eye on Housing blog. "Rising builder confidence, housing starts, and low interest rates all point to continuing recovery in the housing sector, even as industry headwinds, including access to lots and labor, will produce bumps along the road." One bump came in the most recent Commerce Department report that showed sales of newly built single-family homes dropped 6.8 percent in June to a seven-month low. Builders believe a pick up is on the way. Read More...
