Will 2016 be remembered as the peak of the recovery?  It was the best year for sales in more than a decade.  Will sales take a break in 2017, a victim of political uncertainty, rising rates and prices that are outpacing incomes? Even worse, will 2017 herald a multi-year downtrend in sales? Last year, existing-home sales finished 2016 at 5.45 … Read More »

Did you miss the news item that will certainly impact your business for years to come? Homeowners are selling the homes two and a half times less often than they did just a few years ago—and now it is clear that it’s not a temporary aberration.  Homeowners are staying put 50 percent longer than they did in 2007, from six … Read More »

With pressure on the homebuilding industry to build fewer trophy homes and concentrate on filling the demand for affordable housing, the data does not bode well for builders. Median prices of new homes have risen steadily during the recession. In September, the median sold price of a new home hit $313,500, 5.5 percent higher than last year’s median of $296,400 … Read More »

The national homeownership rate has just fallen to its lowest level since June 1965, the month that the Rolling Stones released “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” and Peter Sellers and Romy Schneider starred in “What’s New Pussycat”.  Only 62.9 percent of families now own the homes in which they live.[1] “They’ said homeownership wouldn’t get any lower because the largest … Read More »

A new Freddie Mac study of older Americans over 55 finds that more than a third still have a mortgage—36 percent-, and a majority of those with a mortgage have more than ten years left until their loan is paid off.  In many ways , the Freddie Mac survey that was released last month, “Fun After Fifty”,  found that the … Read More »

  Prior to the Great Recession and home-price crash, the typical length of ownership had been fairly stable, but after 2008 the length of time that owners have kept their home lengthened. And the trend is consistent whether looking at how long recent sellers had owned their home, or looking at how long current homeowners have been in their home. … Read More »

Job growth and better housing values in America’s heartland will reverse the movement of families to the coasts in recent years and generate population growth in Midwestern markets which have declinded in recent years. Over half of experts surveyed in the latest quarterly Zillow Home Price Expectations (ZHPE) Survey said they don’t expect migration to the coasts to continue indefinitely. … Read More »

The conventions are over and both nominees have laid out their agendas but neither has yet to capture the housing vote.   A new survey by the national Association of Home Builders taken July 22-24 during the Republican convention was evenly split on which presidential candidate would be best for housing. Thirty-eight percent of the respondents cited Hillary Clinton, 37 … Read More »

A new national survey sponsored by the Consumer Federation of America found that consumers greatly underestimate the cost of low credit scores and a significant minority do not know that credit scores are used by non-creditors. Only about half (53%) know that electric utilities may use credit scores (for example, in determining the initial required deposit), while only about two-thirds … Read More »

The percentage of renters paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs is increasing while cost-burned homeowners are decreasing, according to the 2014 State of the Nation’s Housing report released yesterday by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. On the owner side, the number of households facing cost burdens has fallen steadily as high foreclosure rates … Read More »