The Federal Reserve voted Wednesday to raise its short-term interest rates, and that likely will mean more mortgage rate increases are on the horizon. The Fed’s rates are not directly tied to mortgage rates but tend to follow 10-year Treasury bonds. However, mortgage rates are often influenced by the Fed’s rates.The Fed increased its federal fund rate from 1.5 percent to 1.75 percent, which is the highest level since 2008. The Fed’s mov
Home buyers should expect to pay about $168 extra per month for their mortgage this year due to higher home prices and interest rates over the past 12 months, according to a new analysis by realtor.com®. The figure is based on the purchase of a $274,900 home, the median list price.The average monthly mortgage is now $1,486, up from $1,318 in February 2017, according to realtor.com®.But location can have a big impact. For example, Seattle buyer
Homeowners who want to increase their property’s value don’t necessarily have to start knocking down walls or adding extra rooms. In fact, a coat of paint can go a long way toward enhancing the look of a space. Modern Garden Rooms offers the following infographic that shows numerous ways you can add value to a property.Source: Modern Garden Rooms
Fewer new homes were in the pipeline in February, as housing starts for combined multifamily and single-family homes plunged 7 percent month over month, the U.S. Commerce Department reports. Housing production for the month was at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.24 million units.“The fall in housing starts in February is a movement in the wrong direction,” says Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of REALTORS®.
For your clients who enjoy the perks of small-town living, realtor.com® researchers have identified the best places to call home—and the Midwest reigns supreme. Realtor.com® came up with its 2018 list of most affordable small towns by factoring in the cost of housing, employment, and safety.Millennials have love for small towns, with about 21 percent of home buyers ages 37 or younger purchasing a home in a small town compared to 16 percent
Homeowners and appraisers are seeing more eye-to-eye when it comes to home values. Appraised values in February were, on average, just 0.53 percent below homeowner estimates—the fifth consecutive month where the gap between the two groups has been less than 1 percent, according to the National Quicken Loans Home Price Perception Index.Still, more than three-quarters of metro areas had appraised values that were higher than owner estimates. Dall
Though homeowners are gaining equity across the country, the number of underwater borrowers in some areas remains high. The metro with the highest share of homeowners with negative equity is Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla., where the number of those in the red has grown 13.1 percent year over year, according to a new report from CoreLogic.Nationwide, the number of homes with a mortgage in negative equity—which can occur due to a decrease in a
Homeowners who don’t live near a federally recognized floodplain may still be at risk of flooding, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency severely underestimates the number of people who could potentially be affected, according to a new study in the journal Environmental Research Letters.Researchers from the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, the Nature Conservancy, and the Environmental Protection Agency say that the U.S. pop
The median down payment on a single-family home or condo in the fourth quarter of 2017 was $18,000, up 20 percent from $14,950 a year prior, according to a new report by ATTOM Data Solutions. The 2017 figure represents 7.1 percent of the median sales price of the home purchased, up from 6.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2016.Among 143 metro areas analyzed, the top five cities where residents paid the highest down payments in the fourth quarter
Homeowners with mortgages have seen their equity increase 12.2 percent year over year, according to CoreLogic’s newly released Home Equity Report. Homeowners gained more than $15,000 in home equity between the fourth quarter of 2016 and the fourth quarter of 2017—the highest growth in home equity in four years, according to the report. Western states saw the largest increases.“Home-price growth has been the primary driver of home-equity wea
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