Real Estate - Real Estate, Updates, News & Tips

Are Open Floor Plans Losing Appeal?

Open floor plans, which typically combine the kitchen, living room, and dining room in one large, open area, have dominated home design trends in recent years. But now, buyers may be starting to shun this type of layout, The Wall Street Journal reports.“While [the open floor plan] was successful in allowing multiple generations to congregate, it also led to consolidated visual chaos,” New York-based designer Phillip Thomas told the Journal

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How Sellers’ Needs Differ By Generation

The factors involved in helping empty nest baby boomers sell their longtime family home are quite different from assisting millennials moving out of their starter home. They may desire different marketing tactics, channels of communication, or types of statistics and information, according to Andrey Nokhrin, founder and CEO of Flipt, a predictive technology firm.Whether you’re working with Generation Y, Generation X, baby boomers, late boomers

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FSBOs Net ‘Significantly’ Lower Profits

For-sale-by-owners tend to sell their homes for lower prices than homes sold through traditional agents via the MLS, and in many cases below the average differential represented by the prevailing commission rate, according to a new study by Collateral Analytics.The study examined the price differences between homes sold through traditional agents versus those sold by FSBOs from 2016 to the first half of 2017.Some homeowners may be tempted to tr

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Is Your Smartphone’s Security Working?

Antitheft software is saving stolen smartphones everywhere. In San Francisco, phone-related robberies have dropped by 50 percent from 2013 to 2016 since the passage of the Smartphone Theft Prevention Act. This legislation makes it mandatory for manufacturers like Google and Apple to install theft-deterring software into their products. This includes activation locks and remote device erasure software.Ensure the built-in capabilities of your iPh

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New Home Inventory at 20-Year Low

Builders failed to ramp up inventories last month, despite increasing demand from home buyers and calls from the real estate industry. New-home construction dropped 4.8 percent in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.16 million units, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and Commerce Development reported Wednesday.Single-family production fell 0.5 percent month over month in July to an adjusted annual rate of 856,000. Th

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Agents sell homes for more than FSBOs

Contradicting previous research, new study finds FSBOs sell at discountKey Takeaways Agents tend to achieve higher sales prices for properties than comparable FSBO listings, enough to offset their commission fee, according to a recent analysis.Academic research has often cast doubt on the value of real estate agents, but a new study will come as music to their ears.It suggests that homeowners will net roughly the same proceeds whether they sel

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July housing starts take turn for the worse

Housing shortage in America might intensify, says NAR chief economistKey Takeaways In July, new residential construction starts slipped down to a rate of 1,223,000 units -- a 4.1 percent month-over-month decrease.June’s housing starts report was heralded as “welcome news” by National Association of Realtors (NAR) Chief Economist Lawrence Yun, who said increasing residential construction was the key to lowering home prices.This month, howeve

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Brad Pitt’s tiny home and other affordable space-saving miracles

3 housing solutions that could impact global problemsHomelessness, lack of affordable housing, natural disaster damage — these are all global problems that can be alleviated through creative housing solutions.Three types of homes that problem-solvers such as Brad Pitt and Patrick Kennedy are employing to help are tiny houses, micro-units and shipping container homes.Brad Pitt’s NOLA tiny home In 2007, Brad Pitt founded the Make It Right Foun

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What do buyers want more — a bigger house or a bigger yard?

Turns out a big yard gives homeowners the extra 'breathing room' they wantKey Takeaways Fifty-six percent of buyers would sacrifice square footage for more outdoor space.Smaller homes with more outdoor space seem to be all the rage lately as homebuyers are abandoning the motto “bigger is better” when it comes to square footage.According to a consumer survey by Wakefield Research commissioned by residential construction company Taylor Morris

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Site Matching Sellers, Agents Raises $40M

HomeLight.com, which matches consumers with real estate professionals, is rapidly growing and nabbed $40 million this week to further enhance its process for locating agents based on performance metrics. The site, founded in 2012, connects sellers with real estate agents based on the practitioners’ sales performance data.HomeLight culls data from more than 100 different sources and evaluates nearly 30 million transactions across the country. It

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