Real estate professionals in Abilene, Texas, are on edge after a shed on private property was found to contain a collage of more than two dozen head shots of women, mostly local agents, tacked on the outer walls and a nearby property fence. Agent Tommy Simons discovered the collage when he was visiting his listing next door.“I’ve known all those ladies a long time,” Simons told the Houston Chronicle. “That’s kind of weird and kind of
Following two weeks of rate increases, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage settled back below a 4 percent average this week.“Continued economic uncertainty and weak inflation data pushed rates lower this week,” says Sean Becketti, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “The 10-year Treasury yield fell 5 basis points this week. The 30-year mortgage rate moved with Treasury yields, dropping 7 basis points to 3.96 percent.”Freddie Mac reported the fo
Foreclosure filings, which include default notices, scheduled auctions, and bank repossessions, are down 20 percent from the same period a year ago, according to the Midyear 2017 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report from ATTOM Data Solutions.“With a few local market exceptions, foreclosures have become the unicorns of the housing market: hard to find but highly sought after,” says Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions.Forec
A two-acre property in Richmond, Texas, garnered 1.2 million page views in just two days for its unusual listing photos. How’d they do it?If you flip through the photos, you’ll see how “one of a kind” this five-bedroom, 5.5-bathroom home is. Nearly every room contains at least one mannequin, prompting the nickname “mannequin house.” The photos feature a mannequin sitting on a kitchen stool, peeking into windows from the outside, and
The most important specific easing will be an expansion of the maximum debt-to-income ratio (DTI) from 45 percent to 50 percentKey Takeaways To get 50 percent DTI you must have very high credit scores and cash reserves after closing.On July 29, Fannie Mae will activate an update to “Desktop Underwriter,” the software that analyzes borrower applications and grants approval — “DU” in shorthand spoken with reverence or disgust throughout t
Key Takeaways Video helps real estate agents build trust, create recognition and convert clients.Today’s world is digital. Consumers are inundated with digital devices, filled with social media, email campaigns and digital marketplaces. There is no breaking free from the World Wide Web — it’s part of even our most simple daily routines.When it comes to the web, though, there is one format of media that seems to break through the most. Accor
Home builders are ramping up the pace of new-home construction in response to an ongoing shortage of homes for sale across the country.Housing starts nationwide jumped 8.3 percent in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.22 million units, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Single-family production zoomed to its second highest rate of this year, increasing 6.3 percent month-over-month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 849,0
Poverty is increasingly striking the nation’s suburbs and exurbs (farther out suburbs on the edges of metros). High-poverty neighborhoods have risen 76 percent in the suburbs and 123 percent in the exurbs from 2000 to 2015, according to an analysis from Apartment List, which culled data from a recent report out of Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. A high-poverty neighborhood is an area with a poverty rate that is 20 pe
Housing affordability is the talk of the town in the current real estate climate. Home prices surpassed their peak at the end of the last housing boom. Since 2012, prices have increased, on average, 6 percent per year. However, per capita incomes have risen only 2.4 percent, on average, per year, according to Freddie Mac’s latest Insight report for July.In areas like Marin, San Francisco, and San Mateo counties, the median-income household is
Spending on repairs and home improvement continues to grow at a stable rate as homeowners feel more confident about starting projects as their home values increase.That said, an annual increase in remodeling expenditures may soften somewhat in the coming months, but will likely remain at or above 6 percent through the second quarter of 2018, according to the latest Leading Indicator of Remodeling Activity from Harvard University’s Joint Ce
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