Finance - Real Estate, Updates, News & Tips

Higher Property Taxes Hit Homeowners

Many homeowners faced higher property tax bills in 2017. Property taxes levied on single-family homes in 2017 totaled $293.4 billion, up 6 percent from 2016.The average property tax on a single-family home in 2017 was $3,399 per home at an effective tax rate of 1.17 percent, according to ATTOM Data Solutions, a real estate data firm, from its analysis of more than 86 million U.S. single-family homes.But some places saw much higher rates than that

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Shopping Malls Are Getting Emptier

A shift in consumer shopping patterns toward online marketplaces continues to hit the retail sector and its real estate market hard. The vacancy rate for large U.S. shopping malls rose to 8.4 percent in the first quarter of 2018, the highest since the fourth quarter of 2012, according to new study from real estate data firm Reis Inc. For neighborhood and community shopping centers, Reis found that 41 of the 77 areas they examined saw vacancy incr

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Young Adults Feel Crushed by Rate, Price Hikes

The rising cost of purchasing a home is finally sinking in for home buyers and changing their house hunt, particularly for millennials.Seventy-nine percent of all consumer age groups recently surveyed say that rising interest rates will impact their home search, while 83 percent say that increasing home prices will impact theirs, according to a new online survey released by realtor.com® of more than 1,000 active buyers. But those percentages r

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Home Buyers Are Blowing Their Budgets

A recent survey found that buyers are spending more on their home purchase than they intended. A third of homeowners recently surveyed say that they blew through the upper limit of their home purchase budget by an average of $16,510, according to a new survey released by Owners.com of 1,214 Americans who purchased a home in the last four years.A big part of the problem is the increasing costs of buying, particularly for starter homes. “Clearly

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Homeowner Equity Is Hitting a Record High

Homeowners are getting richer, thanks to rising home values. The amount of equity that homeowners can tap into is now at the highest level on record, according to Black Knight Financial Services, a mortgage and finance industry solution provider.The amount a borrower can take out of a home—while still leaving 20 percent in it—increased by a collective $735 billion during 2017. That is the largest annual increase by dollar value on record, acc

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More Commercial Deals Don’t Need an Appraisal

U.S. bank regulators said on Monday that more commercial real estate deals can proceed without an independent appraisal of the property’s value.The regulators raised the threshold for commercial real estate transactions that require an appraisal from $250,000 to $500,000. Commercial transactions that are valued at more than $500,000 must still have an independent third-party check on the property value before the bank will process a loan; tr

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Top 10 Cities for Sellers This Year

Seven of the top 10 cities to sell a home in 2018 are in California, according to new rankings by SmartAsset, a personal financial website. Many markets in the state are breaking records for home prices, which means sellers are seeing hefty profits. High buyer demand and low inventory also are leading to quicker sales.SmartAsset ranked the best places to sell a house by looking at several factors, including change in home values, average days on

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FHA Granted Loans to Ineligible Borrowers

The Federal Housing Administration insured about $1.9 billion worth of mortgages in 2016 that it never should have, according to a new report from a federal watchdog. The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of the Inspector General found that in 2016, the FHA insured about 9,507 borrowers who were barred from receiving FHA loans under federal requirements, either because they had delinquent federal debt or were subject to fede

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Where Middle-Class Buyers Aren’t Squeezed

Middle-class earners are being hit with income stagnation, rising housing costs, and increasing debt loads, but there are several markets across the country that could offer relief. The middle class is defined as households who earn between $42,000 to $125,000 annually, according to the Pew Research Center.Realtor.com® analyzed the nation’s 100 largest metros with the highest share of homes on the market that are priced for middle-income worke

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HELOC Borrowers Express Doubts, Desires

As home prices rise, more homeowners are turning to home equity lines of credit, but they have concerns about cashing out on their home. The number of American consumers expected to take out a HELOC is projected to double to 10 million over the next five years, according to the J.D. Power 2018 U.S. Home Equity Line of Credit Satisfaction Study. The study looked at HELOC preferences among consumers, including customer choice and satisfaction bas

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