Getting married and buying a home are two milestones that couples often try to achieve at the same time. But the finances involved in both of those feats can be daunting. The average wedding costs reached a record high in 2016: $35,329. That is about the equivalent of a 20 percent down payment on a $175,000 home."There are some people that can do both at the same time, but for most, you have to choose one [goal] and delay the other by a year or t
Scammers are now using utility bills to try to dupe customers.Scammers reportedly are making calls to customers posing as representatives from companies like ConEd, Duke Energy, Georgia Power, Consumers Energy, or a bogus utility company called General Electric, among others. They’ll threaten to shut off power or service if customers don’t pay immediately. They’ll offer an “energy assistance” or payment plan and ask for the customer’s
Likely to be a hallmark of this year’s spring homeselling season: Bidding wars. As home listings are scarcer and buyer demand remains high, home shoppers are finding a lot more competition this spring, particularly in hot markets like the San Francisco Bay area, Denver, and Boston.“Home buyers are going to find this spring that, in a lot of markets, the inventory of homes priced and sized at price levels they were hoping for will be very limi
Whether your clients are first-time buyers or homeowners listing their property in a red-hot market, are you able to articulate how you can help them save money on their real estate transaction?When you ask agents how they keep more money in their clients’ pocketbooks, some say they’re good negotiators. Others provide coupons to save money on moving, home improvement or perhaps a list of where to get rebates on energy-saving appliances.What e
The Department of Housing and Urban Development would see its funding drop by 13 percent under President Donald Trump's fiscal 2018 budget proposal. The cuts, combined with others elsewhere in the federal government's discretionary budget, would offset proposed increases in defense and homeland security funding, including an increase of $54 billion for Department of Defense programs. The proposal, Trump said, "follows through on my promise to foc
About 32.7 million Americans—or 10.2 percent of the U.S. population—claimed Irish ancestry in 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In honor of St. Patrick's Day, do you know which U.S. city is the most Irish of all? Realtor.com® researchers scoured the data in the 300 largest U.S. cities to find the percentage of Irish-Americans living there.New England boasts the most Irish descendants in the nation, with Manchester, N.H., leading the
Your sellers may have "nose blindness." The term refers to the process of adapting to the smells around you and becoming so desensitized to them that you learn to ignore them or become less sensitive to them, says Dr. Richard Doty, director of the Smell and Taste Center at the University of Pennsylvania.But, of course, buyers will probably notice the stench as soon as they walk through the door. HouseLogic flags the following scents as common off
Single-family housing starts surged in February to their highest level since late 2007, the Commerce Department reports. Overall, nationwide housing starts, including for single-family and multifamily sectors, increased 3 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.288 million units.Broken out, single-family production rose 6.5 percent in February to 872,000 units, the highest reading in nearly a decade. Multifamily starts, on t
For the second consecutive week, mortgage rates were on the rise. "As expected, the [Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee] announced its first rate hike of 2017 and hinted at additional increases throughout the remainder of the year," says Sean Becketti, Freddie Mac's chief economist. "Although our survey was conducted prior to the Fed's decision, the release of the February jobs report all but guaranteed a rate hike and boosted the 3
Most appraisers today are satisfied with their work, but they’re worried about the rise of automated appraisals and they’re not happy with appraisal management companies.Those are findings from NAR research, released today, to provide a picture of the state of the appraisal field and to see if more needs to be done to bring new appraisers into the profession.“The work of an appraiser is indispensable to our industry,” said NAR President W
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