The Federal Housing Finance Agency announced it will raise its conforming loan limit on Jan. 1, 2018. Mortgage financing giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will allow maximum conforming loan limits for mortgages in most parts of the U.S. to be $453,100.For 10 years, the FHFA had set the conforming loan limit in most places at $417,000. But as home prices started rising, the FHFA bumped up the conforming loan limit in 2017 to $424,100. As prices co
Sales of new single-family homes jumped 6.2 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 685,000 units, the Commerce Department reported Monday. This marks the highest pace for new-home sales since October 2007. “The October report shows strong sales growth at entry-level price points,” says Granger MacDonald, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders. “In markets where builders are able to provide homes for famil
Development of office space is shifting toward suburban areas, though San Francisco is expected to remain a top spot for such development throughout 2018, Commercial Café reports. Economists project that the overall office market will see growth in the new year. On a national level, 347 buildings and close to 75 million square feet of new office space will be delivered in 2018. Forty-seven percent of that total will be located in suburban areas.
Homes today spend a median time of three weeks on the market—far shorter than the median of 11 weeks five years ago, according to new data from the National Association of REALTORS®. “The inventory shortage and the growing economy and job creation has increased the interest in home buying,” says NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “There is just not enough inventory; people need to fight over the few homes available on the market.”Histor
Baby boomers are the fastest-growing group of renters in the nation, increasingly drawn to the convenience of apartment life. Between 2009 and 2015, the number of renters ages 55 and older jumped 28 percent, while renters ages 34 and younger only increased 3 percent, according to Census data. Further, more than 5 million baby boomers nationwide are expected to rent their next home by 2020, according to a 2016 study by Freddie Mac.“You would thi
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Among the home improvement projects buyers are most likely to value are those that increase storage space and preserve vintage features. Southern Living magazine recently rounded up some of the renovations that get sellers the most attention for their properties, including:Temperature-controlled square footage: “From the appraiser’s point of view—and really from everyone’s—heated and cooled square footage is the biggest winner” in
The cities where homeownership rates are growing the fastest are mostly in the Rust Belt, as well as smaller metros near bigger and more expensive urban areas, according to research from realtor.com®. The South is also seeing an uptick in homeowners thanks to booming job markets in the region. “Affordability is a strong draw to these areas,” says realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale.More than half of the metros on realtor.com®’s li
For the past two years, consumers have been spending more money at mom-and-pop retail stores than big-box chains, and America’s shopping malls are feeling the impact, according to credit card company Mastercard, Inc. “The consumer is shopping small,” Mastercard Senior Vice President Sarah Quinlan told Bloomberg.Big retail chains still account for the majority of purchases—but many of the wealthiest consumers are bypassing malls for more
Developers are continuing to shrink the size of new single-family homes, according third-quarter housing data compiled by the National Association of Home Builders. The median square footage of a single-family home was 2,378 square feet in the third quarter.In the years following the Great Recession, builders were focused on the higher end of the market, catering to larger-sized homes. But more recently, builders have renewed their focus on the e
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