Homeowners say their top motivation for remodeling is simply because they “desire better/newer amenities,” according to the National Association of Home Builders’ Remodeling Market Index for the first quarter of 2017.The desire for better amenities narrowly beat out the “need to repair/replace old components” once again in this year’s survey.View the chart to see the chief reasons why homeowners say they remodel.Source: “Desire for
The Austin, Texas, metro area will boast the largest “net zero” master-planned community in the nation. At Whisper Valley, about 7,500 eco-friendly single-family homes, townhomes, and rental apartments are to be built completely energy-self-sufficient. That means the homes will send as much power back to the grid as residents use.The $2 billion community will open in the next month. It sprawls more than 2,000 acres about eight miles east of A
Home prices are beginning to moderate, and national wages recently increased, helping to offset rising mortgage rates and buoy housing affordability in the first quarter of 2017, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index.Sixty percent of new and existing homes sold between the beginning of January and the end of March were affordable to families earning the U.S. median income of $68,000, accordin
REALTORS® saw their median gross income increase 8 percent in 2016 year-over-year, as the average member also reported closing their highest number of transactions in recent years, according to the National Association of REALTORS® 2017 Member Profile, based on a survey of more than 165,000 members.REALTORS® saw transactions grow to 12 per agent, the highest since 2014. Median incomes rose from $39,200 in 2015 to $42,500 in 2016. The median gr
Key Takeaways A report from Christie's International Real Estate dives into the "most luxurious" and "hottest" luxury real estate markets -- and the trends captivating wealthy buyers.The world’s luxury real estate market is showing an upward correction as global stock markets surged in early 2017 and political uncertainties slowly clarified.Prices of million-dollar-plus homes increased by approximately 2 percent across the globe in 2016, accord
The smart home has come a long way in just three years. In 2014, two-thirds of consumers with broadband were not familiar with smart-home services or products or where to buy them, according to a white paper from the Consumer Electronics Association and Park Associates. Now, 86 percent of consumers “are confident they know what it means when someone says they have a smart home,” according to a survey conducted by Finn Futures of about 1,000 U
A vacant home can easily become the target of thieves or vandals, and the damage they leave behind can be big and expensive.Denise Supplee of SnapLandlord.com recalls an incident when she was helping a client sell a vacant home and the property was ransacked by thieves who wanted the copper tubing on the pipes.“They ripped it all out and then there was water damage,” Supplee says. “And because no one really visited that home, the water dam
Appraisals in April were, on average, 1.9 percent lower than what homeowners expected. That means on an average home price of $236,400, homeowners misjudged their price by about $4,500.The gap between appraiser and homeowner views on price is spreading wider, according to the latest National Quicken Loans Home Price Perception Index. April marks the fifth consecutive month that the gap between price opinions has widened. In March, homeowners esti
Forty-nine percent of those who don't own their homes say they expect to purchase a home within the next five years. Ten percent say they plan to buy within the next year, according to a recent survey by Gallup of more than 1,500 adults. An additional 20 percent of non-homeowners say they plan to become homeowners within 10 years.That leaves only 28 percent who say they have no plans to buy a home, according to the Gallup poll.The percentage of
The student housing market is hot. Sales of this market segment are outperforming the rest of the commercial sector in the first quarter. In fact, if investors continue to buy and sell student housing at the current rate, they’re on track to match the record acquisition volume of 2016.Investors purchased and sold $1.1 billion in student housing properties in the first quarter of 2017, according to CBRE, a real estate services firm.For the past
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