More luxury home sales occurred in the first half of 2018. Transactions that were $1 million–plus were up 25 percent year over year, according to realtor.com®’s Luxury Home Index. That marks the largest leap in luxury home sales since January 2014. Luxury is defined as the top 5 percent of all residential home sales in a given market.In the 91 luxury markets analyzed, the entry-level price rose 4.6 percent year over year. Seventeen of those
South Dakota is the best place to retire in 2018, according to the latest retirement rankings from Bankrate.com. South Dakotans still ranked highest for well-being, which is based on their perceptions of social, community, health, and financial security. Plus, South Dakota residents don’t have to pay income taxes when they live in the second most tax-friendly state in the country—a perk for seniors living on a fixed income.Bankrate.com accou
One of the fastest growing cybercrimes in the U.S. is wire fraud in real estate. About 9,600 people were victims of wire fraud in the real estate and rental sector in 2017, with losses of more than $56 million, according to FBI data.The highest reported fraud in real estate last year was Business Email Compromise/Email Account Compromise. Fraudsters will assume the identity of the title or real estate agent and forge the person’s email and othe
Foreclosures can take a long time to process, but they are getting faster. Properties foreclosed in the second quarter took an average of 720 days from the first foreclosure notice to completion. That is down from 883 days a year ago, according to a new report released by ATTOM Data Solutions, a real estate data firm.The states with the longest average timelines for foreclosures completed in the second quarter were: Hawaii: 1,553 days Florida: 1,
The gap continues to narrow between homeowners’ and appraisers’ perceptions over home values. The latest Quicken Loans Home Price Perception Index shows that the average home appraisal in June was only 0.25 percent lower than what owners had estimated—this puts the two different value perceptions at their closest since February 2015.Homeowners provide their home value estimate at the beginning of the refinance process; that is then matched
Despite housing prices on the rise in many places, real estate is still considered a bargain in a handful of cities, according to a new analysis released by SmartAsset, a personal finance website. SmartAsset analyzed data of 200 cities by using a model that projects home value per square foot based on how desirable a city is to live in, considered its livability score. Researchers factored in livability metrics like crime, unemployment, weather,
As mortgage rates rise, borrowers may be more likely to consider an adjustable rate mortgage, but ARMs’ sour reputation from the housing crisis may prevent them from taking one. ARMs tend to offer lower introductory rates for a set period of time, such as five or seven years, before resetting higher. Even a decade after the financial crisis, ARMs, which took a lot of blame for rising defaults back then, are still relatively low. The s
The number of homes for sale is growing in some markets and that may be the main factor behind the latest rise in mortgage applications, economists say. Mortgage applications for both home purchases and refinancings increased 2.5 percent last week on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday. The rise was fueled entirely by an uptick in home purchase applications. Mortgage applications for home purchase
Investors are bullish that more Americans will choose to be renters, and they’re buying up even more single-family homes to make sure they are ahead of the trend. The number of homes purchased by major investors in 2017 was about 29,000, up 60 percent from the previous year, according to Amherst Capital Management LLC, a real estate investment firm. That is also the first time since 2013 that investors purchased more homes on an annual basis.In
Home prices are rising and making homeowners richer. But the number of home equity lines of credit are barely budging.The overall equity that was tapped in the first quarter of this year was 1.17 percent, the lowest amount in four years, according to Black Knight, a mortgage software and analytics firm.Many homeowners may not realize how rich in equity they really are. “I think the typical American doesn’t have that level of awareness; theyâ€
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