Keeping a home warm during the colder months of the year can prove to be expensive. With energy costs on the rise, many households are facing higher energy bills each year.Fixr.com, which provides "Cost Guides" of estimates to common household remodeling projects, highlights five projects to help increase a home’s energy efficiency and keep utility bills lower. (Fixr.com also provides cost estimates below of the projects listed.)1. Find unor
Having a salary over $100,000 is the standard some clients face in certain areas of the U.S. when it comes to homebuying. NAR’s quarterly Metropolitan Median Area Prices and Affordability Indexfrom the second quarter of 2017 helped CNBC identify the 10 cities with this high income necessity. The data included in the index assumes a 4 percent mortgage rate for all areas, as well as a monthly principal and interest payment limited to 25 percent
As home prices heat up across the country, buyers looking to lower their monthly mortgage payment are being lured to adjustable rate mortgages.ARM originations surged over 40 percent in the second quarter compared to the first, according to Inside Mortgage Finance data.ARMs are currently offering lower interest rates than fixed-rate mortgages. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 4.11 percent last week; a five-year ARM averaged 3.38 per
The Securities and Exchange Commission alleges that a type of “cryptocurrency” called REcoin touted for real estate is a fraud and was designed to dupe investors out of money.Cryptocurrency is a “digital or virtual currency that uses cryptography for security.” The most famous example is Bitcoin, which has been used in real estate transactions.The REcoin Group launched REcoin in July with an "initial coin offering," which is the first of
Mortgage applications to purchase a home and for refinancing barely budged last week, the Mortgage Bankers Association reported Wednesday. Economists are blaming the stall in loan demand on rising interest rates and rising home prices.Total mortgage application for refinances and home purchases decreased 0.4 percent last week compared to the previous week on a seasonally adjusted basis, the MBA reported. Volume is now 24 percent lower than a year
Buyers have become wiser, researching important facts not only about the houses they’re interested in but also about the communities where the homes are located. Desare Kohn-Laski, broker-owner of Skye Louis Realty in Coconut Creek, Fla., says it’s essential that real estate professionals show their value by keenly understanding the factors influencing home values in order to help and influence those research-savvy clients.Study these four
The Small Business Administration is looking for damage verifiers in the parts of Texas and Florida that were hit by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Damage verifiers are people who use their knowledge of real estate to give the agency their assessment of how much damage a structure sustained in the storm. According to one estimate, almost 150,000 structures were damaged by Harvey. In the Florida Keys alone, at least a quarter of all structures were d
New Jersey continues to lead the nation with the highest annual real estate taxes in the country. The state’s residents pay an average of $8,374 a year, which is about $7,000 more than Alabama residents—who pay the lowest property taxes in the country. The findings from the 2016 American Community Survey were detailed on the National Association of Home Builders’ Eye on Housing blog.Northeastern states tend to have the highest property ta
When homeowners began taking out more home equity lines of credit, economists warned that the number of defaults may rise as borrowers face higher monthly payments. But so far, fears surrounding a HELOC boom haven’t been realized.From 2000 to 2006, when home prices were rapidly increasing in the run-up to the housing collapse, many homeowners took out HELOCs, initially being required only to pay interest on outstanding balances for a set period
More than half of Americans say they would prefer to put 10 percent down on a home purchase rather than 15 percent, 20 percent, or 30 percent, according to mortgage banker American Financing’s 2017 Mortgages in America Survey. The 10 percent down payment option was the lowest among the choices respondents were given in the survey. It also was the most popular choice across generational divides, including millennials, Generation Xers, and baby
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