By Kimberly Haas For people who are interested in finding out if their home or future home is haunted, there is a website for that. Roy Condrey, who has experience as a project manager at a software company, lives in South Carolina and is the founder and president of DiedInHouse.com. On his social media pages, Condrey and his team post information about some of the more notable houses throughout the nation, including houses where there has been paranormal activity and/or violent deaths. “The Victorian” in Gardner, Mass., was featured on the Died In House Facebook page on Oct. 27. “The S.K. Pierce Mansion, a.k.a ‘The Victorian’ in Gardner, Mass. where a man was reported to have burned to death in…
Houses are going from listing to contract faster, at a time in the selling cycle when they are usually slowing down. According to Redfin’s newest Housing Market Update, one-third of homes that sold in the past four weeks went under contract within seven days of hitting the market. The time it takes for a home to go under contract has been dropping for the past six weeks, despite the fact that the market usually begins to slow in the fall. Thirty-three percent of homes sold had an accepted offer within one week of listing, a 30% increase year-over-year (YOY) and up 20% from 2019. Forty-five percent of homes sold had an accepted offer within two weeks, up 3% from the…
Zillow’s iBuying division, Zillow Offers, will stop buying new homes for the rest of the year. Zillow Offers has been operating in house flipping for more than three years, buying, renovating, then selling homes. However, it has announced that it will switch gears and focus on its backlog of existing contracts and selling the homes it currently owns. In response to this news, Zillow stock plummeted 10% on Monday. The company cited challenges related to construction and labor contracts. “We’re operating within a labor- and supply-constrained economy inside a competitive real estate market, especially in the construction, renovation and closing spaces,” Chief Operating Officer Jeremy Wacksman said. “We have not been exempt from these market and capacity issues.” Homebuilders have…
The housing market in red states is white-hot compared to their blue counterparts, a new analysis finds. As U.S. housing prices remain high and experts predict the trend will continue, states led by Republican legislatures and governors are disproportionately represented among the hottest housing markets in the country, with experts offering a variety of explanations as to why that might be. Data analyst firm CoreLogic noted this month that “home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased year over year by 18.1% in August 2021 compared with August 2020, marking the largest annual gain in home prices in the 45-year history of the CoreLogic Home Price Index.” That price spike was driven by a sharply constricted housing supply that saw homebuyers scrambling to…
A Redfin report found the number of new listings in September fell 9% year-over-year (YOY). Closed home sales and active listings also dropped — by 5% and 19% YOY — respectively. September marked the fourteenth month of consecutive double-digit price increases, with the median price of homes sold at $376,800, up 14% from the previous year. It was the slowest growth rate since December 2020. “The severe lack of inventory is restricting home sales,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “Even though plenty of people bought homes last year, many homebuyers waited while the pandemic went from bad to worse and remote-work policies were finalized. The homebuyers who are just beginning their search are finding that the well has run…
Inventory grew and prices fell in August according to a new report from RE/MAX, the latest sign the current red hot housing market may be cooling. Home sales dropped 3.5% and the Median Sale Price fell 1.2% to $335,000, according to RE/MAX’s National Housing Report for August. With fall just around the corner, August’s numbers suggest there won’t be any more record-breaking high points this year. August saw homes sitting on the market for only an average of 24 days. Month’s Supply of Inventory fell from 1.5 in July to 1.3 in August. Last August it was 1.9. A six months supply indicates a market balanced equally between buyers and sellers. Of the 51 metro areas surveyed in August, zero…
Home sales dropped 6% year-over-year in August, down 1.4% from July, a Redfin report found. It’s the first annual decline in home sales in 15 months. But prices are still high, up 16% year-to-year. Median prices increased in almost all of the largest metros tracked by Redfin, though Milwaukee, WI, and Bridgeport, CT both declined. The median price nationally for homes sold was $380,271. Austin, Phoenix, and Salt Lake City saw the largest spikes in their median prices, up 36%, 25%, and 24%, respectively. “When it comes to home prices in this market, what goes up stays up. That’s especially true in the Sun Belt; home prices are up more than 20% from last year in Austin and Phoenix,” Redfin…
Good morning! Today is Monday, July 19. Concerns about the Delta variant of the Coronavirus are putting downward pressure on stock and commodity futures. At least one U.S. gymnast has tested positive for COVID-19. Europe is reeling from a series of landslides. The Biden administration is blaming China for a hack of Microsoft Exchange email server software that compromised tens of thousands of computers around the world earlier this year. And in mortgage and housing news… Mortgage refinances spike: Low interest rates drove a 20% spike in mortgage refinance rates last week, with a declining 30-year fixed rate spurring heavy refi activity. Supply prices down: Wood futures are declining from their dizzying highs earlier this year, signalling potential relief for homebuilders, though…
Pending home sales dipped slightly in the United States last month, though were significantly higher than in October 2019, according to a new report released Monday by the National Association of Realtors. The Pending Home Sales Index fell 1.1 percent in October, the second straight month it dropped from summer highs. Compared to last year, however, pending home sales climbed 20.2 percent. “Pending home transactions saw a small drop off from the prior month but still easily outperformed last year’s numbers for October,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. “The housing market is still hot, but we may be starting to see rising home prices hurting affordability.” Regionally, results were mixed. The index dipped 5.9 percent for the month in…
Sales of newly built single-family homes jumped 16.6 percent in May – another sign the housing market is recovering from the devastating economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Sales were at a seasonally adjusted rate of 676,000, which was 12.7 percent above the May 2019 levels, the Census Bureau said. “The May sales numbers are in line with rising builder sentiment,” said Chuck Fowke, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a custom home builder from Tampa, Fla. “With home building considered an essential business, this solid sales report is another indicator that housing is leading the economic recovery.” The report also found: The median sales…
