City and nonprofit scramble to thwart the deal, which works out to $150K per unit
By: The Real Deal
A landlord convicted of arson-for-hire is buying an affordable apartment building in San Francisco’s Mission District — unless a local nonprofit can raise enough cash to kill the deal. Richard Earl Singer and his SF Hotel 447 firm have bought the 18-unit complex containing the nearly 50-year-old Eddie’s Cafe at 800-812 Divisadero Street, the San Francisco Chronicle reported, citing Supervisor Dean Preston and an unidentified broker behind the sale.Singer is under contract to buy the three-story building for $2.7 million, or less than $150,000 per unit when including the ground-floor cafe.
The...
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By Clare Trapasso | REALTOR.COM
Is the housing market overvalued?
It’s an increasingly fraught question, and the answer might depend on who’s being asked.
Some real estate experts believe home prices are well above what they should be and expect them to begin coming down. Others think the high prices make sense given how many people are still in the market looking for properties, despite mortgage rates nearing 8%.
“If you look at how much income homebuyers are putting toward their housing payment, if the number is not the highest ever, it’s really darn close,” says Realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale.
No one wants to buy a home at the peak of the market—and...
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By Lisa Johnson Mandell | REALTOR.COM
As we prepare our Thanksgiving table, our thoughts might turn to the very first people who started the American holiday. There’s one fascinating fact you might not think about: The settlers sure knew how to build a shelter back then.
In fact, some of the homes that were built during the 1600s are still standing, and some are even on the market.
In the spirit of the season, we did some sleuthing and found the five oldest homes for sale in America right now, in good living condition, despite being built not too long after the first Thanksgiving in the 1600s!
One is a grand riverfront estate,...
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By: KCM
Have you been trying to buy a home, but higher mortgage rates and home prices are limiting your options? If so, here’s some good news – based on what Ali Wolf, Chief Economist at Zonda, has to say – smaller, more affordable homes are on the way:
“Buyers should expect that over the next 12 to 24 months there will be a notable increase in the number of entry-level homes available.”
In some ways, smaller homes are already here. When the pandemic hit, the meaning of home changed. People needed the space their home provided not only as a place to live, but as a place to work, go to school, exercise, and more. Those who had that...
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BY: KCM
Are you putting off selling your house because you’re worried no one’s buying because of where mortgage rates are? If so, know this: the latest data shows plenty of buyers are still out there, and they’re purchasing homes today. Here’s the data to prove it.
The ShowingTime Showing Index is a measure of buyers touring homes. The graph below uses the latest numbers available and compares them to the same month in the last normal years to show just how active today’s buyers still are:
As you can see, when June 2023 numbers are stacked alongside what’s typical for the housing market at this time of year, it’s clear buyers are still active. And,...
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The National Housing Trust will likely use some of the funding to modernize homes to be more climate-friendly—which should also drive down rents.
By: Fast Company
When Priya Jayachandran received an email from MacKenzie Scott’s foundation informing her that it was donating $10 million to her organization, she thought it was a hoax. She almost deleted the message.
But the offer was legitimate. Scott’s philanthropic organization, Yield Giving, is providing National Housing Trust, founded in Washington, D.C., in 1986, with a onetime donation of $10 million—the largest NHT has ever received—to further its work. That includes creating and preserving affordable housing, supporting affordable rent payments for tenants, and making the homes more...
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From our friends in KCM
Today’s higher mortgage rates, inflationary pressures, and concerns about a potential recession have some people questioning: should I still buy a home this year? While it’s true this year has unique challenges for homebuyers, it’s important to think about the long-term benefits of homeownership when making your decision.
Consider this: if you know people who bought a home 5, 10, or even 30 years ago, you’re probably going to have a hard time finding someone who regrets their decision. Why is that? The reason is tied to how home values grow with time and how, by extension, that grows your own wealth. That may be why, in a recent Fannie Mae survey, 70% of respondents...
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By: Keeping Currents Matter
There’s been some concern lately that the housing market is headed for a crash. And given some of the affordability challenges in the housing market, along with a lot of recession talk in the media, it’s easy enough to understand why that worry has come up.
But the data clearly shows today’s market is very different than it was before the housing crash in 2008. Rest assured, this isn’t a repeat of what happened back then. Here’s why.
It’s Harder To Get a Loan Now
It was much easier to get a home loan during the lead-up to the 2008 housing crisis than it is today. Back...
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By Evan Wyloge
If the housing market of just a year ago still seemed to be moving at quantum speed, today it’s more akin to an interminable traffic jam—with no exit ramps or HOV lanes in sight.
As higher mortgage rates have made buying a home ever more expensive, the pool of buyers who can afford to purchase real estate has dried up. Nationally, the number of existing-home sales plummeted 36% in November compared with a year earlier, according to a Realtor.com® analysis of CoreLogic data. (The data did not include sales of new-construction homes.) There were 395,000 sales in November 2021 compared with 251,000 one year later.
So home...
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