A supportive cohousing community focusing on seniors who identify as LGBT broke ground last November in Durham, N.C., and is scheduled for completion in April 2020.The Village Hearth Cohousing development will include 28 single-story accessible homes on a 15-acre wooded site, 15 minutes from downtown Durham. The homes will range in size from 650 square feet to 1,150 square feet, and they will be attached in quads for energy and con
Mortgage rates barely budged this week, keeping borrowing costs low for summertime home shoppers. Mortgage rates continue to hover near their 2016 averages. “We’re seeing a tug of war happen as the fixed-income market flashes warning signs while the equities market continues to march higher with optimism,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “The data suggests the economy is weakening but is still on very solid ground, with
The build-to-rent market is exploding in growth, CNBC reports. While homebuilding, in general, has underperformed in recent years, one segment of residential construction has seen large growth: Building a home with the intentions of renting it out.In 2017, 37,000 homes were built as rentals; that number rose to 43,000 last year, or just under 5% of total single-family housing starts, the National Association of Home Builders reports. That number
Summer is peak season for climate-related disasters, and an alarming percentage of homeowners may be underinsured to weather a natural disaster. Sixty-four percent of homes are underinsured by an average of 27%, according to the Residential Cost Handbook, published by Marshall & Swift/Boeckh, a consulting firm.Reconstruction costs have risen by 5.6% to 7.6% in some areas over the last year, according to a separate study earlier this year
“Gayborhoods” are getting more expensive, and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community increasingly say they’re getting priced out of the neighborhoods they helped to build.For example, USA Today reports that areas like San Francisco’s Castro district, which has long been known to house many members of the LGBT community, has seen values reach nearly $1.8 million while comparable homes in other neighborhoods av
Mortgage rates are dropping, giving millions of homeowners an opportunity to lower their monthly payments. An estimated 8.2 million borrowers could refinance and potentially lower their monthly payments by at least 75 basis points, estimates Black Knight, a mortgage software and analytics firm. This marks the largest percentage of homeowners who stand to benefit from lower mortgage rates since the end of 2016.Last week, the average
The Department of Housing and Urban Development has allocated $330 million in grants to clean up lead-based paint and other health and safety hazards in low-income housing. The grants will be provided through HUD’s Lead Hazard Reduction and Healthy Homes Production for Tribal Housing grant programs.“Your home is a haven from the outside world,” says HUD Secretary Ben Carson. “You shouldn’t be worried about the hidden
New rent control laws in New York are being blamed for eating away at landlords’ profits and putting many in a financial bind. Some real estate professionals and investors told The Wall Street Journal that the laws could cause rent-stabilized apartment buildings to drop 20% to 45% in value. That could put the building owners at risk of default. “It’s all over,” Lazer Sternhell, a real estate investor and broker of rent-regulated
Pending home sales bounced back in May from a dip the previous month, a sign that home buyers are returning to the market as lower borrowing costs improve affordability. Three of the four major U.S. regions saw an increase in pending home sales last month, the National Association of REALTORS® reported Thursday.NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, rose 1.1% to a reading of 105.4
For the seventh time in the last nine weeks, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage dropped, reaching the lowest average since November 2016, Freddie Mac reports in its weekly mortgage market survey.“While the industrial- and trade-related economic data continues to dominate the news, the drop in mortgage rates over the last two months is already being felt in the housing market,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “Through late Jun
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