Tag Archives: Housing

The Supreme Court’s two decisions Wednesday supporting gay marriage could add fuel to California’s already hot housing market. “Married gay couples are going to have more confidence in making a home purchase,” predicted Nanette Lee Miller, West Coast partner-in-charge of assurance services at accounting firm Marcum in San Francisco. Striking down the federal Defense of Marriage Act now means gay couples can pass assets to a surviving spouse without estate taxes, which added up quickly in San Francisco’s housing market where a million-dollar home is far from a mansion. The […]

Home prices continue to rise at a healthy clip, with the Case Shiller 20-City Composite Index rising 12.1% year-over-year in April. But real estate is local and some neighborhoods are seeing more rapid increases than others. Within each of the 20 cities for instance, home prices are rising more rapidly in urban centers than in the suburbs, according to a blog post by Trulia economist Jed Kolko. Urban centers, defined as areas dominated by high-rise buildings, condos and apartment-style homes saw home prices rise 11.3% year-over-year in April. Suburban neighborhoods, […]

The millennial generation is showing differing housing tastes than their parents generation. For example, millennials say they prefer smaller, functional homes than sprawling “McMansions,” and they’re not interested in “cookie cutter” homes that look like everything else on the block. Instead, this generation of do-it-yourselfers wants to put their individual stamp on their home and make sure it reflects them and their tech-driven lifestyle. Millennials are the next big demographic of home buyers emerging in real estate. “It’s critical that real estate professionals understand what embodies a quintessential home for […]

Americans are continuing to flock to Texas ~ the state boasts the most cities that added the highest percentage of residents in the past year. However, New York continues to hold the crown as the largest city in the U.S., and added 67,000 new residents between July 2011 and July 2012 which is the largest gain of any city in the nation. The following cities saw the biggest increases in new residents between July 2011 and July 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau: New York New residents: 67,000 Population: […]

The Obama administration is considering unveiling new plans next week to revive the ailing housing market and reduce foreclosures, including an effort to help troubled borrowers refinance their mortgages. The administration has been working for weeks on how to implement a mortgage relief program. President Barack Obama could include a nod to the plan in a speech on job creation next week, sources familiar with the administration’s plans said. The refinancing initiative would allow certain borrowers to refinance loans that are backed by government-owned Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or […]

For three years, the real estate market has been going in one direction — primarily down. Some areas, however, have begun to recover. Recent S&P/Case-Shiller data show that among the top 20 housing markets in the U.S., 18 had very modest improvements in sales prices during May. Others, like Washington and Boston, have began to at least stabilize from a year ago. Few markets, however, can match Washington and Boston. Robert Shiller has been stating that home prices could fall another 10% in the next year. Inventories in some major […]