Only about 1.4% of the population has a perfect 850 on their FICO credit score. “Achieving a perfect credit score is largely out of your hands,” Riley Adams, a licensed certified public accountant and senior financial analyst for Google, told Apartment Therapy. It can take years to build up a perfect credit score of paying bills on time and paying off debts.Apartment Therapy recently asked financial experts how consumers can improve their sco
Hurricane Dorian, which has been pummeling parts of the Bahamas for the past 24 hours with wind gusts up to 150 miles per hour and a storm surge of 18 feet, is nearing the Eastern Seaboard. Hundreds of thousands of people in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina have been ordered to evacuate before the storm heads up the coastline. Housing help and other aid is already on standby as the storm’s full impact nears.The National Association of
Some markets have a strong allure for buyers with their job markets and lower home prices and are seeing an uptick of new residents."With prices now having risen for seven consecutive years, affordability has become top of mind and is driving people not just in their local markets, but when they’re shopping to relocate," says Danielle Hale, chief economist of realtor.com. However, "it’s not just the cheapest markets that are attracting attent
The share of homes selling at or above list price has returned to levels comparable with the early 2000s, according to a new analysis from CoreLogic, a real estate data firm.Annual home price growth began to slow in the third quarter of 2018. As such, the share of home buyers able to negotiate a better price began to rise.In the second quarter of 2018, the share of homes selling at or above list price peaked at 43% of total sales, which is
Recession fears are growing, and that may prompt some Americans—who are still haunted by the last one—to get skittish about the housing market. Don’t expect another “real estate fire sale” if the economy heads into another recession, economists say.“This is going to be a much shorter recession than the last one,” George Ratiu, senior economist with realtor.com®, notes in a recent article at the site. “I don’t think the next rec
The lower price of a fixer-upper and the added resale value after a remodel can be alluring to some home buyers. For example, the average price of a fixer-upper home on the TV show “Fixer Upper,” based in Waco, Texas, is $178,449, with the average resale value being $297,488.But a new study from the remodeling site Porch.com, based on a survey of more than 1,000 homeowners, shows that the majority of fixer-upper homeowners who thoug
The number of single-family rentals is growing, and landlords continue to accrue high profits from their investments. Single-family rents rose 2.9% year over year in June, according to CoreLogic’s Single-Family Rent Index, which measures rent changes among single-family rental homes, including condos.Phoenix continues to outpace many other large metros for single-family rent increases. Year-over-year rent growth in its single-family rental mark
The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.55% this week, the lowest average since November 2016, Freddie Mac reports. The lower mortgage rates are boding well for the housing market.“The drop in mortgage rates continues to stimulate the real estate market and the economy,” says Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist. “Home purchase demand is up five percent from a year ago and has noticeably strengthened since the early summer months,
Young adults may need more resources for learning about mortgages and homeownership. More than half—55%—of young adults recently surveyed say that they’re lacking knowledge on homeownership and mortgages. That confusion has prevented them from becoming a homeowner, according to a new survey of 1,000 consumers between the ages of 23 and 38 conducted by LendEDU, a personal finance resource.Homeownership preparation is not typically
Existing-home sales showed improvement in July, a welcome sign for what has been a mostly sluggish summer real estate market. Reversing course last month, sales climbed 2.5% over June, the National Association of REALTORS® reported Wednesday. The Northeast was the only major region of the U.S. to see sales decline in July. The bulk of sales growth was attributed to the West.“Falling mortgage rates are improving housing affordability and nudgin
This website includes images sourced from third party websites including Adobe, Getty Images, and as otherwise noted.
