Eighteen active wildfires spreading throughout California have scorched an area larger than the entire city of Los Angeles, officials said Wednesday. Communities spanning from Redding in Northern California to Riverside County in Southern California are all under threat.The impact on the housing market, however, could be mixed. Realtor.com® notes that property values will most likely plummet in some areas and may take years to recover. But in so
Housing inventories in high-priced markets are gradually making a turnaround. One-third of the largest 45 U.S. metros saw a yearly increase in housing inventory in July, realtor.com® reports. In some markets, the inventory increase has been dramatic. For example, in Silicon Valley, the San Jose metro posted a 44 percent increase in inventory compared to a year ago.The greater number of choices, however, doesn’t mean lower prices. The median li
Smoking in a home can reduce that property’s resale value by up to 29 percent, according to realtor.com®. And home buyers who fall for a home that reeks of smoke shouldn’t assume the odor will go away as soon as the smoker moves out.Tobacco-specific nitrosamines and nitrous acid can cling to walls and other surfaces within the house. “You could breathe in several hundred nanograms of these carcinogens long after the last cigarette burned o
The U.S. Senate approved a bill Tuesday to keep the National Flood Insurance Program operating for four more months. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill, which cleared the House last week, into law before midnight Tuesday, when the program expires.“We applaud lawmakers for taking this needed action to prevent disruptions to closings in thousands of communities across the country,” Elizabeth Mendenhall, president of the Natio
Owners can often conserve more money once housing costs and living necessities are all covered. However, a new study shows those who rent can barely get by in some cities.PropertyShark and RentCafe teamed up for a study on discretionary income and analyzed the top 50 largest cities where an owner or a renter can save the most money after paying living costs. For living costs, estimates for food, health care, entertainment, and transportation were
Contract signings rose in all four major regions across the U.S. last month, a sign that dwindling home sales—which have plagued the market at an unusual time of year this summer—will reverse course in the coming months, the National Association of REALTORS® reports.NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, increased 0.9 percent month over month in June to a reading of 106.9. “After two str
While pending home sales were on the rise in June, closed sales of existing and newly built properties dropped. Home prices, too, showed signs of slowing growth, though they are still increasing. Some housing experts say the fall in sales may be tied to the rapid run-up in home prices.In Southern California, for example, new- and existing-home sales dropped sharply in June compared to a year ago, and more listings there are undergoing price redu
New-home buyers now rank all-white kitchens—once the most in-demand aesthetic—as their second choice, below natural wood cabinetry, according to a new survey from homebuilder Ashton Woods. Respondents to the survey, who are prospective buyers planning to purchase in the next 10 years, picked distressed wood cabinetry as their third most popular choice.They also said living space is more important to them than bedroom size. Sixty-one percent s
Many would-be move-up buyers are staying put in their current homes, unable to afford the increasing prices of larger properties. But they're learning a strategy to save for their next home—by becoming “accidental investors.“ More investment property owners today are everyday homeowners renting out their current home to take advantage of rising rental rates and save for a bigger home, CNBC reports.Some real estate professionals are recommen
More homeowners are staying put in their residences longer, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. In 2008, the median time homeowners stayed at the same address was six years; in 2014, that surged to 10 years. “I’m seeing people bottled up in their homes because they have nowhere to move to,” says Dowell Myers, an urban planning and demography professor at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. “We have burge
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