Buyer sentiment data shows that potential new homeowners are chilling out about purchasing in this seller’s market.
The post June 2021 Signals Indicate Housing Market Easing appeared first on RealtyBizNews: Real Estate Marketing & Beyond.
Despite October’s nationwide uptick in new home sales, homebuilder confidence continues to slide, hitting its lowest level since June 2012 in November.
A proposed project in Baldwin Village would bring 800 apartments, including housing for low-income residents, above a Costco, as well as 400 jobs.
What percentage of your income can you afford for mortgage payments? Do you use gross monthly income or take-home pay? Learn how much house you can afford with simple rules based on your monthly income.Limit mortgage payments to less than 28% of your pretax income. Total debt payments, mortgage included, should be less than 40%.
The post What Percentage of Your Income Should Your Mortgage Be? appeared first on Money Under 30.
While visiting Raleigh earlier this month, I spent a morning with my pal Justin (from the excellent Root of Good blog) and his wife. As we sipped our coffee and nibbled our bagels, the conversation turned to cost of living. (Money nerds will be money nerds, after all.)
“Things are cheaper here in North Carolina than they are in Portland,” I said. “Food is cheaper. Beer is cheaper. Hotel rooms are cheaper. Your homes are cheaper too. Last night, as I was walking through the neighborhood next to my hotel, I pulled up the housing prices. I was shocked at how low they are!”
“Yeah, housing costs are lower here than in many parts of the country,” Justin said.
“Take our house, for instance. We bought it in 2003 for $108,000. Zillow says it’s worth around $198,000 right now. But I’ll bet that’s a lot less than you’d pay for a similar place in Portland.”
He’s right. Justin and his wife own an 1800-square-foot home on 0.3 acres of land. Their place has four bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. There’s only one place for sale in Portland right now that matches these stats and it’s going for $430,000 — more than twice the price the same home would fetch in Raleigh.
Housing is by far the largest slice of the average American budget, representing one-third of typical household spending. Because of this, the best way to cut your costs (and, therefor, boost your “profit margin”) is to reduce how much you spend to keep a roof over your head.
One obvious way to cut costs on housing is to choose a cheaper home or apartment. But if you truly want to slash your spending, consider moving to a new neighborhood. Or city. Or state. If you’re willing to change locations, you can supercharge your purchasing power and accelerate your saving rate.
Cost of living is one of those factors that people seldom consider, but which can have a huge impact on the family budget â sometimes in unexpected ways. According to The Millionaire Next Door:
Living in less costly areas can enable you to spend less and to invest more of your income. You will pay less for your home and correspondingly less for your property taxes. Your neighbors will be less likely to drive expensive motor vehicles. You will find it easier to keep up, even ahead, of the Joneses and still accumulate wealth.
It’s one thing to talk about the effects of high cost of living, but another to actually experience it.
Interest rates take cues from several places. Regularly scheduled economic data is always a consideration because a stronger economy implies more growth and tighter Fed policy, both of which are bad for rates. Certain reports carry significantly more weight than others. If put to a vote, the perennial top dog would be The Employment Situation (aka “the jobs report”). Over the years it is responsible for more volume and volatility in rates than any other data. The most recent installment came out this morning and it was a doozy. The headline number of the jobs report is a tally of new job creation reported by employers: nonfarm payrolls (NFP). That’s just a fancy name for “jobs.” Today’s data reported the new jobs added in January, and there were quite a bit more than expected. NFP can be fairly volatile. It’s not uncommon to see the number deviate from forecasts by more than 100k a few times a year. Those big deviations usually result in big reactions in rates. Forecasts called for just shy of 200k jobs. Today’s actual NFP number came in at a staggering 517k, thus edging out March 2022 to stand as the biggest deviation since August 2021. To some extent, the massive gains may be attributed to a seasonal adjustment process that still struggles to understand new seasonal patterns that emerged after the pandemic. But even if we forego seasonal adjustments, the economy added more than 400k jobs per month on average over the past 12 months and the employment rate has fallen to the lowest level since the 1960s.
Builder confidence continued its downward spiral in November, and builders are now turning to mortgage buydowns to bring in buyers.
With the impact of inflation and looming economic uncertainty, home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) are an increasingly popular choice for those who are considering tapping into their homeâs rising equity while protecting their existing, low mortgage rates.Â
Were you imagining a thermos of hot coffee, maybe even a sleeping bag or tent to protect you from the elements as you camp out for hot Black Friday deals?
Maybe you enjoy the mad rush of adrenaline you get when you spot and lunge for the last remaining iPad that’s on sale at an improbable price.
Or maybe, just maybe, you actually prefer to avoid all that frenzy and sit at home in peace and quiet while your fingers do some serious shopping on Cyber Monday.