Real estate markets are somewhat inefficient. This shortcoming allows me to make my living, because as an agent, I can add value with a keen sense of pricing. However, the imperfect market also allows room for scams. Meet the …
Real Estate Markets
The Case Against High-End Rentals
Today’s piece by Diane Cardwell in The New York Times made the case that demand is robust and living is easy at high-end rentals, apartments or townhouses — where monthly rent starts at $10,000. The picture is half-right. As an …
Homeowner Forecloses on Bank of America
In a modern-day evocation of David’s slingshot triumph over Goliath, a couple of foreclosed homeowners in Naples, Fla., reportedly foreclosed on a Bank of America branch last week, their attorney actually having moving trucks …
Foreclosure Watch: It’s Not as Bad as You Think
As the U.S.’s foreclosure crisis plays out, homeowners are slowly catching up on paying their mortgages.
The State of the Economy, Investing, Housing, and Brazilian Bikini Waxes
Among other surprising factoids, 44% of Americans say they'll never put money in the stock market again.
Poking Holes in The Depressing Housing Data
When the March Case-Shiller housing price data came out on Tuesday showing that prices in 19 of the 20 cities in the index had fallen, the news was unwelcome, to say the least.
Top 10 Most Affordable U.S. Cities for Renters
With home buying reaching a new low, more people are looking to rent. Even with increased demand, Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies found some U.S. cities that are still refreshingly rent-friendly.
Wanna Buy a House with No Money Down? Not Gonna Happen
If you want to buy a house anytime soon, you better start saving—immediately, and in large quantities. Toward the end of 2010, the median down payment on homes bought with conventional mortgages was 22% in a sampling of major U.S. cities, up from as low as 4% in the fourth quarter of 2006.
The Crappy Housing Market, by the Numbers
This shouldn’t come as news to anyone, but these statistics show just how bad of a time it is to try to sell a house—and also how difficult it is for many homeowners to afford the ones they have.
What Do Pets Do to the Resale Value of Your Home?
Answer: They can potentially do pretty much the same thing to your home’s value that some pets do on the rug.
Study: No Reason to Pay Realtor Commissions When Selling a House
There’s an assumption that the 6% typically paid in realtor commissions on a home sale is worth it because the seller will command a higher price than if he’d gone the “for sale by owner” route. But a trio of academics who researched years of home sales says that this assumption is false. In fact, they discovered that owner sellers got …
Home Improvement: Easy DIY Projects to Make Your House Easier to Sell, or Just Easier to Live In
By most accounts, the housing market is bleak. Home sales were down more than 25% in July. Declarations are being made that we have witnessed the end of the era in which homeownership was a path to wealth, and also, perhaps more welcomed, the end of ever-bigger McMansions.