Consumer

It sounds backward, but in New York’s Hudson Valley, paying a higher price for a home in good condition may cost less overall than buying a cheaper fixer-upper. Renovation costs have climbed so sharply that the discount on a home needing work often doesn’t cover the cost of fixing it. A higher purchase price can ...

National headlines about soaring flood insurance have made barrier-island buying sound like a financial minefield. But in Ocean City, New Jersey, buyers routinely arrive bracing for five-figure annual premiums and find the actual cost far lower. That gap between perception and reality, according to one agent with 37 years in the market, may be steering ...

Most private owners in Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) don’t learn the true cost of their custom home or renovation until the design is fully complete. By then, changing anything means starting over. This budget shock is largely preventable. Preventing it means adopting a practice that public infrastructure projects have used for years. On public projects such ...

When a storm destroys a roof, the instinct is to replace it with the same material. The insurance check often covers exactly that: the same style, with the same vulnerability. But in regions where severe weather recurs, homeowners and insurers alike are increasingly questioning that default. That’s according to Renee Ramey, executive director of the ...

A gap is forming in San Antonio’s luxury home market. Homes that listed near a million dollars just a few years ago are now trading in the $700,000 to $760,000 range. These are sharp discounts that would normally attract a rush of buyers. But the buyers who can actually act on those prices are almost ...

Renters in Bergen County, New Jersey, are discovering that their monthly payments already approximate what a mortgage would cost. Local agents say this realization is driving more renters toward condo and townhouse purchases they once assumed were out of reach. Heather Corrigan, a Realtor with RE/MAX Signature Homes who handles rentals and sales across Bergen ...

Homes in Celina, Texas have dropped 15 to 20 percent from their pandemic peaks, and 5.7 months of inventory suggests prices haven’t finished falling. The Dallas North Tollway extension is scheduled to reach the city next year. It will cut commute times to Plano and Frisco, where corporate headquarters employ the relocating professionals who drive ...

Construction lenders appraise progress by visiting a job site and checking visible milestones: foundation poured, framing complete, roof on. That system breaks down when 60 to 80 percent of the building happens inside a factory miles away. For buyers and developers choosing factory-built homes, this mismatch creates delays, awkward drawdown schedules, and friction that traditional ...

The bidding wars in northern New Jersey have migrated away from the places most people expect. Downtown Jersey City – long the default destination for buyers priced out of Manhattan – has softened in recent months, while suburban towns surrounding it continue to generate multiple-offer scenarios. The competitive energy has moved outward, to places where ...

A Brooklyn resident spending an hour on the subway to reach midtown Manhattan could swap that commute for a Metro-North train ride of comparable length, and arrive home to a four-bedroom house with a yard instead of a one-bedroom co-op, according to Thomas Klug, Broker & Owner of Hudson Valley Premier Properties Realty, who has ...

When a city converts office buildings into housing, the headline usually celebrates new apartments. What gets less attention is what happens to the businesses that now have fewer places to lease. In Manhattan, residential conversions have removed enough supply to shift the power balance between landlords and tenants, and the effect is accelerating, according to ...

In central New Jersey’s Monmouth County, where bidding wars and over-asking sales are routine, the hottest zip codes are not always where the best investment math lives. According to Jonathan Gruebel, a Realtor with Coldwell Banker Realty who has worked the Monmouth County market for more than 30 years, value increases as buyers move south, ...

A data point from early 2026 caught attention in the Rochester, New York, market: property values dropped roughly 2 percent between February and May. In a region where prices have climbed steadily for six years, even a modest dip raises a natural question: is the correction finally here? According to Mark Siwiec, Broker/Owner & CEO ...

When mortgage rates were near historic lows in 2021 and 2022, Portland buyers stretched into the city’s outer neighborhoods to get more house for less money. That trade-off made sense when borrowing was almost free. Now, with rates still elevated, according to Scott Edelman, a Realtor with Sold by Scott, homes on Portland’s edges are ...

In parts of upstate New York, a brand-new home costs about the same as monthly rent, or less. That reality surprises buyers who assume new construction means $800,000-plus price tags, according to Sarah Itterman, a Realtor with Sterling Real Estate Group, an independent brokerage based north of Albany that has been voted the top independent ...