Building a new concrete home in the Florida Keys now costs $700 to $1,200 per square foot, according to Lisa Ferringo, who leads the Lisa Ferringo Group, a six-person real estate team in the Keys. Ferringo says those prices reflect a shortage of labor and the difficulty of getting materials to the islands. Homes must ...
Houston’s fix-and-flip model thrived after the pandemic, but the numbers no longer add up. Investors want to buy distressed properties, meaning homes that need major repairs, and then renovate and resell them. But they are offering prices so far below what sellers will accept that deals rarely close. According to Tilah Spruel, founder of Lux ...
State disclosure laws vary widely. Some states require sellers to complete detailed property condition forms. Others require sellers to volunteer almost nothing. But in most states, those laws alone don’t decide whether an agent is liable. Liability usually comes from negligence and misrepresentation rules, which are legal standards built through court decisions rather than statutes. ...
In Long Beach, California, most homes were not built as tract housing, where a builder puts up many similar homes at once. Instead, homes vary block by block in age, layout, and lot size. That variation makes price per square foot, a metric many investors rely on, a poor guide to whether a deal actually ...
Some small investors in Illinois are moving away from long-term rentals. The reason isn’t weak numbers. It’s the legal risk of renting to tenants in the state. In Chicago’s far northwest suburbs, cities like Elgin and McHenry look like strong rental markets on paper. Home prices are affordable, many residents rent rather than own, and ...
Dearborn Heights, a city of about 63,000 residents in western Wayne County, borders both Dearborn and Detroit. Buyers choosing between neighborhoods in Dearborn Heights are sorting themselves into two distinct tiers. One tier is driven by school districts and parks. The other is driven by rental income and affordability. As the market calms, the difference ...
In parts of the northeast Dallas suburbs, listings are expiring faster than in neighboring areas. A listing expires when a home doesn’t sell before the seller’s contract with an agent ends. Whether these expirations create an opportunity for investors depends on which ring of suburbs they target, according to Cindy Dunnican. Dunnican leads The Dunnican ...
Interest rates dominate conversations about buying a home right now. In the Detroit metro area, the housing market has softened modestly in recent months. For some buyers there, a fixation on rates may cost more than the rates themselves. Anthony Kellum runs Kellum Mortgage, a Detroit-based mortgage company that also serves Atlanta. His argument is ...
When home buyers evaluate Chicago’s western suburbs, many default to a simple rule: the closer to downtown, the more expensive. But that logic misses what actually drives prices in this part of the market, according to Sean Zhu of Frog City Realty LLC. Zhu works across the western and northern Chicago suburbs. He says the ...
The median age of a first-time homebuyer just hit 40, according to Larry Naselli, a residential real estate agent with Baird & Warner in Crystal Lake, Illinois. That figure reflects more than high prices and elevated interest rates. It also reflects a generation reaching financial adulthood later. Many start careers later, build savings later, and ...
Three years ago, buying a home in Citrus County, Florida, meant competing for scarce inventory in a market where sellers had no reason to negotiate. That dynamic has reversed. For buyers, the shift in leverage may matter more than any change in prices. Bruce Brunk, an agent with The Citrus County Dream Team at Keller ...
In a market where mortgage rates have squeezed monthly budgets, buyers on Chicago’s West Side are making a trade that would have seemed unlikely a few years ago. They are choosing homes that need work over homes that are move-in ready. A lower purchase price means a lower mortgage payment. For many buyers, picking up ...
In Cincinnati, a home insured for decades can become hard to insure the moment it changes hands. Many houses built before the 1930s still have knob-and-tube wiring, an early electrical system that runs ungrounded wires along porcelain knobs and through porcelain tubes. Buyers of these homes often hit a barrier many buyers and sellers don’t ...
In Pekin, Illinois, a city of 32,000 people with only 67 active home listings, building a new home now costs more than most buyers can pay. As a result, most new residential construction does not make financial sense for developers. Demand keeps growing, and supply has no clear path to catch up. Costs Outpace Prices ...
In parts of Arlington, Texas, a well-priced listing sells within days. A few miles away, comparable homes sit for 60 days or more without a serious offer. Both outcomes feed into the same citywide days-on-market average, which measures how long homes take to sell. According to Lauren Kerschen, founder of DFW’s Finest Real Estate Group, ...
