Rent Rates Rising, Canada Thaws and People Live in Tacoma Longer...What?
Rental Rates Continue to Rise!
Renters nationwide are out of luck — the average cost of rent jumped nearly 3 percent in April to an average of $1,405, according to property analytics provider CoreLogic’s Single-Family Rent Index, released Tuesday.
Nationwide, median rent prices surged 2.9 percent in April and rose 0.3 percent year-over-year, according to the index. Las Vegas, Phoenix and Orlando experienced the most significant hikes, with each of those metro areas tallying year-over-year increases in excess of 5 percent, according to the CoreLogic analysis.
“Rent prices increased significantly across the country in April, with the southwest region showing the highest growth rates,” said Molly Boesel, principal economist at CoreLogic, in a prepared statement issued Tuesday morning.
Over the past several years, the rental market has been hit with some of the same challenges homeowners have faced, including low housing inventory. While rental hikes reached a peak of 4.2 percent in February 2016, prices have continued to increase since 2010, and in 2016 median rent reached a peak of $1,001, according to CoreLogic.
Courtesy of CoreLogic
Canadian Home Sale Markets Are Starting to Thaw
Slumping home sales in Canada saw an uptick in June, marking the first substantial month-over-month increase of 2018, according to a new study published on Monday by the Canadian Real Estate Association.
Lead by a surge of activity in Toronto, home sales leaped 4.1 percent between May and June while the average sales price for a home in Canada decreased by 1.3 percent year over year, according to the study.
Home sales across Canada have struggled to reach the heights of the previous five years, largely due to tightening regulations on home mortgage lending and rising interest rates. Overall sales activity across Canada remains 11 percent below 2017 and nearly 7 percent below normal activity in June.
“This year’s new stress-test on mortgage applicants has been weighing on homes sales activity,” said Canadian Real Estate Association President Barb Sukkau. “However, the increase in June suggests its impact may be starting to lift. The extent to which the stress-test continues to sideline homebuyers varies by housing market and price range.”
The modest uptick, however, could signal a thaw in the housing market. While the number of newly listed homes dropped 1.8 percent in most major Canadian cities, June’s activity surge evened the sales-to-new-listings ratio to 54.3 percent.
“The national increase in June home sales suggests activity may indeed be starting to turn the corner,” said Gregory Klump, CREA’s chief economist. “Even so, the number of homes trading hands has a long way to go before it returns to levels posted in recent years.”
In Toronto, home sales surged by 17 percent, thanks in part to a modest decline in pricing across Greater Toronto.
“Looking ahead, home sales activity and price gains will likely be held in check by higher interest rates,” Klump said.
VERONIKA BONDARENKO - TODAY 6:10 A.M. - Inman News
Nextdoor Takes on Zillow’s Zestimate with Home Valuations
The Nextdoor App is adding home valuations and forecasts through a partnership with HouseCanary — a move to compete with Zillow's Zestimate. The challenge to both of these is what are they basing their information on? Oftentimes, a local realtor with a good feel of the market can get a home seller 20-30% more for their home sale than what either of these apps say the home is worth. Usually, because the realtor isn't limited to just using a tax appraiser's value or only home sales that are within a specific mileage range. What if you live within a tenth of a mile of a mobile home park, do you really want your 3,000 sq foot custom home compared to those just because they both have 3 bedrooms and 1.5 baths? Of course not! Using a local realtor will almost always lead to a better yield and faster sale process than trying to go it alone and using only these online tools.
Last Story of the Day - Homeowners are Moving More Frequently in These 20 Cities
As of 2018, the median duration of homeownership in the U.S. is 13.3 years. However, homeowners in some cities have moved more recently—or more frequently—than groups in the rest of the country. We looked at the data to give you an idea of how long people in different cities tend to stay in their homes.
How Long Do Homeowners Stick Around in the Biggest Cities?
To begin our analysis, we looked at the median years of residence for owner-occupied homes located in the 20 largest U.S. cities. Our study also examined how the median stay has changed since 2014. In nearly every case, the data showed that homeowners are now spending less time holding onto their primary residences compared to recent years.
We found that the lowest median tenures were reported by some of the country’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas, including Denver and Austin. In such places, it seems likely that the recent influx of newcomers knocked down the median years of residency for the overall population. As first-time homebuyers become a greater proportion of all homeowners, the median—as well as the average—will fall.
In more established cities like Philadelphia or New York City, homeowners reported staying in their properties for longer periods of time. While this is likely due to more than one factor, this contrast could be influenced by the relative shortage of available housing. While a short supply increases the seller’s chances of making a profit, it also means sellers will find it harder to find and purchase their next homes.
Are Homeowners Moving Out More Quickly?
If you take the short view, it’s true that people are moving out more quickly: the median years of residence for homeowners in the U.S. has decreased since 2014. But in historical terms, this figure has seen relatively little movement. Data from previous decades shows that the median tenure for homeowners has been at historic highs since 2008.
In short, American homeowners are beginning to move more frequently than before, but they have yet to return to their historical levels of mobility. Possible reasons for this include the effect of economic uncertainty, the movement of housing values and the rise of mortgage rates.
Immediately after the 2008 economic crisis, many homeowners found themselves underwater on their mortgages as a result of plummeting values, and they stayed put in order to rebuild their equity. This led to a significant increase in the median number of years homeowners stayed in their properties before moving on. As the economy recovered, the situation changed: home prices rebounded, and the median years of residency declined once again.
This suggests homeowners may be taking advantage of higher demand and lower supply in the housing market to sell their homes and move on to the next property. However, homeowners are ultimately buyers, too. Those who choose to sell and move may find it difficult to find reasonable prices on their next home. Finally, increasing mortgage rates discourage those who already have a lower fixed-rate mortgage to finance a new home purchase.
How Does Homeowner Tenure Affect Your Finances?
The number of years you stay in a house determines how much you’ll pay back on the mortgage you took out when buying it. A longer stay gives you the opportunity to pay back a larger portion of the money you borrowed to purchase the home. Since most mortgages are scheduled to be repaid over a 30-year term, you can easily estimate how much equity you’ll build by the time you’re ready to move.
Consider a 30-year mortgage with the current national average rate of 4.56% and an initial down payment of 20%. If you made monthly payments on that mortgage for the median tenure of 13.3 years, then you would have built up at least 43% in equity—assuming no decrease in property value. Once you understand how much equity you’ll have at the point you want to sell, you’ll be able to budget for your next home with greater confidence.
Finally, it’s important to remember the fixed costs of buying and moving into a house. Mortgage closing costs, property taxes, agent commissions and moving expenses all contribute to the upfront costs of a new home. If you move out too early, the amount you spent acquiring the property may outweigh the equity or appreciation you’ve collected up to that point.
Full List of Cities
We’ve provided the top 10 as well as a local list of cities for which we examined the median years of homeowner residency, from lowest to highest. These numbers only represent owner-occupied housing units and cities with populations of at least 100,000. We also provide the average years of residency for each city. These averages skewed higher than the corresponding medians due to the influence of long-term outliers.
Rank City Median Years of Residence Average Years of Residence
1 . Enterprise, Nevada 6.6 8.1
2 . Frisco, Texas 7.5 8.7
3 . Lehigh Acres, Florida 7.8 9.9
4 . McKinney, Texas 7.9 9.3
5 . Gilbert, Arizona 8.6 10.2
6 . North Las Vegas, Nevada 8.6 10.5
7 . Clarksville, Tennessee 8.8 12.5
8 . Surprise, Arizona 8.8 9.5
9 . Murfreesboro, Tennessee 9.0 11.6
10 Cape Coral, Florida 9.3 11.6
75 . Renton, Washington 11.1 13.8
78 . Kent, Washington 11.2 13.7
84 . Everett, Washington 11.4 14.3
86 . Seattle, Washington 11.4 14.8
121 . Vancouver, Washington 12.0 14.3
148 . Bellevue, Washington 12.5 16.0
185 . Spokane, Washington 12.9 16.1
186 . Tacoma, Washington 12.9 16.3
by Chris Moon
Chris is a Research Analyst at ValuePenguin, covering consumer banking and mortgages. He graduated from Yale College with a B.A. in History.
The post Homeowners are Moving More Frequently in These 20 Cities appeared first on REAL Trends Blog.
About the Broker: The above Real Estate information was provided by Scott Hollis MAOL,MAOD,SPHR . Scott is serving as a Managing Broker with John L Scott - Lacey. Scott and can be reached via email at Scott.Hollis01@gmail.com or by phone at 360-701-9682. Scott has helped people move in and out of the South Puget Sound for the last 4+ Years.
Are you thinking of selling your home? I have a passion for Real Estate and love to share my marketing expertise!
I service Real Estate sales anywhere in the I-5 corridor.
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