There must be a remodeling bug flying around Oklahoma City. The area ranked the highest of the 50 largest U.S. cities by volume of home improvement loans issued to homeowners, according to a new analysis by LendingTree.San Jose, Calif., ranked second on LendingTree’s list. Analysts say the city’s high home prices and tight inventory have benefited current homeowners, who are seeing a rise in equity that they can then apply to bettering their
So, your clients fell in love with a home and made an offer that they felt was a very good one. Now they want to know why it was rejected. It's not always cut-and-dried, but realtor.com® recently featured some of the reasons sellers don't accept certain offers, including some surprising logic.burak kostak on PexelsThe buyers revealed too much.Personal letters have become a popular strategy that some real estate professionals recommend, but it's
Renters are struggling to catch a break. In seven of the largest U.S. cities, the average household would need to make at least six figures to comfortably afford the rent on a two-bedroom apartment, according to a new study by SmartAsset, a personal financial website. SmartAsset researchers looked at how much it takes to afford average rental rates in the nation’s 25 largest cities.Households that spend more than 30 percent of their incomes on
Smoking in a home can reduce that property’s resale value by up to 29 percent, according to realtor.com®. And home buyers who fall for a home that reeks of smoke shouldn’t assume the odor will go away as soon as the smoker moves out.Tobacco-specific nitrosamines and nitrous acid can cling to walls and other surfaces within the house. “You could breathe in several hundred nanograms of these carcinogens long after the last cigarette burned o
The U.S. Senate approved a bill Tuesday to keep the National Flood Insurance Program operating for four more months. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the bill, which cleared the House last week, into law before midnight Tuesday, when the program expires.“We applaud lawmakers for taking this needed action to prevent disruptions to closings in thousands of communities across the country,” Elizabeth Mendenhall, president of the Natio
Despite being strapped with student loan debt, millennials are surpassing older generations when it comes to money management habits like saving and budgeting, a recent Bank of America survey shows.According to the Better Money Habits Millennial Report published earlier this year, 63 percent of millennials (ages 23 to 37) are saving. Fifty-seven percent say they have a savings goal, as compared to the 42 percent of Gen Xers and 42 percent of
Owners can often conserve more money once housing costs and living necessities are all covered. However, a new study shows those who rent can barely get by in some cities.PropertyShark and RentCafe teamed up for a study on discretionary income and analyzed the top 50 largest cities where an owner or a renter can save the most money after paying living costs. For living costs, estimates for food, health care, entertainment, and transportation were
Contract signings rose in all four major regions across the U.S. last month, a sign that dwindling home sales—which have plagued the market at an unusual time of year this summer—will reverse course in the coming months, the National Association of REALTORS® reports.NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index, a forward-looking indicator based on contract signings, increased 0.9 percent month over month in June to a reading of 106.9. “After two str
While pending home sales were on the rise in June, closed sales of existing and newly built properties dropped. Home prices, too, showed signs of slowing growth, though they are still increasing. Some housing experts say the fall in sales may be tied to the rapid run-up in home prices.In Southern California, for example, new- and existing-home sales dropped sharply in June compared to a year ago, and more listings there are undergoing price redu
New-home buyers now rank all-white kitchens—once the most in-demand aesthetic—as their second choice, below natural wood cabinetry, according to a new survey from homebuilder Ashton Woods. Respondents to the survey, who are prospective buyers planning to purchase in the next 10 years, picked distressed wood cabinetry as their third most popular choice.They also said living space is more important to them than bedroom size. Sixty-one percent s
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