Found 25 blog entries tagged as Real Estate.

Fed Approves Record Rate Hike

As I've been telling you all, the Federal Reserve is going to continue to increase rates this year and boy did they ever last week. They had the highest interest rate hike that they've had in over 28 years of 0.75%. They did this because of a consumer price index and inflation numbers that they saw just a couple of weeks ago. 

After the Fed made this announcement on Wednesday, interest rates actually started to decrease from the high. The high actually got on Monday and Tuesday as high as in the mid 6% ranges but after Wednesday and then by the end of the week, they started to come down into the high 5%. The reason for that is the market already priced in that rate increase and they also priced in a little bit of…

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2022 Interest Rate Update

Interest rates are starting to not only level off but decline for the first time in 2022. How did this happen when the Federal Reserve just raised rates? For a little background, rates have increased 2% this year from 3.409% to as high as 5.593%. For the week ending May 20th, rates were down to 5.46% on an average 30 year mortgage, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Rates started increasing rapidly this year as the Fed backtracked on its previous federal funds rate hike plans. The federal funds rate  is the rate at which commercial banks borrow and lend to each other overnight. It’s not the same thing as a 30 year mortgage rate but it does impact mortgage rates.

The other thing that impacted rates was…

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Housing Supply Rebounding?

Active inventory of homes grew for the first time since 2019, so what does this mean for the housing market? Realtor.com recently reported that the weekly inventory was up slightly year over year. The number is still rounded down to about 0%, but this is still a good sign with three straight years of declining inventory.

According to this chart, it shows approximately 409,000 active homes across the U.S. which is up from a low of 376,000 active homes that we had in February. We're still down approximately 70% over the past four years with still approximately two weeks worth of supply locally. This is much lower than a balanced market of four to six months worth of supply.

Average mortgage rates have risen…

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Q1 & April 2022 Huntsville Housing Market Report

The data is in for the Q1 and April 2022 Huntsville Housing Market Report. The market continues to be red hot overall but we are starting to see a more balanced market in some of the higher price ranges.

The median pending sales price for Q1 came in at $322,218, which is up 21.6% and the average days on market was only 11 days for Q1. There also continues to be an inventory challenge in this market due to an approximate 5.5 million home deficit nationwide.

To give you some perspective on 11 days, a balanced market is actually considered to be four to six months worth of supply, anything less than four months is considered a seller's market. So at 11 days, we are an extreme and unhealthy…

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Real Estate Crash in 2022?

Are we heading for a real estate crash in 2022? Responses and comments I've received have many asking if home values have finally peaked and if home values will start to crash in 2022. Many people are fearful they will overpay, but I believe that 'fear' stands for 'False Evidence Appearing Real' and 90% of the things that we fear actually never happen. I like to look at the data and make an informed decision. So here's the data on this question.

Data shows we have an extreme supply imbalance, there is currently a 5.5 million home deficit and our supply has shrunk 75% in the last five years. Also, 40% of the U.S. dollars have been printed in the last two years. So there's a lot of cash in this market that's…

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Why Rents Are Rising

According to a recent article by Redfin, the average rent in the U.S. increased 14.1% year over year. Why are rents rising and when will these rents come back down?

1) We all know that we're experiencing the highest inflation rate we've seen in twenty years of 8.5%. This is a result of the Fed printing more and more dollars. In fact, 40% of the dollars in circulation have been printed in the last two years.

2) Demographics. Our nation is continuing to grow but our housing has not kept pace since the 2008 real estate crash.

3) Millennials and lack of buying opportunities for this generation. Many of them are at prime ages to settle down and purchase their first home. However, the challenge is that they're losing…

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The Future of Huntsville Home Prices

Huntsville, Alabama has been touted as one of the most affordable cities in the U.S. to live in with high average salaries and below average cost of living, including home prices below the national median. But will that continue? Yahoo! Finance recently did an article with predictions on when several major cities throughout the US will become too expensive.

Guess who made that list? You got it, our very own Rocket City. The article references a study done by Go Banking rates, which predicts Huntsville loses its label of affordability in 2030. In that year, it’s predicted that the average home value surpasses seven figures and comes in at nearly $1.2 million. That's an increase of nearly four times our…

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Could Floor Plans Become Illegal?

Could you get sued for creating a floor plan of your own home? Forbes magazine recently reported that the National Association of Realtors (NAR) is fighting a court ruling that states “homeowners that post floor plans of their own homes on websites could trigger a copyright lawsuit”. Seriously!? With all of the challenges we have currently with the undersupply of housing, the courts have decided to make creating a floor plan of your home a copyright infringement?

That just seems crazy since floor plans are critical pieces of information for both builders and sometimes property owners to sell their home. The appraisal process also uses floor plans to calculate square footage and determine value for the…

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Fixed Rate Mortgage &
How It Can Make You Rich

Homeowners have an average net worth that is 40x that of renters but the question is “Why?” Homeowners have an average net worth of over $250,000 versus only $6,300 for renters not because they’re better savers, it’s because of the fixed rate mortgage.

The fixed rate mortgage is the most powerful investment tool in the universe because it helps you build wealth in three ways:

1) You benefit from price appreciation that comes from inflation. Also, assuming you invest 20% down, 10% appreciation actually turns into a 50% gain in your money. 

2) You benefit from principal reduction, which is like a forced savings account for every mortgage payment that you make.

3) You benefit from tax…

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New Home Contracts Canceling

New construction contracts in Huntsville, Alabama are getting canceled by buyers so what does this mean for the Huntsville real estate market?


Due to rising interest rates, many buyers are getting priced out of their new home. The reason for this is the average mortgage for a $300,000 home, which is the average sales price right now in Huntsville, has increased from approximately $1,575 per month up to almost $2,000 per month. That's an increase of about $425 per month which equals over $5,000 per year.

Why did this happen? USA Today has recently reported that inflation hit 8.5% percent in March, that's the fastest pace in 20 years so the Fed had to act to slow down demand to ultimately start to cool down this…

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