With mortgage interest rates still hovering above 7% on a 30-year fixed loan, many home buyers are seeking financing alternatives. One such option is assumable mortgages which are low-rate mortgages that home buyers take over from sellers. While popular in the 1980s when mortgage rates climbed to 18%, assumable mortgages are making a comeback. Where can one find an assumable […]
How will innovation and technology transform our homes in the future? According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, tech-driven bathrooms in many high-end U.S. homes will be the trend. Post-pandemic wellness concerns both for detection and for monitoring of our health seem to drive this trend. Smart bathroom technology is already in use in hospitals and hotels. For […]
The US Consumer Price Index, a key metric of inflation, does not include the rising price of homeowner insurance. According to Bloomberg Intelligence, increased homeowners’ insurance would have added 80 basis points or approximately .8% to the reported CPI increase of 3.4%, meaning inflation would be more like 4.6 %. By not including home insurance, the CPI does not factor […]
There is a sense of uncertainty in the residential real estate market due to the recent settlement of the National Association of Realtors (“NAR”) in which NAR agreed to not continue a longstanding practice that required home sellers to indicate the amount they would pay a home buyer’s agent. Questions as to the timing as to when prospective buyers or […]