A pilot project in South Burlington, Vt., is using blockchain technology to digitize real estate transactions and make them speedier to process. South Burlington’s city clerk’s office has teamed with Propy Inc., a Palo Alto, Calif.–based real estate blockchain startup.Real estate transfers in the city will be recorded on a blockchain that can be accessed through an app or website by multiple entities involved in the transactions. It digiti
The average consumer’s life is filled with financial milestones, and buying a home is a major one. But when do most people reach the milestone of homeownership? Researchers at Comet Financial Intelligence, a student loan refinancing resource, surveyed 1,200 Americans on how long it took them to complete their financial “rites of passage” with homeownership and other savings hurdles. Among their findings: The millennial respondents surveyed
Mortgage rates are steadily rising, and some housing analysts are already forecasting an impact on the market from the higher borrowing costs.Heading into the spring buying season, the supply of homes remains at record lows, which presses home prices higher throughout the country. But as buyers face higher mortgage rate costs, will that prompt them to pause?Mortgage rates were near record lows for most of 2017, but they’ve been on the rise ev
Toll Brothers, a luxury homebuilder, filed a lawsuit against Southern California Gas over an extensive gas leak a few years ago that the builder claims caused one of its master plan developments to no longer be desirable to buyers.The 2015–2016 gas leak in the Aliso Canyon area in California is considered the worst natural gas leak in U.S. history. The leak lasted nearly four months. Thousands of residents from the Porter Ranch community and ne
The housing market likely won’t be deeply affected by the sharp decline in stocks over the last two days because underlying economic fundamentals remain strong, says Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the National Association of REALTORS®. Jobs are being created, workers are seeing wage gains, and there’s no recession on the horizon. Those data trends don’t support the theory that the stock market drop indicates a larger underlying problem
As home prices and rental costs rise, more consumers are scrutinizing their best financial move: to buy or rent?Realtor.com®’s research team analyzed annual median rental costs versus annual median costs of homeownership (including mortgage payments, taxes, and homeowners insurance) to find whether buying or renting made more financial sense in the nation’s 500 largest counties. Realtor.com® also factored in median incomes in each of the co
Strong demand and low inventories fueled home prices to record highs in 2017, as the median home price in the U.S. reached $235,000, up 8.3 percent from 2016, according to real estate data firm ATTOM Data Solutions. Still, annual price appreciation showed signs of slowing; in 2016, the national median home price jumped 8.5 percent year over year, according to ATTOM’s latest housing report.Sixty-four of 112 metros—or 57 percent—set a new rec
When high-end property owners want to spruce up their homes, the renovation projects they tend to gravitate toward include pools, bars, gourmet kitchens, elevators, and amenities suitable for waterfront houses, according to a new study by Homes.com. The real estate portal’s research team culled sales data to analyze how homes vary regionally in terms of features, size, and price.The top three features luxury homes nationwide have in common are
Living with a roommate isn’t a trend only among renters, nor is it limited to families living in multigenerational homes. The latest U.S. Census Bureau data reveals a growing number of adults who are living with other adults with whom they are not in romantic partnerships.The trend increased after the last recession, and “nearly a decade later, the prevalence of shared living has continued to grow,” according to a new analysis of census dat
An estimated 132 billion business emails are sent each day, according to a report from technology research firm The Radicati Group Inc. But the email signature—like a postscript (or P.S.) on a handwritten note—is underused, Ivan Misner, author of Networking Like a Pro and founder of Business Network International, told Forbes.com. “Adding a ‘P.S.’ to your signature line gives you an extra space to include an important message that w
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