BREAKING NEWS: Real Estate News You Might Have Missed

So much real estate news — coming at us so quickly and changing so rapidly—it’s hard to keep up with all of it. It’s been a busy spring and early-summer for the nation’s housing market.

We’ve snatched a couple of stories from the media that you may have missed and feel they’re worth the read.

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 Kids’ opinions matter

A recent Sun Trust Mortgage-commissioned study finds that more than half of American homebuyers with children younger than 18 say their kid’s opinions matter when deciding which home to buy.

When broken down into parental age, nearly 75 percent of Millennial’s kids get a say.

Amazing bit of real estate news, isn’t it? Wonder if they seek their youngin’s opinions when making other investments?

Thankfully, the things on the kids’ wish lists make for sound real estate purchase decisions. Aside from more than half of them wanting their own bedroom (duh), they want to live close to parks, schools and swimming pools, among others.

 

Did ya hear the one about how buyers and sellers choose an agent?

We love market research real estate news and we especially love when it provides us with good news. A recent study of buyers and sellers finds that, although they shop for homes on the big real estate portals, they don’t shop for their agent there.

Instead, most of those surveyed found their real estate agent through a referral

When they’re considering hiring a particular agent, they are most concerned about the agent’s honesty, how accessible they are and the agent’s “track record,” And, they look for evidence of this online.

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And, if you ever needed proof of how important your website is to your brand, many of these real estate consumers claim that they evaluated the agent’s site for quality. Your website is, truly, your online curb appeal.

 

It’s a record

Here’s a bit of real estate news: Across the country, the average time on the market for homes sold in May was 34 days – breaking April’s record of 36 days.

More than a quarter of those homes sold for more than their list price, which, according to CNBC, is another record.

 

Real estate news for your gig-economy clients

Got gig workers among your client base?

If so, there was some good news last week that will thrill your local Lyft or Uber driver. Fannie and Freddie are trying to make it easier for them to qualify for mortgages.

In case you’re not familiar with the gig economy, its workers are typically freelancers and, thus, independent contractors. They set their own schedules and work as much or little as they want (thus, earning as much or as little as they want).

Aside from the aforementioned drivers, examples of gig workers include freelance writers, website developers and folks who pick up odd jobs from TaskRabbit. They make up a rather large segment of the nation’s workers – an estimated 34 percent, according to Intuit.

Like all independent contractors, however, how workers in the gig economy make a living presents challenges when it comes to getting a mortgage. As you know, conventional lenders typically want to see that a borrower has at least two years of “stable” employment.

More important, however, is that they also want assurances that the borrower’s current income will continue.

“Gig earnings can be substantial — thousands of dollars a month — but if that money can’t qualify as ‘income’ under existing mortgage industry guidelines, it may not help in buying a home with a standard mortgage,” claims Chicago Tribune reporter Kenneth R. Harney.

Although they wouldn’t share with Harney how they’re going to do it, Fannie and Freddie are trying to find ways to make it easier for gig workers to purchase a home.

 

Ever hear of a reverse gender gap?

You probably remember the news out a couple of years ago that found that older, single women were buying more homes than men. It’s still happening, but the rate has increased, according to Harney.

The NAR released statistics that find single women made up 18 percent of home purchases while single men came in at 7 percent. “This makes single women the second largest segment in the entire home-purchase marketplace, behind married couples,” according to Harney.

Interestingly, single women also buy marginally more expensive homes than single men — $185,000 on average compared to $175,000.

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