November’s news from the real estate water cooler

Hey, you’re busy (at least we hope you are) and you don’t have time to be searching the internet for the latest real estate news and gossip. But, we do, and here’s the November real estate news we thought you might be interested in.

 

November real estate news – Homeowners staying put longer

Anyone who has watched the housing market over the past few years knows that, by and large, homeowners are stubbornly remaining in their homes. Thus, the infamous “inventory shortage.”

What you may not know, however, is what AttomData has learned: homeowner tenure in the U.S. has increased to slightly more than eight years, double the tenure measured in 2000.

Whether it’s “rate lock,” the fear of not finding a replacement home or the desire to age in place, we’re staying put a lot longer than we used to.

Keep an eye on homeowners in your geographic farm who’ve lived in their homes at least eight years. They may be getting ready to sell.

 

Higher rates aren’t scaring most potential homebuyers

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) says that 2019 will see more loan originations than we saw in 2018. In fact, originations, they say, will increase 4.2 percent over this year’s.

Really. They’re serious.

“The unemployment rate is at its lowest level in almost 50 years, resulting in faster wage growth and more confident homebuyers,” MBA’s chief economist claims. “While the Federal Reserve is expected to increase short-term rates further, 30-year mortgage rates should rise only modestly from here,” he concluded.

So, don’t be glum about next year’s real estate market. If the MBA is correct, it should be as good, if not better, than this year’s.

 

Photog suit against Zillow

Remember the guy who was suing Zillow for scraping his listing photos (in violation of his copyright)? He was going after the company for $81 million.

Gotta be one of the quickest settlements in history, because on October 3, after Alternative Dispute Resolution, Gutenberg dismissed his complaint, “without prejudice,” according to court records.

No mention of how much Zillow settled for.

The media, by the way, dropped the story immediately after originally reporting it (hey, the mention of a “David” possibly getting $81 million from a “Goliath” makes people click on articles) with absolutely no follow-up.

But in the interest of getting November real estate news to you (and satisfying some good-old curiosity) we did the follow-up for you, via the court’s online Pacer system.

 

DTI now in the lead

It appears that bad credit as the main obstacle to obtaining a mortgage is a thing of the past. Today’s deal breaker is a high DTI, according to the folks at Core Logic. In fact, slightly more than one-third of loan applications were turned down because of an unacceptable DTI.

Interestingly, when they broke down the denials by loan type, VA loan apps ranked the highest, with 35% being denied because of a high DTI. FHA-backed loan applications, on the other hand, had the lowest DTI denial rate.

You use buyer consultations in your real estate practice, right? Ensure your clients know all there is to know about the mortgage process and how their DTI may impact on their ability to buy a home.

 

Soccer is the new golf (in real estate)

Here’s a bit of November real estate news: Active agents who’ve been in the business for awhile understand that golf course homes have lost their once-wild popularity. It’s because golf has lost its attraction for many Americans. So many that more than 800 golf courses across the country have shuttered over the past decade.

The reasons behind the decline in golf’s popularity are many and varied. But the upside is that many of the defunct courses are being transformed into residential communities. Apparently, some will remain sport-front communities.

As soccer homes.

The “concept of sport-front real estate” is apparently not dead, it’s “being extended to other sports … most notably, soccer,” according to Garrett Kenny, CEO of Feltrim Group, a Florida real estate development firm.

And, like Augusta National is closely adhered to the legendary Bobby Jones, “these new soccer-front properties are being built in complexes often associated with high-profile international soccer stars,” Kenny says at Forbes.com.

If it catches on, you’ll soon be slinging property in Pele Estates or Beckham Knolls.

 

The weirdest article of 2018

For your final piece of November real estate news, I landed on HousingWire.com today and read the weirdest article ever. It’s not really an article. I swear – it’s a freaking time machine!

I had to keep checking the publication date – I mean, flat-fee brokerages have been around awhile yet the author celebrates them as if they were some new-fangled invention.

His framing of the concept, though, is what got me. He used all the tropes of the 1960s, so much so that while reading I was transported back to that period of 1967 when my radio blared the Youngblood’s admonition to “smile on your brother” and to love one another, “right now.”

Honestly, it was the headline that got me, but I should’ve read the author’s bio first. Turns out that Zak Waddell “is the co-founder of nada, a community-centric real estate solution.”

Somebody needs to tell Zak that the ideals of the 1960s are something many of us want to live down, that flat-fee brokerages aren’t new and they aren’t necessarily a “solution” to anything but his pocketbook.

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Ready to get more traffic during the slow season? In this video, Chris explains how to keep your site warm through the winter: