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Home Owner News Archive
(MCT)—Factory-built homes might be shaking their low-end reputation, as climate-controlled home-building factories increasingly cater to high-end home buyers and investors with customized, amenity-filled homes.
Indicators of consumer confidence were mixed in the first month of the new year. Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan reported that its final estimate of consumer confidence, Consumer Sentiment,
(MCT)—QUESTION: I bought a co-op apartment unit in January 2010 with a conventional mortgage. I am trying to refinance it and have found that big banks are not willing to work with me. Can you please explain what’s happening here?
—Louis
ANSWER: When you buy a home in a community, there are several ways that you can own it. In a “fee simple” arrangement, you own the land and home outright and the community
The Department of Housing and Urban Development recently allocated $5.4 billion in Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Disaster Recovery funding to five states
From homes to cabins to dormitories—and everything in between—re-purposed shipping containers, or ISBUs (Intermodal Steel Building Units) are making their mark on the residential real estate sector, blurring the lines between two very distinct industries as one’s trash becomes the other’s treasure. Originally built to transport goods, the average life of a shipping container is now being extended, thanks to environmentally conscious consumers, builders, designers and a host of other real estate professionals who see their potential when it comes to building homes.
(MCT)—In the market for a hot-water-dispensing refrigerator? That was just one of the innovative and unusual products on display last month at the International Builders’ Show in Las Vegas.
The annual event, put on by the National Association of Home Builders, serves as a massive showcase for new ideas and technology for the home.
(MCT)—If you’re thinking about replacing your windows this year with more energy efficient options, Washington just upped the incentive to actually get the job done.
As part of the “fiscal cliff” agreement earlier this year, federal lawmakers agreed to reinstate the energy efficiency home improvement tax credits that had expired with 2011.
Homeowners who did not claim the full credit from 2006-11 can now receive 10 percent of the cost, up to a $200 tax credit, for Energy Star qualifying replacement windows purchased between Jan. 1, 2012 through the end of this year.
As the real estate market quickens its pace toward recovery, brokerage firms from around the country are reporting increasingly positive numbers. Brokers will document their organization’s success by participating in RISMedia’s 25th Annual Power Broker Report & Survey, the industry’s preeminent report ranking the nation’s top real estate firms.
Sponsored by Move, Inc. and HSA Home Warranty, the 2013 Power Broker Survey has long served as a competitive differentiator for firms of all sizes. To complete the survey now, please
click here. The survey deadline is February 27, 2013.
Several federal agencies recently unveiled Advancing Healthy Housing – A Strategy for Action. White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) Chair Nancy Sutley, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
Clear Capital, a premium provider of data, collateral risk assessment, and real estate asset valuation and analytics, recently released its Home Data Index™ (HDI) Market Report with data through January 2013.
By now, homeowners around the country have begrudgingly made that often pricey decision to turn on the furnace and crank up the dial. Winter is here and for some territories that means brisk to freezing temperatures,
U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan, who serves as President Obama’s Chairman of the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force, and Federal Housing Finance Agency Acting Director Edward J. DeMarco recently announced that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac will extend expiring protections against foreclosure actions against homeowners whose properties were damaged or destroyed due to Hurricane Sandy.
The additional 90-day foreclosure moratorium applies to homeowners with properties in states where the President issued major disaster declarations following Hurricane Sandy. The extended moratoriums announced today apply to the initiation of foreclosures and foreclosures already in process.
As part of a broad effort to strengthen the Federal Housing Administration’s (FHA) Mutual Mortgage Insurance Fund (MMI Fund), FHA Commissioner Carol Galante announced a series of changes
Hot foreclosure markets have come and gone over the past seven years but one thing seems to stay the same. The markets with the most and the cheapest foreclosures are still located in Florida.
A judicial state that has had its share of controversy over robo-signing practices as well as high levels of negative equity and deep declines in home values since 2006, Florida markets still offer investors the best opportunities to buy and profit by either flipping or renting and holding renovated foreclosures.
Prudential Real Estate, an HSF Affiliates LLC company, has released its end-of-year Outlook Survey, which shows that Millennials and Generation X place a higher importance on and hold more favorable views toward homeownership than older generations. According to the national survey, confidence increased marginally among respondents with 73 percent at least somewhat confident in the recovering real estate market and property values as opposed to 72 percent in Q2.
