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☆ How a Houston real-estate agent who closed $28 million in deals in 2022 turned her broadcast news layoff into a lucrative new career
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-23 | by ( Layne Van Vranken | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

"I took my profession as a news anchor, my marketing skills, and leveraged everything I had and who I was, and I used that in real estate," Jang said. Here's how she built a business that's thrived through social media and organic marketing. My business is 70% referral from day one and 30% social media," she said. Jang also shares on social media what she does off the clock, like her overseas travel and fine dining. "'Lily's List' was just as important as social media for me in reaching potential clients."

☆ Be on the lookout for these six red flags in the homebuying process. It could save you thousands, a real-estate attorney said.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-17 | by ( Jordan Pandy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

He said real-estate agents can work in their best interest, not their clients', if a contract is weak. Purposefully confusing contracts and some real-estate agents' self-serving motives have some homebuyers getting themselves into tricky positions, said Douglas R. Miller, a veteran real-estate attorney in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Commissions are usually around 6% of the home's sale price and split between the buyer's agent and the seller's agent. Negotiating your broker's fee can be key in saving you moneyIn a home sale, buyers' agents are actually paid by the seller. "Affiliated business arrangement" is the textbook term, and it can be dangerous for buyers, Miller said.

☆ 92% of millennial homebuyers say inflation has impacted their purchase plans, but most are plowing ahead anyway, study shows
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Sarah O'Brien | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The typical first-time buyer was age 36 in 2022, up from age 33 in 2021, according to the National Association of Realtors. The combination of year-over-year double-digit price jumps for much of 2022 and rising mortgage rates created an affordability problem for many buyers. The average for a 30-year fixed-rate loan is 6.21% as of Jan. 24, according to Mortgage News Daily. An adjustable rate mortgage may be an optionIt may also be worth considering an adjustable rate mortgage if you're trying to bring the cost down, Yun said. With an ARM, the appeal is its lower initial rate compared with a traditional fixed rate mortgage.

☆ Existing home sales fell for the 11th consecutive month in December, hitting the slowest pace since November 2010
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-20 | by ( Diana Olick | In Dianaolick | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Sales of previously owned homes dropped 1.5% in December from the previous month, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales ended the year at a seasonally adjusted, annualized pace of 4.02 million units, which was 34% lower than December 2021. It is the slowest pace since November 2010, when the nation was struggling through a housing crisis brought on by faulty subprime mortgages. While sales are down in all price categories, they are falling most sharply on the higher end. Sales of homes priced above $1 million were down 45% year over year, compared with sales of homes priced between $250,000 and $500,000, which were down 34%.

Sales of existing homes fell 7.7% in November compared with October, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales were down 35.4% year over year, marking the tenth straight month of declines. These counts are based on closings, so the contracts were likely signed in September and October, when mortgage rates last peaked before coming down slightly last month. Sales fell across all price categories, but took the steepest dive in the luxury million-dollar-plus category, dropping 41% year-over-year. “The market may be thawing since mortgage rates have fallen for five straight weeks,” Yun added.

☆ The only thing Elon Musk understands about Twitter is how to kill it
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-21 | by ( Adam Rogers | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +15 min

Biologists, anthropologists, and information theorists do think that social networks, like Musk's bird app, show at least some signs of being flocks. "Elon's tweet is basically espousing the invisible hand of social behavior," Bak-Coleman says. In this construction, a social network might have become a collective superintelligence, had capitalists left it to its — our? Under Musk, Twitter has entered the dance-off phase. I'll be sad if the Twitter superintelligence starts singing a Kubrickian cover of "Daisy" and implodes into a pile of melting isolinear chips.

☆ U.S. existing home sales plunge; tight inventory keeps prices rising
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Lucia Mutikani | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

"The combination of rising house prices and mortgage rates have sent housing affordability plummeting," said Daniel Vielhaber, an economist at Nationwide in Columbus, Ohio. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate breached 7% in October for the first time since 2002, according to data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac. "A deteriorating housing market, nagging inflation and an aggressive Fed puts the economy on unsure footing for 2023." Even as demand weakens, housing supply remains tight, limiting the slowdown in house price inflation. The median existing house price increased 6.6% from a year earlier to $379,100 in October.

☆ U.S. existing home sales dive; tight supply keeps prices elevated
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Lucia Mutikani | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

"Higher mortgage rates and still-elevated prices remain key constraints for home sales," said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in White Plains, New York. Existing home sales dropped 5.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.43 million units last month. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast home sales would tumble to a rate of 4.38 million units. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate breached 7% in October for the first time since 2002, according to data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac. At October's sales pace, it would take 3.3 months to exhaust the current inventory of existing homes, up from 2.4 months a year ago.

☆ High mortgage rates, tight supply and economic uncertainty: Here's what's happening with home prices
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-04 | by ( Diana Olick | In Dianaolick | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

Yet home prices are still higher compared with a year ago, and it's unlikely they will fall too steeply. While that has some buyers pulling back, and some sellers lowering what they're asking for, strong demand and tight supplies are supporting prices. Black Knight, a real estate software, data and analytics firm, reported the second straight month of declines in August, with prices down 0.98% from July. Put together, these mark the largest monthly declines in more than 13 years and the eighth largest since at least the early 1990s, Black Knight said. That skews prices higher.

☆ Existing home sales fall in August, and prices soften significantly
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( Diana Olick | In Dianaolick | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

That is the slowest sales pace since May 2020, when activity stalled very briefly due to the start of the pandemic. The sales figures represent closings, so contracts that were likely signed in June and July, when mortgage rates spiked higher and then pulled back. At the current sales pace, that represents a 3.2-month supply. That may have been due to a brief drop in mortgage rates during, which sparked more interest from buyers. But building permits, which are an indicator of future construction, fell as mortgage rates were expected to rise again.

☆ A 39-year-old who owns 21 rental homes and recently quit his 9-to-5 after building his real estate portfolio up for 18 years stresses the importance of playing the long game and taking a conservative
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-21 | by ( A.J. Cohen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +10 min

He's built his portfolio over 18 years and stresses the importance of building up sustainably. He prefers fixer-upper properties and invests a lot in his real estate investments. He talks about his real estate investing journey online under the moniker of The Frugal Gay, instructing other aspiring real estate investors as to how he built up his portfolio. Being in the real estate space is something that Brickman actively enjoys. "I really like transforming [my properties]," Brickman said, adding that his "hardest project" was the former home of a hoarder.

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