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☆ Proptech startup Ribbon plans more layoffs as economic uncertainty lingers, according to CEO's email
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The CEO of Ribbon told employees by email that impending layoffs would be "deeper" than expected. The all-cash offers company already laid off 40% of its employees in July. Shah and a spokesperson for Ribbon did not provide a comment to Insider on the email or layoffs by the time of publication. Tech company layoffs have ballooned far beyond the niche covered by Ribbon, Opendoor and Redfin, too. Read the rest of Ribbon's email here:Team,First and foremost, thank you for your patience through this challenging time for Ribbon.

☆ Renters in these 11 places are getting breaks even though rents are still rising across the country
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Rents dropped nationally by 0.9% from September to October, according to a Redfin report. While there isn't relief for renters everywhere, the data is a good sign. Other good news for renters: The number of cities that saw year-over-year declines in rent doubled compared to the month prior. "It will likely be a while before renters see meaningful relief, given that rents are still up more than wages," Marr said, even though inflation may start to cool off. Landlords, including Equity Residential, one of the largest in the country, reported declining rent increases last quarter.

☆ Homebuyers who fled to Florida to escape high taxes are now shocked at their massive tax bills
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-18 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

A Florida law caps property taxes at 3% a year for existing homebuyers. The tax bills have come as a shock for some, who may have to consider moving out of the state. Anyone who bought a Florida property in 2022 will be in the same situation next year. Corporate homebuyers are also getting hit with higher tax billsDeeply resourced, large-scale homebuyers are getting caught off guard, too. Some local governments in Texas have argued for increasing property taxes in order to finance things like hurricane relief, the Texas Tribune reported.

☆ The typical first-time homebuyer in America is older than ever before and overwhelmingly white — plus, sky-high prices and grueling rates mean that there are fewer than ever before
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-09 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The typical first-time homebuyer is 36, white, and partnered, the NAR found. First-time buyers just couldn't catch a break. The average age of first-time buyers increased to 36 years old in the NAR survey period — a survey high — compared with 33 in the previous 12 months. And people who bought homes as prices skyrocketed mostly did so with a partner, which suggests two incomes were needed. Finally, 82% of the first-time buyers were white, the report found, which suggests that the racial disparities in homeownership persist despite laws outlawing such discrimination nearly 50 years ago.

Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson is running for reelection against Democratic Lt. Gov. Senate Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. (1 District) Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. WI-03 House Governor Chevron icon It indicates an expandable section or menu, or sometimes previous / next navigation options. Barnes has raised nearly $34.6 million, spent $32 million, and has almost $2.6 million in the bank, as of October 19.

☆ Want to buy a house, but spooked by 7% rates? A mortgage broker lays out 4 things to do to make it happen.
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-05 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Top mortgage broker Erica Davis gave 4 tips for people hoping to buy despite the high rates. But there's hope for those that want to forge ahead and buy a house anyway, Erica Davis, a mortgage broker at Guild Mortgage, a Myrtle Beach, South Carolina-based firm, told Insider. Not only are rates high, but closing costs are high, too. For a $300,000 mortgage, closing costs will likely be between $6,000 and $15,000. A credit score of 620 — which is in the "fair" range — or higher can generally allow buyers to secure a mortgage, according to Quicken Loans, a mortgage-loan provider.

☆ It's time to score a deal in these 10 popular Sun Belt metros like Austin, Texas, and Naples, Florida, where prices have plummeted more than 10% since spring
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Here are 10 Sun Belt cities that have seen home prices drop by more than 10% since May or June. For prospective homebuyers who've been waiting for prices to come off the boil, their time to strike may already be here. It's one ray of hope for buyers in cities including Austin, Texas, New Orleans, Louisiana, and Naples, Florida. But in a few places, these prices have plummeted so much that they've almost completely offset the 10-month surge in mortgage rates. In May, the median Reno home price peaked at $570,000 and the average rate for a 30-year mortgage was around 5.23%.

☆ Inside Manhattan's most expensive office building, which boasts swanky showers, March Madness parties, and views for 40 miles
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-28 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

Employees on the upper floors of One Vanderbilt can see the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in Brooklyn to the east, as well as the Hudson River and to the mountains north of Manhattan to the west and north. A view north and west over the Hudson River from One Vanderbilt. Courtesy of SL Green

☆ Even one of the biggest apartment landlords in the US is having trouble hiking rents as much as it did in the first half of the year
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-27 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

The slowdown is affecting Equity Residential's over 79,000 units and clouding building valuations. Earnings reports show that average rents across Equity Residential's 79,594-unit portfolio rose by an average of just 1.7% last quarter, down from the 2.8% and 3.1% upticks in the second and first quarters, respectively. Meanwhile, the data shows that rents in many Texas and Florida cities, as well as a couple of key New England cities, keep rising. Meanwhile, in Boston, a scarcity of housing supply helped drive rents up 5.9% — making it the second most-expensive city to be a renter nationally. The deceleration in rent growth nationally is welcome news for renters who have had to cough up increasingly large chunks of their paychecks each month to their landlords.

☆ Blackstone's president, Jonathan Gray, says rental properties are still a smart investment as developers slash supply, keeping rents high
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Gray said this is good news for Blackstone, which has invested heavily in multifamily real estate. But as real estate isn't immune from the rising interest rates rocking most financial markets, multifamily investments that grew significantly last year are still facing headwinds. Jonathan Gray, Blackstone's president and chief operating officer, says there's no need to panic, though, given other economic factors now in play. He argued that demand for rental housing isn't going anywhere and that with supply further constrained, rents can continue to rise. Gray described rental properties as "beneficial" because it doesn't cost much to invest in them after they're built.

☆ A 33-year-old real-estate investor with 24 units shares the 9 tech tools she swears by as a landlord
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-20 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Dana Bull is a 33-year-old investor who has built a portfolio of 24 rental units. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dana Bull, a 33-year-old realtor and real-estate investor who leases and rents out 24 units across eight properties in Massachusetts. Rents in these units average about $1,800 a month, which totals about $518,000 a year in revenue before expenses. I'm also a realtor, so many of the tools I use for that role, I use as a landlord as well. LeaseRunner.comIt's also really important to get electronic-signature software — I use DotLoop because it's the premier software that real-estate agents use.

☆ How the Warehouse Boom Changed the Way America Looks, Lives, and Works
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-19 | by ( ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

As the US emerged from the Great Recession, cheap real estate and the rise of e-commerce collided to create a warehousing boom. Now warehouse boomtowns shoot up in places like California's Inland Empire, Pennsylvania's Lehigh County, and Columbus, Ohio, and the number of warehouse workers has nearly tripled in a decade. Here, Insider explores how the rise of warehouses and warehouse work has changed the US and its citizens as we became a Warehouse Nation. A surge in warehouse workUsing data and on-the-ground reporting, Insider looked at the opportunities and hidden costs of the rise of warehouse work. Read more from 'Warehouse Nation'A look from Insider at how the warehouse boom has reshaped America.

☆ Wealthy people who moved to Miami are rejecting Florida traditions and radically transforming their homes instead
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

"They're willing to bring their New York aesthetic down into Miami, or their LA or Beverly Hills aesthetic down into Miami." Miami newcomers aren't afraid to break away from aesthetic normsEilyn, who said her design style is more personable and poised, was born and raised in Miami. The result is a modern beach home that includes elements of classic Miami design "mixed with the tranquility of Mykonos" that combines a simple color palette with pops of visual interest. "You can incorporate details that maybe you wouldn't see so much in Miami design," she said. It means they have a steady stream of work, with the possibility to be creative and stretch their imaginations as they shape the future of Miami design.

☆ Blackstone, Apollo brace for deteriorating commercial real estate market that one analyst says could lose 30% of its value
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-29 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | Alex Nicoll | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +8 min

Year-over-year price growth has already slowed for commercial properties, signaling souring outlooks that could reduce values by 20 to 30%, the strategists wrote in a report. Executives at the Bisnow event pointed to high rents on multifamily properties, though growth is softening. Yardi"If this doesn't clear the market, then I don't know what does," Marcus said of her multifamily properties, which she described as large and relatively new. Andrew Holm, a cohead of US investments at Ares, the owner of more than $50 billion in commercial real estate, is hunkered down for the long haul, however. At the Bisnow event, he was so bearish on commercial real estate that he struggled to name a single sector that might be attractive over the next six months.

☆ Apartment buildings are all the rage in real estate, and property-management company DoorLoop says it's 'riding that wave.' Here's the pitch deck it used to secure $20 million in funding.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

DoorLoop, a proptech firm, provides property-management systems to landlords. property-management systems to landlords. DoorLoop, a proptech company that provides property-management systems to landlords, is finding itself in the right place at the right time. Alpine Software Group, a part of the private-equity firm Alpine Investors with a stake in the real-estate software company Homebot, provided the newest funding. DoorLoop, founded in 2019, sells its property-management software to both residential and commercial landlord customers.

And layoffs at proptech companies have become all too common. That makes it harder for such startups to find customers as well as to woo funding from VCs. We've covered the hottest proptech startups before, but the current economic environment makes it much more difficult to determine which ones stand the best chance at success. To identify the startups that deserve the most attention right now, we polled a dozen venture capitalists who invest in proptech. Some VCs identified in this list recommended multiple proptech startups.

☆ At long last, the power is shifting to Denver homebuyers
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-09 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Over the past two years, frenzied demand and bidding wars prompted unprecedented price growth. In May, the Denver real-estate market was buzzing with activity. The seasonal increase in homebuying was underway, turbocharged by the pandemic demand that was worsening bidding wars and propelling prices to new heights. The housing market in the Rocky Mountain city was indeed at or near its peak, at least in the near term. Courtesy of Bonnie Hissey"It was long overdue and, in my opinion, welcome to try and get some balance back in the market," Hissey said.

☆ Student housing is one of the hottest real-estate investments right now. Here's how big investors like Blackstone and TPG are playing the market that just saw a record $6.1 billion of deals.
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-03 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The big investors TPG and the Cardinal Group made a bet on student housing in fall 2020. Investing in student housing seemed like an uncertain wager at best; no one knew when life would go back to normal. That's created an opportunity in niche asset classes, such as student housing, he added. The trend is not likely to end soon, with the cost of college housing on the same upward trajectory as tuition. With students, international and domestic, back at school again, student housing is hotter than ever.

☆ Why I left Florida: 7 people share why they're leaving the Sunshine State and warnings for people considering moving
▼ + stars: | 2022-07-23 | by ( Jordan Pandy | Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +1 min

'I'm 31 and spent my whole life in South Florida, but I wanted to be somewhere I could actually afford to settle down and buy a home soon. So I moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee.' Nicole Panesso, 31, who moved to Tennessee from Florida. The pandemic drew an influx of out-of-state movers and drove up housing costs in South Florida. Panesso, who was already renting a studio for $1,200 a month in Fort Lauderdale, knew she was ready to move on.

☆ I helped my dad get a tiny home for his Bay Area backyard. He nets $1,000 a month, and his property value is through the roof.
▼ + stars: | 2022-07-21 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Glenn Robinson came up with a plan for his parents: put a tiny house in their backyard for $185,000. The Robinsons clear $1,000 a month off the tiny house. I've been telling him for years, "Hey, Dad, you should put a tiny house in that backyard." I'm a co-owner of the tiny house and a bit of the project manager. My dad refinanced his home — we got a $230,000 home-equity loan and used $185,000 to pay for the tiny house.

Types of loans Conventional, FHA, VA, USDA, Arrive Home, Zero Down, jumbo, construction, refinancing, reverse mortgagesTerms 15 to 30 yearsCredit needed 540 for FHA, VA and USDA loans; 600 for Zero Down; 620 for conventional loans, 680 for jumbo loans. Standout benefits: You can be approved for a conventional mortgage with as little as 3% down and no mortgage insurance. Types of loans offered: The most common kinds of mortgage loans include conventional loans, FHA loans and VA loans. The most common kinds of mortgage loans include conventional loans, FHA loans and VA loans. After reviewing the above features, we sorted our recommendations by best for no down payment, affordability, no lender fees, low-income borrowers, VA loans, USDA loans and online lenders.

Persons: Ally, Freddie Mac, Chase DreaMaker, Chase Bank's DreaMaker, Chicago —, Chase, Homebuyers, Federal's, J.D, Powers, JD Powers, HomeOne, Power's, Fannie Mae Organizations: FHA, USDA, NAF, Bank, Ally, Chase Bank, Standard Agency, Chase, Chicago, Federal Credit, Navy, Navy Federal Credit Union, Navy Federal, PNC Bank, DC, PNC Community Loan, PNC, U.S . Department of Agriculture, Rocket Mortgage, Card, Rocket, U.S, Mortgage Guild Mortgage, Homebuyer, Better Business Bureau, JD, Better, Chase Bank Chase Bank, Federal Credit Union Navy Federal Credit Union, Defense Department, Bank PNC Bank, . Mortgage, Mortgage, Reserves National Guard, National Association of Realtors, CNBC, Federal, CNBC Select's, Facebook, Twitter Locations: VA, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit, Charlotte, North Carolina, New York City, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Washington, U.S, Oregon, Hawaii

☆ Can you — or should you — buy a house right now? Take our quiz to find out if rising rates and soaring prices will squeeze you out of your dream home.
▼ + stars: | 2022-06-29 | by ( Kelsey Neubauer | Andy Kiersz | Kazi Awal | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Rising mortgage rates, scant inventory, and soaring home prices are hard for house-hunting hopefuls. Take our quiz to find out if you're financially prepared to buy a house, even in this tough market. In 2020 and 2021, record-low mortgage rates and newfound work-from-home flexibility turbocharged demand for housing, resulting in astronomical price increases and seemingly endless bidding wars. Then see whether prevailing personal-finance advice recommends that you buy — and what your monthly mortgage payments would look like if you do. Zillow provides real-time mortgage rates.

Tiny homes had a coming-out party in 2022, as more places began building or budgeting for tiny home villages. Gimmicks aside, tiny homes are being used as solutions to housing crises in cities like Chicago or Bridgeton, New Jersey — where tiny homes are being used to house former inmates for free after their release. The often-modular approach of tiny homes can help reduce construction costs and make housing cheaper. Tiny homes can range in price and aesthetics, but typically remain under 600 square feet. We've compiled a list of the hottest tiny-home companies to look out for in 2023, all shaking up real estate in different ways.

An adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) has a rate that fluctuates over set intervals. After closing, the only way to change these terms is to refinance to another ARM or to a fixed-rate mortgage. ARM lenders comparison chart Minimum credit score required ARM loan types Better Business Bureau rating Rocket Mortgage 620 FHA ARM, VA ARM, 7/6 ARM, 10/6 ARM A+ Chase Bank 620 5/6 ARM, 7/6 ARM, 10/6 interest-only jumbo ARM A+ Ally Bank 620 7/6 ARM APros and cons of adjustable-rate mortgagesThe benefits and drawbacks of an ARM Pros Lower introductory rate. You can refinance your ARM mortgage it into a fixed-rate mortgage. FAQ How is an adjustable-rate mortgage different from a fixed-rate mortgage?

Persons: Chase Organizations: ARM, Jumbo, FHA, Rocket Mortgage, Card, Mortgage, Chase Bank, District of Columbia, Chase, First Federal, Bank Mortgage, USDA, Federal Bank, Better, Federal, Ally Bank, CNBC, CNBC Select's, Facebook, Twitter Locations: U.S, Kansas

While most lenders tend to require a minimum credit score of 620, Rocket Mortgage accepts applicants with credit scores as low as 580. Types of mortgage loans offered: Conventional, FHA, VA, USDA, jumbo Minimum credit score: 540 for FHA, 620 for conventional. For a conventional mortgage, lenders typically want a credit score 620. Types of loans offered: The most common kinds of mortgage loans include conventional loans, FHA loans and VA loans. The most common kinds of mortgage loans include conventional loans, FHA loans and VA loans.

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