New Construction - Real Estate, Updates, News & Tips

New-Home Construction Surges to Highest Level in Decade

More new homes entered the pipeline in May than any other month since the end of the Great Recession. Total housing starts increased 5 percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate pace of 1.35 million units, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday. That marks the highest housing starts since July 2007.Broken out, single-family starts rose 3.9 percent to 939,000 units in May—the second-highest reading since the Great Recession. The multi

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Real Estate Developers Take Wellness Into Account

A growing number of developers believe wellness home features are a big pull for buyers. The wellness real estate boom first sought to make office environments healthier, and now it is focusing more on the residential market, according to a new report released by the Global Wellness Institute. Homes that are designed for wellness usually focus on energy efficiency and sustainable construction first, and then look at wellness programs withi

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Millennials Are the ‘Renovation Generation’

Millennials aren’t turned off by home improvement projects. They are more likely than any other generation to remodel any part of their home, according to a HomeAdvisor’s 2018 True Cost Survey. Millennials are twice as likely as baby boomers to complete bathroom and kitchen remodeling projects.  They are also more likely to build a deck or porch and paint a home’s exterior than other generations too.Millennials, those born between 1980 an

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With $1.9B in Sales, Agent Sets World Record

Texas real estate pro Ben Caballero is making headlines again by topping his previous sales record in 2016 with a new world record of $1.9 billion in home sales in 2017, according to an announcement on Monday.Caballero sold 4,799 homes last year, which totaled $1.906 billion. Caballero is a real estate professional with HomesUSA.com in Addison, Texas. In 2016, his $1.444 billion in sales among 3,556 homes landed him the title as real estate’s

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Builders Face ‘Cluster Mailbox’ Requirements

The U.S. Post Office has been attempting to reduce or eliminate sidewalk and curbside delivery to single-family homes, and the new construction market is feeling the affects, the National Association of Home Builders reports on its Eye on Housing blog. In a new NAHB survey, 64 percent of single-family builders say they’ve had a local post office require a “cluster mailbox” on one of their developments; 36 percent say they have not encounter

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Fannie Makes Manufactured Housing Loans Cheaper

Fannie Mae is seeking to bridge the gap in affordable housing by making manufactured housing a more acceptable alternative to traditional built-on-site housing. It hopes to do that with its MH Advantage program, which is lowering down payment requirements and lender fees on manufactured housing loans.The new MH Advantage loans require a 3 percent down payment, which is down from 5 percent in Fannie’s existing manufactured housing loan. Also, F

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With Rentals, Concessions Becoming the Norm

Many markets are being saturated with new apartment buildings, and developers in some of the most popular markets are now finding they need to offer incentives to tenants in order to fill growing vacancies.After years of rental hikes, tenants are now finding themselves in the driver’s seat as more landlords look to aggressively court them. Some developers reportedly are offering new residents a month or two of free rent or free parking, accordi

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New-Home Features Change as Inventory Rises

New construction inventory has reached its highest point since the Great Recession, with the number of new single-family homes rising 7.7 percent between 2016 and 2017 to 795,000 units, according to the Census Bureau’s 2017 Characteristics of New Housing report. “It’s good that there’s more construction, but there’s still plenty of room for more building,” says realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale. “Builders are obviously c

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The Best Housing Markets for Home Flippers

House flipping activity surged to an 11-year high this year, with more than 207,000 homes flipped, according to ATTOM Data Solutions, a real estate data firm. But the key is knowing where to be and when. “The sweet spot for successful home flipping is finding the neighborhoods just emerging as the next hot neighborhoods in a city,” says Daren Blomquist, a senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions. The firm says the average profit for a

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Hawaii Homes Were Built Despite Lava Risk

Lower Puna is one of the most affordable places to live in Hawaii, but the subdivisions were also built on an area long known to be under a lava hazard, The Wall Street Journal reports. So far, Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano has destroyed more than 80 houses and other structures and has forced hundreds of residents to evacuate since its eruption near residential neighborhoods on May 3.But some homeowners may have originally been willing to overlook

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