Real Estate

Courtney Keating | Getty Images Mortgage rates dropped to the lowest level since March last week, sparking swift demand in refinancing. Homebuyers, however, seemed unimpressed. Applications to refinance a home loan jumped 15% last week, compared with the previous week, to the highest level since August 2022, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted

International buyers of U.S. residential real estate are running into the same hurdles as domestic buyers — namely high prices and tight supply — but they’re also up against a strong U.S. dollar, which makes the properties even more expensive for them. As a result, international buyers are pulling out. They purchased 54,300 existing homes

Housing is the most considerable expense for U.S. consumers — and while high rents and home prices are obstacles to saving for potential homebuyers, access to affordable credit is another significant roadblock.  An estimated 50 million Americans are “credit invisible,” according to a 2022 fact sheet from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s

With San Francisco facing record high commercial vacancies, one mayoral candidate has a plan to reshape the city’s business district and surrounding areas. Democrat Mark Farrell, former interim Mayor, is proposing a 20-year vision to revitalize San Francisco’s downtown in a bid to help the city bounce back from challenges exacerbated by the pandemic. His

America is embroiled in a housing crisis. The supply of homes is tight. The supply of affordable homes is even tighter, and persistently high mortgage rates make things even worse. But the extent of the problem varies from state to state. That is why companies take the local residential real estate market into account when

Recent signs that inflation is easing has paved the way for the Federal Reserve to start cutting interest rates as soon as this fall. The consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, dipped in June for the first time in more than four years, the Labor Department reported last week. “With abundant signs of a cooling economy, the

Oscar Wong | Moment | Getty Images Not every renter wanting to buy a home dreams of ditching their lease. Some wish to remain tenants even as they become landlords. The concept behind “rentvesting” is that an individual rents their primary residence in one city and then buys an investment property somewhere else that they

A home available for sale is shown on May 22, 2024 in Austin, Texas.  Brandon Bell | Getty Images When Rachel Burress moved into her mother’s house around a decade ago, it seemed like a short-term stop on the path to homeownership. The 35-year-old hairdresser spent those years improving her credit score and saving for

Prospective home buyers leave a property for sale during an Open House in a neighborhood in Clarksburg, Maryland on September 3, 2023. Roberto Schmidt | AFP | Getty Images It’s no secret that the housing market looks far different than it did a few years ago. While surging mortgage rates and housing prices have taken

The Third Plenum, set for July 15-18, is one of the most important political meetings of the Chinese Communist Party. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images BEIJING — China’s real estate problems may be massive, but analysts expect the upcoming Third Plenum to focus on other areas — such as high local government debt levels and a

Housing inflation has remained stubbornly high even as inflation in the broad U.S. economy has cooled significantly from peak levels during the pandemic era. Its painfully slow decline is the main impediment keeping the consumer price index from falling back to policymakers’ target, economists said. “We see it as the last remaining leg” before CPI

David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images Inflation fell further in June as lower gasoline prices combined with other easing price pressures to bring relief for consumers’ wallets. The consumer price index, a key inflation gauge, rose 3% in June from a year ago, down from 3.3% in May, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday. The