Real Estate

South_agency | E+ | Getty Images Inflation continued to retreat in March as energy prices pulled back from a year ago, when they began to spike due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But swings in gasoline and other energy mask price pressures that, while easing, remain under the surface, economists said. “It’s improving and the economy

Homes in Centreville, Maryland, US, on Tuesday, April 4, 2023.  Nathan Howard | Bloomberg | Getty Images Today’s housing market is so pricey that homebuyers are highly sensitive to any distinct moves in mortgage rates. And that’s what happened last week. Rates dropped, and buyers dove in. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate

They are majestic and beautiful and critical to the world economy. Coral reefs, often called the “rainforests of the sea,” support roughly 25% of all known marine species. They are vital not just to sea life, but to human life. And the planet has lost half its coral reefs since the 1950s due in large

Richard Baker | In Pictures | Getty Images Only two months ago, SL Green & Co. chief executive Marc Holliday was sounding happy. The head of New York’s biggest commercial landlord firm told Wall Street analysts that traffic to the company’s buildings was picking up, and more than 1 million square feet of space was

Solar panels create electricity on the roof of a house in Rockport, Massachusetts, U.S., June 6, 2022. Picture taken with a drone.  Brian Snyder | Reuters The residential real estate market has been volatile due to rising interest rates, but the peak spring season — if challenging for buyers and sellers — is here. For

Sweden’s house prices are expected to continue to plummet. Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty Images Sweden has long had one of Europe’s hottest housing markets, but prices have tumbled and are not set to recover for a long time, according to Danske Bank. Economists are also warning of a “false dawn,” as recent housing data suggests

In this article ZG Follow your favorite stocksCREATE FREE ACCOUNT A prospective home buyer is shown a home by a real estate agent in Coral Gables, Florida. Joe Raedle | Getty Images Today’s home sellers may be able to command higher prices due to recent increases. Certain luxury features may help sell your home for

An aerial view shows a flooded neighborhood in the unincorporated community of Pajaro in Watsonville, California, on March 11, 2023. Josh Edelson | Afp | Getty Images More than a decade after a U.S. mortgage meltdown threatened to destroy the international financial system, a “Big Short” investor once again sees financial disaster brewing in the

A “For Sale” sign outside a house in Albany, California, on Tuesday, May 31, 2022. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images Mortgage rates fell last week, but demand for home loans didn’t move higher as a result. Other aspects of today’s housing market are outweighing the benefit of lower mortgage rates right now,

A real estate project under construction in Shanghai’s newer Pudong district on Feb. 23, 2023. Future Publishing | Future Publishing | Getty Images BEIJING — More people in China want to buy houses again, according to a first quarter survey released Monday by the People’s Bank of China. The share of respondents planning to buy

Unexpectedly strong home sales at the start of this year just reversed a sharp, several-month decline in home prices. Mortgage rates are behind the swing. Home prices nationally rose 0.16% in February, when seasonally adjusted, according to Black Knight. That is the strongest one-month gain since May of last year. Home prices are now 2.6%

Scores of luxury homes are coming to major cities across the United States. Analysts at Yardi Matrix projected that more than 400,000 units were completed in 2022, and they expect another strong showing in 2023. Experts believe much of this new stock is built with upper-tier customers in mind. “You often see new housing branded as

A for sale sign is posted in front of a home for sale on February 20, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images It might seem like a great time to list your home for sale. Buyers are flooding back into the market, mortgage rates have fallen off their recent highs, and

An ‘open house’ flag is displayed outside a single family home on September 22, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. Allison Dinner | Getty Images Stress in the banking system turned out to be a boon for the U.S. mortgage market. As investors hid in the relative safety of the bond market, yields moved even lower

A For Sale sign displayed in front of a home on February 22, 2023 in Miami, Florida. Joe Raedle | Getty Images Higher mortgage rates took some of the juice out of the housing recovery in February. After a sharp gain in January, pending home sales rose just 0.8% month to month, according to the

A house is available for rent on March 15, 2022 in Los Angeles, California. Mario Tama | Getty Images Apartment rents have increased slightly for the past few months, as the seasonally stronger spring activity kicks in. But in March they were only up 2.6% from March of 2022. That’s the smallest annual gain since

Even when they don’t buy a fixer-upper, most people will end up doing some amount of repairs on a new home. About 95% of homeowners said they plan to take on a major home improvement project in the next five years, according to a recent report by Real Estate Witch. However, only 50% said they

A For Sale sign displayed in front of a home on February 22, 2023 in Miami, Florida. Joe Raedle | Getty Images Mortgage demand has increased for three straight weeks now, as interest rates dropped in response to the recent bank failures. But rates are rising again, and that could put a damper on application

Global warming has already caused irreversible damage to the earth’s ecosystems and communities, according to a critical report just issued from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The damage is extending to the U.S. housing market, which just saw unprecedented snow and flooding in California, as well as unusual winter tornados in the

Amid turmoil in the financial sector and uncertainty ahead, the Federal Reserve will likely approve a 0.25 percentage point increase at this week’s policy meeting.  That will mark one year since the central bank began the current rate-raising cycle.   Over the last 12 months, inflation spiked to a 40-year high and only recently started