Real Estate

Brandon Bell | Getty Images Brace yourself for another competitive year in the housing market. Home sales are expected to grow 6.6% in 2022, a 16-year high, according to Realtor.com. The typical winter lull isn’t even necessarily happening. Home prices actually accelerated from November to December, said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com. While Realtor.com

Apartment buildings on the Upper East Side neighborhood of New York. Victor J. Blue | Bloomberg | Getty Images Manhattan rents hit their highest level ever for a December as the supply of apartments plummeted and landlords started demanding double-digit increases. The average apartment rent in Manhattan hit $4,440 in December, while the more widely

Ubiquitous Energy solar energy capturing windows installed at Michigan State University. Courtesy of Ubiquitous Energy A material science start-up, Ubiquitous Energy, is raising tens of millions of dollars to turn windows into surfaces that capture solar energy. The California start-up announced on Tuesday it closed a $30 million funding round, including an investment from consumer

An “Open House” sign is displayed in the front yard of a home for sale in Columbus, Ohio. Ty Wright | Bloomberg via Getty Images Mortgage rates have moved to their highest level in more than a year, and that may have potential homebuyers nervous that their affordability window is closing faster than expected. Home

Higher prices are already taking a toll. As consumers pay more for everything from groceries to gasoline, household income is failing to keep pace with a higher overall cost of living, according to recent reports. Over the past two years, median income fell 3% while the cost of living rose nearly 7%, due, in part,

An elderly couple walk past a sign in front of Shimao Tower, developed by Shimao Group Holdings Ltd., in Shanghai, China, on Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022. Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images BEIJING — Chinese real estate developer Shimao Group Holdings pushed back Tuesday on reports of default and sales of prime property. Shimao

A pedestrian walks by a Wells Fargo home mortgage office in San Francisco. Justin Sullivan | Getty Images If you’re in the market for a home and haven’t locked in a mortgage rate yet, that home just got more expensive.  The average rate on the popular 30-year mortgage hit 3.64% Monday morning, after rising sharply

For many homeowners, the pandemic offered an unprecedented opportunity to build wealth. Those opportunities still exist, even though they are getting harder to come by. Thanks to skyrocketing housing prices, the amount of home equity is at an all-time high. As of the third quarter of last year, homeowners held $9.4 trillion in equity to

In this article 813-HK Pedestrians near the Riviera Garden residential property, developed by Shimao Group Holdings Ltd., in Shanghai, China, on Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022. Qilai Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images Shares of Shimao spiked nearly 7% on Monday after Chinese business publication Caixin reported the embattled developer is selling all of its real

InterContinental Shanghai Wonderland, a luxury hotel developed by Shimao and managed by IHG, opened in 2018 and is pictured here on Oct. 11, 2020. Costfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images BEIJING — One of China’s healthiest real estate developers has reportedly defaulted, a sign of how more pain is ahead for the heavily indebted

The Covid pandemic caused a surge in housing costs and a rise in unemployment, leaving nearly 600,000 Americans unhoused in 2020. “What people don’t typically realize when they walk past a person who’s homeless is that this person is costing taxpayers a lot of money,” said Sam Tsemberis, chief executive officer at Pathways Housing First

A 105,000-square-foot megamansion, known as “The One,” in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles listed Friday for $295 million, making it the most expensive listing in America. The property, which has been a decade in the making, would be the most expensive home ever sold in the U.S. if it gets its asking price

Austin, Texas. Ryan Martinez | Moment | Getty Images Several states have stopped accepting applications for federal rental assistance. The programs in New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Texas, as well as Washington, D.C., are either closed or on hold, leaving many struggling renters cut off from their only hope of paying off their debt

Home prices and rents are soaring, but home prices are rising faster. And that’s shrinking the affordability gap between owning a home and renting one. Median-priced, single-family homes are less affordable than they have been historically in just over three quarters of the nation. That’s up from 39% at the end of 2020, and it’s

Jb Reed | Bloomberg | Getty Images The economic damage from the omicron variant of the coronavirus is now expected to be less than initially thought, and that has interest rates back on their upward trajectory yet again. As a result, mortgage demand fell 2.7% to end 2021, compared with two weeks before, according to

FG Trade | E+ | Getty Images Even as the coronavirus continues to upend American life, most pandemic-era relief measures have dried up by now. The recent shelving of the Build Back Better Act, the massive spending bill with a number of provisions to lift up middle-class families, means the chances for new relief is

China’s property developers could come under greater scrutiny for flouting environmental laws, as Beijing steps up efforts to reinforce rules, according to one portfolio manager.  The latest move by Chinese authorities to order indebted property developer China Evergrande to demolish 39 buildings of its Ocean Flower Island project came as a surprise to many, said Teresa Kong,

Manhattan real estate posted its best year ever, rebounding from the pandemic with a record $30 billion in deals, according to real estate reports. More than 16,000 contracts were signed to reach the $30 billion total — both breaking records, according to a report from Corcoran. Many had thought the market would never return to

A “Sold” sign is displayed outside a home under construction at a Lennar Corp. development in Montgomery, Illinois. Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images As the broader markets rallied to start the new year Monday, the homebuilding sector sold off. The iShares US Home Construction ETF lost 2.69% on Monday, its worst day since

In this article 3333-HK An exterior view of China Evergrande Centre in Hong Kong, China March 26, 2018. Bobby Yip | Reuters BEIJING — Indebted property developer China Evergrande‘s contracted sales plunged last year as the real estate giant struggled to repay creditors. A filing Tuesday showed the company’s contracted sales of properties totaled 443.02