Real Estate

There’s a “big risk” of real estate companies filing for insolvency when interest rates rise, according to a partner at consulting firm Kearney.Nils Kuhlwein pointed out that the global financial crisis of 2008 started with a real estate and housing price bubble and mortgage defaults in the United States.”What we are now seeing again, 13… More

Home prices are rising faster than rents, which is shrinking the affordability gap between being a homeowner and a tenant.Median-priced, single-family homes are less affordable in just over three quarters of the nation — the highest total in 13 years, according to ATTOM, a real estate data tracker. That’s up from 39% at the end… More

Construction materials for a new home being built by CastleRock Communities in the Sunfield neighborhood of Buda, Texas, U.S., on Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2021.Matthew Busch | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesAt some point the price is just too high. That may be increasingly the case for potential buyers of newly built single-family homes.Sales of those homes… More

The New York City rental market is regaining strength.In November, the net effective median rent for Manhattan rose 16.7% compared with last year, according to the most recent rental report from brokerage firm Douglas Elliman and real estate appraisal firm Miller Samuel. That’s the second-straight month of record rates.”We’re in many ways shocked, and we’ve… More

Germany’s central bank warned Thursday about skewed valuations in the housing market, calling it a “specific vulnerability” as property prices continue to soar.”We have basically seen all indicators — prices, credit — those indicators kept increasing in Germany and you don’t really see a big effect of the pandemic,” Claudia Buch, vice-president at the Bundesbank… More

A property for sale in Monterey Park, CaliforniaFrederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty ImagesMortgage rates fell for the second straight week last week, and that helped boost refinance demand for the first time in a while. As a result, total mortgage application volume rose 5.5% last week compared with the previous week, according to… More

A pending sale sign in front of a home in Miami.Getty ImagesPending home sales, which are a measure of signed contracts to buy existing homes, fell an unexpected 2.3% in September compared with August, according to the National Association of Realtors.Analysts were predicting a slight monthly gain. Sales were 8% lower compared with September 2020.Pending… More

U.S. homebuyers apparently aren’t all that interested in paying their mortgages in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.United Wholesale Mortgage, which made its public debut in January via a special purpose acquisition (SPAC) merger, began piloting crypto payments in August in a first for the industry. But CEO Mat Ishbia now tells CNBC that after testing it out, the company… More

A crowd of supporters including elected officials, legal professionals and concerned neighbors gathered to attempt to stop an illegal eviction of a resident in Bushwick, Brooklyn during the State mandated moratorium due to the pandemic, August 8, 2020.Erik McGregor | LightRocket | Getty ImagesNew York state lawmakers have voted to extend an eviction protection for… More

Starting later this year, U.S. homebuyers will have the option to pay for their mortgage in bitcoin.United Wholesale Mortgage, which made its public debut in January via a special purpose acquisition (SPAC) merger, announced plans this week to accept cryptocurrency for home loans, in what is being billed as a first for the national mortgage… More

Easy credit is becoming less available in China’s real estate market, but CapitaLand Group’s Andrew Lim says fiscally prudent firms could stand to benefit.”In the current climate where other companies may be more fiscally challenged without access to credit, we’re now in the position to sort of level the playing field,” Lim, CapitaLand’s group chief… More

Major credit ratings agencies this week downgraded China’s most indebted property developer Evergrande, as concerns over Asia’s junk bond sector rise. Fitch Ratings on Wednesday downgraded China Evergrande one notch from B to CCC, saying that the negative developments surrounding Evergrande may weaken investor confidence, further pressuring its liquidity. A rating of CCC means there’s a “real… More

The race to reduce carbon emissions is heating up, much like the planet itself is. But reducing emissions alone will not be enough to stop what’s happening.It is not even enough to reach the goal of the Paris climate agreement, which is to limit global in this century to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.There… More