According to the Census Bureau, 2.8 million people commute to work 90 minutes or more each day, in each direction. Now, your daily commute may not be as long, but time spent in cars, trains and buses is time away from work and from family. Drive-time can affect a person’s Quality of Life and it’s [...]

Foreclosures stories dominate the national housing news. It seems at least one foreclosure-related story makes its way to the front page or the nightly news every week. But for as much as the foreclosure filing statistics can be astounding — over 300,000 homes were served last month alone — the prevalence of foreclosures depends on [...]

On the first Friday of every month, the U.S. government releases its Non-Farm Payrolls data from the month prior. The data is more commonly known as “the jobs report” and it swings a big stick on Wall Street. Especially now — many analysts believe job growth is tightly linked to the future of the U.S. [...]

The Pending Home Sales Index rose slightly in December, climbing 1 percent from November. A Pending Home Sale is a home that is under contract to sell, but not yet sold. It’s a figure compiled by the National Association of Realtors® using sales data from over 100 regional listing services and more than 60 large [...]

Reporting on a two-month lag, the government said home values rose 0.7 percent in November.  National home prices are at their highest point since February 2009. But before we look too much into the FHFA’s Home Price Index, it’s important that we’re cognizant of its shortcomings; the most important of which is its lack of [...]

A “Housing Start” is a privately-owned home on which construction has started. It’s an important gauge of housing health because it tracks new housing stock nationwide. In December 2009, starts fell by nearly 7 percent. The news is mildly disappointing but not too bad. The likely cause for the Housing Starts drop is December’s rough [...]

November 6, 2009, Congress voted to extend and expand the First-Time Home Buyer Tax Credit program.  There’s 100 days left to claim it. The expiration date of the up-to-$8,000 tax credit has been pushed forward to spring, requiring homebuyers to be under contract for a home no later than April 30, 2010, and to be closed [...]

Just one month after touching a 3-year high, the National Association of Realtors® Pending Home Sales index plunged in November.  A “pending” home sale is a home that is under contract to sell, but has yet to close. The 16 percent drop marks the first retreat in Pending Home Sales since January of last year. [...]

2010 is just a few days old and already the “experts” are making predictions for the year. Housing calls and mortgage rate predictions run the gamut: Home prices will fall in 2010 Home prices will rise in 2010 Mortgage rates will rise in 2010 Mortgage rates will rise by a lot in 2010 Given how [...]

To be notified when I write something new, sign up for daily email alerts or subscribe to the feed. It’s not only the real estate markets that differ from town to town — the Cost of Living does, too. Insurance costs, tax bills and just plain, day-to-day living will dent a household budget differently depending [...]