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Housing starts move 3.3% higher in Nov.  Construction of new homes increased 3.3 percent in November with the gain largely coming from single-family houses being built at the strongest pace in more than a decade. The Commerce Department said Tuesday that builders broke ground on homes last month at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.3 million units. The increase marks a key moment in the recovery from the Great Recession: Builders started work on single-family houses at the fastest pace since September 2007, which was just a few months before the start of that economic downturn. Driving the rebound in home construction has been a shortage of existing properties being listed for sale. Fewer people are putting their property on the market, despite healthy demand from buyers because the unemployment rate is at a 17 year-low and mortgage rates remain at attractive levels. New construction has filled some of this gap with starts on single-family houses rising 8.7 perc...

Study: FSBOs net ‘significantly’ lower profits    Aug. 21, 2017 – For-sale-by-owners (FSBOs) tend to sell their homes for lower prices than homes sold through traditional agents via the MLS, and in many cases below the average differential represented by the prevailing commission rate, according to a  new study by Collateral Analytics . The study examined the price differences between homes sold through traditional agents versus those sold by FSBOs from 2016 to the first half of 2017. Some homeowners attempting to avoid commission costs attempt to sell their home on their own – but that can backfire and turn into a much lower sales price, the study found. Even successful FSBO sellers achieve prices "significantly below" those from similar properties sold more traditionally via Realtors ® , the study found. A FSBO sale, on average, nets nearly a 6 percent lower price than an MLS sale for a similar property, the study found. Overall, the authors found that th...

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LOW APPRAISALS HELP CASH BUYERS After Dallas-area real estate pro Laura Barnett put a listing on the market three weeks ago, it quickly received 22 offers. But Barnett didn't take the highest bid. Instead, she took a cash offer because she wanted to ensure that there were no hang-ups along the way toward closing. Appraisals, she says, aren't keeping up with sales prices, and if the appraisal doesn't match the contracted price, buyers often can't get a mortgage and never make it to settlement. "They're kind of putting a glass ceiling where we can't raise our prices any higher than we have comps to support it, so we're definitely going with more cash offers than we used to," Barnett, a real estate professional with RE/MAX DFW Associates, told CNBC. Younger, first-time buyers are feeling the brunt of the competition because they tend to be more mortgage-dependent and use low downpayment loans, which have stricter underwriting standards. ...

Now is the time to purchase new construction Trump slaps 20% tariff on Canadian softwood   WASHINGTON (AP) – April 25, 2017 – The Trump administration moved Monday to impose a 20 percent tariff on softwood lumber entering the United States from Canada, escalating an intensifying trade dispute between the two countries. The president announced the decision during a gathering with conservative media outlets at the White House Monday evening. Trump's initial comments were relayed by four people who were in the room and confirmed by an administration official. On Twitter, Breitbart News White House correspondent Charlie Spiering quoted Trump as saying, "We're going to be putting a 20 percent tax on softwood lumber coming in – tariff on softwood coming into the United States from Canada." The Commerce Department later announced it had reached a preliminary determination and would impose countervailing duties ranging from 3 percent to 24 percent on import...

Major changes coming to credit score calculations          The math behind your credit score is getting an overhaul, with changes big enough that they might alter the behavior of both cautious spenders as well as riskier borrowers. Most notably for those with high scores: Abiding by the golden rule of "don't close your credit card accounts" may now hurt your standing. On the other side, those with low scores may benefit from the removal of civil judgments, medical debts and tax liens as factors. Beyond determining whether someone gets approved for a credit card, a credit score can affect what interest rate and what spending limit are offered. The new method is being implemented later this year by VantageScore, a company created by the credit bureaus Experian, TransUnion and Equifax. It's not as well-known as Fair Isaac Corp., whose FICO score is used for the vast majority of mortgages. But VantageScore handled 8 billion account applications last y...