The scams begin with a hunt through public records for vacant land, an absentee owner and no mortgage. Look for red flags, like a refusal to talk in person. CHICAGO – Real estate professionals should watch for these red flags in the course of the transaction. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center warns that losses from real estate and rental scams are steadily increasing, reaching more than $396 million last year. Scammers are plotting…
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Home and Real Estate News
SEATTLE – Baby boomers planning to downsize in retirement face a dilemma: Should they sell now while home prices are high since rising mortgage rates could push a drop in those prices – or should they hold onto their current home that’s too large because their current interest rates is somewhere in the 3% range? Life goes on regardless of any current real estate market, and the decision covers more issues than…
Frustrated with the lack of existing-home inventory, more buyers turned to new construction in Sept. despite mortgage rates that topped 7%. WASHINGTON – Despite elevated mortgage rates averaging above 7%, single-family starts posted a solid gain in September as more buyers turned to builders after facing a dearth of inventory in the resale market. Overall housing starts increased 7% in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.36 million units, according…
Property Insurance Fix Likely Won’t Lower Rates FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Home insurance costs in Florida are unlikely to fall even as reforms enacted by the state Legislature last year drive down litigation rates, a national insurance analyst predicted in a newly released report. The report by Karen Clark & Company, titled “Managing Expectations: Why Florida Homeowners Insurance Premiums Are Not Likely to Go Down,” says rising inflation rates, reinsurance costs and…
Property appraisal tax rules vary by county, but they’re similar. A Q&A with the Citrus County property appraiser offers insight about a sometimes confusing concept. CITRUS COUNTY, Fla. – Question: “Does my spouse need to apply for Homestead even though they’re not listed on the deed?” Answer: If you guessed yes, you are right! Married couples can claim only one Homestead Property Tax Exemption. If both of you currently own a homesteaded property,…
Study: Fla. leaped past New York to be No. 2 in housing values, trailing only Calif. S. Fla. (No. 5) and Tampa (No. 18) made the “top 20 most valuable metros” list. SEATTLE – The total value of the U.S. housing market surged more than $2.6 trillion over the past year, according to a Zillow analysis, largely due to rising home prices and the value of new construction. Florida has been at…
FTC: Financial scams, including cryptocurrency schemes, cost consumers $3.8B last year just in the U.S. – twice as much as in 2021. NEW YORK (AP) – Social media is full of scammers promising guaranteed returns on investment, and consumers lost billions of dollars to them last year. Troy Gochenour, 50, of Columbus, Ohio, was conned out of $25,800, including $15,800 in borrowed money, in a crypto-mining scam that began with a WhatsApp…
NAR: Buyer demand is stronger than it appears as 15%-27% of buyers (by ethnic group) wait for lower home prices and 18%-25% wait for lower mortgage rates. WASHINGTON – The current real estate market’s high home prices and mortgage rates, as well as limited inventory, are the top reasons that Realtors® and prospective homebuyers across races and ethnicities cite as barriers to purchasing a home, according to two new reports from the…
Existing homes can be elevated – a mitigation strategy for storm surge – and federal programs will help pay for it. But the program comes with hurdles. MIAMI – After storm surge from Hurricane Idalia flooded homes in Tampa Bay and Florida’s Big Bend region, state officials are asking homeowners to tap into a federal program to help pay to elevate homes. “It is one of the best programs that we have…
Residents of the small, rural areas of the state’s “Nature Coast” fear the high costs of rebuilding will price them out and they’ll lose their “old Florida” way of life. HORSESHOE BEACH, Fla. – The Gulf of Mexico obliterated some of the old wooden clapboard homes and pushed others around, some left cracked and broken in the middle of the road. Fishing guide Hope Reinke’s home, similarly rustic but elevated on stilts, survived…