Month: May 2021

We’ve seen housing prices rising throughout the country so you may ask is buying still better than renting? According to a recent study from researchers at Florida Atlantic University and Florida International University, it is still better to buy than rent in most areas. The study looked at the top 23 metropolitan markets and analyzed if buyers bought a house and built equity or rented and reinvested the remaining income. Overall they found it was better to buy with savings coming from today’s still low interest rates, which lowered home owner costs even with the rise in housing prices. Of course all real estate is local so while the overall message of buying being the better strategy, results varied region to region.

There are a few primary factors in getting qualified for a loan, today we’ll talk about one, that you might be able to easily update – the credit score. Here are a few tips to make sure your score is accurate and possibly improve it. Before getting started you’ll obviously need to know your credit score and you can order a free report from one of the big 3 or get a merged credit report. 1. Avoid late and missed payments – this is a big one. If you have trouble keeping track and paying bills consider setting up automatic payments because late payments can be an easily avoidable ding on your score. 2. Make Sure Balances aren’t too high. If you are carrying balances of more than 30% of…

Forget earlier this year when we saw new home sales actually drop. New home sales for March went up... a lot, up more than 20% in March compared to February, according to data provided by HUD. In fact it wasn’t just a monthly increase but March saw the strongest new home sales in over 14 years! Not since September 2006 have new home sales been at a faster clip. A combination of low interest rates and high demand look to fuel new home growth for the foreseeable future. The biggest obstacle to new home construction now is a surge in lumber prices which is adding on over $35,000 to the cost of average new single family home according to the National Association of Home Builders. Overall new home sales growth…