First impressions are the key to successfully marketing a home. More homeowners are recognizing this fact and taking action to maximize their home’s first-impression appeal. Home staging is becoming an essential part of a marketing program for residential real estate. ...

Tagged with: Jim Woodard

Mortgages continue to loosen their tight restrictions while maintaining historically low interest rates. That’s very good news for homebuyers and sellers in today’s market. Mortgage credit availability increased in March, according to the Mortgage Credit Availability Index (MCAI), a report ...

Tagged with: Jim Woodard

The office market is recovering nicely, particularly in areas with much high-tech business activity. Those technology-dominated markets are making the most headway, according to a new report from Reis Inc., a real estate research firm. The top-performing office markets tend ...

Tagged with: Jim Woodard

Spring is the most popular time for homeowners to launch or plan for remodeling projects. Many owners are opting for projects that will satisfy their personal needs for a growing family, while others want to enhance their home’s value. Nearly ...

Tagged with: Jim Woodard remodeling

In recent years, there has been a substantial increase in the number of individual and family renters. There has also been a steady rise in rents. Those rental costs have been rising more rapidly than household incomes, thus making it ...

Tagged with: Jim Woodard

Many leading analysts are now predicting a robust home-selling year in 2015. Here’s a quote from Len Kiefer, deputy chief economist at Freddie Mac: “This month kicks off spring home-buying season. Between now and the end of June, we’ll see ...

Tagged with: Jim Woodard

Surprisingly, historically low mortgage rates recently dropped a bit lower. At the same time, mortgages are becoming more available to consumers. Mortgage availability increased in February, according to the Mortgage Credit Availability Index, a report from the Mortgage Bankers Association, ...

Tagged with: Jim Woodard

The key factors are now in place for exceptional growth in housing this year, leading analysts and housing organizations have reported. The economy started the year on an upbeat note, and it’s expected to continue to stay strong in 2015, ...

Tagged with: Jim Woodard

First, a bit of clarification. Boomerangs are young people who have moved out of their parents’ home only to move back in. Millennials are those born during the 1980s and 1990s. In this report, we are focusing on those born ...

Tagged with: Jim Woodard

Markets throughout the country are reporting increasingly strong gains in housing activity, according to reports from leading analysts. One of those reports shows markets in 63 of the approximately 350 metro areas nationwide have returned to or exceeded their last ...

Tagged with: Jim Woodard