California property owners, developers and affordable housing advocates are scoring a big win from the US Supreme Court! The high court ruled that local “impact fees” imposed on newly constructed homes can be challenged in court. This is a significant win for property rights because these fees can add a substantial amount of money onto the price of a home.   The case began with a lawsuit by George Sheetz in California’s El Dorado County. That’s in the foothills heading toward Lake Tahoe. Sheetz is a 72-year-old retiree who applied for a permit in 2016 to build an 18-hundred square foot ma ..read more

In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending April 15th, 2024... why the latest inflation reports could postpone the Fed’s rate-cutting plan, how inflation continues to impact construction costs, and why homeowners are getting sticker shock from property tax bills.   We begin with economic news from this past week that was dominated by two of the latest inflation reports. The Consumer Price Index or CPI came out on Wednesday and the Producer Price Index or PPI came out on Thursday.   Unfortunately for everyone wanting a great inflation report, the March CPI was hotter than expe ..read more

 Florida Realtors are celebrating a new law that makes it easier for property owners to remove squatters. It’s become a crisis situation across the nation when squatters take control of a property and claim they are the victims. Florida has changed that, but property owners also need to protect themselves from the illegal occupation of their rightful homes...   ...You should also know your rights and the rights of squatters (if they have any) for the area where your property is located. If squatters don’t leave when you ask them, you may have to file an eviction notice and take them ..read more

Demand for housing in and around Dallas, Texas continues to soar. While investors have been pouring millions of dollars into creating more affordable housing, the metro is attracting so many people that tens of thousands of homes are still needed. Supply isn’t expected to catch up to demand any time soon.   An article in Bisnow says that investors have put a record amount of money into the area, but it hasn’t done much to close the affordable housing gap. Executive director of the Texas Affiliation of Affordable Housing Providers, Roger Arriaga, says: “The demand is excruciatingly big. We ..read more

In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending April 6th, 2024... more prognostications on when the central bank may cut rates, which major cities are attracting the most home buyers, and why artificial intelligence could have a negative impact on commercial real estate.   We begin with economic news from this past week. Fed Chief Jerome Powell expressed caution about when we might see the first interest rate cut. While many economists have been predicting three rate cuts this year with the first happening in June, Powell said it’s too soon to say exactly when it may be appropriate to ..read more

With the help of artificial intelligence, there's a new wild, wild west on the internet, where scammers are pretty much free to pick your pocket. Security experts are warning people that you can be scammed out of money or even real estate by deepfake audio or video clips. And there aren’t a lot of safeguards in place right now. The technology is evolving more quickly than security experts can design or implement safeguards. As reported by Bigger Pockets, scammers orchestrated a $25 million dollar heist by impersonating the CEO of a multinational company. Hong Kong authorities say the money was ..read more

In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending March 30th, 2024...yet another hot inflation report that we shouldn’t worry about, a turnaround in rent growth, and criticism for the Fed about the impact of high rates.   We begin with economic news from this past week. Another inflation report shows that we still have a few bumps in the road to deal with. The government released a report on the PCE for February which shows a sharp increase in prices. The Personal Consumption Expenditure Index was up .3%. That’s slightly below the .4% that Wall Street economists had predicted. The core r ..read more

In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending March 23rd, 2024... why the latest Fed meeting provided some assurance about potential rate cuts in the months ahead, what you would pay for a home if home price growth hadn’t outpaced inflation, and how Airbnb is dealing with the use of monitoring devices like indoor cameras. We begin with economic news from this past week. The Fed held rates steady at the March meeting this last week, and suggested that we’re likely to see “three” quarter-percent rate cuts this year. The current short-term interest rate is between 5.25% and 5.5%. If rates ar ..read more

Regional banks are still under pressure because of their exposure to commercial real estate loans. A new study shows that almost 300 banks are at risk of failure if they don’t get an infusion of cash or merge with another institution. And the risk grows as time drags on with higher short-term interest rates. Consulting firm Klaros Group analyzed about 4,000 banks. It found that 282 or more than 7% of the banks in the study are under stress, and that most of the ones at risk are community banks with less than $10 billion in assets. But it also found that 16 regional banks holding $10 and $100 b ..read more

For the first time in 17 years, Japan is hiking short-term rates from negative to positive. Japan has been battling deflation and economic stagflation since the worldwide economic crisis and was the lone hold-out among several countries experimenting with negative rates. This last week, that experiment ended with a rate hike from negative  .1% to between zero and positive .1%.   The Japanese economy has been suffering through a very long period of stagflation. This has been going on since the late 1990’s but the decision to lower short-term rates happened sometime after the 2007 to 2 ..read more