Real Estate

First, you can still find bargains in these markets. Manufacturing still has a large role in Fayetteville (Walmart suppliers), Davenport, Peoria (Caterpillar), Rockford, Gary, Fort Wayne, South Bend, Wichita, Milwaukee and Green Bay - which makes these markets a bit riskier to invest in. And the markets with a large finance sector are also riskier because computers are doing more and more of the work. Despite these structural problems, growth is now returning to many Midwest markets - especially those that function as regional centers - because of the expansion of jobs in the healthcare and business services sectors. This both produces low home prices (because land isn't as scarce) and more difficulty for investors to decide exactly where within a market they want to invest—location, location, location. In these markets, home prices were up smartly in the past year, indicating good demand not just for single-family homes but for rentals as well. With prices still well below the income level and job growth above-average, demand is likely to keep pushing prices higher. Gary and South Bend are at the bottom of this list because their job growth has been less reliable. Apartments are a good bet in Lake County-Kenosha County and Minneapolis because of their higher density and higher rents. In these markets either demand or job growth are weak, or both.

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While this amount of debt has risen, the homeownership rate has fallen, and fallen more steeply among younger generations. To evaluate those trends, SALT® and the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) teamed up to conduct a survey of student loan borrowers who are currently in repayment in a new report entitled “Student Loan Debt and Housing Report: When Debt Holds You Back.” Notably, the median student loan debt amount is $41,200. Among non-homeowners, 83 percent cite student loan debt as the factor delaying them from buying a home. The delay in buying a home among homeowners is three years. Forty-two percent were delayed moving out of their family member’s home after college, regardless of whether they were buying a home. This delay has a financial impact on both parents and the student loan borrower. Twenty percent were delayed by at least two years in moving out of a family member’s home after college due to their student loans. While 20 percent are currently homeowners, 30 percent live with friends or family, and half (15 percent) do not pay rent. According to NAR’s Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, among recent homebuyers, 27 percent have student loan debt and the typical amount is $25,000. The share of those with student loan debt rises to 40 percent among first-time homebuyers.

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Student loan debt, currently estimated at 1.56 trillion is still impacting Millennial homebuyers according to a recent report from Bankrate.com. According to the report “31 percent of Americans say they currently have or have had student loan debt stemming from their own education.” It goes on to reveal, "an additional 13 percent of American adults financed another family member’s school expenses through student loans.” People responding to Banknote’s survey, 31% report they have delayed homeownership. No matter how many possible solutions are tossed around Washington and beyond on reducing the crushing burden of student loan debt, it remains one of the top reasons Millennials (23-38) are putting off buying a home. Consider that 39% of the respondents earn an annual income of $80,000 and over. Bankrate.com’s Senior Economic Analyst Mark Hamrick based in Washington sees it this way. Michael Pulver, senior vice president residential mortgage manager at Genesee Regional Bank in Rochester, New York sees some light emerging from this very dark tunnel. “What we have been seeing is an increase in the number of Millennials who do want to move from renting to buying. There are now some better programs out there with minimized down payment requirements –less than 3% down. This increases the affordability to be able to get into a home for that Millennial buyer. Here in upstate New York affordability is good.” Consider a current listing price of $127,900 for a 1,454 square foot colonial with hardwood floors and “updated kitchen.” Rick Ross, longtime college educational financing consultant has some insightful thoughts on the subject.

I think it’s great that these people are considering rental property, but most don’t know how to make the numbers work. For me, getting through the learning curve involved taking on board a number of lessons that I think are critical for people who want to use rental property as an investment vehicle for their future. Related: The Part-Time Investor’s Guide to Truly Passive Rental Income Lesson 1: A rental is a business. A large percentage of the time, when you look into market rents for your home, you’ll find that the rent you can expect to get cannot cover all of the expenses. Why do you even want a rental? This is how much gross income your rental could produce in a year once the mortgage is paid off. Then don’t forget that if you take this money as income, you will have to pay taxes on it. If you can’t do this, then you paid too much for the property and it will take years — sometimes decades — to make up for it. A rental is a property that is purchased at the right price. Would your house make a good rental?

Although it is possible to do with just a single family house (by doing a “live-in flip”), the phrase is more often used to describe the practice of buying a small multifamily property (a duplex, triplex, or fourplex), living in one unit, and renting the other units out. • Close Monitoring of Your Investment: When you live in your investment property, keeping an eye on the property and making sure it’s running at peak performance is easy. • Saved Expenses: Because you live at the property, you can manage the other tenants yourself very easily and don’t have to worry about paying a property manager who will do substandard work! The Plan To start the first year, we will buy a triplex. We’ll start small, because it’s our first property, though we could start with a two or a four-unit property. Triplexes in this area run between $210,000 and $230,000, depending on the condition. At this point, if the property were 100 percent rented out to tenants, it would bring in a total of $2,850 per month. At this point, our expenses look like this: Mortgage: $1,200 Utilities: $230 Vacancy: $142.50 Repairs: $142.50 CapEx: $142.50 Total Expenses: $1,857.50 If you’ll recall, our total monthly income on this property with the other two units rented out was $1,900. So our cash flow is as follows: $1,900.00 – $1,857.50 = $42.50 Now, we are not only living for free, but we are also making a small sum of money each month for doing so! But in the case of house hacking, including this figure is OK, because you will not be living in one of the units forever, either.

However, that does not mean that they do not still aspire to achieve those things. History shows that people tend to buy their first home around age 30. Nearly 5 million millennials will turn 30 in the next two years. This is also one of the many reasons why the millennial homeownership rate has continued to grow over the past few years. 48.4% of Americans between the ages of 30-34 now own a home. There are over 46 million millennials (33% of the generation) who are considered “Mortgage Ready”, meaning they meet the qualifications to be approved for a mortgage today! The biggest question is: Do they know it? …Unfortunately, many renters don’t investigate homeownership simply because they don’t believe it’s an option.” The good news is that more and more millennials are realizing that they can afford a home now. This is more than any other generation. Members: Sign in now to set up your Personalized Posts & start sharing today!

Whether you’re new to the industry or just haven’t quite mastered technology, now is the time to create a plan for digital marketing. With 51 percent of homebuyers finding their home online, you want clients to be able to find you and your listings easily. Below is a step-by-step guide on how you can successfully start an effective internet marketing plan for your business. Follow these digital marketing strategies, and you'll boost your company’s customer engagement in no time. Develop a personal brand and a business vision Real estate agents must distinguish themselves and their respective firms from competitors. This is an essential step if you want to make sure that you have an effective internet marketing plan for your business. If you are stumped on how to develop your own marketing plan, check out this article, and look for examples on the internet and from your peers. By developing a personal brand, you choose how your business is perceived by any prospective cl...