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Asking family for down payment help? Join the club!

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Asking family for down payment help? Join the club!

Millennials are living at home longer to avoid paying high rent or to save for their own down payment. This is not news. Millennials are even asking their parents to refinance their own home in order to help with all-cash offers to win bidding wars. You may have already heard about this one also.

But did you know that Millennials are hardly alone, at least when it comes to receiving home-buying assistance from family. In ValueInsured’s latest Modern Homebuyer Survey, it is reported that nearly 1 in 4 interested homebuyers plan to seek down payment help from a family member. What’s more interesting is that the pattern is near universal, across demographic segments.

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Not all homeowners confident their home has retained its value

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Not all homeowners confident their home has retained its value

It is not a surprise that a minority yet still sizeable share of homeowners in ValueInsured’s latest Modern Homebuyer Survey express less than fair level of confidence that they could sell their home for the same or more than what they paid for. Overall, homeowners’ confidence level is high. Nationally, 72% of all homeowners are confident their home has retained or increased in value since they bought it. There are, however, segments of homeowners that show lower level of confidence.

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Housing news suddenly worrisome? Homeowners and buyers saw it coming.

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Housing news suddenly worrisome? Homeowners and buyers saw it coming.

In recent weeks, we are beginning to see “unexpected” housing headlines that are not quite rosy: U.S. existing home sales unexpectedly fall in July, Sales of new homes drop 9.4%, decline way exceeds expectations, Pending home sales drop 2.6% in August; top Realtors economist warns housing market "stalled". Home prices are still up nationally and way up in some hot markets such as Seattle and Denver, but analysts are starting to report “warning signs”. Just this week, CoreLogic reported nearly half of the largest 50 markets in the nation are overvalued. If some of us are surprised, it appears homeowners and homebuyers may not be.

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83% of homeowners say now is a good time to sell, so why aren’t they selling?

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83% of homeowners say now is a good time to sell, so why aren’t they selling?

At first glance, this should have been the best time for homeowners to sell their homes. After all, it’s been dubbed the “strongest seller's market ever”. In ValueInsured’s latest Modern Homebuyer Survey, 83% of all homeowners in America believe “now is a good time to sell”. So the 29.6 trillion-dollar question is: why aren’t they selling?

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Top 5: What keeps American homebuyers up at night?

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Top 5: What keeps American homebuyers up at night?

We can all agree that home buying is a rewarding and exciting journey, but it’s not without bumps along the way and anxious moments. While 78% of all non-homeowners in America say they want to buy a home (ValueInsured July 2017 Modern Homebuyer Survey), 72% of potential homebuyers say they expect to experience stress during the home-buying process.

ValueInsured asked homebuyers in its latest survey what concerns keep them up at night when they are planning to buy a home. The top 5 answers make sense, but there are some regional and demographic differences.

Can homebuyers today actually afford the homes they buy?

Can homebuyers today actually afford the homes they buy?

Last week, ATTOM data Solutions, curator of the nation’s largest multi-sourced property database, reported that nearly 1 in 4 (22.8%) of all purchase loan originations in our country now require a co-borrower(s)’ credit to afford the loan approved. Co-borrowers are multiple, non-married borrowers listed on the mortgage. In some of the nation’s top real estate markets – which are coincidentally some of the most expensive with rapidly rising home prices – co-borrower rates are eye-popping: half of all new home loans in San Jose now needs a co-borrower’s credit to satisfy the loan requirement (51%), nearly half in Miami (45%), 39% in Seattle, 31% in Los Angeles and 29% in San Diego.

It begs the question: can these new homebuyers actually afford the homes they buy?

Once and for all: the American Dream is alive and meaningful

Once and for all: the American Dream is alive and meaningful

We don’t know when it began, but the American Dream seems to have earned itself a bad name, or at least the accusation of being irrelevant. We all have heard the American Dream is dead –here, here, and here – in too many headlines to list; a report just released last week declared 75% of Americans are losing faith in the Dream, and that just 1 in 5 say they are living it. But somehow, for something that is supposedly irrelevant or on life support, the American Dream finds itself in the news a lot, particularly lately. So let’s get to the bottom of this: do Americans care about the American Dream, or not?  Short answer: yes.

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