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The government is doing everything it can to prop up the housing market. But when those props disappear, will we see foreclosures? Investors capitalized on the foreclosure crisis during the Great Recession. Many single-family homes were snapped up at fire-sale prices, and turned into rentals. But, investors hoping for a similar situation may be waiting for quite some time. According to some experts, we will probably see a surge in defaults and foreclosures, but not at such a grand scale and not for several months or even a couple of years.    www.NewsForInvestors.com    

Some of the nation’s biggest landlords are betting on a surge in demand for single-family rentals in the suburbs. JPMorgan Asset Management and American Homes 4 Rent announced a joint venture to build 2,500 new single-family rentals in western and southwestern high-growth markets. They say the deal will capitalize on a post-pandemic desire to move away from apartments in crowded cities. It will also help address a lack of existing home inventory.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

It was only a few months ago that cities were worried about how to keep their low-income residents. Now there’s concern that the need for social distancing is chasing big companies and their highly-paid employees away. The post-pandemic office environment is going to be different, and there are signs already that businesses are rethinking their office space needs.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending May 30th, 2020... mortgage rates have hit a new record low, landlords keeping tenants with shorter terms, and buyers want homes with outdoor features.   We begin with economic news from this past week, and signs of life in the housing market. New home sales were up .06% from March to April, although they were down more than 6% from April of last year. But the increase beat analyst expectations, with the biggest rise in the Northeast. Home sales were up almost 8% in that region.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

Choosing between an Airbnb and a hotel will now include COVID-19 risk factors for many people, and at first glance, some travelers may think hotels are better at keeping things clean. But there are several factors to consider when choosing a place to stay overnight, including cleaning and disinfecting procedures. Both lodging options have their benefits and their risks.   An article in the New York Times gives hotels the edge over home-sharing services like Airbnb and VRBO. It says that, for years, Airbnb has disrupted the travel industry with more affordable, home-like accommodations, but that COVID-19 is now disrupting the disruptor, in reference to Airbnb. That includes other home-sharing options as well, like VRBO.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

States across the nation are giving businesses the green light to reopen, but where are the employees? It seems that a very generous unemployment bonus, authorized by the CARES Act, may be contributing to a decision to remain unemployed. The government is handing out a $600-a-week bonus on top of regular unemployment benefits/ Now, many are getting more from unemployment than they did when they were working.   The fact that people are getting this bonus has probably contributed to high rent collection numbers. People have had the money they need to keep up with their obligations. That’s the whole point of the extra money, to keep people as close to financially whole as possible.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending May 23rd, 2020... we have a new start to the economy, builder confidence, and markets where home prices are rising.   We begin with economic news from this past week, and the beginnings of an economic reopening for all 50 states. Although reopening guidelines are different from state to state, many are lifting restrictions on recreational activities for Memorial Day weekend, with the appropriate social safety measures.   There’s been a decreasing number of COVID-19 cases and deaths across the nation and in Europe. Africa and other parts of the Americas are still seeing an increase. So the world is not out of the woods yet. But the holiday weekend may mark a turning point for the U.S.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

While many short-term rental owners can’t attract guests right now, others can’t get rid of them. There’s word that wealthy guests are squatting in fancy summer rentals because of the coronavirus ban on evictions. That’s putting owners in a tough spot. There’s word that property owners are worried they could miss out on the summer tourist season.   It’s not clear if this is happening in other areas, but the New York Post writes that some short-term guests in the Hamptons are refusing to leave, once their reservations have ended. Local landlords and real estate brokers say these tenants moved into their water-front accommodations before the eviction ban went into place and are now saying they can’t afford to pay the rent, or to move anywhere else. And these are not cheap places or low-income guests.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

The Florida governor is taking steps to restart the vacation rental business but some short-term rental operators are not very happy about the rules. Governor Ron DeSantis banned most short-term rentals in March, while allowing hotels and other kinds of lodging to remain open. Some have filed a lawsuit over a vacation rental ban that they feel has unfairly singled them out.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending May 16th, 2020... a $3-trillion relief bill that will help landlords, a new surge in mortgage applications, and a heart-warming rent payment story out of St. Louis.   We begin with economic news from this past week, and House approval of a $3-trillion relief package that includes $100 billion for a national rental assistance program and $75 billion in mortgage relief for multi-family landlords. It also provides another round of stimulus checks for individual taxpayers, and almost $1 trillion to state and local governments faced with steep declines in tax revenue. It’s not clear how the legislation will fare in the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently said that the three coronavirus bills already approved are enough for the time being.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

A return to normal means winning the war against COVID-19 and one weapon in our war chest could be a UVC light bulb. Man-made UVC devices are not new, but their use is expanding as a way to kill the virus. Amazon just announced the development of a UVC robot to disinfect warehouses and Whole Foods grocery stores. There’s also another development at Columbia University that could easily kill this virus and keep future ones from ever getting a foothold.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

A national rent tracker for apartments shows that May rent collection is better than April. That’s not what many people expected given the massive number of job losses and efforts by a small number of activists encouraging a rent strike. Property teams within our own network are also reporting good results for single-family rentals.   The National Multifamily Housing Council says that by May 6th, 80.2% of tenants had made a full or partial payment on their rent. Last month, only 78% of tenants had done so. The survey included 11.4 million apartment households and was done the first week of May.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending May 9th, 2020… an economy in turmoil, words of encouragement from Warren Buffett, and a pick-up in mortgage activity.   We begin with economic news from this past week and another round of job losses. The latest weekly report shows an additional 3.2 million unemployment claims for a total of more than 20 million jobs lost in April. That’s brings us to about 33 million jobs lost since the pandemic began.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

The Tampa housing market could be among the first to come roaring back to life after the economy opens back up, according to John Burns Real Estate Consulting. Dallas was named  as a potential post-pandemic boom market as well, along with a few other areas.   John Burns Real Estate Consulting is well-respected for doing in-depth research on the real estate industry, and specifically for national builders. This latest report looks at geographic opportunities for real estate investors within three categories.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

We’re in the midst of severe economic shock right now. There are over 30 million job losses in one month, closed businesses, and a 4.8% drop in the GDP, but somehow home prices are rising in some places. That may be a disappointment for homebuyers and real estate investors looking for a deal, although some researchers see lower prices in the coming months.   Home prices dropped dramatically during the housing crisis ten to twelve years ago, but that’s not what’s happening this time around so far. As the Wall Street Journal points out, we’ve been dealing with a tight inventory for years and, right now, supply has gotten even tighter because sellers don’t want to list their homes and because many builders have put things on pause.   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

The lure of the big city might be fading a bit. A new Harris Poll shows that a growing number of people would like to move away from the city, and that preferences for other lifestyle habits are changing. The poll includes a wide range of questions from how people intend to buy their food in the future to whether they are worried about dying from the virus..    This particular Harris Poll has been tracking coronavirus trends since mid-March and includes more than 300 questions. It appears that many of the questions have been added in more recent weeks, such as the ones about migrating to more rural areas. Each “wave” of the poll is done weekly over a three-day period with the latest information from the last week of April.   www.NewsForInvestors.com    

In this Real Estate News Brief for the week ending May 2nd, 2020, First-Quarter GDP, a new low for mortgage rates, and a surge in demand for single-family homes.   We begin with economic news for this past week and the staggered reopening of some state economies. At least 30 states have started allowing businesses to carefully reopen, or have announced plans to do so this month, but each state has different guidelines and timelines.   www.NewsForInvestors.com    

Many U.S. malls are at risk of closing for good because of the pandemic. A new analysis by Green Street Advisors is predicting that coronavirus shutdowns will push department stores into bankruptcy, and force more than half of all U.S. malls to close by the end of the year. If you are a homebuyer or investor, you should check on the status of a nearby mall to see if it might affect your property value.   Green Street says there are 1,000 malls still operating in the U.S. and about 60% of them are anchored by department stores...   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

California is not known as a landlord-friendly state, and a few new laws are adding to that reputation. In addition to statewide rent control that caps rent increases and makes it difficult to evict bad tenants, at least two cities in the San Francisco Bay Area have completely outlawed the use of criminal background checks to screen tenants. These “fair chance” housing laws are designed to prevent homelessness among the formerly incarcerated, but are they fair to landlords?   www.NewsForInvestors.com  

Real estate is holding strong among Americans who see it as the best way to invest. This marks the fifth year in a row that real estate has taken the number one spot in a Gallup poll on investing preferences. It was conducted in early April, after the recent COVID-19 stock market sell-off.   It’s no secret that I’d choose real estate over stocks, but this poll shows that many other Americans feel the same way. 35% of the pollees chose real estate as their preferred method of investment while 21% chose the stock market. That’s a bigger gap than last year. Stocks lost six percentage points, while real estate held on to 35. Gold and bonds both trail stocks but they took points away from stocks as people put more emphasis on those options.   www.NewsForInvestors.com