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The Skanner News - New Law Makes It Easier to Remove Racist Restrictions From Property Deeds: The Skanner News is an award-winning media organization consisting of a printed newspaper and a web site featuring more than 25,000 news stories. We publish original journalism and commentary covering Portland, Seattle, and the Pacific Northwest, as well as news stories from the Associated Press. The Skanner News has served the public with timely information in the Portland, Oregon edition since October 1975 and the Seattle edition since 1990. The publisher is a past two-term president of the West Coast Black Publishers Association as well as a member of the National Newspapers Publishers Association.

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7 Tips for Saving More on Your Next Remodel

In 1986, Tom Hanks starred in a movie called “The Money Pit.” It was all about a couple’s adventures in remodeling what has to be the worst house ever. Even though it was a comedy, if you’ve ever been part of a big remodel, some of the situations the co-stars find themselves in (re: the remodel, not the rest of the story, which is clearly irrelevant) are way too familiar. Too little money, problems becoming bigger than initially assumed and chaos, chaos, chaos.

But you aren’t going to jump into a money pit worthy remodeling project. Oh no. Not when there are so many awesome ways to avoid it.

Remodeling is Always More Expensive Than You Expect

If there’s any hard and fast rule of remodeling, it’s that it’s always more expensive than you think it’s going to be. Even professionals tend to build some padding in to accommodate the unknown. The older the house and wider the scope, the bigger the padding.

Although building regulations have been around since the early twentieth century, they were inconsistent across the country and poorly enforced. It wasn’t until 1997 that the International Building Code was first published, finally creating a building code that was uniform across participating countries.

That’s a little background about why so many older houses are full of surprises you get to uncover when you start to remodel them. It really helps to go into a remodel with a savings mindset if you’re going to stay under budget.

Get Ready to Save Some Money: Tips to Get You Started

Remodeling can be a huge process, but if you’ve got the intestinal fortitude for it, it can be an incredible experience to be involved with. No matter if you hire most of the work or just hire the work that requires a permit, you may be able to save more on your job by trying these tips!

1. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle to Save More. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Take that trim out carefully, you can reuse that stuff! Although more narrow types of trim like quarter round can be pretty fragile, wider crown molding or tall base moldings are great candidates for recycling, for example. Cabinets, tiles, sinks, tubs, light fixtures and most materials, really, can be recycled in some way.

2. Paint Can Give Materials a Face Lift. Hate that wooden trim? Is the wash on your kitchen cabinets unbearable? How about that wood paneling? You don’t have to rip them out, all you need to do is sand them lightly, apply an appropriate primer and carefully paint them. Suddenly you’ve got a whole new look!

3. Replace, Don’t Relocate. When you’re remodeling rooms like kitchens and bathrooms, it’s tempting to move toilets, sinks and dishwashers — but don’t! Instead, work around their existing locations, since moving your plumbing (as well as electrical) can be very expensive and may require that you bring your house up to current code, adding even more cost to the remodel.

4. Check Out Sales, Coupons and Scratch and Dent. When it comes to appliances, especially, scratch and dent sales are one of the best places to find deep discounts. Big home improvement stores tend to get a lot of returns and typically there’s nothing else really wrong with the appliance. There may be a small scratch on the side or top, but if it’s not too obvious or it’s the sort of injury you’re likely to inflict on your appliance moving it into your house, there’s no reason to spend an extra $500 on that fridge.

Sales and coupons come around on a regular basis. Wait for them. Be patient. Collect the stuff you need for your remodel ahead of time, that way you’ll be ready and have saved a bundle on all those big ticket items!

5. Discount Material Stores Can Yield Fruit. Discount material stores often get bulk shipments of odds and ends that larger retailers couldn’t move in a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes this means that they’ve got big stacks of avocado green tile, sometimes it means they have just enough high grade laminate flooring for your living room. Make sure you know how much material you need before you go into a discount material store, usually it’s a one shot situation. Once they’ve sold out of the material, it’s just gone.

6. Look for Ads Selling Used Materials. Remodelers and homeowners often put bigger ticket items up for sale when they’re being replaced, especially if they seem to have a reasonable amount of life left in them. Windows, pavers and excess materials from projects are popular things you’ll see in online and offline ads. You’ll need to make sure the used materials you buy are right for your remodel, but otherwise, this is a great way to save.

7. Use Your Material More Efficiently. It might seem sort of obvious, but the more efficiently you use your materials, the less you’ll need and the more you’ll save. This means planning all your cuts ahead of time, being mindful of each piece and where it goes (like some giant crazy jigsaw puzzle!) and aiming for zero waste. You can usually return excess building materials, especially when they come from a home improvement store.

Can I Save Money Without Doing it Myself?

If you’re a little less handy or just far too busy to contemplate doing your own home remodel, it’s smart to call in a home remodeler. These professionals can advise you in ways to save money with your remodel, based on your end goals and what you’re already working with. Just try to be as flexible as possible, that’s the easiest way to save money with a professional remodel, really.

When you’re ready to get a quote on that remodel, turn to your HomeKeepr community. There are plenty of well-qualified, recommended home pros to choose between. Your Realtor thinks they’re pretty awesome, so you don’t have to worry what kind of results you’ll get. It’ll be great!

Household Net Worth Reaches Record High

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | FRIDAY, MARCH 09, 2018

Americans are feeling richer. Household net worth neared $100 trillion in the final quarter of last year, falling into record territory, according to new data released by the Federal Reserve on Thursday. Rising stock markets and property prices were attributed to the jolt in the fourth quarter. (Household net worth is the value of all of a consumer’s assets, like stocks and real estate, minus any liabilities like mortgage and credit card debt.)

Household net worth increased more than $2 trillion last quarter to a record $98.7 trillion in the final three months of last year, according to the report. Households in the U.S. saw their net worth increase to nearly seven times their disposable personal income in 2017.

The impact real estate has had on that increase can’t be understated, economists say. The value of households’ real estate rose $511.2 billion, which reflects recent run-ups in home prices.

But the rate at which consumers are saving is concerning, JPMorgan Chase Economist Michael Feroli told The Wall Street Journal. The saving rate was 3.74 percent in 2017, down from 7.19 percent in 2015.

Source: “U.S. Household Net Worth Pushes Further Into Record Territory,” The Wall Street Journal (March 8, 2018) [Log-in required.] and “Stock Market Lifts U.S. Household Wealth to $98.7 Trillion,” The Associated Press/USA Today (March 8, 2018)

Good Timing for a Spike in Foreclosures?

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | THURSDAY, MARCH 08, 2018

Foreclosures are surging in some locales, and some housing experts view that as a good thing for the housing market this spring. Foreclosures tend to be priced lower, and many markets are starved for inventory in the lower end of the market.

Bank repossessions across the U.S. may have plunged to an 11-year low in 2017, but that hasn’t been the case in every market. New Jersey saw the opposite, with bank repossession hitting an 11-year high in 2017.

New Jersey leads the nation in overall foreclosure activity. About 1.61 percent of the state’s homes were in foreclosure last year, according to ATTOM Data Solutions, a real estate data firm.

The surge in foreclosures is drawing investors who are looking to buy homes and convert them to rentals.

Christian Schlueter, president of the New Jersey REALTORS®, told The Wall Street Journal that a recent waterfront, bank-owned home attracted eight offers in three days and was under contract for more than the asking price.

“There’s a lot of experienced investors who are buying [bank-owned homes] and some new people are buying them believing they are going to be investors,” he says.

New Jersey, New York, and other states that follow a “judicial foreclosure” system, in which foreclosures wind their way through the court system, often face lengthier times to process and backlogs of foreclosures. Other states that have a nonjudicial system, like Michigan and Texas, have been able to work through their backlog of foreclosures much quicker.

According to ATTOM Data Solutions, the states with the highest foreclosure rates in 2017 were New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Illinois, and Connecticut. 

Source: “Why New Jersey’s Soaring Foreclosures Are Good for the Housing Market,” The Wall Street Journal (March 3, 2018) [Log-in required.]

Home Flipping Flies to 11-Year High

DAILY REAL ESTATE NEWS | THURSDAY, MARCH 08, 2018

Higher home prices don’t seem to be spooking investors from buying up properties to flip. About 207,088 U.S. single-family homes and condos were flipped in 2017, the highest level since 2006, ATTOM Data Solutions reports in its U.S. Home Flipping Report. That compromises nearly 6 percent of all single-family home and condo sales during last year. ATTOM Data Solutions defines a “home flip” as a transaction for a single-family home or condo that occurred within the year of a previous sale of the same property.

“The surge in home flipping in the last three years is built on a more fundamentally sound foundation than the flipping frenzy that we witnessed a little more than a decade ago,” says Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM Data Solutions. “Flippers are behaving more rationally, as evidenced by average gross flipping returns of 50 percent over the last three years compared to average gross flipping returns of just 31 percent between 2004 and 2006—the last time we saw more than 200,000 home flips in consecutive years.”

Further, financing for home flippers has become more readily available in recent years, Blomquist notes, but 65 percent of flippers still used cash to buy homes flipped in 2017. That is nearly the reverse of 2004 to 2006, when 63 percent of flippers were leveraging financing to buy, he notes.

ATTOM Data Solutions’ report shows that completed home flips in 2017 yielded an average gross profit of $68,143. (That represents the difference between the median purchase price and median flipped sales price.)

Of 52 metros analyzed with populations of at least 1 million, ATTOM Data Solutions researchers found that the highest home flipping rates in 2017 were in:

1. Memphis, Tenn.: 12.8%
2. Las Vegas: 9.1%
3. Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla.: 9%
4. Birmingham, Ala.: 8.6%
5. Phoenix: 8.5%

Other major markets rounding out the top 10 for highest home flipping rates in 2017 were Baltimore; Virginia Beach, Va.; St. Louis; Miami; and Orlando, Fla.

The metro areas seeing the biggest growth in home flipping in 2017 were Buffalo, N.Y. (up 34%); New York-Northern New Jersey (up 29%); Dallas-Fort Worth (up 23%); Louisville, Ky. (up 22%); and Birmingham, Ala. (up 17 percent), according to the report.