The average rent of apartments in New York City has risen an average of 33% between January 2021 and the same time in 2022. In some cases, the price of a new lease has doubled for the same apartment, compared to the previous time last year. For many renters, this means that apartments that were previously affordable are now out of their price range, forcing them to find a new place to stay, or getting roommates to help cover the cost.
While the spring is usually a busy season for home buyers, falling numbers of pending home sales during February could signal the possibility of a cooling housing market. This is likely spurred by a number of factors, including a lack of inventory for prospective home buyers, as well as rising interest rates. When put together with rising home prices, it is increasingly likely that the housing market may soon begin to experience a correction and start falling.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has outlined a proposal for a new rule that would help to prevent discrimination in auatomated home valuation models (AVMs). This proposal, which would involve joint rulemaking with a number of other relevant agencies, would look at the complex issue of how AVMs are used to estimate home prices, and the potential implications for fair housing laws. This, in turn, could help prevent cases where biases within AVMs effectively result in housing discrimination against marginalized home buyers.
According to data from the 2020 United States Census, about one in ten homes across America are vacant. This is despite the fact that many people are currently having trouble finding homes to buy, with available inventory on the market remaining quite limited. However, the reasons for these vacancies are complex, and vary depending on where exactly you are looking.
In a decision that surprised many viewers, the Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that a private company may condemn state-owned land, and that the doctrine of sovereign immunity does not apply. This decision is considered surprising for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it flew in the face of what many expected from traditional interpretations of federal law. As a result, the decision could substantially expand the power of certain companies to obtain land, even land owned by a state government.
According to an analysis by Zillow, they expect housing prices to jump by as much as 22% this coming spring. This is blamed largely on a continuing shortage of available housing inventory, meaning there are far fewer houses than there are buyers. This, in turn, could lead to problems as even the most affordable homes on the market become too expensive for many prospective home buyers to purchase.