Q: How will a trade war affect real estate prices? Caleb, Short Hills, NJ A: Higher home construction costs contribute to rising home prices. Right now it costs significantly more money to build a new home than it did just a few years ago for a variety of reasons including the higher cost of land, a skilled labor shortage and the fact that there is a huge mismatch between where people want to live and where it’s easiest to build. Increased construction costs will exacerbate the housing shortage we are currently experiencing in many local real estate markets in the US. The construction industry accounted for 40% of all U.S. steel demand in 2017, so new steel tariffs and a […]
continue readingQ: Gerald, it seems like real estate prices have been going up quite a bit lately. Is this another bubble? How can we tell? Jennifer, Islip, NY A: That’s a great question, Jennifer. Home prices in many places have been rising recently due in large measure to the fact that there is so little housing inventory available for sale because so many people bought at the height of the last market bubble and have little or no equity. To your question, what I’m going to do is give you a tell-tale sign of another real estate market bubble. Because household income is the biggest economic driver of residential real estate markets, a tell-tale sign of a real estate bubble occurs […]
continue readingReal estate prices are 2% below the peak reached in July 2006 according to S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices.
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