Homesnap’s “Pro” product

 

Homesnap has a new service that crunches data to show which homes in a neighborhood are the most likely to be listed for sale in the next 12 months.

 

The platform uses an algorithm that crunches millions of records, including MLS data, to come up with a “Likelihood to List” score. The service, available only to licensed agents, shows a “heat map” of neighborhoods color-coded to zero in on the homes most likely to go on the market.

 

Americans are equity-rich as home values rise

 

More than a quarter of mortgaged homes had an LTV lower than 50%

 

Almost 15 million homes in the U.S. were equity-rich in the fourth quarter, meaning their mortgages were 50% or less of their estimated market value, according to ATTOM Data Solutions.

 

Equity-rich properties were 27% of all mortgaged homes, matching the share in the prior quarter, the report said.

About 3.5 million homes with a mortgage were seriously underwater, meaning the loan exceeded the value of the property by 25% or more.

 

That figure represented 6.4% of all U.S. properties with a mortgage, down from 6.5% in the third quarter.

Among 8,262 U.S. zip codes, there were 451 zip codes where at least half of all properties with a mortgage were equity rich, ATTOM said.

 

Where are the highest equity levels? The San Francisco Bay area.

 

Boston had the highest equity-rich share in the Northeast, at 35.6%. Dallas, led the South, at 36.5%, and Grand Rapids, Michigan, led in the Midwest, at 27.4%.

 

 

African American homeownership lowest since 1968 — when Fair Housing Act passed: NAR official .

 

At a time when housing prices continue to climb and affordability continues to dwindle, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) is eyeing ways to diminish the racial homeownership gap.

 

“In 2020, there is still a persistent gap in homeownership rates between whites, African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans,” Bryan Greene, NAR’s director of Fair Housing policy, said Thursday at the association’s second annual policy forum in Washington, D.C.

“We’ve seen homeownership rates among racial groups steadily rise, but I think many of us would have expected rates to have risen more,” Greene added. “We did see that happen for a period from the early 90s to the early part of this century, but dramatically, at least for African Americans, we started to see that homeownership rate decline — so much so that last year the homeownership rate for African Americans dipped below the rate in 1968 when the Fair Housing Act was passed.”