#housing-market

#housing-market

Groundworks plans to create 5,000 skilled trades jobs over the next five years as demand for structural and moisture remediation grows across the aging U.S. housing stock.

Over half of Americans, 60%, say a weeklong vacation is unaffordable-and even 49% report the small joy of going out to dinner is out of their budgets. Around 74% also say buying a new car is too expensive, but beyond these commonplace "luxuries," U.S. adults are battling the exorbitant costs of everyday essentials.

Refinance applications increased for the fourth straight week to the strongest pace since 2022, with conventional refinances up 20%. The increase in the average loan size for refinances indicates that more borrowers with larger loan sizes are seeking to lower their monthly payments.

When a home is listed on the MLS, that property information is immediately available to virtually every real estate agent in the market who is an MLS member, and by extension, to every serious buyer working with an agent who has access to the MLS. By extension, literally all online real estate portals buyers and sellers have come to enjoy pulling their data from it.

Lowe's guided to total sales of $92 billion to $94 billion and adjusted EPS of $12.25 to $12.75. The midpoint of that EPS range is essentially flat with FY25's $12.28, which likely explains the muted market reaction. Moreover, housing starts declined 5.8% year over year through December 2025, giving CEO Marvin Ellison's cautious tone real macro grounding.

Is it time to think about rent-to-own homes? After all, 2026 is shaping up to be a chaotic year, with an uncertain economy, political pandemonium roiling every market, and a falling dollar. And in real estate, everyone seems to be hurting. For the first time in over a decade, it's seemingly a buyer's market, with housing stock finally exceeding those looking to make a purchase.

Home values in two Central New York counties grew at some of the fastest rates in the nation in December, according to data from Zillow. Home values in Oneida County increased more than 7.1% in December, when compared with a year earlier. That ranked No. 8 nationwide among the country's 500 most populous counties. In Onondaga County, home values rose over 5.5%, ranking the county 20th in the U.S. for home value growth.

During the pandemic housing boom, we saw red-hot housing demand quickly absorb much of the available slack in the housing market. Back in 2021, active housing inventory for sale, unsold completed new builds, and available lot supply all plunged to historic lows. But ever since the pandemic housing boom fizzled out in mid-2022, housing slack has been building back up in the housing market-especially in certain pockets of the Sun Belt.

I've been searching for a rental apartment for the first time in years, and one thing was immediately clear: the market has changed dramatically. The prices are much higher, options for long-term rentals are very limited, and scams are everywhere. At The Local Italy we've heard from many people who've been stung or had a near miss with scammers preying on people making an international move. We've reported how rental scams have increased in recent years.

Last year was dismal for the real estate market, and he expects things to improve only marginally in 2026. (If January's historic drop in home sales is indicative, that even is overoptimistic.) "The way to think about it is that there were 4.1 million existing homes sold last year-a normal market is 5.5 to 6 million," Wacksman says. He hastens to add that Zillow itself is doing better than the real estate industry overall.

Zillow economists use an economic model they call the Zillow Market Heat Index to gauge the competitiveness of housing markets across the country. This model looks at key indicators-including home price changes, inventory levels, and days on market-to generate a score showing whether a market favors sellers or buyers. Higher scores point to hotter, seller-friendly metro housing markets. Lower scores signal cooler markets where buyers hold more negotiating power.