3 New Design Trends for Real Estate in 2016!

If you’re a real estate junkie like I am, then you love to watch real estate shows. Love It or List It. House Hunters. Million Dollar Listing New York. These are some of my favorites.

Because of my fondness for these shows—and because I recently bought and sold two houses—I can rattle off popular real estate terms. I’m thinking specifically of en suite, chef’s kitchen and open concept, which has people knocking down walls left and right.

While many of these terms continue to be used in real estate lingo, a recent Realtor.com survey unveiled some new terms we should probably get used to hearing. They are the top 3 hot real estate trends, based on real people’s preferences and what they want in a house they’re buying. These trends are described as “Inviting,” “Rustic” and “Beachside Charm.” Here’s how they come to life:

1. INVITING
The Inviting living space is described as a welcoming atmosphere that includes fun barware, plenty of seating and a gather-worthy kitchen (can you say open concept?) that can serve as the life of the party.

2. RUSTIC

Those who prefer a Rustic look want natural elements in their homes. These include wood, stone, water and light. Designers say that this style takes traditionally organic materials from the outside and brings them inside to achieve perfect balance.

3. BEACHSIDE CHARM
You don’t have to live anywhere near the water to capture Beachside Charm. It is described as relaxed, casual, airy and breezy. This design incorporates terracotta tile, patio umbrellas, sundecks and scattered shells to make homeowners and others feel like they are miles away from the hustle and bustle of life’s daily pressures.

I’m not sure which of these trends I like the best. What I do know, though, is this: when people come to visit, I want my home to make them feel comfortable and relaxed.

Video: Purchasing Real Estate in a Rising Interest Rate Climate

California Home Price to Increase 4.7% in 2016

CoreLogic® a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider, today released its CoreLogic Home Price Index (HPI™) and HPI Forecast™ data for September 2015 which shows home prices are up both year over year and month over month.

According to the CoreLogic HPI, home prices nationwide, including distressed* sales, increased by 6.4 percent in September 2015 compared with September 2014 and increased by 0.6 percent in September 2015 compared with August 2015.**

The CoreLogic HPI Forecast indicates that home prices are projected to increase by 4.7*** percent on a year-over-year basis from September 2015 to September 2016, but could potentially dip slightly month over month from September 2015 to October 2015. The CoreLogic HPI Forecast is a projection of home prices using the CoreLogic HPI and other economic variables. Values are derived from state-level forecasts by weighting indices according to the number of owner-occupied households for each state.

“After nearly 10 years of very high home price volatility, home price increases have been remarkably stable for the last 15 months, ranging between a 4.8 percent and 6.5 percent year-over-year increase,” said Sam Khater, deputy chief economist for CoreLogic. “Home price volatility is now back to the long-term trend prior to the boom and bust which is a good barometer of the market’s stability and health.”

“The continued growth in home prices is welcome news for many homeowners but more markets are becoming overvalued. In the near term, this trend is likely to continue and pose evaluated risks to the housing economy,” said Anand Nallathambi, president and CEO of CoreLogic. “More has to be done to expand inventories if we are going to address the emerging affordability crisis, especially in hot markets like California and Colorado.”

5 Trends That Will Keep Real Estate Growing in 2016

 

A report about the real estate trends for 2016 has been released by Pricewaterhouse Coopers and the Urban Land Institute on Wednesday.

According toconstructiondive.com, commercial real estate will soon be dominated by small- scale building firms as companies with less than 50 employees surpass the growth of large- scale construction firms.

Mitch Roschelle, a partner at PwC, said "The real estate industry's traditional focus on big cities and large employers is shifting significantly as small businesses emerge as the growth engine for the U.S. economy. This is creating disruption in the office sector as it finds ways to create new space models to accommodate these employers."

The trend report is the result of varius interviews and surveys with different real estate professionals and firms. Below are some of the top real estate trend for 2016 according to Pricewaterhouse Coopers and the Urban Land Institute's report.

 

1.       Real estate industry will see success in "18- hour cities"

-          "18- hour cities" are the place known as secondary market. Several reports have shown that these secondary market are starting to gain momentum as real estate investors are turning their gazes to these markets. These market entice investors for it can offer the same urban amenities a company requires but for a cheaper price. These secondary markets are San Antonio, Denver, Austin and the like.

2.       Office sector will continue to grow

-          As the number of employees grow, so as the office buildings needed to house the business. Also, expansion of companies from different industries open an opportunity for real estate investors selling or leasing office spaces to gain more profit. Laos, redesigning office spaces is becoming part of the company's way of introducing their brand resulting to renovations and acquiring new spaces to better suit their business.

3.       Suburban properties are making a comeback

-          For years, acquiring properties or investing in suburbs has been feared by the investors as lack of market might kill off their business. However, recent reports showed that millennials are starting to look into living in suburbs to take a major life step of having a family. Developers are now looking into offer features that will both benefit the urban and suburban areas of a certain town. This includes mixed used properties and transit- oriented real estates.

4.       Food production in urban areas

-          People in cities are starting to look into having access to fresh food which made the use of urban property to produce food has becoming a trend nowadays. One example of this is the three hydroponic operations in Brooklyn and Queens that produce more than 300 tons of vegetables. The report also said "Just as the reinvention of the suburbs is an emergent story for the decade ahead, so is the creative adaptation of inner-city uses."

The report also detailed other trend that might be a trend though some of it are still going through extensive observation and research to fully identify if these trends are going to change the face of real estate industry.

Shortage of Inventory Will Keep California Home Prices Rising in 2016

 

California’s housing market is expected to improve in 2016, but a shortage of available inventory and continuing high costs are expected to limit the improvement, according to a report released Thursday by the California Association of Realtors.

According to CAR's 2016 California Housing Market Forecast, existing home sales are expected to rise in 2016 by 6.3% over 2015’s expected total.

Additionally, existing home sales are expected to hit 407,500 in 2015, which would also represent a 6.3% increase over 2014, when there were 383,300 existing home sales.

CAR’s forecast calls for existing home sales to rise to 433,000 in 2016.

The state’s rising prices are predicted to hold back home sales slightly. The California median home price is projected to increase 3.2% to $491,300 in 2016, following a projected 6.5% increase in 2015 to $476,300.

 

Despite those increasing prices, 2016 is still estimated to have the slowest rate of price appreciation in five years.

CAR’s forecast projects growth in the U.S. gross domestic product of 2.7% in 2016, after a projected gain of 2.4% in 2015.

With projected nonfarm job growth of 2.3% in California in 2016, the state’s unemployment rate should decrease to 5.5% in 2016 from 6.3% in 2015 and 7.5% in 2014, the CAR forecast said.

Additionally, the CAR forecast projects the average interest rate for the 30-year, fixed mortgage will climb only slightly to 4.5%, but should still remain at historically low levels.

With a statewide market as diverse as California, some areas will see the effects of those changes more than others, according to CAR President Chris Kutzkey.

“Solid job growth and favorable interest rates will drive a strong demand for housing next year,” Kutzkey said.

“However, in regions where inventory is tight, such as the San Francisco Bay Area, sales growth could be limited by stiff market competition and diminishing housing affordability,” Kutzkey continued. “On the other hand, demand in less expensive areas such as Solano County, the Central Valley, and Riverside/San Bernardino areas will remain strong thanks to solid job growth in warehousing, transportation, logistics, and manufacturing in these areas.”

CAR Vice President and Chief Economist Leslie Appleton-Young said that there may be a shift in sales to more inland areas of the state in 2016.

“The foundation for California’s housing market remains strong, with moderating home prices, signs of credit easing, and the state continuing to lead the nation in economic and job growth,” Appleton-Young said.

“However, the global economic slowdown, financial market volatility, and the anticipation of higher interest rates are some of the challenges that may have an adverse impact on the market’s momentum next year,” Appleton-Young added. “Additionally, as we see more sales shift to inland regions of the state, the change in mix of sales will keep increases in the statewide median price tempered.”

San Francisco Rents Hit Another Milestone Peak

San Francisco metro area residents paid record median rent in August, but there was a glimmer of good news: the pace of year-over year rent increases rose at the slowest pace since June 2014, Zillow said Tuesday.

The Zillow Rent Index for the San Francisco metro area stood at $3,313 in August, up 13.3 percent from August 2014.

That put San Francisco in second place nationally for highest median rent — surpassed only by the San Jose metro area, which had a Zillow Rent Index of $3,401 in August, up 9.5 percent from August 2014.

The San Jose area's 9.5 percent year-over-year increase in August median rent marked the first month the Silicon Valley metro area's year-over-year increase in median rent was below 10 percent since April 2014, according to Zillow data.

The Zillow Rent Index is the median rental value of all the rent zestimates in an area.

The Bay Area's slowing pace of rent increases reflects a national trend, which the Associated Press covered.

Zumper, a venture-backed startup focused on creating a more efficient apartment rental market, says the level of venture capital pouring into the region is a key factor in San Francisco's high rents.

Zumper pins one-third of San Francisco's rents on venture capital financings in the region.

"At the end of the day, we had an adjusted R-squared correlation of 0.83 for venture capital investment. It's very strong," Devin O'Brien, head of Zumper marketing told TechCrunch.

That will come as little surprise to those who managed not to sleep through their Econ 101 class. Housing costs have a strong correlation, if not the strongest, to job creation.

What's one of the first things entrepreneurs do when they get venture funding? Hire.

Hot Bay Area Housing Market Shows First Sign Of Cooling

Zillow's latest figures show that the nation's housing market is cooling off, even the white-hot Bay Area. The national housing market is slowing down, with home values showing the first monthly drop since the market began recovering four years ago, according to the real estate data company's report for July.

San Francisco, San Jose, Denver and Dallas are still tallying double-digit year-over-year home value increases, but even those hot markets are seeing a pullback in their pace of appreciation from June, Zillow said.

In San Francisco, July's Zillow Home Value Index stood at $756,100, up 0.6 percent from June and 11 percent higher from July 2014. In San Jose, July's Zillow Home Value Index was $891,500, up 0.7 percent from June and 11.5 percent from July 2014.

"This slip in home values is a sign of the times. Many people didn't think it was happening, but it is: we're going negative," Zillow Chief Economist Svenja Gudell said in speaking of the national housing market. "We've been expecting to see a monthly decline as markets return to normal.

"The market is leveling off, and it's good news, particularly for buyers, because it will ease some of the competitive pressure," Gudell said. (Note to loyal followers of Zillow's number-crunching: Gudell's predecessor Stan Humphries was promoted to chief analytics officer for Zillow Group.)

Zillow (NASDAQ: Z) expects that the pullback in June-to-July valuations in several cities, including Cincinnati and Washington, D.C., will spur home owners, who have been sitting on the fence pondering whether to sell, to finally put their homes on the market. That would help ease a shortage of available homes for sale that buyers have confronted over the last several months.

But the slower rise in appreciation, if not outright depreciation, will likely come as a shock to Bay Area home owners accustomed to robust growth in home values. Still, the key to home values will continue to be the pace of job growth.

Zillow says falling valuations and more homes on the market may spur renters to buy, especially given the dramatic increases in rents. San Francisco area rents jumped 14.1 percent to $3,285, according to the latest figures from Zillow. The company found that Bay Area rents can be quite painful, literally, as tenants skip doctor and dentist visits so they can pay the landlord