Signals: What We're Tracking
Property owners are asking appraisers to make their homes look worse. New York's new pied-a-terre tax has some second-home owners playing up wear and tear to push properties below the $5 million threshold; others are moving NYU students out of the dorms and into their apartments. But advisers say most of these avoidance tactics won't work. Read more on it.
Meanwhile: A Staten Island judge temporarily paused the tax rollout, but the city appealed and put the pause on hold. Both sides are back in court on Aug. 31. More on the ruling.
Healthy-product vetting gets one step closer. When a client asks whether a product supports healthier homes, verifying the claim can mean chasing down complex documentation. A new agreement between IWBI, the group behind WELL for Residential, and the Health Product Declaration Collaborative makes it easier for manufacturers to earn a spot in IWBI’s database for products aligned with specific wellness strategies. The list is still heavily commercial, but IWBI says more residential-focused partnerships are coming.
The Midwest and Northeast are becoming old-house renovation markets to watch. Realtor.com’s hottest ZIP codes are concentrated in the two regions, where buyers are reportedly paying up for larger, older homes with character. Meanwhile, NAHB’s latest state remodeling data show that, while overall remodeling activity is down, spending is holding up best in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic, where NAHB credits older housing stock and accumulated homeowner equity for the ongoing renovation activity. See where your state ranks.
Data centers are moving to rural locations. The typical large data center now opens about 27 miles from the nearest major city, in areas with a third as many homes per square mile as there were in 2017, according to a new Realtor.com report. What's interesting is that opening a data center didn't seem to impact nearby home prices, which rose and fell just like those in comparable neighborhoods. Read the full analysis.
