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Category: Industry News

Industry News

SKCR Events Calendar: July 2021

SKCR Events Calendar: July 2021

July 14, 2021

Industry News

Sales of newly-built homes shrink, prices still climb due to market disruptions

Sales of newly-constructed single family homes declined 5.9% during May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 769,000 – the lowest in a year, according to estimates from the Census Bureau. Analysts say builders slowed sales due to higher material costs and declining availability of labor, material and lots. Despite [..]

July 14, 2021

Industry News

Pandemic prompted remote workers to snatch up vacation homes

Vacation home purchases skyrocketed during 2020, with the trend continuing this year, according to a report from the National Association Realtors®. Workers with the ability to log on from anywhere are credited with spurring the surge. “Vacation homes are a hot commodity at the moment,” said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief [..]

July 14, 2021

Industry News

Amazon to invest $300 million from its Housing Equity Fund for 3,000 new affordable housing units in three metro areas

Amazon will invest $300 million to build 3,000 new affordable housing units in the Puget Sound, Arlington/Metro D.C., and Nashville regions. The ecommerce giant will work with “traditional and non-traditional partners,” to acquire land near public transit in hopes of creating move-in ready homes by as early as 2025. The [..]

July 14, 2021

Industry News

Banking Inclusion Initiative launched to help unbanked individuals and communities

Pledging to accelerate unbanked individuals’ access to affordable mainstream accounts and to address long-standing inequities, Wells Fargo & Company last month launched a 10-year commitment dubbed the Banking Inclusion Initiative. The financial services company will focus on Black and African Americans, Hispanics, and Native American/Alaska Native families. Together, the target [..]

June 14, 2021

Industry News

Condo comeback fueling FOMO

Condos are making a comeback, declared Dean Jones, head of a Seattle-based real estate consultancy and brokerage that specializes in market research, product development, marketing and sales. In a recent blog for Realogics Sotheby’s International Realty (RSIR) where he is CEO and owner, Jones described the current market in the [..]

June 14, 2021

Industry News

Seattle claims fastest growing city title for 2020

Seattle added 16,400 more residents between July 1, 2019 and July 1, 2020, bumping up its population by 2.2%. That growth rate in the midst of the global pandemic and widespread civil unrest – made it the nation’s fastest-growing big city in 2020. Only one other city in Washington with [..]

June 14, 2021

Industry News

New appliance converts food scraps, other waste into compost

Within days of its rollout, a Canadian company trashed its modest funding goal for a revolutionary kitchen device that converts waste into compost – but it wasn’t because of skeptics. Apparently, 8,100 backers agreed “food waste is gross. It’s time for a change.” They gave Lomi (the name of the [..]

June 14, 2021

Industry News

News In Brief: June 2021

When you go through the security line at the airport, unless you’re in pre-check, you know the drill. Take off your shoes and put them back on. But that could be a thing of the past soon, thanks to new shoe scanning technology developed by researchers at a Washington state-based [..]

June 14, 2021

Industry News

Study shows how overregulation worsens housing affordability crisis

Regulatory costs account for $93,870, or 23.8% of the current average sales price of a new home ($394,300), according to a recent study by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). The group said rising regulatory costs are a limiting factor on housing supply, “particularly for the entry-level market in [..]

June 14, 2021

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