Fast-rising home prices may be a roadblock for buyers, but they are putting some homeowners on Easy Street. As home prices rise, so does the percentage of home equity for those owners with a mortgage. Home equity jumped 13.3 percent in the first quarter of this year compared from a year earlier, according to CoreLogic. For the average borrower, that translates to $16,300 in ... Read more

Who designs our houses? Not always architects, it turns out. Looking at modern housing developments, we can see a wave of monotony overtaking the places we live, as row upon row of "pattern book" houses roll off the production line and onto our pavements. Why are our housing estates becoming so soulless? What lies behind these "identikit" rows of faux-traditional executive ... Read more

Young Americans are hitting more and more homeownership roadblocks: Crippling student debt, escalating home prices, surging mortgage rates and a scarcity of listings. So why have they gone on a buying binge? First-time buyers accounted for 46 percent of new mortgages (excluding refinancings) that Freddie Mac backed in the first quarter, their biggest quarterly share in data ... Read more

Four cities have formally requested that Metro expand the urban growth boundary it administers so their communities can add up to 9,232 new homes in the coming years. The regional government will decide whether to approve any or all of the requests by the end of the year. The expansion requests come as the Portland area faces a severe shortage of all kinds of homes, creating ... Read more

Rent prices have risen over the past year across the U.S., but there are some bright spots: Several cities experienced modest price drops thanks to new building projects. Although rental rates went up nationwide, the increase was actually fairly modest at about 1.5 percent, according to a new report from rental site Apartment List. Read more (from source): 7 cities where rent ... Read more