It is well understood that many young adults have yet to leave the nest, a phenomenon that has helped suppress demand for first-time housing. But a new analysis shows just how powerful the stay-at-home trend has been.
According to the most recent Census Bureau figures, one in three young adults ages 18 to 34 lived in their parents' or in-laws' homes in 2012. By comparison, only one in four young adults lived with their parents in the decade between 1990 and 2000.
People in this age cohort typically represent half of all rookie homebuyers, says Natalia Siniavskaia, an economist at the National Association of Home Builders, and their delayed willingness -- or ability -- to strike out on their own has helped drive down the new house market.
The largest shift in living preferences occurred after 2005, especially among those young adults ages 25 to 34. Between 1990 and 2005, the share living with parents was about 12 percent, but it rose to more than 19 percent in 2012.
The younger cohort, ages 18 to 24, is more likely to remain at home, with 57 percent doing so in 2012.
The main reason young adults are declining to leave the family nest is their inability to find suitable employment. And as the unemployment rate grew in the late 2000s, says Siniavskaia, so did the share of young adults who opted to stay home. Indeed, the share of unemployed in the 25-to-34 age bracket doubled, from 7 percent in 2000 to 14 percent in 2012.
And even though the unemployment rate started to decline in most states in 2011, the share of young adults living with parents "remain(s) stubbornly high and has even increased" in some places, the NAHB economist points out.
This, she says, suggests that it takes longer for young adults to overcome the overall sense of economic instability and gain confidence in their own financial independence before moving out of their childhood homes and into places of their own.
You've heard of homeowners who are "underwater," or who owe more on their mortgages than their houses are worth. Now comes a new term -- "under paper" -- for owners who have paid off their loans but can't prove it.
When you pay off your loan, you should receive a piece of paper variously called a mortgage satisfaction, mortgage release or mortgage discharge. The same paper should be sent to your local deed-recording office so it can become part of the public record.
But routine isn't always a matter of course, and the lien on your house remains a paper lien in the public records until it is removed. Worse, this scenario isn't all that unusual, says John McDermott, a real estate attorney in Chelsea, Mich. "It happens all the time."
And when your loan has been sold to another lender, maybe two or three times over, the problem becomes that much more complicated. A lender can't sign off on this important document if it doesn't own the loan or have the authority to sign as an agent of the loan's rightful owner.
The moral: When you pay off your loan, make certain you receive a mortgage satisfaction. You should receive it within 60 days of your final payment. Then, after about 30 days or so, check with your recorders' office to be certain the satisfaction has been recorded.
If you don't, and you subsequently go to sell your house, the deal could be delayed until you prove the house is debt-free. And doing that could mean a lot of extra expense.
It is not surprising that lumber is the most expensive segment of the overall construction costs in building a house. But what's the next most costly feature?
That would be excavating the site. Moving all the dirt around to where the builder wants it, and then putting in the foundation and backfilling the hole, runs nearly 10 percent of the cost to build a typical single-family house, according to the latest breakdown from the National Association of Home Builders.
Together, the cost of the windows, doors, stairs, lighting fixtures, gutters and downspouts don't account for that much, according to the figures from 2011, the latest year for which they are available.
The only cost that even approaches the expense of excavating is plumbing, which accounts for 6 percent of the total. The electrical wiring runs 4.4 percent, which is about the same as the cost of siding (4.7 percent), the heating and air-conditioning system (4.8 percent), drywall (4.4 percent) and tile and carpet (4.5 percent).
It pays to hire a professional to photograph your house when listing it for sale, according to Redfin, a real estate brokerage firm.
This bit of news may be self-serving. After all, Redfin covers the cost of professional photos when you list with the company. But nevertheless, it says that for houses priced from $400,000 to $499,000, those professionally photographed sold for an average of $11,200 more than places shot by an amateur.
Redfin's study of houses listed and sold in 2013 in 22 major markets also found that those shot with a digital single-lens reflex camera sold 21 days faster that those shot with a point-and-shoot camera.