Scammers are now using utility bills to try to dupe customers.Scammers reportedly are making calls to customers posing as representatives from companies like ConEd, Duke Energy, Georgia Power, Consumers Energy, or a bogus utility company called General Electric, among others. They’ll threaten to shut off power or service if customers don’t pay immediately. They’ll offer an “energy assistance” or payment plan and ask for the customer’s
The Department of Housing and Urban Development would see its funding drop by 13 percent under President Donald Trump's fiscal 2018 budget proposal. The cuts, combined with others elsewhere in the federal government's discretionary budget, would offset proposed increases in defense and homeland security funding, including an increase of $54 billion for Department of Defense programs. The proposal, Trump said, "follows through on my promise to foc
About 32.7 million Americans—or 10.2 percent of the U.S. population—claimed Irish ancestry in 2015, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In honor of St. Patrick's Day, do you know which U.S. city is the most Irish of all? Realtor.com® researchers scoured the data in the 300 largest U.S. cities to find the percentage of Irish-Americans living there.New England boasts the most Irish descendants in the nation, with Manchester, N.H., leading the
Single-family housing starts surged in February to their highest level since late 2007, the Commerce Department reports. Overall, nationwide housing starts, including for single-family and multifamily sectors, increased 3 percent in February to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.288 million units.Broken out, single-family production rose 6.5 percent in February to 872,000 units, the highest reading in nearly a decade. Multifamily starts, on t
Most appraisers today are satisfied with their work, but they’re worried about the rise of automated appraisals and they’re not happy with appraisal management companies.Those are findings from NAR research, released today, to provide a picture of the state of the appraisal field and to see if more needs to be done to bring new appraisers into the profession.“The work of an appraiser is indispensable to our industry,” said NAR President W
Builder confidence in the newly built single-family market soared to a 12-year high this month, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index. The index rose six points to a 71 reading, the highest level since June 2005.Builders are showing more confidence over current sales conditions, sales expectations over the next six months, and current buyer traffic.Also, "builders are buoyed by President Trump's a
A new phishing scam can display what looks like a Google sign-in page if users click on attachments, which could end up sending account names and passwords to hackers.Here’s how the latest scam works: A scammer will send an email to your Gmail account. The email likely will appear to be coming from one of your contacts and ask you to look at an attached file, such as a PDF or Word document. It may appear to be legitimate since it seems to be co
Home renovations can help boost the resale value of a property, but they also can expose homeowners to costly repairs or even make them physically sick, if they don’t take some precautions.Help your renovating clients be on the lookout for some of these dangers that could surface in a home renovation:Flooding and electrical issues.Urge do-it-yourselfers to call 811 before they start digging. That is the service line that will inform them where
The Federal Reserve is picking up the pace, voting on Wednesday to raise its key interest rate just three months after its last rate hike. The Fed announced that short-term interest rates will increase by one-quarter of a percentage point and suggested that two similar increases likely will occur later this year. Mortgage rates aren’t directly tied to the Fed’s short-term interest rates but tend to follow them.“If you think it’s been hard
Right now, there are more Spanish speakers in the United States than in Spain, and by 2050 we’ll have the largest Spanish-speaking population in the world. To meet the needs of this growing market and the agents who serve it, the National Association of REALTORS® recently launched the Spanish-language edition of At Home With Diversity, an online certification course encompassing topics of diversity, fair housing risk reduction, and sustainable
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