Author: Mark Chu

The second-home market spent four straight years shrinking. As of mid-2026, that finally turned — though not in the way most owners assume. Redfin’s research on second-home lending found that lenders originated 4.1% more second-home mortgages in 2025 than the year before, the first annual increase in four years. The important part is what that … Continued

The two most expensive parts of a house to fix — the roof over it and the foundation under it — have both gotten pricier, and as of late-2026 they’re not just a repair problem anymore. They’re an insurance problem. Nationally, most homeowners now spend $10,000 to $30,000 to replace a roof, and one industry … Continued

Ask three Fresno agents how long it takes to sell a house and you will get three different answers. So here is the actual data. As of mid-2026, the median Fresno home takes 45 days to go under contract, according to Redfin’s June 2026 figures — up 20 days from just 25 days a year … Continued

What the Mid-2026 Data Says About Underwater Mortgages If you owe more on your mortgage than your house would bring in a sale, you are not imagining that the headlines have gotten louder. As of mid-2026, roughly 813,000 borrowers nationwide were underwater at the end of June — up 44% from a year earlier — … Continued

Fresno County authorized just 2,271 new private housing units in 2025 — the lowest annual total since 2014, and down roughly 42% from the 3,902 units permitted in 2021, per U.S. Census Bureau building permit data. As of August 2026, that number has not bounced back. Meanwhile, California tightened what sellers have to say about … Continued

Here is a number that surprises most people who own an empty house: as of the second quarter of 2026, the U.S. homeowner vacancy rate was just 1.2%, according to the Census Bureau’s Quarterly Residential Vacancies and Homeownership release. That is a five-year high and still historically tiny. The rental vacancy rate came in at … Continued

On June 16, 2026, the Fresno County Board of Supervisors adopted Resolution No. 26-245, clearing 161 tax-defaulted properties for a two-day internet auction on September 10 and 11, 2026. Thirty-four of those parcels had already been offered at an earlier sale and failed to draw a bid, so the Tax Collector was also authorized to … Continued

Your listing expired, the sign came out of the yard, and the house never sold. You have a great deal of company right now. Redfin’s delistings and relistings report, published in June 2026, found that 5.8% of all U.S. home listings were pulled off the market in April — roughly one out of every 17 … Continued

If you are staring at a house packed floor to ceiling — yours, your parents’, or one you just inherited — the first thing worth knowing is how ordinary the situation actually is. A systematic review and meta-analysis of the strongest population studies put hoarding disorder at roughly 2.5% of adults, or about 1 in … Continued

If you still owe money on your house and you are weighing a cash sale, one question comes up before all the others: what actually happens to the mortgage? The short version — it gets paid off out of the sale proceeds at the closing table. You do not keep making payments afterward, and the … Continued