Morning Briefing: Beach town bargains revealed

Beach town bargains revealed… Millennials are more likely to live alone in these cities… Luxury housing market slows as super-rich caution grows…

Beach town bargains revealed
Beaches in the Northeast top the list of coastal home bargains revealed by RealtyTrac. New Jersey town Keanburg offers the best bargain with a median price of $71,000 followed by Mastic Beach, NY at $99,000.

However, price is not the only factor in the rankings which include average summer temperatures, air quality and the density of criminal offenders. If it was purely based on price then the median $50,559 would have put Crisfield, MD on top of the stack.

“While real estate close to the ocean tends to be pricier, bargains are still available particularly in smaller towns off the beaten path where home prices have been slower to bounce back from the housing downturn. We picked the highest-ranked bargain beach town from each state to provide a good sampling of the diverse beach town experiences available across the country,” said Darren Blomquist, senior vice president at RealtyTrac.
 
Millennials are more likely to live alone in these cities
Young Americans have been finding it hard to live alone as home prices have made it unaffordable to pay for rent or a mortgage without a second wage earner, while many are living with parents longer.

"With home prices and rents rising as fast as they are, it's a common assumption that young adults in many cases cannot afford to live alone," said Zillow Chief Economist Dr. Svenja Gudell. "Though that may be true in some markets, there's still a large number of amazing places across the U.S. that are prime for millennials to thrive independently.”

Those in Richmond and Pittsburgh are bucking the trend according to data from Zillow. Its data found that 8.9 per cent of millennials live alone but in Richmond it’s 15 per cent and in Pittsburgh 14.3 per cent.

Millennials are also more likely than average to live alone in Buffalo, NY; Columbus, OH; Virginia Beach, VA; Cleveland; New Orleans; Austin, TX; Kansas City, MO; and Oklahoma City.
 
Luxury housing market slows as super-rich caution grows
While much of the US housing market is showing improvement, the high-end sector is showing signs of slowing.

The LA Times reports that the market for the most expensive homes in the region was already easing before the UK’s Brexit vote but that has exacerbated caution among the super-rich.

However, it’s not just in LA where discounting of high-value homes has become more prolific. In New York there has been a 40 per cent drop in the number of homes sold for $10 million or more, according to first-quarter figures from Miller Samuel. Miami has also seen a slowdown.