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The writer of “Girl From The North Country” has sold his estate in Scotland’s north country.

Nobel Prize-winning musician Bob Dylan has parted with his stately retreat in the Scottish Highlands for more than $5 million, according to a report in Mansion Global. 

The 16-bedroom estate near Nethy Bridge in Cairngorms National Park was originally listed at roughly $3.7 million and received multiple offers.

The winning buyer was the Scotch whiskey producer Angus Dundee Distillers, which paid  £4,257,650 or $5,340,051 for the estate. Dylan originally purchased the property for roughly $2.7 million with his brother, David Zimmerman.

The brothers enjoyed periodic visits to the estate over the years but decided to sell it after not using it for an extended period, according to the Times of London which reported when the estate was first listed in July.

The house has several reception rooms including a music room, along with 11 bathrooms and seven additional bedrooms in its attic. The property is made up of 25 acres of grounds including cottages, a large greenhouse, walled gardens, a fountain and a croquet lawn.

The estate was built between 1911 and 1914 as a retreat for Russian businessman Archibald Merrilees, who founded Russia’s first department store, M&M, in the mid-19th century. His family was forced to sell the store in the 1920s after their fortunes were hit hard by the Russian Revolution.

The estate, named Aultmore House, was later used as a hospital during World War II and a finishing school owned by a New Zealand-born spy. It later became a popular wedding venue until Dylan purchased it in 2006.

Dylan, who at 82 has spent the better part of the past two years touring the world for his 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways, has written of his affinity for the Scottish Highlands before, including in a song named for the region off his Grammy-winning 1997 album, Time Out of Mind. 

“My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I roam / That’s where I’ll be when I get called home,” he sang.

Dylan’s tour is entering its final phase and is scheduled to wrap up sometime in 2024.

The sale was handled by Tom-Stewart Moore of Knight Frank.

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The verdict is in — the old way of doing business is over. Join us at Inman Connect New York Jan. 23-25, when together we’ll conquer today’s market challenges and prepare for tomorrow’s opportunities. Defy the market and bet big on your future.

The generation with the toughest path to homeownership is also the generation that values it the most, according to a new survey.

Even more than their parents generation, millennials are obsessed with homeownership and equate owning a house to truly “making it,” according to new research from Bank of America.

This year’s Bank of America Homebuyer Insights Report shows that “homeownership is more important for millennials than for their parents at the same age.”

That takeaway is either in spite of or because of the fact that millennials have faced a far more difficult path to homeownership than the generations preceding them, with a large chunk of them entering adulthood immediately preceding the 2008 financial crisis and amid the sluggish job market that followed it.

Younger people, especially millennials, are particularly disadvantaged by the current housing market due to 20-year high mortgage rates making already expensive homes further out of reach. Older millennials, those aged 35 to 45, are currently hurting due to carrying an oversized share of outstanding student loans, the report noted.

“Approximately 80 percent of outstanding U.S. mortgages have an interest rate below 5 percent. This gives homeowners an incentive to stay put because the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate hit 8 percent in October of this year,” the report reads. “Younger people, millennials in particular, are being hurt disproportionally by this trend, according to Bank of America Institute’s newly released Housing Morsel. The rate disparity is compressing the already limited supply of houses for sale.”

Despite the challenges, 58 percent of millennials surveyed said they felt homeownership is more important now than it was for their parents. Gen Z holds homeownership in even higher esteem, with 60 percent of Gen Z agreeing with millennials on this score.

Only 26 percent of boomers said they felt homeownership was more important for them than for their parents, suggesting that as real estate becomes more unattainable, it becomes more important to people.

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Famed real estate investor and Corcoran Group founder Barbara Corcoran says sticking to her own “golden rule” of real estate investing has helped her earn millions of dollars in the real estate market.

The “Shark Tank” star recently went on the “BiggerPockets” podcast where she broke down her two-part system for investing in real estate that she says helped earn her a net worth of $100 million.

The golden rule 

Corcoran’s “golden rule” is made up of two key components. The first is being able to purchase properties with at least 20 percent down, ideally in an up-and-coming area that is seeing demand increase. The second is to have tenants at that property paying your mortgage, according to Corcoran.

“If you can buy a property with 20 percent down, you break even, you get the tenants to pay your mortgage, you always make money,” Corcoran said. “And if you can saddle onto the back of an up-and-coming area, you’ll make a lot of money.”

But similar to the real estate market itself, Corcoran’s golden rule has changed over time. She initially allowed herself to put down payments of just 10 percent when purchasing a property, but as housing prices and interest rates have increased, she has increased her down payment percentage to compensate.

Aim to break even

Corcoran was asked by podcast host David Greene whether the goal in property investment should be just to break even or to have an income-producing property. Corcoran said it’s important to start out by breaking even, which she says can only be achieved by putting down 20 percent initially.

Breaking even in the first year or so of property investment is normal, but as property values rise and mortgage rates decrease over time, investors can begin to see some returns, she said. Corcoran cited as an example a property she purchased with a 20 percent down payment, then waited 20 years before selling it at a true profit.

Not all tenants are created equal 

For Corcoran, residential tenants hold more value than commercial tenants. While residential tenants tend to rent their homes for extended periods of time, commercial tenants see the space they are renting as little more than an investment and will leave as soon as they feel it is no longer a worthwhile expense for them.

Residential leases are also shorter than commercial leases, Corcoran noted, meaning it is easier to increase rents once leases end.

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The verdict is in — the old way of doing business is over. Join us at Inman Connect New York Jan. 23-25, when together we’ll conquer today’s market challenges and prepare for tomorrow’s opportunities. Defy the market and bet big on your future.

Redfin believes 2024 will be the year homebuyers finally catch a break.

The Seattle-based brokerage and real estate portal on Tuesday released its annual housing market predictions for the new year, projecting a shift toward a buyers’ market that already began in late 2023, thanks in part to a continued decline in inflation, falling mortgage rates and additional inventory hitting the market, according to a forecast released Tuesday.

“We expect these trends to continue in the new year, ushering in a season of hope for aspiring homebuyers,” Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather wrote in the forecast.

A 1% drop in home prices

Redfin predicted home prices will fall a full percentage point throughout 2024 as supply outpaces demand. The brokerage cited a recent double-digit increase in the number of homeowners contacting Redfin to sell their home alongside a small drop in requests from prospective buyers as evidence.

Overall, Redfin predicted 4.3 million homes sold in 2024, a 5 percent annual increase from 2023. It also predicted sales would gain momentum through 2024, instead of lose momentum as they did in 2023.

Rates will decline but stay high 

Redfin predicted the average 30-year mortgage rate will sit in the area of 7 percent for the first quarter of the year, then decline throughout the year, falling to 6.6 percent by the end of 2024. Rates will likely remain well above pandemic-era lows due to the growing consensus that the country will avoid a recession in 2024, according to the forecast.

Change will come

The new year will see dramatic changes to the real estate brokerage industry, following decades of the industry remaining largely impervious to change, Redfin predicted.

On the heels of a verdict in October in the hotly anticipated Sitzer | Burnett commission trial, Redfin says its agents are already encountering widespread discounting among its competitors, if not in the fee offered to the buyer’s agents then in commission refunds or in private listing agreements.

Redfin went so far as to predict that many homebuyers will choose to work directly with listing agents rather than work with a buyer’s agent, which may end up saving them thousands of dollars in commission fees.

A nation of renters 

Redfin predicted more Americans will embrace the renter lifestyle as housing inventory remains low and expensive. Demand for large rental apartments and houses for rent will grow as families continue renting instead of purchasing a starter home.

Nearly one in five millennials who responded to a 2023 housing survey believe they will never own a home, the forecast notes, while half of those respondents said homes are too expensive and a similar share said they cannot afford to save for a down payment.

Prices of large rental units will climb next year as supply fails to meet demand, the forecast said.

Biden’s housing problem 

Home prices are up 20 percent since Joe Biden took office, and that could hurt his reelection bid, Redfin said.

A recent poll found that 65 percent of voters disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, with lack of housing affordability likely a major factor. High housing costs mean most Americans feel poor, which is especially true among young people who don’t own a home and some who feel they may never own a home.

Democrats will likely focus on subsidizing down payments for first-time buyers, promoting inclusionary zoning and funding housing vouchers, while Republicans will likely focus on slashing regulations to allow for more home building, Redfin predicted.

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The nation’s leading real estate listings search portal is predicting improvements in inventory and affordability for 2024.

In a forecast released Thursday, Zillow predicted homebuyers will have slightly more homes to choose from at slightly more agreeable prices in the new year — but only by a small margin. Buying a home will remain expensive, but the market will begin to become gradually better for buyers in what Zillow economists called a “breather year.”

“I expect the beginning of a long healing process to kick off in the housing market next year,” Skylar Olsen, Zillow chief economist, said in the forecast. “We know there are a huge number of households in prime home-buying ages waiting for the winds to turn in their favor. While still presenting challenges, the market will be better for buyers, with more homes to choose from and improved affordability. Many will continue to look toward rentals, and given renter demographics, single-family rental demand in particular will be strong. Recent deliveries should keep rent growth down, and concessions high in that market, too. This is our breather year.”

Zillow predicted that more homes will hit the market during 2024 as more homeowners accept that high mortgage rates are sticking around and move forward with their plans to list their homes, even if it means losing their lower mortgage rate.

These predictions come as a separate report released this week by Realtor.com found that newly listed inventory increased annually by 7.5 percent during November — the first annual increase recorded since May 2022.

Zillow predicted that housing prices would more or less remain stable throughout 2024. Depending on which way mortgage rates trend during the year, that means there is a chance that affordability may improve somewhat for buyers. Recent inflation news suggests there is a good chance that mortgage rates will decrease throughout the coming months as well, the forecast notes.

Still, homes will remain very expensive, which is why Zillow predicted sustained demand in the rental space, especially for single-family rentals and rentals close to downtown areas. The forecast goes as far as to call the single-family rental the new starter home and predicted that rental prices will continue to increase throughout the year.

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