Home builders are running out of buildable home sites. Relief is on the way -- just not soon.

The current inventory of vacant developed lots is at its lowest level since the Zonda market research firm began tracking it in 2015.

They're "disappearing ... faster than replacement lots can be brought to market," says the company's chief economist, Ali Wolf. "Builders are snatching them up," she says -- in some cases, "aggressively" buying parcels "they wouldn't even have considered a year ago. ... All the top markets are significantly undersupplied."

The number of building sites in development is up 14% over a year ago, Zonda recently reported. However, the lion's share are still in the excavation stage. So they won't be ready for builders until sometime next year.

The rest are waiting for the developer to put in streets (or the streets are currently being added). These sites are expected to be ready to accept construction later this year -- some before winter sets in -- but only "if everything goes smoothly," Wolf says.

Nevertheless, the economist believes "a lot more houses will hit the market in the next 24 months." And that, she says, should put a stop to the extraordinary run-up in new house prices. Or at least slow it down.

The median price of a newly built house in July was $390,500: an 18% jump from a year earlier, according to the latest data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The median for all of last year was $336,000.

Higher costs have priced out some buyers, particularly at the lower end of the market. A year ago, 42% of new home sales were priced below $300,000. But in July, only 24% were priced below that benchmark.

Many factors go into the price of new construction. But a principal one is what builders pay for building sites, and that cost is up significantly. Lot values for detached, single-family homes started last year surged 18%, Census figures show, driving up the cost to a record median of $53,000. And that doesn't include custom-built houses.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, lot values are now approaching the record levels recorded during the 2005-2006 housing boom, when half of lots were going for more than $43,000. That's equivalent to about $55,000 when converted into inflation-adjusted 2020 dollars.

Though the jump in prices is "unprecedented," Natalia Siniavskaia, an NAHB economist, says it is "consistent with other significant building material price hikes and undeniable supply challenges that have been constraining the pandemic-fueled housing boom."

Over the last year, a quarter of the builders polled by Zonda said they paid significantly higher prices for finished sites -- 21% or more overall. And going forward, some two-thirds say their lot costs are likely to rise by 11% or more.

"That's one of the reasons we're starting to see more and more attached or high-density product," says Zonda Senior Managing Principal Tim Sullivan.

Higher lot costs are occurring even though lot sizes are shrinking. The median stood at 8,306 square feet, or just under a fifth of an acre, in 2020, the NAHB says. That's about 125 feet from the smallest lot size ever. And a record 39% of all lots are under 0.16 acres.

At the other end of the lot size spectrum, meanwhile, the share of spec houses built before they are sold and on sites exceeding half an acre shrunk from 14% in 2010 to 9% last year. The share of lots measuring between a quarter and half an acre declined from 24% to 18% over the same 10-year period.

Another way to look at the lot shortage is the number of new communities that are in active sales. And their number is shriveling up, too, largely because builders are selling out quicker than they expected.

Zonda's community count is down 20-25% nationally, but it's up to 40% off in some markets. And "we haven't seen the bottom yet," says Sullivan.

Similarly, John Burns Real Estate Consulting reports that builders are selling out of so many projects that its active list is down 17%. And Senior Vice President Jody Kahn doesn't expect a big uptick anytime soon.

"New home community supply won't surge," Kahn reported recently. "With 67% of land brokers reporting that fewer lots are available for sale and fewer bidders on land, we don't expect a massive increase in construction."

Despite all this, Zonda says land is only fifth on the latest list of builder concerns: Just 40% of respondents to the July survey said land prices were an issue, down from 47% in June.

The availability of building products is No. 1 on the list of builders' current challenges, followed by affordability issues, the cost of building materials and the availability of labor.

The inability to get key materials on time has some builders "thinking about switching to products they can get more quickly regardless of price," Sullivan reports.

If your closing was postponed recently, cybercriminals may be to blame.

In mid-July, Cloudstar, a cloud-hosting and data security provider to title and settlement firms, was one of the many companies to fall victim to a sophisticated ransomware attack that rendered its systems inaccessible.

The company has retained the services of third-party forensics specialists Tetra Defense to assist with the recovery efforts; negotiations with the hackers were said to be ongoing.

A company statement from a week after the attack said that Cloudstar was working "around the clock to assess the recoverability of customer data." As of early August, Cloudstar reported that it was continuing restoration efforts, and expected that the majority of its customer data would be recovered.

At the same time, the company warned that the process is "very complex ... Due to the extensive impact that this event had on our systems, we are unable to provide a definitive ETA. We expect that this overall process will take several weeks."

Cloudstar operates six data centers in the United States, serving more than 42,000 users.

An illegal grow house in your neighborhood could make your house less valuable. But when recreational and medical marijuana is legal, new research suggests that home values are likely to increase.

For every $1 million bump in tax revenues paid by legitimate growers and sellers, home values will increase by an average of $470, a study by Clever Real Estate found.

Once sales begin in the five states that most recently legalized recreational weed -- Montana, New Mexico, New York, Virginia and Vermont -- home values are predicted to increase by an average of $61,343, according to the research.

The study found that between 2017 and 2021, property values rose $17,113 more in states where recreational marijuana is legal, compared to those where it is illegal or limited to medicinal use. With each new dispensary added, whether medicinal or recreational, property values increase by $519, it said.

As of July, 36 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for recreational use, medicinal use or both. The industry is projected to be worth $30 billion by 2025. Pew Research says 91% of American adults believe marijuana should be legal in some form.

If you felt like someone was looking over your shoulder when you visited an open house recently, you may have been right.

About three in 10 sellers are using hidden cameras to spy on visitors -- and not just to protect their belongings, according to a new survey by LendingTree. The No. 1 stated reason: to gain a better understanding of what potential buyers like and don't like about their homes so they can make adjustments.

Sellers also resort to spying to gather information they could use during negotiations and to find out what their agents are really saying about their houses. And unbeknownst to their own agents, some are watching to make sure they are doing their jobs.

Using such devices may or may not be legal, depending on local laws. But it also may be counterproductive. Nearly half the buyers queried said they would back out of the deal if they discovered the seller had secretly recorded them.

If you are working from home, whether by choice or not, you might want to consider your workspace a satellite office of your employer and ask for compensation. At least, that's the thinking of one real estate executive.

As long as space in your home is used solely for work, and it is used for the majority of your work, you can claim a home office on your federal tax return. But Tamir Poleg, co-founder and CEO of The Real Brokerage, says your employer should be paying you for using space that otherwise could be put to other uses.

There are tax implications to working from home, as well as labor and employment law implications. For example, a shift in an employee's location across state lines can result in new wage and hour rules, and/or potential double taxation for employees living in one state and working in another.

"It is only fair that employers take responsibility for all of the above and find a way to compensate, or at least share expenses with, the employees for using their residences as the company's satellite office," Poleg told me.

A new rule from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is designed to help servicers -- aka companies that manage your mortgage payments -- to quickly process deeply delinquent loans. That way, they can focus on borrowers who still have a chance to save their homes.

The idea is to stem what some expect will be a flood of foreclosures. But not everyone is of that thinking, at least not entirely. Moody's Investor Services believes that if borrowers who are delinquent or in foreclosure list their homes for sale evenly over the coming months, as opposed to dumping them on the market all at once, the result would add only a meager half-a-month's supply to the inventory-starved market.

Because of climate change, Spencer Glendon -- a senior fellow at the Woodwell Climate Research Center, one of the world's most respected climate think tanks -- said recently that it may not be long before every homeowner in the country will need flood insurance.

But every homeowner in the country should have flood coverage already, because floods can happen anywhere, anytime and for practically any reason.

Glendon said that once-in-a-century rain events could become once-in-a-decade because the air is warming to a point where big rainstorms contain around 20-25% more water. For every degree warmer the air gets, he said, it holds 7% more moisture.

"That's why storms are bigger," he told an Urban Land Institute meeting. "This is not an opinion. It's science."

Rain is certainly the major cause of floods, but there are others: Water mains collapse, dams break, snow melts and water runs off from nearby construction projects.

Even an inch of water can cause $25,000 worth of damage to your house, according to the National Flood Insurance Program, a federal agency that writes the vast majority of flood policies. And your regular homeowner's policy does not cover flooding.

Flood coverage is required if your place is located in a high-risk flood area and you have a government-backed mortgage -- that is, one purchased from your lender by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, insured by the Federal Housing Administration or backed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. It's not required if you live outside a high-risk area, but your lender may still compel coverage.

Whether it's required or not, though, you should consider it. Unfortunately, most people don't, according to analyst Chris Moon at ValuePenguin.com, a personal finance website.

Moon's look at the 100 largest cities found only four active policies for every 10 houses located in what the Federal Emergency Management Agency designates as 100-year flood plains. But those are concentrated in regions like the Gulf Coast and Florida, where owners are well aware of the potential for flooding.

"Homeowners in 100-year flood plains do not realize their homes have a 26% chance of being flooded," Moon says.

Worse, perhaps, there are fewer than two active policies for every 100 houses in high-risk flood areas such as Detroit, Cleveland and Minneapolis.

Moon says the average annual cost of a flood policy is $708. But the good news is that you are no longer limited to a sometimes-expensive government policy: Private insurers are quietly moving into the market.

Thanks to a change in the rules, according to Scott Giberson of CoreLogic, a data analytics firm, written flood premiums by private insurers have increased more than 70% nationwide, and more than 200% in some states. Now, it is estimated that some 80 players are offering coverage, including a few giants like Lloyds of London.

In an effort to underpin the private market, states are getting into the act, too. Giberson reported at a recent Mortgage Bankers Association conference that 20 states have passed laws or are considering bills supporting the market. Florida's law, which allows the state's insurance commissioner to certify that private policies are in compliance with federal standards, is considered a model statute.

But there's a rub: Lenders do not have to accept policies that fail to meet Uncle Sam's requirements. Lenders and their regulators are still ironing out the rules, but private policies must include the same 45-day cancellation period found in NFIP policies.

Some private policies give their clients just 30 days' notice, warned Stacy Christian of RoundPoint Mortgage. "Is 30 days really enough time for borrowers to find another policy?" she asked at the MBA meeting.

We'll leave that question to greater minds. But it's a good idea to know exactly what's covered by any private policy you're considering. Otherwise, it may not be as good as the government alternative.

"You really do need to do your homework," said Jane Mason of Clarifire, which helps lenders automate their business processes.

"Watch out for exclusions," said Christian. "We're seeing more and more of them. Lenders will be looking for them, too, but you should be proactive."

One example of a dubious exception: Some private policies exclude mud flow, which is defined as a river of liquid flowing on the surface of normally dry land and carried by a current of water. NFIP's policy says that's a covered event. So is erosion caused by waves or currents exceeding normal tidal flows.

In other instances, though, private outfits are doing the government one better. Whereas NFIP gives its insureds just one year to file suit if a claim is denied, some private insurers grant people two years to act. And while there's a 30-day waiting period for federal coverage to go into effect, some private outfits offer shorter waiting times.

Something else to consider: The survival of private insurers does not depend on the whim of Congress. Lately, the NFIP has been funded in short-term spending bills. While it is doubtful lawmakers will ever let the program lapse into oblivion, it may not be able to meet policyholders' claims if lawmakers are slow to act.

But it could be "problematic" if you drop a government policy for a private one and then decide to go back, Mason said in a phone interview. You'll still have to wait the 30 days, so she advises keeping your private coverage in force "until your federal policy kicks in. You have to manage the timelines proactively."

If warranted, Mason also suggests adding a private policy on top of the government policy, because the maximum coverage is $250,000. In other words, if your place is worth, say, $400,000, you might want add some extra coverage.

And never, ever miss a payment on a required policy or let it lapse. If you do, your lender could put another flood package in its place, and that could be extremely expensive. "Force-place insurance is costly," Mason warned.