Seattle Region January Home Sales Seattle-area home sales hit a six-year high for the month of January, rising above a year earlier for the 19th consecutive month. The median sale price fell from December, as it normally does, but increased year-over-year for the 10th consecutive month, a real estate information service reported. A total of 3,102 new and resale houses and condos closed escrow during January in the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue metro area encompassing King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. January's total sales fell 26.0 percent from the month before and increased 25.1 percent from a year earlier, according to San Diego-based DataQuick. The firm tracks real estate trends nationally via public property records. A dip in sales between December and January is normal, with that decline averaging 25.6 percent since 1994, when DataQuick's complete Seattle-area statistics begin. The number of homes sold this January was the highest for that month since January 2007, when 4,223 homes sold. This January's sales total was still 6.7 percent below the average number of homes sold during all months of January since 1994. Resale single-family house sales were 9.2 percent below the historical average for January, while condo resales were 28.4 percent above average and sales of newly built homes were 20.4 percent below average. The Seattle-area resale market - existing single-family houses and condos combined - posted a 19.4 percent increase in sales compared with a year earlier, while sales of newly built homes logged a 63.7 percent increase. January sales of new Seattle-area houses and condos combined were the highest for that month in five years. The year-over-year increase in total January sales was driven by big gains for sales above $200,000, while the number of homes that sold for less than $200,000 rose just 1.0 percent year-over-year and sub-$150,000 sales fell 12.2 percent. Sales of homes priced above $200,000 rose 42.6 percent year-over-year, while $300...

by Ethan Handelman, National Housing Conference I led a panel [Monday] to brief Congressional staff on how the qualified residential mortgage (QRM) rule can align with the qualified mortgage (QM) rule to encourage safe mortgages that are accessible to borrowers of low and moderate income and also perform well for investors. Several other members of the Coalition for Sensible Housing Policy joined me: Ken Fears , Senior Economist and the Manager, Regional Economics and Mortgage Finance for the Research Division of the National Association of REALTORS Kenneth W. Edwards , Policy Counsel for the Center for Responsible Lending Michael Fratantoni , Vice President of Single-Family Research and Policy Development for the Mortgage Bankers Association Julia Gordon , Director of Housing Finance and Policy at the Center for American Progress Those who have been following NHC's work on the QRM won't be surprised by the content of the presentation. QRM shouldn't require high downpayments or restrictive debt-to-income ratios. Indeed, the best move for regulators would be to use the recently adopted QM rule as the standard for QRM .

The US economy has added an average of 205,000 jobs the past four months. At that pace, given the current labor force participation, it would take 49 months to hit 4.5% unemployment, according to an employment calculator from the Atlanta … read more >

Cordray Pledges Consumer Protection in Pitch to Run U.S. Bureau Bloomberg Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray pledged to continue to pursue policies that protect consumers as the Senate considers his second nomination to run the agency. "As the economy recovers, we want people to know they have a ...

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Genworth Advances in Wager on U.S. Housing-Market Rebound Bloomberg Genworth Financial Inc. (GNW), the provider of life insurance and mortgage guaranties, posted the largest gain in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index on speculation the company will benefit from the rebound of the housing market. Genworth rose 6.8 percent to ...

Should the FHA demand more money down from those who want big mortgages? This is the question that HUD raised with a notice last month asking for a bigger down payment from those who borrow $625,500 or more. The notice gave the general public 30 days to respond to the FHA proposal, a period which [...] Should Borrowers Pay More For Big FHA Mortgages? is a post from: OurBroker.com -- Refinance, Home Mortgage Loans & Rates, Home Equity Loan

NEW YORK (Reuters) - In early 2007, as signs of distress began appearing in securities backed by residential mortgages, executives at Standard & Poor's began advising analysts responsible for rating mortgage bonds that they should put the phrase "privileged and confidential" on emails to one another.

Italy could see its borrowing costs rise above those of troubled Spain this week, analysts told CNBC on Monday, with a credit rating downgrade on Friday and continued political deadlock posing an ever larger threat.