April 2007 - MND NewsWire

The two most closely watched monthly housing reports came out this week and served only to muddy the real estate waters even further.

On Tuesday the National Association of Realtors issued its report on existing home sales for the month of March. It wasn't pretty. NAR spokesman, Chief Economist David Lereah placed most of the blame on...

The chief executives of both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae as well as the Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Federal Housing Commissioner and Assistant Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development testified last week in a hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services about solutions to the current subprime mortgage turmoil.

Each of the four had some interesting things to say about what their organizations/agencies are doing or could be doing to resolve the situation and...

Redfin, the Seattle based and self- described "first Internet brokerage" turned one year old recently. It has been nearly that long since we took a look at it so we made a second visit.

...While much of its business model sets our teeth on edge, this is obviously a company that has some interesting ideas and is growing fast. We will check back around its second birthday to see what else is new.

Builders appeared to have remained cautious about the housing market in March, pulling permits and starting construction on new houses in numbers little changed from February.

The monthly data on new residential construction jointly released by the U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development on Tuesday reported that...

A coalition of housing activists and civil rights groups has called for a six month moratorium on foreclosures to provide time for financially troubled homeowners with time to solve their problems.

In a statement accompanying the release of Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey for the week ended April 5, Frank Nothaft, Freddie Mac vice president and chief economist remarked, "Mortgage rates have remained within a narrow band of 0.1 percentage points over every week in March. This relative stability is due to mixed economic data releases as to how strong the economy is and whether future inflation will recede. One bright spot this week came from an unexpected increase in pending home sales for February, which suggests the housing market is still healthy."

April is Fair Housing Month and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) just released its Annual Report on Fair Housing.

The 2006 Annual Report announces that HUD and the Fair Housing Assistance Program (FHAP) agencies received a record number of housing discrimination complaints during the year...