After months of low rates some of which broke long-time records, mortgage interest rates shot up drastically during the week ended June 4. Freddie Mac released the results of its Primary Mortgage Market survey this morning, showing that the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) for the week averaged 5.29...
We will give only a passing nod to Freddie Mac's Economic and Housing Market Outlook for May as much of it deals with the Quarter 1 report on cash-out refinancing which we already covered in detail here on Tuesday. However, a few things are worth noting. First of all, as regards the cash-out data, the...
Will the economy return the favor? The April 2007 Economic Outlook issued by Freddie Mac credits the housing market with pulling the overall economy through the recession in 2001 and restoring it to a vigorous pace of growth over the following years. Now, with the housing sector floundering, can the...
Reports on the sales of both new and existing homes were released on Friday, March 23 and Monday, March 26 and they pointed in distinctly opposite directions. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) released figures showing an unexpected surge in existing home sales for February on the heels of a...
Freddie Mac seems to be seeking a little cover in its March 2007 Economic Outlook released late last week. These monthly forecasts always have a theme which the authors tend to torture relentlessly and this month it is the old adage - "In Like a Lion..." News about the housing market is likened to the...
The January 2007 Economic Outlook which is published last week by the Office of the Chief Economist at Freddie Mac was headlined " The Remodeled Housing Market " and was focused on economic trends. But first it recapped the current housing market: an 11 percent November 2005 to November 2006 drop in...
Freddie Mac issued its monthly "outlook" for the month of July as well as a round-up of the first half of 2006 . While the report still projects a housing market that is undergoing a "moderate and orderly cooling," a comparison to the January outlook shows a slight decline in optimism. Freddie harkened...