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Mortgage rates capped off a great week in sour fashion last Friday. After four days of stock selling induced rate rallying, lenders were finally forced to reprice for the worse on Friday. While mortgage rates did rise more than they have on average, the best 30 year conventional fixed loan rate was still...
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The Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development today released New Residential Home Sales survey data for March 2010. The Census Bureau collects new home sales based upon the following definition: "A sale of the new house occurs with the signing of a sales contract or the acceptance...
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Consumer mortgage borrowing costs improved a few basis points yesterday as prices of mortgage backed securities ticked higher, recapturing the price losses that occured late last week. As the price gains held through close, most lenders repriced better, lowering consumer borrowing costs by 0.125 to 0...
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Financial markets don’t seem pleased by the $940 billion healthcare bill. One morning after the House of Representatives passed the President’s initiative, equity markets are sharply lower. One hour before the open, Dow futures are off 53.00 points to 10,634 and S&P 500 futures are down...
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Global equities are mostly higher Monday including gains of more than 2% in Japan and Hong Kong. In Europe, where George Provopoulos, governor of the Bank of Greece, recently said he had “full confidence” in dealing with the deficit, stocks are more mixed but on the whole still positive....
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New home sales in April rose for the first time in five months, increasing 3.3% to 526k following a downward revision of the March reading to 509k. The previous month's reading was previously reported as 526k, which was the lowest level since October 1991. Economists had expected a reading of 523k. The...
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New home sales in the U.S. were down for the fifth consecutive month in March, falling by 8.5% to 526k, much lower than the 580k level expected by economists, and setting a new low since October 1991. Inventories soared from already-worrying levels. This follows a downwardly revised reading of 575k in...
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As the overhang of new homes sits at a 27-year high of 9.8 months, new home sales are expected to fall for a fifth consecutive month in the March index from the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday. In February's report, sales fell 1.8% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 590K, contributing to an almost...
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Economists will be paying attention to this month's U.S. housing data in hopes of finding a bottom in the market. Before that, however, the focus will be in Canada on the Bank of Canada's interest rate decision. On Tuesday, the BOC will hold its regular monetary policy meeting. Economists are in agreement...
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The U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development issued their monthly joint report on August new house sales on Thursday. Like statistics on the sales of existing homes issued earlier in the week by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), sales were off significantly...