Wed, Mar 16 2016, 9:49 AM
Housing starts recovered from a disappointing January report in February but permits declined for the third consecutive month according to data rele...
Mon, Mar 14 2016, 9:43 AM
Americans have regained most of the wealth lost when the real estate bubble burst. Homeowners' equity has more or less doubled since the lows of 20...
Wed, Mar 2 2016, 10:55 AM
March... St. Patrick's Day, the religious holiday to honor St. Patrick who introduced Christianity to Ireland in the fifth century. Fortunately there ...
Wed, Mar 2 2016, 1:45 PM
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) took an in-depth look at one aspect of the Census Bureau's report on January construction expenditure...
Tue, Mar 1 2016, 11:32 AM
Publicly funded construction accounted for most of the gain in overall construction spending in January. The Census Department said on Tuesday that...
Tue, Mar 1 2016, 10:57 AM
I head to Atlanta today for a conference on preventing fraud, and decided to see what its housing market has been up to recently. It turns out that At...
Mon, Feb 29 2016, 10:31 AM
Lenders everywhere are looking forward to a great March given their swollen locked pipelines . As thousands of operations folks descend on Ellie's co...
Tue, Feb 23 2016, 10:30 AM
Home price gains were somewhat mixed in December with some of the S&P Case-Shiller posting larger increases than in November and others negative or un...
Wed, Feb 17 2016, 11:02 AM
To put some perspective on things, a trillion seconds is roughly 31,710 years. The Fed indicates that household housing debt is about $8.8 trillion ...
Wed, Feb 17 2016, 8:56 AM
U.S. housing starts unexpectedly fell in January likely as bad weather disrupted building projects in some parts of the country, in what could be a te...
Tue, Feb 16 2016, 10:52 AM
The mortgage industry has certainly taken its lumps in the last eight years. Things are turning around, and Jason Frazier from California's Mason McDu...
Tue, Feb 2 2016, 9:14 AM
Where
does the penalty money that the CFPB collects go? And is it correctly
disbursed? The Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has some thought...
Mon, Feb 1 2016, 12:13 PM
Construction spending scrambled back into positive territory
by a tiny bit in December, gaining 0.1 percent from November's level to an
estimated ...
Mon, Feb 1 2016, 8:34 AM
February
already? Ah, Valentine's Day - remember as a kid when your classmates
would hand out a 5 word card to every classmate and you received 20...
Thu, Jan 28 2016, 10:39 AM
And we have a trifecta!
All three of the home sales indicators for December have now come in
positive, although the latest, pending sales, did so l...
Thu, Jan 28 2016, 10:27 AM
Zillow
is predicting that the rental market will cool down this year. Median
U.S. rents grew at a 3.3 percent annual pace in December, to $1,381...
Thu, Jan 21 2016, 10:27 AM
Underwriters will want to know that IBISWorld has identified the top ten sectors with expected rapid growth price in 2016 .
Legal services are expe...
Wed, Jan 20 2016, 10:48 AM
If
you think regulatory trends aren't influencing businesses, big and
small, think again. In the latest "big" example, insurance company
MetLi...
Wed, Jan 20 2016, 10:31 AM
Both housing starts and residential construction permits
declined in December compared to November.
A joint release from the U.S. Census Bureau and...
Tue, Jan 19 2016, 12:16 PM
Tom
Finnegan contacted me yesterday saying, "Rob, yesterday you published a
list of reasons why loans are not currently being purchased. One of th...
Fri, Jan 15 2016, 1:02 PM
Two factors appear poised to positively affect
the ability of households to purchase a home according to Fannie Mae's economists. In their initial...
Mon, Jan 4 2016, 10:23 AM
"Rob,
I can't help but notice the enormous TRID frustration among so many of
your readers. While we/MBA were successful in getting the letter fr...
Mon, Jan 4 2016, 3:29 PM
Both public and private spending on construction eased back
slightly in November. The Census Bureau
said on Monday that total construction spending...
Tue, Dec 29 2015, 12:25 PM
Home prices continue to confound predictions
of decelerating gains. The S&P/Case-Shiller National Home Price Index
gained 5.2 percent over the 12 ...
Tue, Dec 29 2015, 11:45 AM
Are
you reading this while figuring out what you're going to do New Year's
Eve? The latest research studies find it is nearly impossible for our
...
Thu, Dec 24 2015, 11:45 AM
As
much of the nation reels from storms and their damage, and lenders
review their disaster policies, there is one thing we don't have to
worry ...
Wed, Dec 23 2015, 11:22 AM
It
is the holiday season. Some of us abstain from drinking alcohol, some
of us don't. And among those that don't abstain, some drink a little and
...
Fri, Dec 18 2015, 10:51 AM
Few people grow up wanting to be an LO
or a capital markets gal. But plenty grow up wanting to be astronauts.
Ever wondered what an astronaut earn...
Wed, Dec 16 2015, 10:20 AM
Residential construction activity surged in November with
both residential construction permits and housing starts, permits especially,
beating anal...
Wed, Dec 16 2015, 10:12 AM
The financial services sector continues to evolve, or devolve as the
case may be. Certainly the wave of mergers and acquisitions continues,
and ju...
Mon, Dec 14 2015, 9:40 AM
"The
mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher
demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." So said William Arthur War...
Wed, Dec 2 2015, 10:53 AM
"I
spent half my money on gambling, women, and booze. The other half I
wasted." Not that politicians would ever waste money - after all, they
ca...
Tue, Dec 1 2015, 2:50 PM
Both overall construction spending and spending for
residential purposes in October was little changed from September according to
data released by ...
Wed, Nov 18 2015, 12:19 PM
Residential construction data from October were mixed, but declines were largely due to the multi-family sector . Permitting was up modestly while th...
Wed, Nov 18 2015, 10:58 AM
Where
the heck did 40 years go? Call any person who underwrites loans or
draws docs and ask if they'd like to do that for 40 straight years. The
...
Mon, Nov 16 2015, 10:52 AM
Many
nations are a hodge-podge of ethnic diversity, and the U.S. Census
Bureau tells us that there are at least 350 languages spoken across our
...
Tue, Nov 3 2015, 10:46 AM
Are
we heading for a "Pearl Harbor" type event in the internet? Possibly,
and cyber security is certainly becoming critical . And it just isn't
...
Mon, Nov 2 2015, 9:14 AM
November
already? Thanksgiving is approaching, and in honor of that I shot my
first turkey yesterday. Scared everyone in the frozen food's section...
Mon, Nov 2 2015, 1:14 PM
Residential
construction spending performed slightly better than construction spending as a
whole in September although the entire construction se...
Tue, Oct 27 2015, 10:41 AM
rice
gains since the recent low have increased faster and were less driven by
inflation than prices during the housing boom of the last decade accor...
Tue, Oct 27 2015, 10:34 AM
When
was the last time anyone used the term "elderly"? I think the industry
dropped the term when someone realized baby boomers didn't like thinki...
Wed, Oct 21 2015, 10:49 AM
As
the San Diego MBA conference wraps up, one is reminded that many
lenders are having fine years and some can't believe their good fortune.
Oth...
Tue, Oct 20 2015, 10:35 AM
Richard
Cordray spoke here in San Diego yesterday. You weren't in the audience?
Well, the CFPB publishes every word uttered by CFPB's management, ...
Tue, Oct 20 2015, 10:24 AM
Multi-family home construction drove the numbers for most of
the September report on residential construction issued today by the U.S.
Census Bureau...
Tue, Oct 20 2015, 4:35 PM
Mortgage rates were moderately higher today, ending a 4 day streak near the lowest levels in more than 5 months. To be fair, the streak isn't tec...
Mon, Oct 19 2015, 10:39 AM
From my narrow view, the big talk of the San Diego MBA conference so far? Fannie & Freddie's rep & warrant changes, the FHA's position on the CFP...
Thu, Oct 8 2015, 10:43 AM
In case you missed it, last month Fannie Mae began to
transition the multi-graph and narrative report detailing results of its
National Housing Surv...
Tue, Oct 6 2015, 10:47 AM
CoreLogic said on Tuesday that its Home Price Index (HPI)
including distressed sales rose on a year-over-basis for the 42 nd
consecutive month in...
Thu, Oct 1 2015, 11:30 AM
There was a small increase in both publicly and privately
funded construction spending in August.
Privately funded residential spending performed s...
Mon, Sep 28 2015, 9:27 AM
For something relevant to real estate agents, LOs, and travelers, the U.S. Census Bureau has updated its World Population Clock
to include country...