Tue, Aug 13 2013, 12:21 PM
Until the beginning
of the housing bust, distressed sales were only a small part of the
market and were discounted only in a modest and relatively s...
Fri, Aug 9 2013, 10:52 AM
Approximately
43,000 newly constructed homes were purchased in July, the Mortgage
Bankers Association (MBA) said today. MBA based its estimate on
...
Fri, Aug 2 2013, 4:11 PM
Mortgage rates fell sharply today, matching
the pace of yesterday's abrupt move higher. By the end of the day most
lenders were close to thei...
Tue, Jul 30 2013, 9:45 AM
Uh oh, just as I head to New York, this comes up. When the new MIP rules
went into effect, disclosures needed to be updated. A very informal
pol...
Mon, Jul 29 2013, 10:32 AM
Rising interest rates and home prices
are blamed for a slight dip in the number of pending sales in June the National
Association of Realtors® (NAR)...
Mon, Jul 29 2013, 9:38 AM
I am visiting Montana, and Butte just wrapped up "Evil Knievel Days"
over the weekend. (I had an acquaintance who was married to his sister -
thei...
Thu, Jul 25 2013, 9:50 AM
"America is the only country where a significant proportion of the
population believes that professional wrestling is real but the moon
landing wa...
Wed, Jul 24 2013, 11:01 AM
New home sales in June rose to a
seasonally adjusted rate of 497,000 units an increase of 8.3 percent
compared to sales in May. The June figure w...
Wed, Jul 24 2013, 10:53 AM
While
foreclosure starts in California bumped up slightly in the second
quarter, the number of homeowners entering foreclosure in that state
was ...
Wed, Jul 24 2013, 10:20 AM
It is hard to drive by a corner without seeing a gas station or a
bank these days. That doesn't mean banks are all huge, especially here
in Colora...
Tue, Jul 23 2013, 10:10 AM
I want one of those jobs where people ask, "Do you actually get paid
for doing this?" Most folks involved in lending or real estate rarely
hear th...
Mon, Jul 22 2013, 10:57 AM
Existing home sales dipped slightly in
June and May sales were revised down from previously reported levels
the National Association of Realtors®
(...
Mon, Jul 22 2013, 9:25 AM
We'll see a lot of housing news this week. Recently May 2013's, and
before that April's, national and regional prices showed continued
improvement...
Mon, Jul 22 2013, 1:35 PM
Fannie Mae said today in its July Economic and Strategic Report
that the view expressed in these reports since the first of this year
has not ch...
Tue, Jul 16 2013, 12:38 PM
Is the 116 basis
points (bps) rise in rates from 3.35 percent to 4.51 percent within
the May 3 to July 12 th
enough to stall the housing recovery...
Tue, Jul 16 2013, 12:12 PM
"The death of cash is greatly
exaggerated ." CoreLogic concurs with that quote from Mark Twain in
an article analyzing the impact cash sales has h...
Tue, Jul 16 2013, 2:06 PM
A perennial frontrunner of housing market trends, California's data
speaks to recent assertions that rising rates will affect sales more
than valu...
Tue, Jul 16 2013, 1:38 PM
Freddie Mac calls "Taper Talk" is
the main topic of conversation in the financial world, that is,
speculation about the timing and speed that the Fe...
Mon, Jul 15 2013, 9:22 AM
It would be a Hansel and
Gretelian task to follow the back and forth between the American Enterprise
Institute (AEI) and the Department of Housing a...
Thu, Jul 11 2013, 5:06 PM
The
Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) has just released the first
installment of a new measure of loan activity designed as a monthly
companion ...
Tue, Jul 2 2013, 10:37 AM
There is a remarkable
degree of agreement among prevalent purveyors of Home Price Indices that prices this spring have risen higher and faster
tha...
Mon, Jul 1 2013, 2:58 PM
The Joint Center for
Housing Studies released its annual State of the Nation's Housing
report last week. Key points indicate a housing recovery tha...
Thu, Jun 27 2013, 11:09 AM
The
National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said today that rising
interest rates may finally be forcing many hesitant buyers into the
market. ...
Thu, Jun 27 2013, 10:46 AM
After five years of tough sledding, the
Las Vegas real estate market may be turning around . DataQuick
reports that home sales in the city - which...
Thu, Jun 27 2013, 10:43 AM
The MBA reported that independent mortgage banks saw their profit per loan take a tumble during the first quarter, down about $500 per loan
...
Wed, Jun 26 2013, 9:47 AM
"May a lender decline a mortgage applicant because the applicant
became involved in a lawsuit subsequent to his or her initial loan
application?" ...
Tue, Jun 25 2013, 11:16 AM
Newly constructed home sales rose 2.1
percent in May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 476,000 units.
The U.S. Census Bureau and the Depa...
Tue, Jun 25 2013, 10:38 AM
Home prices rose faster from March to
April than they ever have in the history of the Case Shiller Indices
the S&P/Case-Shiller announced today. ...
Mon, Jun 24 2013, 3:21 PM
The
California Association of Realtors® (C.A.R.) reports that May sales
of bank-owned properties (REO) were at the lowest level since October
2007...
Mon, Jun 24 2013, 3:02 PM
Despite some hurdles foreign buyers
continue to purchase properties in the U.S., accounting for six
percent of existing home sales. The National As...
Mon, Jun 24 2013, 1:17 PM
The National Association of Realtors, America's largest trade organization and a group that you'd want on your side, said that Congress should consid...
Thu, Jun 20 2013, 12:03 PM
Sales of existing homes rose again in
May and prices posted the biggest annual gain in eight years the
National Association of Realtors®
(NAR) s...
Thu, Jun 20 2013, 7:08 AM
It will be hard for today not to have something of an anticlimactic
feel after seeing another nail driven into the QE coffin that magically
appe...
Mon, Jun 17 2013, 9:41 AM
The United States does not have the only government that is knee-deep in controlling lending and real estate. Beijing,
which already has China's st...
Fri, Jun 14 2013, 2:02 PM
The California housing market heated up
a little more in May with resales of houses and condominiums rising
by 8.3 percent from resales in April. ...
Thu, Jun 13 2013, 5:05 PM
Fannie
Mae's Economic Outlook series continued its 2013 theme "Transition to
'Normal?'" in its June edition saying that four years into an expansio...
Fri, Jun 7 2013, 6:56 PM
The
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ( HUD ) and the U.S.
Department of the Treasury today released the May edition of the
Obama Ad...
Mon, Jun 3 2013, 9:53 AM
Underwriters and loan originators are acutely aware of a trend
reflected in a stat the Census Bureau recently released: the number of
businesses w...
Fri, May 31 2013, 2:14 PM
"The guy next door" as well as multi-billion dollar venture capital
funds know that, right? Well, the housing industry is hoping that
venture capi...
Thu, May 30 2013, 11:03 AM
Pending home sales in April rose a
slight 0.3 percent to 106.0 on the National Association of Realtors®
(NAR) Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI). I...
Thu, May 30 2013, 10:50 AM
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) published an interim final rule in the Federal Register recently which mean that the long drawn-out saga...
Thu, May 30 2013, 10:10 AM
Foreclosure-related
home sales retreated to a 21 percent share of all homes sales in the
country during the first quarter of 2013. RealtyTrac rep...
Tue, May 28 2013, 9:59 AM
In Saturday's edition of the commentary, the question was raised by CG from Wisconsin regarding paying loan officers different rates based on differen...
Fri, May 24 2013, 10:03 AM
T he IRS, furlough days, and the possible impact on 4506 transcript processing . I first heard about it through a Mountain West Financial e-mail: "T...
Thu, May 23 2013, 2:58 PM
The Fed giveth, and the Fed taketh away. Both stocks and bonds fell on Wednesday after a Q&A session with Ben Bernanke , and minutes from the latest ...
Thu, May 23 2013, 1:41 PM
New home sales rose 2.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in April to an annual rate of 454,000 units . The Census Bureau and the Department ...
Wed, May 22 2013, 12:51 PM
Yesterday the commentary mentioned a rumored shut down of MGIC's Capital Markets Group . I received this e-mail: "MGIC has indeed reorganized certai...
Wed, May 22 2013, 12:24 PM
Existing home sales remain constrained
by limited inventory and tight credit but still managed to eke out a small
increase in April the National A...
Wed, May 22 2013, 3:04 PM
In April 2012 distressed properties
accounted for 45.8 percent of home sales in California the states Association
of Realtors® said Wednesday, but l...
Mon, May 20 2013, 9:32 AM
Here in Austin, at the Texas Mortgage Banker Association's yearly conference, the talk is not so much about the Millennial generation but about how ...