Housing Wire
OCTOBER 26, 2024
Since mid-2022 when mortgage rates headed higher , two facts have been apparent: new listings data has been trending at the lowest levels ever recorded in history and inventory has been able to grow from record low levels thanks to mortgage rates staying elevated. We’ve seen some growth in new listings this year compared to 2023 levels, which is good for housing.
Appraisal Buzz
OCTOBER 31, 2024
An estimated 1.4 million (1,355,909) residential homes in the U.S. remain unoccupied, according to ATTOM ‘s fourth-quarter 2024 Vacant Property and Zombie Foreclosure Report. That percentage, or one in 77 households nationwide, is about the same as it was in the third quarter and only somewhat higher than it was a year ago. In Q4 of this year, 215,601 residential properties in the U.S. were in foreclosure, according to the data.
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Sacramento Appraisal Blog
OCTOBER 23, 2024
Properties were selling in lightning speed a few years ago, but that’s not the vibe today. The truth is it could easily take twice as long to sell today, but the stats actually feel somewhat normal. I wonder if we’ve forgotten what the market used to feel like before 2020. Let’s talk about it. UPCOMING […] The post Stop expecting lightning speed in real estate first appeared on Sacramento Appraisal Blog.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 28, 2024
After previously taking issue with some of the forms generated as a result of the terms of the National Association of Realtors ’ (NAR) nationwide commission lawsuit settlement agreement , University of Buffalo law professor Tanya Monestier is now objecting to NAR’s settlement. In a document filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City — less than a month before the NAR settlement is slated for its final approval hearing — Monestier took issue with the business practice changes, sayi
Speaker: Timothy Allsopp
Payment challenges often lead to delayed projects, financial bottlenecks, and strained relationships. With construction projects becoming more complex, outdated processes are no longer sustainable. By refining financial workflow, companies can improve cash flow, reduce error, and foster trust between stakeholders. Discover practical strategies for redesigning payment systems to overcome workflow challenges while creating a smoother, more reliable process for contractors and subcontractors alike.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 21, 2024
Since 2019, the state of Florida has built more than 77,000 new properties in areas with a high risk of flooding. This is the most among all states, according to an analysis by climate-modeling firm First Street Foundation on behalf of the The Wall Street Journal. The construction activity is likely to place the housing industry and its financing partners on a “collision course” with insurers, the outlet said.
Property Appraisal Zone brings together the best content for appraisal professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 25, 2024
Many renters think they’re saving money by renting, but long term, that might not be true. In some of the U.S.’s largest metros, a monthly mortgage payment is less expensive than the average rent. But there are many factors surrounding affordability—how do city dwellers make this decision? A new report from Zillow Home Loans outlines some key trends and factors for renters to consider when evaluating a home purchase.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 30, 2024
Lower mortgage rates in September had a measurable impact on home sales. According to data released Wednesday by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), pending home sales in September jumped 7.4% compared to August and 2.6% year over year. NAR’s index reading of 75.8 is the highest number since March. An index reading of 100 equates to sales activity in 2001.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 24, 2024
Online real estate marketplace Auction.com released data this week showing that demand for distressed homes — including bank-owned properties and foreclosures — shrank for a second straight quarter. The company’s Auction Market Dispatch for third-quarter 2024 included a survey conducted in late September of more than 140 active buyers on the platform.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 10, 2024
Ongoing supply and affordability challenges in the housing market have frustrated many homeowners who have looked to trade up or relocate for various reasons. In response, some consumers have turned to renovation projects to meet their needs. According to survey data released this week by St. Louis-based Clever Real Estate , 63% of homeowners would rather remodel their current home than move to one that has already been fixed up.
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Housing Wire
OCTOBER 24, 2024
anely Sandoval’s calling to be a pre-foreclosure peacemaker started when she was in high school. “My mom and stepdad went into pre-foreclosure,” said Sandoval, a real estate agent and investor who specializes in working in low-income, often Latino neighborhoods in Southern California. “I knew things were going down, but I didn’t know how bad it was until people started knocking on our door.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 31, 2024
Over the last decade, real estate transactions have increasingly become a prime target for cybercrime. Far from slowing down, the scams are becoming more prevalent, sophisticated, and difficult to recognize as fraudulent. With October being Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it is important that the real estate industry and consumers speak up and spread the word about how to prevent these real estate cybercrimes.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 17, 2024
The U.S. economy appears to be on firmer footing than previously thought, mortgage rates are forecast to end 2024 at 6% and home-price growth is also on the move. These are conclusions drawn by economists at Fannie Mae ‘s Economic and Strategic Research (ESR) Group. They’re now projecting gross domestic product (GDP) growth to fall from 3.2% in 2023 to 2.3% in 2024 and 2% in 2025.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 18, 2024
California-based Provident Funding Associates LLC is getting out of the Florida condo lending business , it told broker partners on Friday. In an email sent Friday morning, Provident said that it would “no longer be accepting new applications for condominiums ” effective that day. Provident told broker partners that all loans in the pipeline must be locked by 11:59 p.m.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 15, 2024
Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp. has agreed to settle with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) over the regulators’ allegations of mortgage lending discrimination in majority-Black neighborhoods of the Birmingham, Alabama , metro area. The agreement, which was submitted for court approval, requires the Madison, Wisconsin-based mortgage lender to pay a $1.9 million civil penalty.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 17, 2024
Wall Street investors and analysts forecast that mortgage credit-score costs will rise in 2025 as lower interest rates may drive an increase in home loan applications. Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO), the company that retains the rights to the market’s widely adopted consumer credit-risk assessment methodology, is expected to raise the price for mortgage credit scores from $3.50 to at least $5, according to the estimates.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 21, 2024
The legal woes continue for the National Association of Realtors (NAR). On Wednesday, Maurice Muhammad — the broker of Progressive Realty — filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania claiming that NAR, the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors (PAR) and the Greater Lehigh Valley MLS (GLVMLS) have violated federal civil rights statutes, engaged in unlawful discriminatory practices, breached their contracts, created a monopolistic system and broken federal antitrust laws.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 15, 2024
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) — the regulatory body that oversees communications across a wide variety of media including radio, telephone and the internet — announced that new rules related to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) will go into effect in April 2025. The new guidelines are designed to make it easier for consumers to revoke consent for unwanted robocalls and texts.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 22, 2024
Mortgage rates continue to rise, serving as a bucket of cold water for lenders and consumers that were warming to lower borrowing costs just a few months ago. According to HousingWire ‘s Mortgage Rates Center , the average 30-year conforming rate was 6.61% on Tuesday. That was up 15 basis points (bps) from one week ago and 30 bps higher than on Sept. 18, when the Federal Reserve lowered benchmark rates by 50 bps.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 29, 2024
In the latest episode of the RealTrending podcast , Amy Stockberger — broker-owner of Amy Stockberger Real Estate — joins Tracey Velt for a tantalizing conversation that covers her teamerage’s unique “Lifetime Home Support” model and other ways that agents can provide value to home buyers and sellers. This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Appraisal Buzz
OCTOBER 30, 2024
The National Association of REALTORS (NAR) reports that pending home sales increased in September. Transactions increased month over month in all four major regions. While sales in the Midwest and South stayed stable, the Northeast and West saw gains year-over-year. September saw a 7.4% increase in the Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI), a measure of future home sales based on contract signings, to 75.8, the highest level since March (78.3).
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 24, 2024
With new-home sales growing since 2022, why are housing starts at recessionary levels? Well, it’s a complicated story if you don’t know how the homebuilders operate, and not all homebuilders are the same. The big publicly traded builders have money to pay down mortgage rates and manage their pipelines better than smaller homebuilders. However, even with that reality, when mortgage rates were at 7.50% earlier in the year, housing starts and permits were heading lower, single-family permits were h
Appraisal Buzz
OCTOBER 22, 2024
According to a new study by LendingTree , the current state of the home buying market seems so unattainable for many, as the American dream of home ownership continues to elude many hampered by continued affordability concerns. More specifically, for renters, LendingTree found that 62% of those who rent expressed that they are worried they will never be able to own a home.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 30, 2024
A 60 basis point increase in mortgage rates in October has strangled mortgage demand, particularly for refinancings , according to the latest survey data from the Mortgage Bankers Association. Mortgage applications overall decreased 0.1% from one week earlier, per the MBA ‘s weekly applications survey for the week ending Oct. 25. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decreased 0.1% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier, but fell 1% on an
Appraisal Buzz
OCTOBER 30, 2024
It’s been a year of cautious growth for luxury real estate, so it’s the perfect time for PropertyShark to come up with a list of the 100 most expensive zip codes in America. And the winner is … Atherton, California (again). Located just north of Menlo Park in northern California, Atherton takes the crown for the most expensive zip code in the nation for the eighth consecutive year, with a 2024 median sale price of $7,900,000.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 29, 2024
Is home-price growth finally cooling? That’s a question raised by the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Index for August, which showed deceleration on a year-over-year basis and a slight dip relative to July. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the national home price index posted a 4.2% gain year over year, less than the 4.8% gain from July. The monthly index fell by 0.1%.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 15, 2024
Confusion and chaos are still a reality for some real estate professionals in the wake of the NAR settlement-mandated business practice changes, but preparation has been key to minimizing the negative impacts. (Image generated by AI in Midjourney) It has been nearly two months since the nationwide implementation of the business practice changes outlined in the National Association of Realtors’ commission lawsuit settlement agreement.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 23, 2024
What had previously been a surprisingly mild 2024 hurricane season closed with two devastating storms that hammered Florida and North Carolina. While assessing the full scale of the damage could still take months, the short-term effects on the two state’s housing markets were immediately visible — the markets came to a complete halt. In the days right before and after Hurricane Milton battered central Florida, two highly responsive metrics went into free fall.
Appraisal Buzz
OCTOBER 29, 2024
A number of enhanced initiatives have been announced by Freddie Mac to increase housing affordability, particularly for first-time homebuyers and borrowers. The company continues to work with the industry to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and offer more opportunities to get qualified borrowers into homes they can afford with improvements to its automated underwriting system, appraisal waiver expansions, and advancements in the down payment assistance space.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 15, 2024
About a year ago, I started noticing a parallel between the housing market and the labor market. Unemployment in the country is very low. Everyone has a job. The conventional wisdom for almost three years has been that job market must weaken, unemployment must be rising. But for three years, unemployment has stayed low. Normally when unemployment is this low, people are confident that they’ll find a new job and they are much more likely to quit a current gig that isn’t right for them.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 30, 2024
A California regulator has revoked the residential mortgage lending license of LoanSnap , the latest in a series of difficulties for the fintech lender. According to a filing from the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation dated Oct. 18, LoanSnap had its license revoked after it failed to renew its surety bond. That policy, which is designed to protect consumers from lender fraud and financial risk, expired in early August.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 31, 2024
Interior property data company CubiCasa announced the launch of an interactive touring product for listing agents. The new CubiCasa Tour product will create interactive, virtual property tours within minutes. The new product uses similar software to CubiCasa’s Floor Plans, another virtual listing tool that builds floor plans in five minutes or less.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 5, 2024
The Federal Reserve cut rates by 0.50% on Sept. 18 and mortgage rates and bond yields headed higher. But, we have to remember that mortgage rates had already made an almost 2% move lower since the highs of 2023 without rate cuts, as the bond market always gets ahead of the Fed. Since the Fed rate cut, we’ve also seen significant economic data lines beat estimates: housing starts, retail sales, industrial production, GDP and labor data all came in better than expected.
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