Housing Wire
MAY 28, 2024
It’s the end of May and unsold inventory on the market is increasing across the U.S. Every state in the country has more homes on the market now than a year ago and, in many places, new construction is being completed and added to inventory, so it’s not just resale inventory that’s growing. There are more homes on the market now than anytime since August 2020.
Appraisal Buzz
MAY 22, 2024
Mortgage application volume increased 1.9% during the week ended May 17, as the average rate for a 30-year- fixed-rate mortgage fell to to 7.01%, down from 7.08% the previous week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Applications Survey. Applications for refinances increased 7% compared with the previous week and were up 21% compared with the same week one year ago.
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Housing Wire
MAY 30, 2024
Pending home sales sales dropped 7.7% in April compared to March as rising mortgage rates weighed on the market, according to data released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Year over year, pending transactions fell 7.4%. The NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index declined to 72.3 in April, down from 78.2 in March. All four U.S. regions reported decreases on both a monthly and yearly basis, with the Midwest and West experiencing the largest monthly declines.
Housing Wire
MAY 14, 2024
As the U.S. reaches its peak homebuying season, mortgage rates continue to ease week over week. HousingWire ’s Mortgage Rates Center showed the average 30-year fixed rate for conforming loans at 7.45% on Tuesday, below the rate of 7.51% one week ago. At the same time one year ago, the average rate was 6.54%.The 15-year conforming fixed rate averaged 6.75% on Tuesday, down from 6.77% one week earlier.
Housing Wire
MAY 8, 2024
Home prices trended up in almost all U.S. metro areas during the first quarter of 2024. Out of 221 metro markets analyzed, 205 (93%) posted yearly home price gains in Q1 2024, while 30% experienced double-digit price gains during the same period — up from 15% in the fourth quarter of 2023 — according to the National Association of Realtors ’ (NAR) newest quarterly report.
Housing Wire
MAY 21, 2024
The United States Department of Veterans Affairs will soon release a circular that “bridges the gap” on an agency law that prohibits a VA buyer from paying their real estate agent compensation, a VA official announced on Tuesday. Michelle Corridon, deputy policy director at the VA, announced at the Mortgage Bankers Association ‘s Secondary & Capital Markets Conference in New York that the circular would be issued between now and June 12.
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Housing Wire
MAY 8, 2024
Housing credit channels directly impact housing inventory channels. What does that mean? Home prices escalated out of control after 2020 and when we look at why that happened, we can see that housing credit mattered more to inventory data than most people realize. Let’s see how this has played out in different stages of the economy. On March 18, 2020, purchase application data broke out to pre-cycle highs in demand.
Housing Wire
MAY 15, 2024
Mortgage rates have been slowly dropping recently, which has caught some people off guard. With inflation data that is still higher than the Federal Reserve ‘s target, the recent decrease has left many intrigued. Was it the recent inflation reports or the last batch of labor data that played a significant role in this shift? The Fed’s recent hawkish stance, refraining from rate cuts and advocating for extended higher rate language, adds to the mystery.
Housing Wire
MAY 22, 2024
I anticipated solid year-over-year home-price growth in today’s existing home sales report, so I’ve tried my best on social media to inform people that we have a low bar in home-price comps for this report and the next one. This is the context for why the home-price growth data was strong, which took some people by surprise. As you can see below, even though home prices rose in 2023, the median sales price showed negative year-over-year growth in April, May and June of last year.
Housing Wire
MAY 3, 2024
Friday’s jobs report came in as a miss of estimates and wage growth came in lower than expected. The labor market isn’t tight anymore and that will eventually be good news for mortgage rates. After last month’s jobs report, I talked about the path the Federal Reserve could take to land the plane based on wage growth data slowing down and getting closer to the Fed’s model.
Housing Wire
MAY 29, 2024
Northwest MLS , the largest multiple listing service in the Pacific Northwest, will not take part in the $418 million agreement reached by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) in the Sitzer/Burnett case. In fact, NWMLS said that its own rules on buyer agent compensation are fairer and more transparent than the terms NAR agreed to in March. It also criticized NAR for pushing “consumers and brokers to make secret deals off MLS, inviting deceptive practices, discrimination and unfair housi
Housing Wire
MAY 6, 2024
Legendary investor Warren Buffett and Greg Abel, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Energy , addressed the commission lawsuits and HomeServices of America’s recently announced settlement of the suits, during Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting on Saturday. “There is no question that the industry will go through some transitions because of the settlements — ours and every other major player in the industry settled, the National Association of Realtors settled for more than $400 million ,”
Housing Wire
MAY 23, 2024
The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) on Thursday published Mortgagee Letter (ML) 2024-10 , outlining reporting requirements that lenders must follow if they detect a cybersecurity intrusion. Effective immediately and applicable to all FHA-insured mortgage programs, the letter states that all lenders “that experience a potential or actual cyber incident must notify HUD via the FHA Resource Center at answers@hud.gov and HUD’s Security Operations Center at cirt@hud.gov within 12 hours of detect
Housing Wire
MAY 18, 2024
New listings data has been moving lower over the last few weeks. I usually wouldn’t care too much about this as its a data line that can be volatile week to week but now it’s been three weeks. The moves haven’t been significant and our weekly pending contracts data picked up this week. But, we need to see more growth in new listings data just to grow from 2023 levels. 2023 new listings data was the lowest ever on record, so it’s already a low bar.
Housing Wire
MAY 13, 2024
As the U.S. hits peak homebuying season, the signals across the country are mixed at best as some markets are accelerating while others are slowing quickly. Inventory continues to build at the national level, something that’s happening most rapidly in the South. Home sales continue to run just a little ahead of last year’s pace, but with mortgage rates in the 7s, there are a ton of potential homebuyers sitting on the sidelines.
Housing Wire
MAY 30, 2024
A report released Thursday by Redfin showed that 6.4% of U.S. home sellers cut their asking prices during the four-week period ending May 26. That is the highest percentage since November 2022 and a potential sign that sale prices will soften in the coming months. The national real estate brokerage reported that the median asking price in the past week was $416,623, a weekly decline of about $3,000 and the first pullback in six months.
Housing Wire
MAY 4, 2024
My model for inventory growth with higher mortgage rates came crashing down last week. After two weeks of significant increases , inventory growth slowed dramatically and is far from my 11,000-17,000 growth model with mortgage rates over 7.25%. Did the recent dip in mortgage rates play a role here or is this the average choppy weekly data we have seen in past years?
Housing Wire
MAY 23, 2024
New home sales missed estimates , showing that demand isn’t crashing but not growing much either. However, we need to keep an eye on the housing construction data in this report because it has huge implications for the economic cycle, our recession risk and mortgage rates. As the chart below shows, the housing sector generally poses a future risk to labor if the single-family permits data continues to decline.
Housing Wire
MAY 20, 2024
Fraud and forgery claims represented more than one-fifth of the total dollars spent by title insurers on claims expenses and losses over the past decade, according to a study conducted by Milliman and commissioned by the American Land Title Association (ALTA). Between 2013 and 2022, title insurers recorded 203,181 claims for policies written during that time, and they paid out $4.4 billion in claims related to losses and loss expenses.
Housing Wire
MAY 23, 2024
The median U.S. home sale price reached a record $387,600 in the four weeks ending May 19, marking a 4% year-over-year increase, according to data released Thursday by Redfin. The pricing surge comes despite a marginal dip in weekly average mortgage rates , which fell from a five-month high of 7.22% to 7.02% at the beginning of May, according to Freddie Mac.
Housing Wire
MAY 6, 2024
U.S. home prices continued to climb in March as a persistent shortage of homes for sale helped to buoy the housing market, according to the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Home Price Index. And while prospective homebuyers cope with the challenges of rising housing unaffordability, existing homeowners are reaping the benefits of historically strong price gains.
Housing Wire
MAY 30, 2024
The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) announced on Wednesday that it has called on mortgage servicers to extend the moratorium on foreclosures for VA-guaranteed loans through Dec. 31, 2024, while these companies implement a new program to help struggling veterans. The current moratorium, announced in November, was set to end on Friday. It was implemented amid complaints of veterans’ struggles because there was no program available to succeed a partial claim option offered during th
Housing Wire
MAY 15, 2024
Government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) Freddie Mac has put its finger on the scale of an emerging loan market that has been the domain of the private-label securities market, which has nurtured its reemergence in recent years. Last month, Freddie Mac announced a plan to begin purchasing single-family closed-end second (CES) mortgages from lenders, a proposal now subject to a public comment review period before adoption.
Housing Wire
MAY 6, 2024
Redfin has joined the growing list of real estate brokerages that have settled the commission lawsuits. In a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, the brokerage announced that it had reached a nationwide settlement agreement on Friday with the plaintiffs in the consolidated Gibson and Umpa commission lawsuits. As part of the settlement agreement, Redfin has agreed to pay $9.25 million into a qualified settlement fund within 30 days of the court’s preliminary
Housing Wire
MAY 21, 2024
After two years of limited demand, private equity and insurance companies are increasing their allocations to single family residential mortgages. This increased flow of funds appears to be driven by strengthening macro factors that favor residential mortgages over other yield assets such as commercial real estate (CRE) and commercial (C&I) loans.
Housing Wire
MAY 21, 2024
For many, buying a home is a complex process, and navigating the real estate market’s rules and regulations can be tricky, especially in states where property sale prices remain a secret. Buying a home in a non-disclosure state, where sale prices are not available to the general public, presents a unique set of challenges and requires home buyers to be more proactive in gathering information.
Housing Wire
MAY 15, 2024
The most anticipated economic report of the month showed that inflation cooled down a little in April, bringing relief to investors and housing industry professionals. Consumer prices in April were up 3.4% from a year earlier, down from 3.5% in March , according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Wednesday. The reading, which came on the heels of the past three stronger-than-expected CPI releases, aligned with economists’ forecasts.
Housing Wire
MAY 14, 2024
A report released this week by St. Louis-based Clever Real Estate found that recent homebuyers, as well as people who are considering a home purchase in the next year, are experiencing a laundry list of difficulties. Last month, Clever surveyed a total of 920 Americans about their views of the home purchase process and real estate agents. The respondents included 420 people who bought a home in 2023 or 2024, and another 500 who plan to do so in 2024 or 2025.
Housing Wire
MAY 1, 2024
More than 556,000 single-family homes were available for sale nationwide as of last Friday, according to the latest data from HousingWire sister company Altos Research. That puts the national inventory up 31.9% year-over-year, extending a 24-week streak of year-over-year increases. So are agents and brokers flush with home listings? Likely not, as listings are still a fraction of their pre-Covid levels despite the strong year-over-year growth.
Housing Wire
MAY 3, 2024
The U.S. economy added 175,000 jobs in April, less than in March and below what economists had expected. April’s rate also fell below the average monthly gain of 242,000 over the prior 12 months. Meanwhile, the change in total nonfarm payroll employment for March was revised up by 12,000, from 303,000 to 315,000, according to data released by the B ureau of Labor Statistics on Friday.
Housing Wire
MAY 20, 2024
The setting could not have been more appropriate. Rohit Chopra , the head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau , and frequent critic Bob Broeksmit, the president and CEO of the Mortgage Bankers Association , sparring on stage over what constituted a junk fee. Chopra, the consumer watchdog, noted that there was actually some middle ground — lenders and consumers are both being overcharged by the credit reporting industry, he said.
Housing Wire
MAY 11, 2024
Mortgage rates and the bond market have fallen a bit recently and the spreads between the 10-year yield and 30-year mortgage rate have improved over last year’s levels. In the past two years, demand has always picked up whenever mortgage rates have moved lower with some duration. Even last week, purchase apps grew week to week. What should we expect this week and what should we focus on for the rest of the year?
Housing Wire
MAY 17, 2024
Chase Home Lending , the consumer and commercial banking arm of JPMorgan Chase & Co. , has raised its closing guarantee from $5,000 to $20,000 until July 27, 2024, the bank announced on Thursday. The guarantee means that the bank promises an on-time closing on or before the contract closing date, or it will pay the homebuyer $20,000. This grant can be used to discount underwriting fees paid at closing, or to reduce the interest rate and down payment.
Housing Wire
MAY 17, 2024
At “ The Gathering ” this year, every room seemed to share a certain buzz. Conversations across panels, roundtables, announcements, and everywhere in between seemed to trend toward the same general topic: How do we make the most of a market that continues to offer as many challenges as it does chances? Expectations for real estate professionals are higher than ever—along with mortgage interest rates , the length of time that listings spend on the market, and the percentage of listings off-mark
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