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Have we seen the peak in housing inventory for 2024? The best part about 2024 has been that higher mortgage rates have created an inventory buffer, so if the economy gets softer and rates fall, we have many more homes to work with than we had in 2020-2023. I have consistently written that with mortgage rates above 7%, inventory should grow between 11,000-17,000 and this year it has happened six times perfectly in the channel.
It’s a mess out there right now since the NAR lawsuit went into effect. Well, sort of. It feels messy that concessions information is no longer in MLS, there’s some confusion about how appraisers are handling some of this, and we have a new question to ask. Let’s talk about it. UPCOMING SPEAKING GIGS: 10/18/24 […] The post The hot mess of concessions in real estate first appeared on Sacramento Appraisal Blog.
The Federal Reserve cut rates on Wednesday and mortgage rates went up! What happened? The answer lies in the bond market. The 10-year yield and 30-year mortgage rates have been in a slow dance since 1971 and trended together. The bond market isn’t old and slow like the Fed — it moves very quickly, and for months it has been sending the 10-year yield (and mortgage rates) lower in anticipation of a series of Fed rate cuts, not just one or two.
Finance teams find Trellis to be particularly effective in conducting comprehensive due diligence on both individuals and businesses. With our court data solution, financial experts can access critical litigation insights, making it an invaluable resource for informed decision-making in the financial sector.
Mortgage rates have made almost a 2% move lower from the highs of 2023. Now that the jobs week data is in, the question is: can mortgage rates go even lower? The answer is yes, but we will need more economic weakness, better spreads and a more dovish Fed. While the Fed can be old and slow, the bond market, thankfully, is doing a lot of the heavy lifting and has already priced in a lot of Fed easing policy.
Housing demand is very seasonal, so the fact that our pending contract data is firming up lately just shows that lower mortgage rates have stabilized and firmed up demand recently. It will likely take mortgage rates to go under 6% and stay there for an extended period to get real sustained demand growth from record-low sales levels. However, considering the affordability challenges with the housing market , it’s good to see a flip in the housing data without rates getting under 6%.
Housing demand is very seasonal, so the fact that our pending contract data is firming up lately just shows that lower mortgage rates have stabilized and firmed up demand recently. It will likely take mortgage rates to go under 6% and stay there for an extended period to get real sustained demand growth from record-low sales levels. However, considering the affordability challenges with the housing market , it’s good to see a flip in the housing data without rates getting under 6%.
Have we seen the bottom in mortgage rates for 2024 after a crazy roller coaster ride so far this year? My 2024 forecast had a mortgage rate range of 7.25%-5.75%. To get to the lower end of this range, we needed to see two things: the labor market getting softer and the mortgage spreads improving. This is the double-whammy impact, and that’s what has happened.
An often misguided premise I see on social media is that lower mortgage rates are doing nothing for housing demand. That’s ok — very few people are looking at the data without an agenda. However, the point of this tracker is to show you evidence that lower rates have already changed housing data. So, let’s review the data together. Purchase application data First, purchase apps is the fastest way to look for positive or negative data at higher or lower mortgage rates.
Seller repurchases of Freddie Mac mortgages rose by $430 million in the second quarter of 2024, a 29.1% increase from the first quarter, according to an analysis of public filings by Inside Mortgage Finance. By contrast, sellers of loans through fellow government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) Fannie Mae repurchased $268.5 million in noncompliant loans during the same period, a 27.7% decline from Q1 2024.
The majority of homebuyers are still expecting sellers to cover their agent’s compensation, according to The Real Brokerage ’s August 2024 agent survey. This comes even as the business practice changes outlined in the National Association of Realtors ‘ (NAR) nationwide commission lawsuit settlement have been implemented across the country. Real conducted its survey between Aug. 30 and Sept. 15, recording the responses of roughly 300 agents across North America.
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On this crazy day with the bond market, mortgage rates dropped to another yearly low after the CPI inflation print. How low? Mortgage News Daily came out with a shocking print of 6.11% mortgage rates for their top-tier borrowers, while HousingWire’s Mortgage Rates Center , which tracks actual loan lock data from Polly , is also at a year-to-date low of 6.44%.
In 2022, I argued that the Federal Reserve won’t pivot until the labor market breaks. This means that the Fed will need to create such a slowdown in the labor market that nobody will question their action when they pivot. This is what I call the “cover cuts” policy. After today’s jobs report and the negative revision to this report and the previous ones, it is safe to say nobody outside of crazy people who want to see America go into a recession will question the Fed rate cut that will happen th
Real estate agents have white-knuckled their way through more than two years of suffocatingly high mortgage rates that have stymied sales, choked off inventory and pushed home prices to new all-time highs. So what was the reaction from agents when the Federal Reserve surprised everyone by cutting rates by 50 basis points rather than the 25 that was taken as a given?
Home equity continued to rise in the second quarter of 2024 as residential properties with mortgages collectively gained $1.3 trillion in equity over the past year. But growth began to slow during these three months, according to the CoreLogic Homeowner Equity Insights report published on Thursday. The aggregate equity gain was 8% year over year, bringing total equity on mortgaged properties to more than $17.6 trillion at the end of Q2 2024.
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In what has become a familiar fall ritual, mortgage lenders are increasing their conforming loan limits months ahead of the FHFA’s official announcement. On Friday, Rocket Pro TPO and Pennymac both announced an increase in their conforming loan limits to $802,650 — before the expected increase by the FHFA in November. Rocket’s increase was effective Friday and Pennymac’s increase will be effective for new broker locks on Monday, Sept. 16.
The question from the housing industry after the Federal Reserve ’s half-point interest rate cut is simple — will this bring buyers back to the stalled housing market? A new report from Redfin suggests that it is already happening. The company analyzed mortgage rate-lock data from Optimal Blue and found that locks have risen 68% this week compared to one month earlier.
The Federal Reserve lowered its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday by 50 basis points (bps) to a range of 4.75% to 5%, turning an important corner in the central bank’s fight against inflation. The cut is the first since March 2020 after the Fed raised interest rates to a 23-year high point to cool the economy and quell inflation. With both inflation and the labor market cooling, economists and housing professionals alike had expected the Fed to cut borrowing costs in September, with the
With the calendar shifting to September and the next meeting of Federal Reserve policymakers only two weeks out, mortgage rates continue to recede and evidence suggests that borrowers are reacting to more favorable housing market conditions. At HousingWire ‘s Mortgage Rates Center on Tuesday, the 30-year rate for conforming loans averaged 6.60%, down from 6.64% one week ago.
Like the traditional forward space, the reverse mortgage industry has been operating in an elevated interest rate environment for some time. While news of the Federal Reserve lowering its benchmark interest rate by 50 basis points (bps) to a range of 4.75% to 5% will have wider economic ramifications in the government’s ongoing efforts to fight inflation, there are expected benefits to the reverse mortgage business as well as the demographic it serves: seniors on a fixed income.
In the real estate industry, referral fees have become a golden goose that stifles innovation, inflates the value chain, and ultimately harms both consumers and agents. Despite their prevalence, the current system is ripe for reexamination. The referral fee conundrum Referral fees are a familiar practice in real estate. Suppose someone with a real estate license identifies a potential homebuyer or seller.
Declining mortgage rates have yet to break the dam on the stalled housing market, but the sweet spot on rates that would get the market moving again is about 5%. That’s according to a new survey from Mphasis Digital Risk, which revealed that 42% of prospective buyers said a 5% rate would get them back in the market. An additional 27% said they’re targeting a 4% rate, while 20% say it’s 6%.
The landmark antitrust lawsuit settlement agreed to by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) in March has put the practices of real estate agents in the spotlight for both regulators and clients alike. Now, with agent commissions starting to decline, agents naturally want to convey the value of their services to buyers and sellers. New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta attempts to answer one question — can my agent get a better sale price on my home than a competing agent?
Elevated mortgage rates have strained housing affordability for more than two years. With rates now falling — and more downward movement expected after the Federal Reserve ‘s recent interest rate cut — two new reports suggest that affordability is getting better too. The third-quarter 2024 housing affordability report from Attom says that falling mortgage rates, rising wages and slower home-price growth has made the expenses of buying and owning a home slightly more affordable.
In the six months since news of the National Association of Realtors ‘ (NAR) nationwide commission lawsuit settlement broke, agent attitudes toward the settlement’s required business practice changes have only slightly improved. This is according to a study published earlier this week by real estate technology firm Clever Real Estate. Clever surveyed 516 real estate agents in late August and early September, after the changes were implemented on Aug. 17.
The American dream of homeownership is slipping away for many, as the gap between wages and home prices continues to widen. In the 1970s, home prices aligned more closely with income levels. Today, escalating real estate costs—particularly in high-cost areas—are pricing millions of Americans out of the housing market. One potential solution? Extending the traditional 30-year mortgage to 40 or even 50 years.
After falling in July, housing starts were back up again in August, according to data released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In August, housing starts rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.356 million, up 2.9% month over month and up 3.9% compared to a year ago. The single-family sector was the sole source of thus increase, as multifamily starts were down 6.7% monthly and 6.2% annually to a rate of 333,000 start
United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) is rolling out a new 75 basis-point incentive program for conforming conventional and government-backed rate-and-term refinances. The program, dubbed “Refi75,” effectively replaces and expands on “Govy 125,” a 125-bps incentive that ended Tuesday for Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loans (IRRRLs) through the U.S.
More than 16 million Americans who are 65 or older are living alone, but the depth of their experiences is largely unknown. This is according to a recent story published by KFF Health News. “This slice of the older population has significant health issues: Nearly 4 in 10 seniors living alone have vision or hearing loss, difficulty caring for themselves and living independently, problems with cognition, or other disabilities, according to a KFF analysis of 2022 census data,” the story explained.
With home sale prices continuing to rise, wire fraud prevention firm CertifID announced Thursday that it is increasing its direct, first-party insurance coverage maximum to $2 million. This means that up to $2 million of a wire transfer verified by CertifID can receive direct, first-party insurance coverage. The company said this change is the result of increasing transaction sizes being processed by both residential and commercial real estate companies, and that it “is backed by the largest ins
Dawn Pfaff is a free-market evangelist, and that informs how she runs MyState MLS. The privately owned multiple listing service has taken a laissez faire approach since its launch in 2009, as it promises no fees and fewer rules than MLSs owned by Realtor associations. This manifesto has helped MyState develop a national footprint with listings for all types of properties, including single-family homes, manufactured homes, newly built homes, foreclosures and even land.
Lower mortgage rates over the past several months have led to increased affordability for prospective homebuyers, and this could lead to an extra competitive fall 2024 season. That’s according to a Zillow report released Thursday in which the Seattle -based real estate company said that “lower mortgage rates and rising inventory are giving home buyers a window of opportunity at an unusual time of year.“ Zillow noted that the U.S. median monthly mortgage payment in August had declined by mo
In a traditional sense, the term “silver tsunami” refers to pent-up housing stock that older homeowners will eventually choose to sell, which would have the effect of flooding the market with new inventory. But if prior suppositions about this trend being overblown failed to convince people, new data might make things clearer. More than half (54%) of baby boomers have no intention of ever selling their homes, according to new survey data from Clever Real Estate.
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