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With Halloween now in the rearview mirror, we still have one more spook to survive in 2020 – and no, I’m not talking about the upcoming election. I’m talking about housing market crash headlines. The housing data has been wild this year. We’ve seen waterfall declines and parabolic rebounds. These dramatic peaks and valleys in the data have fed the demons of greed and fear that infest the minds our extreme housing bulls and the fierce housing market bears – leading to equally wild spe
Have you jumped on the refinance bandwagon? If not, you may want to consider it. As of the end of October 2020, interest rates on a 30-year refinance mortgage were averaging around 3.2%. These are the lowest rates in the last 40 years! If you decide to take advantage of these all-time low rates, your lender will most likely order an appraisal. What happens if the new appraisal is less than original one?
Image by Peter H from Pixabay. Happy Halloween from the DW Slater Company! We do wish you a safe Halloween and end of October. This year has been unlike any other and that certainly includes the housing market. The markets in North Texas appeared to have paused when the pandemic began but the demand for home space combined with low inventory has put upward pressure on prices.
Is your real estate website doing all it can to increase the number of visitors you have? There is a lot more to it than setting up the site, adding your bio, and throwing together some neighborhood pages. If you want your site to be a success with lots of visitors and tons of leads, you need to enhance your website regularly. Here are five things you can work on now to improve search engine optimization (SEO) and your real estate website traffic. 1.
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.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac released their Q3 earnings last week, reflecting a combined $6.7 billion in net income, up significantly from the previous quarter. This strong performance was not unexpected, but makes the upcoming 50 basis point adverse market refinance fee more puzzling. In their earnings Q3 2020 10-Q release , Fannie Mae states the following, “We are implementing a new adverse market refinance fee in light of the increased costs and risk we expect to incur due to the COVID-19 pande
Have you jumped on the refinance bandwagon? If not, you may want to consider it. As of the end of October 2020, interest rates on a 30-year refinance mortgage were averaging around 3.2%. These are the lowest rates in the last 40 years! If you decide to take advantage of these all-time low rates, your lender will most likely order an appraisal. What happens if the new appraisal is less than original one?
Have you jumped on the refinance bandwagon? If not, you may want to consider it. As of the end of October 2020, interest rates on a 30-year refinance mortgage were averaging around 3.2%. These are the lowest rates in the last 40 years! If you decide to take advantage of these all-time low rates, your lender will most likely order an appraisal. What happens if the new appraisal is less than original one?
Before the COVID-19 pandemic began, a shift toward the suburbs away from multi-family urban homes was already occurring. Since the virus has taken center stage this year, that shift has rapidly accelerated. In the month of May, annual apartment contracts in Manhattan alone dropped 80% and more than half of the country’s largest 100 metropolitan […].
Technology is supposed to make everything easier, and yet it is often the source of so many problems. While you can’t do your job without relying on real estate technology to some degree, you do have to be extra careful when you use it. Convenience often comes with a price, as these examples will attest. Here are six ways technology can hurt—or even ruin—your real estate business. 1.
With mortgage rates continuing to hover near record lows, mortgage applications jumped 3.8% last week according to a report from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA). The refinance wave showed no signs of stopping as refinance activity gained 6% from the previous week – up 88% higher than the same week last year. According to Joel Kan , MBA’s associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting, borrowers made a grab for both conventional and government refi’s.
Construction projects are high-stakes operations where even minor inefficiencies can lead to costly delays, safety concerns, and budget overruns. Managing risk in construction has always been a challenge, but as projects grow in complexity, traditional methods no longer cut it. Enter Digital Transformation - a game changer approach that replaces inefficiency with AI-powered analytics, real-time monitoring, and automated workflows to proactively manage risk.
Despite home prices rising 6.7% year over year in September, CoreLogic’s Home Price Index Forecast (HPI) estimates home prices will moderate next year, increasing 0.2% nationally by September 2021 as higher prices erode affordability. Home purchase demand managed to maintain pace through the summer, and now through the fall, as record low mortgage rates continued to encourage new borrowers to enter the market.
New rate lock data suggests 2020 will end with over $4 trillion worth of originations, easily a record. The data, from Black Knight’s “Mortgage Monitor” report , shows that rate lock activity in the first half of October was up 4% from September, with purchase locks up 6% and refinance locks up 3%. Add the record-low interest rates to the recipe and quarterly volume is expected to reach record levels across both purchase and refi.
Despite what many believe, Gen Z and Millennials do want to become homeowners and they’re excited by the prospect. However, they face different obstacles than their parents and grandparents did. These challenges include lack of mortgage education, lack of suitable housing supply, and an unprecedented amount of debt that limits buying power and makes them fearful of taking on more.
Keller Williams released its numbers for home searches, agents and transactions for the third quarter on Thursday, revealing that as of Sept. 30, Keller Williams agents in the U.S. and Canada closed 374,824 transactions, up 16% over Q3 2019. Agents closed $127.5 billion in sales volume, up 25.4% over Q3 2019 and up 49.47% over Q2 volume. “The challenges our industry is facing in 2020 have inspired our team to work to refine and speed to market the models, systems and tools top agents need to win
Trellis is a state trial court research and analytics platform that provides Real Estate Professionals (Buyers, Foreclosure, Loan Modification, etc.) with LEADS on Pre-Foreclosures, Lis Pendes, Distressed Assets and more — to help uncover **new** opportunities and grow their business. The process is quick and easy — and all in real time. Trellis will supply you with a link to the relevant dockets, a Leads sheet and access to its UI where applicable.
The COVID-19 pandemic redefined “home” for many Americans and underscored the bedrock necessity of affordable housing for seniors, families and essential workers. As the pandemic shifts from crisis to chronic, investors, community leaders and housing advocates say they intend to make the most of the chance to permanently elevate the case for affordable housing even as economic metrics are starting to shift.
This year, remote online notarizations have taken a major step forward as more borrowers than ever are using eClosing platforms. And the consensus is in: borrowers like RON. A new study conducted by ClosingCorp shows borrowers who completed purchase and refinance transaction during COVID-19 were very satisfied with their experience, and even hope eClosings will continue in the future.
In its annual Mortgage Fraud Report, CoreLogic found that the risk of mortgage fraud for the 12 months ending June 2020 decreased 26.3% year-over-year nationally. Applications for investment properties showed the highest risk, while VA-based programs showed the lowest. The recently released report is the industry standard for nationwide fraud monitoring and analysis and draws on its proprietary Mortgage Fraud Consortium Database, which includes over 100 million loan files, The large drop in frau
A new annual report from CoreLogic shows multi-closing fraud risk held steady in 2020 after having decreased the past several years. “Multi-lien fraud is an extremely profitable scam that takes advantage of the lag between closing and records to solicit multiple loans on a single property,” the CoreLogic report stated. “According to the CoreLogic Multi-Close Alert Program (MCAP), 2020 is projected to have a similar level of findings as was seen in 2019.
Squirrels are always a little skittish, but as winter approaches, they really ramp it up. Why? Squirrels’ food sources — seeds, nuts, fruits, fungi — become extremely scarce in the winter, and so they have to act fast to make sure they have enough nourishment for those challenging months. There’s a cliche that squirrels tend to forget where they bury their nuts, but in reality, many species of squirrel have highly sophisticated mnemonic systems for remembering where they stored their bounties.
As a premier provider of innovative, high-performance software, data and analytics for mortgage and home equity lending and servicing, Black Knight is transforming the housing finance industry. With highly advanced software solutions for originations, servicing and secondary marketing, Black Knight helps its clients drive financial growth, improve customer retention, increase operational efficiency and reduce risk.
The mortgage industry is no stranger to disruption since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Lenders have seen it all this year: high volumes, volatility, market uncertainty… the list goes on and on. Amid evolving market conditions, today’s mortgage lenders continue to seek new and innovative ways to leverage advanced automation—the great accelerator.
Cannae Holdings and Senator Investment Group announced they are dropping their takeover bid after CoreLogic confirmed last week it is exploring multiple offers to sell at or above $80 per share. However, the increased offers did not deter the investors from continuing their fight to replace CoreLogic’s board of directors with their own nominees. “As we have always stated, our goal is to see CoreLogic carry out a legitimate sales process, whether that results in a sale to us or a sale to a higher
The pandemic-fueled exodus continues as apartment dwellers in big cities flee to the suburbs and beyond. The suburbs and rural areas of the Northeast are attracting more homebuyers, as Redfin reports that three out of the 10 metro areas with the largest net inflow increases are located in that area. Buffalo, New York, ranks third highest in metro areas with the biggest net inflow.
Mattamy Homes , one of North America’s largest homebuilders, has reached an agreement to acquire the homebuilding operations of Dallas-based New Synergy Homes. The acquisition is expected to close on Monday. No financial terms have been disclosed. With this transaction, Mattamy Homes will own over 3,400 homesites in 26 future communities. “Dallas’s booming economy and strong job market presents a tremendous growth opportunity for Mattamy Homes,” Peter Gilgan, chairman and chief executive o
The complexities of serving borrowers under the CARES Act require lenders, servicers and investors to partner with a mortgage services provider who has the expertise and national network to provide high-touch support to its clients. With a proven track record of best-in-class asset management experience, VRM Mortgage Services is uniquely qualified to address the challenges of this COVID era, including a potential influx of REO assets once eviction and foreclosure moratoriums are lifted.
Just weeks away from its anticipated $16.1 billion IPO , United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM) closed on the sale of $800 million in senior notes. The bond sale, which closed this week, gave the Detroit-based mortgage giant $791 million in proceeds. The notes are due in 2025 and sold at a 5.5% coupon. The liquidity is on top of a commitment in the form of a $500 million private placement and $425 million in cash held by the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) UWM is merging with, Gores Holdings
RE/MAX reported total revenue in the third quarter of $71.1 million, a decrease of $0.5 million, or 0.7%, compared to $71.5 million in Q3 2019. In Q2 , total revenue was $52.2 million. The company said that total revenue decreased “primarily due to previously announced agent recruiting initiatives that reduced both continuing franchise fees and Marketing Funds fees, largely offset by increased broker fees stemming from higher existing home sales, incremental revenue from acquisitions, and
The National Flood Insurance Program’s authority to issue policies was recently extended for a full year, until September 30, 2021. This is the 16th short-term extension of the NFIP since Congress reauthorized the program in 2012 and extended it in 2017, and the one-year extension is the longest of those extensions. The NFIP provides stability for the housing market.
The U.S. unemployment rate in October hit a new pandemic low of 6.9%, down a full percentage point from September’s 7.9%, the Labor Department said on Friday. With 1.5 million people making up that one percentage drop, the department estimates that now 11.1 million Americans are still unemployed, according to the Household Survey Data. Though September began showing signs of a decline in unemployment, after only falling a half a percentage point from August , October’s decline matched that previ
Homeowners who were placed into proactive forbearance plans by Wells Fargo received positive news this week. Law360 reports that on Nov. 2, in response to a class action lawsuit filed in Virginia, Wells Fargo agreed not to place homeowners into a COVID-19 forbearance plan or extend an existing plan unless a customer requests forbearance. The lawsuit claimed the bank placed customers into these plans without notice, a direct violation of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act. .
Online real estate marketing platform Hubzu has launched a new mobile app, available for residential real estate buyers. The app offers potential buyers tools to find, research and bid on homes via a competitive auction format. Hubzu is an end-to-end asset management platform for residential foreclosure, short sale, REO, deed in lieu, CWCOT and retail property auctions.
Redfin saw a revenue decrease of 1% year over year, to $237 million in the third quarter, above the company’s projected revenue of between $214 million and $225 million. In addition, its gross profit was $93 million, an increase of 74% year over year. It’s net income was $34.2 million, compared to a net income of $6.8 million in Q3 of 2019.
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