Sat.Mar 26, 2022 - Fri.Apr 01, 2022

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Is the Dallas Fed right to label this a housing bubble?

Housing Wire

Are we headed to a housing bubble? The Dallas Fed on Thursday published an article titled: Real-Time Market Monitoring Finds Signs Of a Brewing U.S. Housing Bubble. The online reaction was immediate — housing must be about to crash. I disagree with this conclusion. That’s not to say that the data points the Fed used are incorrect — in fact, we are in a savagely unhealthy housing market , but it’s not a bubble.

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Taxing flippers 25% in California??

Sacramento Appraisal Blog

There’s a new bill in California called AB 1771 that proposes a 25% tax on the profit of home flippers. This is worth talking about because laws can affect the housing market. This is NOT a political post, but I want to talk about some of the issues involved and offer perspective based on stats […].

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Brian Miller: Shift to Remote Work Has ‘Tipped the Scales Toward Employees’

Appraisal Buzz

PERSON OF THE WEEK: The shift to a purchase market, lenders’ re-expansion into niche products such as non-QM, and the reality of remote work and its impact on retention are among the topics covered by Brian Miller, senior vice president, talent acquisition for Planet Home Lending , in a recent interview with MortgageOrb. Q: What’s going on in the mortgage banking recruiting market right now?

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Procedure Manuals: Tips For Success

The Appraiser Coach

Let’s talk about your procedure manual. What procedure manual, you ask? Well, the one you should have (if you don’t). Even if you’re the only person working in your office, Read More.

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Mortgage rates reach highest level since 2018

Housing Wire

Mortgage rates keep climbing amid rising inflation , war in Ukraine, and disruptions to the supply chain, and there’s no sign that they’ll fall anytime soon. The latest weekly Freddie Mac PMMS mortgage survey, released Thursday, showed that the average purchase mortgage rate touched 4.67%, up 25 basis points from the week prior. That was the highest reading since December 2018, according to Freddie Mac.

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In the Bath, First-Time Buyers Really Want Both a Shower & Tub

Eyes on Housing

Among first-time buyers, both a shower stall and tub in the primary bath ranked as the most popular of the 18 bathroom features listed in the NAHB study, What Home Buyers Really Want, 2021 Edition. The study asked first-time, as well as repeat, home buyers to rate the kitchen features on the following, four-tier scale (which emphasizes how a feature.

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Bias or Variance: Which is Better?

George Dell

Bias is a much used and misused word. Variance too has more than one meaning. Words rule. Words trigger our thoughts, our feelings, and our opinions. Bias itself can mean different things. It can mean different things to different people. And it can mean different things to the same person, depending on context. Bias can […]. The post Bias or Variance: Which is Better?

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RealTrends 500: Keller Williams and RE/MAX offices tops in percentage transaction sides

Housing Wire

Keller Williams and RE/MAX lead the list of the top 50 one-year movers by percentage transaction sides, with Keller Williams — Cunningham Group , based in Santa Monica, California, seeing a 136% increase in sides between 2020 and 2021. Data for the 2022 RealTrends 500 rankings is based on 2021 sales. Top movers is a ranking of the 50 firms in the RealTrends 500 that had the largest percentage increase in closed sides or largest percentage in sales volume between 2020 to 2021.

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Steady Number of Open Construction Jobs

Eyes on Housing

The construction labor market remains tight, as the industry sees a rising number of job openings year-over-year. The count of open construction jobs remained steady at 381,000 unfilled positions in February. The highest measure in the history of the data series (going back to late 2000) was 416,000 in April 2019.

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With Soaring Rates, Monthly Mortgage Payments Up $500, Redfin Observes

Appraisal Buzz

Mortgage rates are shooting up at the fastest pace in history, sending the typical monthly mortgage payment for a homebuyer up more than $500 since the beginning of this year, according to Redfin. As rates quickly approach 5%, Redfin expects their impact on homebuyer demand to change from a motivator – driving a sense of urgency to buy before rates rise further – to a deterrent, causing buyers to step back as the cost.

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March Newsletter- Spring in North Texas

DW Slater Company

March Newsletter- Spring in North Texas. The signs of spring are here in North Texas. The weather is beginning to warm and there are buds on the trees, like this redbud tree outside our office window. Not only do we see new growth, but we also see weather instability and more severe storms that we must watch out for. Last week our area experienced severe weather and a tornado outbreak.

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A good jobs report, but also another recession red flag

Housing Wire

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the United States Of America created 431,000 jobs in March. We also had 95,000 positive revisions, and although this was a slight miss of estimates, it continues the solid trend of good job reports in 2022. On another note, I raised my third recession red flag, since the inverted yield curve happened this week.

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Job Growth Continued in March

Eyes on Housing

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 431,000 in March, and the unemployment rate fell to 3.6% from 3.8%. The labor market recovery is continuing, as employment in some sectors, such as professional and business services, financial activities, and retail sectors, is now above pre-pandemic levels. Construction industry employment (both residential and non-residential) totaled 7.6 million and has returned to its.

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U.S. Home Prices Were Up Nearly 20 Percent Year-Over-Year in January 

Appraisal Buzz

Driven by strong demand and limited inventory, U.S. home prices increased 1.6% on an adjusted basis in January and were up 19.2% compared with January 2021, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index. The index’s 10-city and 20-city composites, measuring home price growth in the 20 largest U.S. metros, both posted month-over-month increases of 1.8%.

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11 Takeaways: What is a Buyer's Agent in Real Estate?

Raleigh Realty

What Is A Buyer's Agent? What is a Buyer's Agent in Real Estate and do I need one when buying a home? We have all that answered and more If you are wondering if you should use a Buyer's Agent the answer is easy, yes. A Buyer's Agent in Real Estate is someone who helps homebuyers understand the local real estate market while finding a home that matches their criteria.

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Bill would combat appraisal bias with new agency, public GSE database

Housing Wire

Congress hopes to supplant the appraisal governing body at the center of the industry’s self-regulated framework and make public the trove of appraisal data held by the government-sponsored enterprises. A draft discussion bill circulated this week, sponsored by House Financial Services Chairperson Maxine Waters (D-CA), would strike the Appraisal Foundation , and replace it with an independent federal agency.

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Consumer Confidence Rebounds in March Despite Inflation Concerns

Eyes on Housing

After dropping to a one-year low last month, consumer confidence rebounded slightly in March as strong job growth offset consumer’s concerns about the Ukraine crisis and decades-high inflation. The Consumer Confidence Index, reported by the Conference Board, rose 1.5 points from 105.7 to 107.2 in March. The Present Situation Index increased 10.0 points from 143.0 to 153.0, while the Expectation.

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New Desktop Appraisal Policy with Freddie Mac

Appraisal Buzz

Today’s Buzzcast interview is with Scott Reuter, Chief Appraiser of Freddie Mac. We sat down with Scott and Joan Trice, Founder of Allterra Group, LLC to discuss the new Desktop appraisal policies and what that means for the industry. What is new in policy when it comes to desktop appraisals? What does this mean for the appraisal industry? How do these policies impact the individual appraiser?

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Future-Proof Your Data: Improving Enterprise Data Governance With Digital Data Capture

GoForrmz

Elevate enterprise data management with digital information capture and process-oriented information flows For enterprise, data is king, and efficient, standardized data management is critical to ensure enterprise teams are armed with the information they need. In the modern workplace, business-critical data can come from a vast number of sources, making it difficult to standardize and sanitize data entry, while streamlining the flow of information and providing a source of truth for business in

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Latest jobs report a good sign for bonkers housing market

Housing Wire

Maybe things are getting better? Coming off a month of strong growth in February , the U.S. jobs report released Friday again showed a solid increase in non-farm payroll jobs. A total of 431,000 non-farm payroll jobs were added in March, and employment in the construction industry is now above its pre-pandemic level, after the industry added 19,000 jobs.

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Employment Situation in February: State-Level Analysis

Eyes on Housing

Nonfarm payroll employment increased in 48 states and the District of Columbia in February compared to the previous month while Arkansas and Alaska lost jobs. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nationwide total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 678,000 in February, following a gain of 481,000 jobs in January.

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Just How Big is that House?

Appraisal Buzz

Appraising compliance with the American National Standard for Single-Family Residential Buildings. Fannie Mae has released further clarification on their announcement that they will be requiring appraisers to provide square footage calculations in accordance with the American National Standard for Single-Family Residential Buildings, the standard reference is ANSI Z765-2021.

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PAVE May Pave Over Appraisers

Appraiserblogs

The blame game against appraisers is continuing the fast and furious start, evidenced by the PAVE report. A synopsis is in the link: PAVE task force delivers plan on appraisal bias – Lexology Key info from the PAVE report. “Relevant agencies have also committed to addressing potential bias in the use of technology-based valuation tools through a rulemaking related to automated valuation models (AVMs), including the addition of a nondiscrimination quality control standard in the proposed rule.

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Why housing inventory is so low right now

Housing Wire

Given the current housing inventory crisis, it might surprise people to realize this: we built too many homes during the housing bubble years. Wait, what? But we have a housing shortage, right? Yes, but this is where my work is much different from other housing economists and why we need to think of inventory in a new, modern 21st-century mindset. The big theme of my housing work since 2010 has been that the housing market would have its weakest recovery from 2008 to 2019 because we simply built

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2021 State-Level GDP Data: Rebounding

Eyes on Housing

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased in all 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2021 as the economy continued recover from the COVID-19 crisis. According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), the percent change increase in real GDP ranged from 8.6 percent in Tennessee to 0.3 percent in Alaska. Nationwide, growth in real GDP, measured on a.

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Mr. Cooper Completes Deal With Sagent, Becoming a Multi-Year Customer

Appraisal Buzz

Mr. Cooper Group Inc. announced April 1 that it has completed its previously-announced agreement with Sagent Lending Technologies. The deal, which was announced in February, allows Sagent to buy certain intellectual property rights related to Mr. Cooper’s proprietary, cloud-based technology platform for mortgage servicing, and Mr. Cooper will receive an equity stake in Sagent.

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Critique of Freddie Mac’s Misleading Appraisal Gap Report

Appraiserblogs

More great research from AEI. This is an analysis of Freddie Mac’s misleading and basically defamatory paper on Appraisal Gap. When government related entities release misleading information like this they are attacking and defaming real estate appraisers. The hate real estate appraisers have received because of this paper and Andre Perry’s paper is relentless.

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Love letters on the rocks in Oregon

Housing Wire

Oregon State Rep. Mark Meek. Mark Meek doesn’t know what comes next. “Right now, we are working in a really strong seller’s market and say a seller gets four offers that are identical, but they all include love letters, then the seller ends up picking on personal preference,” said Meek, the Oregon state representative and practicing real estate broker, adding that, “We have implicit biases weighing in on the decision-making process.”.

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How to Use Hashtags for Real Estate Marketing

McKissock

If you’re marketing your real estate business on social media then you know how important hashtags are, especially when marketing to millennials. By adding hashtags to your post you’re automatically filing it under certain categories so that when users search a specific hashtag your content will appear. The problem with hashtags? They change a lot.

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What Appraisal Software Tools Are You Most Interested in Learning?

Appraisal Buzz

As a real estate appraiser, you strive for efficiency in your process and in your business. There are many technology tools available to make your workflow faster and smoother. However, they won’t save you as much time if you don’t learn how to maximize their capabilities. To better understand what sort of technology training and webinars would be the most useful to you, we asked appraisers, “On what appraisal software tools would you like.

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Sketch or Floor Plan?

Appraiserblogs

The FLOOR PLAN has all the elements of a SKETCH… Appraisers, I was given some ‘inside info’ about DESKTOP assignment reports being submitted to the GSE’s – incorrectly. The FLOOR PLAN exhibit in these DESKTOP reports, in some cases, is not being done correctly. Let’s examine what is actually required as a diagram showing the dwelling: First, when the appraiser certified that they, or their trainee, have/has made an on-site personal visit to the property and has measured the dwelling, only a SKET

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WFG reduces time and cost in real estate transactions

Housing Wire

WFG National Title Insurance Company (WFG) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Williston Financial Group and a national title insurance underwriter dedicated to taking time and cost out of real estate transactions. By focusing on its clients and their processes, WFG helps compress the time required to close a loan and/or transfer real property ownership.

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What Appraisal Software Tools Are You Most Interested in Learning?

McKissock

As a real estate appraiser, you strive for efficiency in your process and in your business. There are many technology tools available to make your workflow faster and smoother. However, they won’t save you as much time if you don’t learn how to maximize their capabilities. To better understand what sort of technology training and webinars would be the most useful to you, we asked appraisers, “On what appraisal software tools would you like additional training?

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Mr. Cooper, Sagent Produce Cloud-Native Mortgage Servicing Platform

Appraisal Buzz

Mr. Cooper Group Inc. has completed its previously announced agreement with Sagent M&C LLC , d/b/a Sagent Lending Technologies. Under the terms of this transaction, Sagent purchased certain intellectual property rights related to Mr. Cooper’s proprietary, cloud-based technology platform for mortgage servicing. Mr. Cooper has received an equity stake in Sagent and appointed two directors to Sagent’s board.

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