Appraisal Buzz

FEBRUARY 28, 2022

“We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short term and underestimate the effect in the long term.” This is the little-known Law of Amara that describes how we perceive the impact of new technology on our lives. Before we discuss the impact of technology on the future of appraisal data, it’s good to get a historical perspective. Forty years ago, appraisers were storing property data on Property Cards.

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Sacramento Appraisal Blog

OCTOBER 10, 2022

The housing market has shifted, and today I have some practical advice for buyers and sellers. This is coming from hundreds of conversations every month as well as stats I'm pulling. Some new memes too. Enjoy if you wish.

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 29, 2022

As we close out 2022, it’s time to reflect on a historic year for the housing market, which was even crazier than the COVID-19 year of 2020. There are similarities and significant differences between the housing recession we’ve seen this year versus 2008, and looking at specific factors in both timeframes gives us an idea of what to expect in 2023.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

Homebuilder confidence continued to drop in November, hitting its lowest level since June 2012, with the exception of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, according to the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI) report, released Wednesday. In November, builder sentiment in the market for newly built single-family homes fell five points from October , ending at 33 points — less than half the level it was six months ago.

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Sacramento Appraisal Blog

MARCH 21, 2022

I have a few things on my mind today. Let’s talk about square footage rules changing, crazy gas prices, and recession buzz. 1) NEW SQUARE FOOTAGE STANDARDS FOR APPRAISERS: If you didn’t know, Fannie Mae is adopting some changes with the way appraisers measure square footage (pdf). In short, as of April 1, 2022, appraisers […].

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Eyes on Housing

OCTOBER 6, 2022

A majority of new homes that completed construction in 2021 included two-car garages (67%), according to NAHB analysis of 2021 Census Bureau Survey of Construction data. There is clear uniformity for parking options in new homes completed across the Census divisions: the 2-car garage was the most popular parking option for completed homes in all divisions.

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McKissock

JULY 10, 2022

How do you determine the investment value of a property? Well, it’s an art. It’s not like valuing a house in which you are going to live. That would be the homeowner value. When estimating a property’s investment value, there are a variety of real estate valuation methods you can use. In this article, we’ll walk through several techniques and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each.

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BiggerPockets

MAY 16, 2022

The year was 1999. An exclusive group of multi-billionaires gathered in Sun Valley, Idaho, just like they do every year. As usual, no reporters were allowed within miles of their […].

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National Association of Realtors

OCTOBER 12, 2022

How professionals are managing the biggest obstacles to the home valuation process.

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 1, 2022

Over the past few years, we’ve seen an increased demand for smart home technology as consumers continue to embrace a digital lifestyle. “Smart home technology, whether it be keyless entry locks, smart thermostats or leak sensors, these are all things that, five or six years ago, were still pretty new to the marketplace,” said Andre Sanchez, COO of Rently, a smart home and self-guided touring solutions provider.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 16, 2022

Mortgage demand rose as rates dropped following the October slowdown in inflation growth numbers. However, while purchase mortgage applications increased across all loan types, refinance activity remained depressed. The market composite index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 2.7% for the week ending November 11, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 7, 2022

Since the weaker CPI data was released in November, bond yields and mortgage rates have been heading lower. The question then was: What would lower mortgage rates do to this data? Now, with five weeks of data in front of us, we can say they have stabilized the market. Purchase application data came out on Wednesday and the week-to-week data was down 3%, breaking the streak of four straight weeks of growth.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 27, 2022

On Thursday, the gross domestic product data for the third quarter showed the U.S. economy grew at a rate of 2.6%, breaking the negative GDP streak we had in the past two quarters. Does this mean the Federal Reserve needs to hike rates even more to get the recession they’re looking for, or is there a case for mortgage rates to go below 6% over the next six months?

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Housing Wire

SEPTEMBER 8, 2022

Bank of America recently announced a loan for lower-income households that doesn’t require homebuyers to come up with a downpayment or closing costs, and doesn’t base the loan on a minimum FICO score. People’s first reaction was to wonder if this was 2008 all over again. Are we really doing those types of loans and promoting homeownership again without understanding the risks?

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 17, 2022

The best way to fight inflation is to add more supply, and when I look at the housing completion data for the past two years, it just makes me want to puke. In previous expansions, builders’ housing completion data would move in line with housing starts and permits. However, for the first time in recent modern-day history — due to supply chain issues and other factors — housing completion data has lagged behind housing permits and starts.

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Housing Wire

JUNE 30, 2022

Less than a week after laying off hundreds of workers and refusing new mortgage applications, First Guaranty Mortgage Corp. (FGMC) and its affiliate Maverick II Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection late Wednesday. . “While we have made considerable efforts to address our ongoing financial challenges related to the state of the mortgage market, we ultimately must do what is best for our borrowers and consumers,” Aaron Samples, chief executive officer of FGMC, said in a

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Housing Wire

JUNE 8, 2022

We are at the point of the economic cycle where I really just get two questions: Are we going into recession and are home prices about to fall? I am going to do my best to try to make sense of what is happening with the housing market right now, since the years 2020-2024 have been a talking point of mine for years and my biggest concern since the fall of 2020 has been prices overheating — not having a deflationary collapse. .

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Housing Wire

DECEMBER 13, 2022

On Tuesday, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data came in cooler than expected , and the bond market loved it, driving mortgage rates lower. Where do we go from here? Headline inflation is still very elevated historically, but the trend can be our friend over the next 12 months. I say this because the most significant component of Core CPI is shelter inflation.

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Housing Wire

JUNE 16, 2022

I’m raising my fifth recession red flag today based on the Census Bureau ‘s May housing starts data. Housing starts showed a miss on the estimate but positive revisions. Housing starts came in at 1.549 million and housing permits came in at 1.695 million. Housing completion data did grow to 1.465 million and more of the backlogged homes are finished.

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Housing Wire

AUGUST 5, 2022

What a crazy day for my economic model! On the same day, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed that we’ve recovered all the jobs lost to COVID-19 and I am raising my sixth recession red flag. When I wrote the America is back recovery model on April 7, 2020, and then retired it on Dec. 9, 2020, I knew one data line would lag the most: jobs!

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 10, 2022

Finally, some good news: the growth rate of inflation is cooling off for now, and with the CPI inflation report being positive, the 10-year yield fell noticeably, and mortgage rates will fall with that! So, the question is, are we reaching the peak of inflation and close to the end of the Fed rate hike cycle? Let’s take a look at today’s data.

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Housing Wire

JULY 13, 2022

Looking at the housing market in the years 2020-2024, one risk i identified early on was that home prices could accelerate more in this period than we saw in the previous expansion if inventory channels broke to all-time lows. I talked about having a 23% price-growth model for the housing market in the years 2020-2024 as a critical marker of balanced growth versus overheating, especially as inventory had been falling for years right into our critical demographic patch.

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Housing Wire

JUNE 21, 2022

The housing nightmare continues. The National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported that existing home sales for April came in at 5.41 million , down 3.4% from the previous month and 8.6% from last year. But, the savagely unhealthy data line was that home prices are up 14.8%. Now that we are almost in July, we can safely say the premise that once mortgage rates hit 4%, the mass panic selling of American homeowners who need to get out at all costs, driving total inventory up in the millions, has

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Housing Wire

JANUARY 10, 2022

This article is part of our HousingWire 2022 forecast series. After the series wraps, join us on February 8 for the HW+ Virtual 2022 Forecast Event. Bringing together some of the top economists and researchers in housing, the event will provide an in-depth look at the top predictions for this year, along with a roundtable discussion on how these insights apply to your business.

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Housing Wire

MARCH 10, 2022

On Thursday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the same trend that all Americans have seen lately: the inflation rate of growth is rampant and doesn’t show any sign of easing up due to the Russian Invasion of Ukraine. The Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers “increased 0.8 percent in February on a seasonally adjusted basis after rising 0.6 percent in January… Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 7.9 percent before seasonal adjustment.” As you can

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Housing Wire

MARCH 18, 2022

The National Association of Realtors reported that existing home sales for February came in as a miss of estimates at 6.02 million. This level is still within my 2022 forecast sales range between 5.74 million and 6.16 million. Last year I discussed sales levels coming back down to 5.84 million and I am looking for more of the same in 2022, at the 5.74 million level.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

While mortgage rates are high and economic uncertainty looms, there is good news for borrowers who already have a mortgage and may be looking to tap into their equity. According to Black Knight’s mortgage monitor report, the country’s housing equity position remains strong compared to its position at the beginning of the pandemic, with equity positions $5 trillion, or 46%, above pre-pandemic levels.

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Housing Wire

FEBRUARY 17, 2022

Potential homebuyers seeking Freddie Mac -backed mortgages will no longer have to hunt for paper pay stubs to verify their income. Freddie Mac announced on Wednesday that it will roll out an automated process that allows mortgage lenders to assess a prospective homebuyer’s direct deposit income. Freddie Mac claims this would reduce the paper documentation burden on borrowers, speed loan closing and simplify the lending process.

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Housing Wire

AUGUST 16, 2022

Tuesday’s housing starts report clearly shows that homebuilders are going to be done with single-family construction until mortgage rates fall. Housing completion data is still struggling to get some traction, but in the coming months, builders should be able to get more housing completions done while housing permits and starts for single-family homes are in decline.

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Housing Wire

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

Economic reports over the Thanksgiving holiday paint a complicated picture of what’s happening, and where we are on recession watch. The big economic surprise was the strength of Black Friday sales, where consumers spent a record $9.12 billion online. Another surprise was the Atlanta Fed’s forecast of 4.3% GDP growth in the fourth quarter, since the Atlanta Fed data was used by many to say that the U.S. went into a recession earlier in the year.

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Housing Wire

OCTOBER 3, 2022

Home prices are now posting the biggest monthly declines since January 2009, according to the latest Mortgage Monitor report from Black Knight. Median home prices in August fell 0.98% in August, only slightly better than July’s 1.05% monthly decline. The average home price is down 2% ($8,800) from its June peak nationally as we enter the historically slower fall-winter homebuying season.

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Housing Wire

JANUARY 12, 2022

Early in 2021, when I was talking about how people should worry about home prices overheating, I had a glimmer of hope that maybe toward the end of 2021 we would be spared another seasonal collapse of inventory. Inventory always falls in the fall and winter, but I hoped it wouldn’t be a repeat of 2020. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen and recent data shows that we are at fresh new all-time lows in housing inventory, with mortgage rates and the unemployment rate both under 4% currently.

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Sacramento Appraisal Blog

MAY 11, 2022

The housing market has shifted over the past month. That’s what the stats are showing, and it’s what we’re hearing from the trenches. Today I want to highlight what’s been happening in Sacramento, and unpack what I mean by “shift” too since this word can be sensationalized. If you’re not local, what are you seeing […].

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Housing Wire

JUNE 27, 2022

The national mortgage delinquency dropped to an all-time low in May, continuing two consecutive months of a decline since March. The overall delinquency rate slightly dropped five basis points from April to 2.75% in May, according to Black Knight. The delinquency rate is 42% lower than the same period a year ago. A total of 1.46 million properties were in early-stage delinquencies, defined as borrowers who missed a single mortgage payment, which is a slight increase of 0.2% from April due to typ

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