Housing Wire
DECEMBER 10, 2021
As we approach the end of another hot year for the market, homebuyers and sellers are eagerly looking ahead to the 2022 housing market. Will the market continue its streak of strong growth, or are we finally about to see a slow down? Here’s a high-level forecast for what to expect next year, based on the supply and demand signals we can already see in today’s data.
Cleveland Appraisal Blog
SEPTEMBER 3, 2021
In most parts of the country, real estate appraiser’s main source of data is the multiple listing service. (MLS) We use it to find homes that are comparable to the ones we are valuing, to determine what buyers are paying for similar homes. We also use the MLS to analyze the market trends and to make market-based adjustments for things such as changes in sales prices, as well as features of a home that have a major impact on market value, like finished square footage, bedroom, and bathroom
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Housing Wire
DECEMBER 20, 2021
Most of the time, the economy is like a slow-moving ocean liner that changes direction gradually and without much effort. But when a new, powerful variable presents itself, like the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, the economy can change on a dime. COVID was a veritable iceberg for our ocean liner economy, but the ship did not go down! Even in the extreme conditions of COVID-19, my general premise on housing economics predicted that the two variables with the most influence — demographics and mortga
Appraisal Buzz
DECEMBER 29, 2021
In today’s Buzzcast, we dive into the new ANSI standards announced for appraisers. Today we have Joan Trice, Founder of Allterra Group, LLC., and Bryan Reynolds, Appraiser eLearning Partner. We’ll be getting the inside scoop while they discuss the new updates and their impacts on appraisers. Fannie Mae is requiring appraisers to use ANSI standards starting April 1st.
Housing Wire
NOVEMBER 11, 2021
You could buy a top-of-the-line laptop and a new cell phone to match, or you could pay one month’s rent for a single-family home in Los Angeles. It’s not much better for prospective single-family renters across California, a study by HouseCanary found. In Ventura or Carlsbad, median single-family rents are $4,250, and in Santa Clara and Berkeley, median single-family rents reached $4,225 and $4,200, respectively.
Cleveland Appraisal Blog
NOVEMBER 11, 2021
I have written several articles demonstrating the inaccuracy of AVMs like Zillow’s Zestimates. You might enjoy reading “ AVM’s & Punxsutawney Phil’s Accuracy “, “ AVM’s… The Wonder Bread of Value “, “ Appraiser vs. AVM vs. Zestimate…Ten Properties ” and finally, “ iBuyers…The Pawn Shops of Real Estate “ Obviously, this topic is of interest to me, seeing is that value is my profession.
Property Appraisal Zone brings together the best content for appraisal professionals from the widest variety of industry thought leaders.
Appraisal Buzz
DECEMBER 27, 2021
The housing market was hotter than ever last year, with pandemic-driven demand boosting home sales to their highest level in 14 years. Total year-end sales volume ended at 5.64 million units , and some experts say it could reach 8 million if there were more inventory. Therein lies the problem. There’s too little supply and too high a demand, a predicament that’s disrupted the housing and appraisal industries.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 22, 2021
Real estate investors are buying more properties, but paying less for them, according to a report from RealtyTrac released Thursday based on ATTOM Data Solutions home sales data. In the second quarter of 2021, investor purchases accounted for 15.4% of all home purchases nationwide, compared with 11.5% of all home purchases a year prior. Despite such a large year-over-year change, it is still slightly lower than Q1 2021 , in which investors held 15.9% of the market.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 8, 2021
Skyrocketing U.S. home prices are quickly shifting the affordability calculus for prospective homebuyers in 2021 — even though mortgage rates have remained near record lows. The median home price nationwide in August increased 14.9% from a year ago to $356,700, according to the National Association of Realtors. August marked the sixth consecutive month where median home prices increased by double-digit percentages from a year ago.
Housing Wire
DECEMBER 16, 2021
The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) on Thursday issued a proposed rule that would require Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to develop, maintain, and submit annual capital plans to the regulator. “The proposed rule will help ensure that the Enterprises have robust systems and processes in place to monitor and maintain proper levels of capital, ” said Acting Director Sandra Thompson, who was nominated to be the permanent agency director on Wednesday.
Housing Wire
NOVEMBER 1, 2021
With mortgage rates falling during the COVID-19 crisis, many households were able to refinance to lower payments. Because a mortgage payment is almost always the most prominent payment households make each month, lower payments have allowed homeowners who bought homes to have better cash flow over the last few years. This means mortgage holders who have refinanced their homes to lower payments while their wages have also grown look great on paper.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 5, 2021
Nearly one quarter of U.S. home sellers received four or more offers on their home in 2021, according to Zillow’s latest consumer housing trends report. The rise in the number of homes that received multiple offers is reflected in the increased frequency of bidding wars in 2021. Typical sellers received two offers, which is the same as the past three years.
Housing Wire
DECEMBER 1, 2021
A federal judge ordered Ronald McCord, the founder of Oklahoma City-based lender and servicer First Mortgage Company , who was also once the president of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), to pay $51.8 million in restitution for mortgage fraud. United States District Judge Robin Cauthron ordered McCord also serve 8.5 years in prison — the maximum the federal government said it would seek — as well as three years of supervised release.
Housing Wire
OCTOBER 11, 2021
For the second month in a row, national housing affordability improved in August, according to the latest National Association of Realtors housing affordability index report. This improvement came as monthly mortgage payments fell by 1.1% while median family income fell by 0.7%. As of August 2021, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate was 2.89% compared to 3% a year prior.
Housing Wire
AUGUST 30, 2021
The Sunshine State seems to be getting a lot more foot traffic these days, with the number of homebuyers moving to Miami tripling year-over-year, a new analysis found. According to Redfin ’s monthly migration report, July saw the net inflow of Redfin users packing their bags and moving to Miami rise to 7,610, up from 2,216 last year. Milagros Alvarez, a Miami real estate agent at Redfin, said that the pandemic “has brought even more out-of-towners to the area” because so many people can no
Housing Wire
SEPTEMBER 23, 2021
Homeowners with mortgages gained $2.9 trillion in equity in the second quarter of 2021, a 29.3% year-over-year increase, according to a new report by CoreLogic released Wednesday. This marks an average gain of $51,500(!) per borrower since the second quarter of 2020. The amount of equity for a property is determined by comparting the estimated current value of the property against the mortgage debt outstanding (MDO).
Housing Wire
AUGUST 3, 2021
When you hear people say that the current housing market is like 2008 all over again, you may want to remind them of the huge differences between this market and that one. The previous economic expansion, from 2010-2019, wasn’t a housing bubble. Quite the opposite: In that cycle we had the weakest housing recovery ever, even with the lowest mortgage rates during the longest economic expansion ever.
Housing Wire
JULY 28, 2021
The 2021 RealTrends Gathering of Eagles real estate conference captured our attention when the role and future of the real estate transaction process for a homebuyer were lively debated. Big players such as Zillow, Redfin, Compass… etc. claim dominance. We examine the need for complete vendor-provided software solutions vs. building in-house. We watch as consolidation transpires all-around.
Housing Wire
JULY 16, 2021
Cash buyers are pouring into the housing market this year, and they’re picking off more than half of available inventory in certain areas in Florida and New York. As of July 14, nearly one-third of U.S. home purchases this year were paid with just cash — 30%, specifically — according to a recent Redfin study. That represents the largest share since 2014, when 30.6% of homes were purchased with all cash.
Housing Wire
SEPTEMBER 7, 2021
One year ago this month, I coined the term forbearance crash bros , an updated name for the housing bubble boys who never got their housing crash in 2020 so they moved the collapse of housing to 2021. Many other articles were written in tribute to this wonderfully talented group of internet crash callers. As we are in September 2021, we can safely say the housing crash has been moved once again to next year.
Housing Wire
JUNE 23, 2021
Mark Calabria, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency , must go. He is slowly but surely undermining the system he has been charged to oversee, imposing his ideological will on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a way that will leave them weaker, and the housing finance system that depends on them increasingly unable to meet the critical housing needs of the nation.
Housing Wire
JULY 16, 2021
Home sales fell 1.2% from May to June, the largest drop at this time of year on record since at least 2012, according to a new Redfin study released this week. The national median home-sale price hit a record high of $386,888, up 25% year over year, but a slight decline from the record of 26% in May. The number of homes for sale fell 28% year over year from 2020, and the typical home sold in just 14 days — a record low and, down from 39 days in June 2020.
Housing Wire
JUNE 10, 2021
It’s no secret that buying a home takes time and money. Well, it turns out, so does selling a home. According to Zillow and Thumbtack’s Hidden Costs of Selling Analysis , the average homeowner spends over $15,000 in “hidden costs” to sell their home. . While a real estate agent’s commission is one of the most expensive costs, it definitely isn’t the only one.
Housing Wire
JUNE 1, 2021
The world has been dealing with a significant health crisis since the beginning of 2020. This has provided the American bear troll crowd numerous opportunities to pontificate about a likely long-lasting depression. If you bought into the theories being peddled by this crash-cult crowd (who, by the way, have been infecting the discourse of economics since the creation of social media and YouTube channels) then you would have believed that the second housing market bubble crash was imminent during
Housing Wire
JUNE 7, 2021
During the previous economic expansion from 2008 to 2019, the housing market was subject to the constant refrain of build more homes. Building more homes, it was said, would solve all sorts of social problems, from making homeownership more affordable to ending homelessness. Today we are perhaps less prone to believing that a glut of new homes is the panacea society is waiting for, but the siren call to build more homes continues to be broadcast by a host of housing pundits and social do-gooders
Housing Wire
JUNE 7, 2021
United Wholesale Mortgage has been aggressively price-cutting loans to put pressure on competitors for months now. It appears they’ve just thrown gas on the fire in the hopes of boosting their second quarter numbers, while hitting their rivals ahead of earnings call season. UWM said on Monday that they’ll price-match any conventional loan on primary residences up to 35 basis points with that of 15 different competitors: Caliber Home Loans , Cardinal Financial , Citizens Bank , Financ
Housing Wire
MAY 18, 2021
Skyrocketing prices for lumber, appliances and other building materials continue to handcuff new housing starts all over the country. Single-family housing starts in April dropped 13.4% from March to a rate of 1.09 million, according to the most recent study from the U.S. Census Bureau. Housing completions were at a rate of 1.045 million in April, just 0.1% above the March rate of 1.04 million — proof that builders are delaying housing starts due to the marked increase in costs for lumber and ot
Housing Wire
MAY 7, 2021
The booming real estate market has created a high demand for appraisal services. This is good news for lenders, but it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on appraisers who have to be diligent in their work, while also meeting closing dates. HousingWire recently spoke with PCV Murcor Founder, President and CEO Keith Murray and COO Cindy Nasser on how the appraisal process can be streamlined in today’s tight housing market. .
Housing Wire
APRIL 7, 2021
In what will be known to future generations as the Great Reshuffling, a recent Zillow survey showed that more than 1 in 10 Americans reported moving in the past 12 months, either by choice or by circumstance. And now, with the COVID-19 vaccine circulating and the economy slowly regaining strength, Zillow researchers say millions of additional households could enter the housing market in 2021.
Housing Wire
APRIL 16, 2021
Housing starts jumped in March, recovering from a bleak February that included wild winter storms in the South, according to a recent report from the Census Bureau. Single-family housing starts rose 15.3% over the month to a pace of 1.24 million annualized units. That’s up 37% from a year ago, but it’s important to take into account that the COVID-19 virus first took hold of the housing market in March 2020, said Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae. “The March pace was t
Housing Wire
MARCH 22, 2021
When there’s a bidding war, cash is king. And a recent Redfin study confirmed that it’s the only sure-fire way to win that dream house in a market this crazy. Homebuyers who offer all-cash improve their chances of winning a bidding war by 290%, per Redfin’s study of clients buying homes between June 2020 and February 2021. And waiving the financing contingency is the second-most effective bidding-war strategy, Redfin officials said – improving homebuyers’ odds of wi
Housing Wire
MARCH 3, 2021
Mortgage applications recovered slightly from last week , increasing 0.5% for the week ending Feb. 26, 2021 according to the latest report from the Mortgage Bankers Association. A giant dip in applications was reported following the devastating winter storms in Texas the week of Feb. 8, but a week of normalized weather brought numbers back up, according to Joel Kan, MBA’s associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting.
Housing Wire
MARCH 30, 2021
Home prices continued their acceleration in January according to the S&P Corelogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index, jumping 11.2% year over year, the highest gain in nearly 15 years. The Tuesday report also revealed an 11.1% year-over-year gain in January for the 20-city price index, up from 10.2% the previous month. Overall, prices rose month over month in 19 of the 20 cities tracked, with Cleveland being the only city to see prices drop.
Housing Wire
MARCH 4, 2021
The average mortgage rate for a 30-year fixed loan rose 5 basis points last week to 3.02%, marking the first time since July that the industry has seen rates break above 3%, according to Freddie Mac ’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey. Since reaching a low point in January, mortgage rates have risen by more than 30 basis points as the economy works to recover, and according to Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, the impact on purchase demand has been noticeable.
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