Home resales are soaring. For the 4th consecutive month, the Existing Home Sales report revealed what today’s buyers and sellers already know — there’s a lot of buyer activity right now. Existing Home Sales surged 7-plus percent in November, posting its largest number of recorded sales in 33 months.  Sales volume is up 44% higher [...]

To be notified when I write something new, sign up for daily email alerts or subscribe to the feed. Housing Starts jumped last month as builders got back to business.  It’s a telling sign for the economy, but bad news for next season’s sellers. With more homes coming online, home prices may be slow to [...]

When a home seller accepts a contract on an MLS-listed property, the property’s status changes from “Active” to “Pending”. This means the home is scheduled to sell, but not yet sold. Each month, the National Association of Realtors® tallies the number of pending homes and publishes the data as the Pending Homes Sales Index report. In October, for [...]

The supply of newly-built homes fell to its lowest levels since 2006, offering additional proof of a housing market in recovery. Home supply is defined as the amount of time it would take to sell the current inventory of homes at the current pace of sales. In October, for the 8th consecutive month, home supplies fell. Since peaking [...]

To be notified when I write something new, sign up for daily email alerts or subscribe to the feed. It’s official — home prices are no longer in free fall.  According to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the Home Price Index posted its first quarterly increase since 2007 last quarter. The news was reported Tuesday. The [...]

For today’s home buyers and homeowners that can manage the higher monthly payments, 15-year fixed rate mortgage rates look attractive as compared to comparable 30-year products. The 15-year/30-year interest rate spread is near its 5-year high. Despite lower rates, however, homeowners opting for a 15-year fixed mortgage should be prepared for its higher monthly payments.  This is [...]

A “Housing Start” is a home on which construction has started and, for the 4th straight month, nationalsingle-family housing starts held steady last month. When the demand for homes grows faster than the number of homes for sale, prices increase. As recent home sales data confirms, buyers currently outpace sellers and one consequence of this is [...]

A conforming mortgage is one that, quite literally, conforms to the mortgage guidelines set forth by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Each year, the government sets the maximum allowable loan size for a conforming mortgage, based on “typical” housing costs nationwide. Loans in excess of this amount are typically called “jumbo”. While home prices increased from [...]

For the eighth straight consecutive month, national foreclosure activity in the U.S. was dominated by a small set of states. As reported by RealtyTrac.com, more than half of October’s foreclosure-related activity came from just 4 states: California Florida Illinois Michigan The remaining Top 10 states in terms of total foreclosure activity included Arizona, Georgia, Texas, Ohio, New Jersey, [...]

Despite the economy’s improvement and prodding from Congress, banks don’t seem ready to open their purse strings just yet. Nationally, mortgage approval standards are tightening. The data comes from a quarterly survey the Federal Reserve sends to its member banks.  The Fed asks senior bank loan officers around the country whether “prime” residential mortgage guidelines had [...]