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November 28, 2012
Construction of new homes increased to a four-year high in October, which bodes well for the revival of the industry that’s vital to the recovery of the U.S. economy.
Housing starts rose 3.6 percent to an 894,000 annual rate, the fastest since July 2008 and exceeding nearly all estimates. The median forecast of 82 economists called for an 840,000 pace. Permits for the construction of single-family homes also advanced to the highest in four years.
Record-low More...
November 26, 2012
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) recently completed its annual Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers survey for 2012. The information is based on a 120-question survey mailed to a random sample of people who purchased a home between July 2011 and June 2012.
In 2012, first-time buyers constituted 39 percent of the market, which was still below the 50 percent market in 2010 when the federal homebuyer tax credit was in place.
The home search process section of the More...
November 6, 2012
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) says that existing-home sales, a market indicator followed by economists and analysts, probably will slow in the northeast U.S. for the balance of 2012 as the Sandy superstorm disrupts deals.
A spokesman for the NAR said that closings may be delayed, and most closings occur at the end of each month. Some multiple listing services that supply data to the NAR may be incapacitated, while sales elsewhere won’t be completed because of bank and More...
Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco have completed a study that shows “Boomerang Buyers” are not likely to return to the housing market very quickly. The paper says that former homeowners who defaulted on their mortgage during the recent housing crisis are likely to return to home ownership at a slower pace than previous cohorts of defaulters.
Because millions of Americans have defaulted on their mortgages over the past five or six years, these More...
October 19, 2012
The number of homes listed for sale in the United States fell 18 percent in September from a year earlier, and the time that homes stayed on the market dropped 11 percent as the housing market continues to recover.
According to Realtor.com data, there were 1.8 million homes for sale in September, down from 2.2 million a year earlier and more than 40 percent below the September 2007 peak of 3.1 million, according to the NAR website. Properties on the market last month had been listed More...
October 16, 2012
CoreLogic’s October MarketPulse report, a monthly publication that provides insight into the health of the U.S. Economy with emphasis on housing and mortgage rates, states that the 2012 housing recover is expected to be more durable than in prior years because of an improved balance between supply and demand.
The report says that even a stronger-than-projected decline in the fourth quarter of this year is unlikely to diminish the gains made so far in 2012.
According to the More...
October 1, 2012
Applications for U.S. home mortgages rose recently as interest rates dropped to record lows in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s latest stimulus efforts, according to data provided by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).
The association said its seasonally adjusted index of mortgage application activity, which includes both refinancing and home purchase demand, rose 2.8 percent in the week ending September 21st.
The MBA’s seasonally adjusted index of More...
September 25, 2012
Average home prices increased by 1.5 percent for a 10-city composite and by 1.6 percent for a 20-city composite in July versus June 2012, according to S&P Dow Jones Indices for its S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices.
For the third consecutive month, all 20 cities and both composites recorded positive monthly changes. It would have been a fourth had prices not fallen by 0.6 percent in Detroit back in April.
A total of 16 of the 20 cities and both composites rose over More...
July 31, 2012
Homebuilders broke ground on new single-family homes at an annual pace of 539,000 in June, up 4.7 percent from May and the fastest rate since April 2010, according to the Commerce Department. Confidence among U.S. homebuilders increased in July by the most in nearly a decade, according to the National Association of Home Builders.
In the three months ended June 30, orders swelled 32 percent at Pulte Group, Inc., the largest builder by revenue, and 25 percent at D.R. Horton Inc., More...
July 10, 2012
Homes prices appear to be rising again after falling for more than five years, according to Bloomberg.com/news. All the major sales price indexes show that there have been modest national increases in recent months, even after adjusting for seasonal patterns.
When foreclosures and distressed sales are excluded from the data, prices are up even more. The asking-price index, a leading indicator of sales prices published by Trulia Inc., climbed at More...
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