Mortgage Applications Up 21%

U.S. Real Estate Week
Friday, Jan 29, 2016

Applications for Purchase Mortgages | NAR

  • the 4-week moving average remains 21.3 percent stronger than the same time last year

Black Knight HPI Shows local Price Weaknesses | Mortgage News Daily

  • California home prices declined for the second straight month
  • Prices there have risen 51.0 percent from the market’s low point in January 2012
  • “seasonally adjusted numbers suggest continued but slowing growth for the state”

HSBC curbs mortgage offering to Chinese citizens in U.S. | Reuters

  • Europe’s biggest lender HSBC will no longer provide mortgages to some Chinese nationals who buy real estate in the United States
  • Those found trying to purchase more than the maximum $50,000 in foreign currency a year would be placed on a watch list

Real Prices and Price-to-Rent Ratio in November | CalculatedRISK

  • In real terms, and as a price-to-rent ratio, prices are back to 2003 levels

How Has Buying a Home Changed Since Your Parents’ Time? | Realtor.com

  • Back to the Real Estate Future: 1985 versus 2015. Buckle up!
  • The median age of home buyers was 33 in 1985, and now it’s 44
  • In 1985, a typical home purchased was 1,610 square feet. That number has grown to 1,900 in 2015

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Rents to Flatten

U.S. Real Estate Week
Friday, Jan 22, 2016

Mortgage Rates Fall for Third Straight Week – Freddie Mac

  • 3.81 percent with an average 0.6 point

Mortgage applications pop 9% on stock sell-off – CNBC

  • The sell-off in the stock market was a boon to the mortgage market last week.
  • Mortgage application volume jumped 9 percent
  • Refinance applications were the driver of total volume. They surged 19 percent from the previous week, seasonally adjusted, but are 40 percent below where they were a year ago, when rates were even lower.

Rents to Flatten in 2016 – Zillow

  • National median rent at the end of 2015 was $1,381, and is expected to increase slightly to $1,396 over the next 12 months.
  • The slowdown in rents means that, by the end of the year, they will be rising at a slower pace than incomes in many markets.

Housing Economists See Job Gains Offsetting Stock-Market Pains – Real Time Economics – WSJ

  • Economists are betting the U.S. housing market will take its cues from the labor market this year rather than unsettled financial markets.
  • The housing market faces a number of headwinds including potentially higher interest rates, volatile financial markets and falling oil prices hitting some oil-rich areas.
  • But that is likely outweighed by rising household formation, improving employment and wage numbers and steep rent increases that could start pushing renters to buy

Why the December rebound in home sales? – CNBC

  • “(Friday’s) data just confirms that the November drop was due to delays in closings that were pushed to December,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the NAR.

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90 Seconds of News

Real Estate News – Friday, January 15, 2016

Mortgage Rates Fall Further – Freddie Mac

  • 3.92 percent with an average 0.6 point

Mortgage Monitor – Black Knight Financial Services (pdf)

  • 5.2 million borrowers still have incentive to refinance and meet broad based underwriting criteria With a 50 basis point rise in rates roughly 2.1 million (41%) of those borrowers may lose interest rate incentive to refinance
  • Nearly 2.4 million borrowers with existing 30-year mortgages could still save $200 or more per month through a refinance at today’s rates.
  • Second Lien HELOC Originations

Hottest Housing Markets for 2016 – Zillow

  • No. 1: Denver
  • No. 2: Seattle
  • No. 3: Dallas-Fort Worth

U.S. Will Track Secret Buyers of Luxury Real Estate – The New York Times

  • illicit money flowing into luxury real estate
  • The initiative will start in two of the nation’s major destinations for global wealth: Manhattan and Miami-Dade County.
  • her agency had seen instances in which multimillion-dollar homes were being used as safe deposit boxes for ill-gotten gains, in transactions made more opaque by the use of anonymous shell companies.

Buying and selling a home is second most stressful life experience – PropertyWire

  • Buying and selling a house is one of the most stressful life experiences, more so than having a child and second only to going through a divorce, new research for UK consumer organisation
  • Buying or selling a property was considered more stressful than arranging care for an elderly relative, having a child, changing jobs or getting married.
  • 75% of the women found selling a property stressful compared to 66% of men

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90 Seconds of News

Real Estate News – Friday, January 8, 2016

Freddie Mac – Mortgage Rates Start the Year Below Four Percent

  • 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) averaged 3.97 percent with an average 0.6 point for the week ending January 7, 2016, down from last week when it averaged 4.01 percent. A year ago at this time, the 30-year FRM averaged 3.73 percent.

No Relief in Sight on Rents | RealEstateEconomyWatch.com

  • Average national rent was $1,244 for the fourth quarter of 2015, a $54 increase from the average of $1,188 in the fourth quarter of 2014.
  • Occupancy was 95.0% in the fourth quarter, the highest 4Q rate since the 95.9% at the end of 2000.
  • Two metros, Portland, OR (12.0%) and Oakland (11.3%), ended the year with double-digit rent growth.

Calculated Risk: Fed: Q3 Household Debt Service Ratio Very Low

  • The DSR for mortgages (blue) are near the low for the last 35 years.  This ratio increased rapidly during the housing bubble, and continued to increase until 2007. With falling interest rates, and less mortgage debt (mostly due to foreclosures), the mortgage ratio has declined significantly.
  • The consumer debt DSR (yellow) has been increasing for the last three years.

“Typical Mortgage Payment”: A Historical Comparison of the Monthly Payment to Buy a Home

  • In the Dallas metro area, for example, the median sale price reached a new peak of about $252,000 earlier this year, but in September the typical mortgage payment remained 24 percent below its inflation-adjusted peak in spring 2000.
  • Thanks to low mortgage rates (Figure 2), San Francisco’s typical mortgage payment of $4,360 this November (Figure 3) was still 13 percent below its inflation-adjusted peak of $4,997 in June 2007, when the median price was $825,000 and the average rate for a 30-year mortgage was about 6.7 percent, compared with 3.9 percent in November 2015.

In Real Estate, Your Personality Makes You Predictable – WSJ

  • Are you efficient, organized, thorough, diligent and detail oriented? Then you’re a good candidate for a fixed-rate mortgage.
  • The test asks takers to rate themselves on a scale from 1 to 5 on questions that measure standard personality traits: Openness (think: artistic and imaginative), Conscientiousness (efficient, organized), Extroversion (sociable, energetic), Agreeableness (forgiving, undemanding) and Neuroticism (tense, moody).

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90 Seconds of News

Real Estate News – Monday, January 3, 2016

Here are the 6 most popular HousingWire stories of 2015 | HousingWire

  • 3. It’s official: Obama to direct FHA to cut mortgage insurance premiums
  • 2. Fannie Mae launches major first time homebuyer assistance program
  • 1. How you can get a mortgage right now even with bad credit

Rate Hikes May Hurt Foreign Buyers Most | Realtor Magazine

  • The Federal Reserve’s decision to gradually raise its short-term interest rates is expected to send mortgage rates higher in the new year and will likely have the biggest impact on foreign buyers from Western Europe and Canada
  • “That, in turn, will make it more costly to buy in America for foreigners. One major exception to this trend is likely to be Chinese buyers.”
  • Canadian currency has gone down 33 percent in value against the U.S. dollar over the past three years

2016 housing market predictions |CNBC

  • 2016 housing market predictions
  • Mortgage rates will rise, and rising rates will hit first-time home buyers the hardest

2016 Predictions for Housing & Real Estate | Zillow

  • Zillow Chief Economist Svenja Gudell shares her predictions for the new year

Freddie Mac: Mortgage rates finally break above 4% | HousingWire

  • we expect the 30-year mortgage rate to average 4.7% for the fourth quarter of 2016
  • the 30-year mortgage rate rose 5 basis points to 4.01%, ending a 5-month span below 4%

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