RealEstateEconomyWatch.com Insight and Intelligence on Residential Real Estate

Latest mortgage data is a puzzlement.  A higher percentage of mortgage applications, including purchase mortgages, closed in June than in the past three years even though lending standards for purchase mortgages are virtually unchanged in a year. The closing rate for mortgages received by lenders in the past 90 days closed in June.  The jump in approvals drove the closing ... Read More »

  The national apartment market maintained its strong 2014 performance in June, as year-to-date effective rent growth continued to exceed that of any other post-Great Recession year, according to Axiometrics, the leading provider of apartment market research and data. June’s concession rate of 0.78% was the lowest in at least five years, annualized effective rent growth of 3.6% was the highest ... Read More »

Too many homeowners are still underwater on their mortgages for home values in half of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas to reach their pre-recession peak levels  within the next  three-plus years, according to the second quarter Zillow Real Estate Market Reports Nationally, home values remain 11.3 percent below their 2007 peak. Looking ahead, U.S. home values are expected to ... Read More »

  The national Property Valuation Fraud Risk Index rose 27 percent in the first quarter and 17 percent from a year ago, evidence that an epidemic of fraudulent home valuations is sweeping certain real estate markets on the East and West Coasts. Property valuations are increasingly being manipulated by individuals who purchase and list multiple properties in the same neighborhoods ... Read More »

New foreclosure activity data from June, when a total of 107,194 U.S. properties had a foreclosure filing, fell 2 percent from the previous month and was down 16 percent from a year ago to lowest level since July 2006, before the housing price bubble burst Total foreclosure activity in June was the lowest since the housing bubble burst in August ... Read More »

It might be hot outside but its freezing in the inboxes of hundreds of the nation’s mortgage lenders.  Last week applications fell to their lowest level since February. Maybe it’s just a sign that the selling season is winding down. More likely it’s something a lot more serious—yet another signal that the housing recovery is seriously sick and keeps getting ... Read More »

  Mortgage default rates fell below one percent for the first time in years, providing further evidence that the foreclosure era is all but over. Data through June 2014, released today by S&P Dow Jones Indices and Experian for the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices, a comprehensive measure of changes in consumer credit defaults, showed decline in default rates. After ... Read More »

A new report from two Federal Reserve economists says lenders have been applying strict underwriting conditions to keep borrowers who can’t afford a large down payment out of the Federally guaranteed program that is designed to make it possible first time and mid to lower income applicants become homeowners. The report sets down in black and white what has been ... Read More »

The folks in Conecticut will be unpleasantly surprised to learn they beat out Vegas and Miami as the riskiest market to buy a home. Zillow set out to look at the markets where housing prices have declined the most over the past 35 years  and chained the Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI) backward in time to 1979 Q4 using the ... Read More »

  Existing and new home sales have recovered somewhat since 2010, but as of April 30, existing home sales were about 10% below their 1999 level, and new home purchases were just half of what they were that year. In fact, single-family housing starts remain below those of any year before 2009 and are at about half the 1959 total. ... Read More »