Home buyers paying off student loans are being denied mortgages not because their total debt load is too high but because their monthly debt payments exceed totals set by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac’s underwriting standards, according to an analysis of four years of first-time buyer applications. In an analysis of 46,000 applications from first-time home buyers over a four … Read More »

Home prices nationwide, including distressed sales, increased 7.5 percent in June 2014 compared to June 2013 and rose 1 percent over May, setting new highs for 12 states.  Despite low rates, investor purchases and tight supplies, prices are expected to slow down to a .07 percent monthly increase in July. A total of 12 states, plus the District of Columbia, … Read More »

  The new QM rule that went into effect six months ago is having a much greater impact on borrowers than many predicted.  Banks are granting fewer loans because of the new rule that regulates ability to repay requirements even for loans to borrowers with FICO scores higher than 680, according new Federal Reserve survey. While few banks changed their … Read More »

As a percent of all sales, distressed sales fell to 18 percent in July from their peak of 40.8 percent in March of 2011. The major shift in home sale type, from distressed to fair market, will continue to impact future growth potential for markets overall, reports Clear Capital’s July Market Report. Does that mean home price gains will continue … Read More »

A survey of 104 economists, real estate experts and investment and market strategists predicted the U.S. Zillow Home Value Index would rise 4.6 percent year-over-year by the end of 2014, to $177,895, and expected the pace to slow in each of the next four years. The most optimistic group of panelists predicted a 5.6 percent annual increase in home values … Read More »

  The number of active real estate appraisers has continued to decline for the seventh straight year, though the pace has slowed, even as real estate agents revive complaints about low appraisals killing purchase contracts. The Appraisal institute reported today that the number of appraisers fell less than 1 percent in the first half of 2014, lower than the average … Read More »

As the Foreclosure Era enters its final months, completed foreclosures are increasingly concentrating in a handful of states and one state reports three times as many as the next runner-up.  Regions of the nation have virtually returned to normal as their foreclosure inventories dry up and are not refilled. Five states account for almost half of all completed foreclosures in … Read More »

  The share of Americans who own their homes was 64.7% in the second quarter, down from 64.8% in the previous three months, the Census Bureau said in a report today. The rate matched the level in the second quarter of 1995. The homeownership rate of 64.7 percent was 0.3 percentage points (+/-0.4)* lower than the second quarter 2013 rate … Read More »

Higher costs for mandatory mortgage insurance are turning would be homeowners into long term renters, according to a recent survey of lenders by the National Association of Realtors. Some 68.4 percent of originators indicated that they had clients who chose not to buy or to put off buying indefinitely because of increases in mortgage insurance rates.  Only 42.1 percent cited … Read More »

Price increases slowed so much in the second quarter that the numbers of seriously underwater homes and the percentage of equity rich properties barely increased over the first quarter of 2014. The second quarter of 2014 saw only a small percentage decline in the percentage homes that were seriously underwater, 17.2 percent versus 17.4 percent in the first quarter of … Read More »