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Seven Million to Struggle with Negative Equity for Four Years or More

By: editor; Thu, Aug 29, 2013

1 Comment

Though three million homeowners were freed from the shackles of negative equity in the past year, it will take at least four more years for 7 million or more deeply indebted homeowners to reach positive equity, even as home values continue their current pace of recovery.

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More Consumers Expect Rates to Rise

By: editor; Thu, Aug 8, 2013

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The share of consumers who believe interest rates will go up over the next year increased another 5 percentage points to 62 percent, the highest level in the three-year history of Fannie Mae’s July 2013 National Housing Survey.

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Soaring Rates Spook Sellers

By: editor; Thu, Aug 1, 2013

1 Comment

Nearly half of all sellers in a recent survey are worried that rising mortgage rates will tank buyer demand, a doubling of concern since the first quarter.

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ILHM: “Luxury Segment has been Leading the Recovery”

By: Steve Cook; Wed, Jul 10, 2013

1 Comment

In response to a June 27 Real Estate Economy Watch article asserting that for the first time since the Institute for Luxury Home Marketing began tracking upper tier market trends in 2008, its Market Action Index hit the threshold that separates buyer’s and seller’s markets earlier this month, ILHM Founder Laurie Moore-Moore points out that he luxury segment has actually been LEADING the recovery for more than a year.

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Buyers Cry Uncle

By: Steve Cook; Sat, May 25, 2013

1 Comment

With prices rising every week, lenders as strict as ever, inventories at decade-low levels, interest rates starting to rise and competition for homes breaking their hearts, more and more buyers are reaching their frustration limits.

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Pet Wars: Apartments Strike Back

By: Steve Cook; Mon, Apr 29, 2013

2 Comments

Apartment owners and managers are fighting tooth and claw to dispel the myth that multifamily living is unfriendly to pets, a longstanding motivation that has driven pet-lovers to become homeowners.

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Americans Exit the Housing Crisis with New Appreciation for Renting

By: Steve Cook; Wed, Apr 3, 2013

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Six years of crisis have changed forever the way Americans think about housing. It’s good news for rental housing and not so good news for the home ownership industry, according to a massive new study conducted by Hart Research for the MacArthur Foundation.

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Sellers Awaken and Buyers Accelerate

By: editor; Thu, Feb 7, 2013

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The percentage of customers signing offers in January increased by 12 percentage points according to a leading brokerage and 23 percent of Americans think it is a good time to sell compared to 11 percent the same time last year, according to Fannie Mae’s January 2013 National Housing Survey results.

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Asians Lead Ultra Luxury Foreign Invasion

By: Steve Cook; Tue, Dec 18, 2012

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Nearly twice as many homes priced over $10 million were sold to Asians as Western Europeans in the US last year, while buyers from the Americas dominate a far greater share of the international sales for all price tiers than either Asians or Western Europeans.

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Buyers Grow More Worried Over Prices

By: editor; Mon, Dec 17, 2012

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Nearly three quarters of potential buyers believe home prices will increase in their neighborhood in the next twelve months, twice as many as in the first quarter.

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The Graying of Homeownership: Tight Credit is Tough on Younger, Single Buyers

By: Steve Cook; Fri, Nov 16, 2012

4 Comments

High lending standards that make it virtually impossible for millions of younger, single home buyers to get a mortgage are creating an older, more married and wealthier population of homeowners.

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Homeowners Recover 13.5 Percent of Lost Equity Through Q3

By: editor; Fri, Oct 5, 2012

1 Comment

Rising home values have brought homeowner equity to its highest level since the third quarter of 2008 and helped lift 1.3 million families above water. Homeowner equity jumped $406 billion, or 5.9 percent, to $7,275 billion in the second quarter of 2012, according to the Obama Administration’s September Housing Scorecard.

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Agents Still More Positive than Owners

By: editor; Wed, Oct 3, 2012

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Real estate professionals continue to be more optimistic about the direction of home values than homeowners. Fifty-one percent of real estate professionals expect home values to increase, up from 48 percent from last quarter. Thirty-four percent of homeowners expect home values to increase, up from 27 percent last quarter.

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One Homeowner Out of Eight Undervalues Their Home

By: Steve Cook; Fri, Sep 28, 2012

12 Comments

About one out of eight, or 17 percent, or homeowners with a mortgage believes their home is worth less than the amount they owe when in fact the opposite is true, suggesting that large numbers of owners are undervaluing their homes, perhaps due to recent home price increases.

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Are Sellers Waking Up?

By: Steve Cook; Mon, May 7, 2012

1 Comment

It’s no secret that this is a good time to buy, but more and more sellers are beginning to think that it’s also getting to be a good time to buy… at least better than it was six months ago.

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Emotion Drives One in Four Home Sales

By: Steve Cook; Thu, Mar 29, 2012

5 Comments

As thousands of American families prepare to sell and buy homes during the 2012 season, some 28 percent of women and 25 percent of men put more emphasis on their feelings about a home than they do on the layout, square footage, or price.

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Consumers Warm up Early Spring Surveys

By: Steve Cook; Wed, Mar 7, 2012

1 Comment

The weatherman is not the only source of spring-like forecasts this week. Two national surveys released today found that consumers are feeling better about the real estate picture for the first time in months

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Young Minorities Value Homeownership 2 to 1 Over Whites

By: editor; Tue, Feb 14, 2012

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Compared with whites, greater shares of both black and Hispanic young adults say owning their own home is among their top priorities. While 25 percent of blacks and 26 percent of Hispanics say owning a home is of the highest importance in their lives, only 12 percent of whites say the same.

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Homeownership Stronger in Higher Priced States

By: Steve Cook; Thu, Jan 26, 2012

2 Comments

Support for homeownership is greater in states whose median home value is higher than the national average, according to a new national survey of homeowners.

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Consumers Top the Experts in 2012 Home Price Outlook

By: editor; Tue, Jan 10, 2012

2 Comments

For the past six months, one consumer survey after another has tracked increasingly negative expectations about home prices in the year to come while some expert forecasts were more positive.  Now, Fannie Mae has turned the tables.

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Seller Negativity is Killing Sales

By: Steve Cook; Fri, Dec 30, 2011

2 Comments

Blame sellers, not buyers, for the lousy real estate market. Deeply negative sentiment is causing sellers to lose sales or keep their homes off the market altogether. Buyer sentiment is not expected to improve in the near term and market activity will remain sluggish for months to come.

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Consumers Grow Gloomier over Housing Recovery

By: editor; Wed, Nov 30, 2011

1 Comment

Even as consumer confidence in the economy as a whole brightens, hopes for a housing recovery are growing increasingly gloomy.

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Spooky Fears Haunt Consumers

By: Steve Cook; Mon, Oct 10, 2011

1 Comment

Consumers don’t plan to buy homes anytime soon because they think prices will fall farther next year, mortgage rates will stay low for a long time and they’re very worried about their personal financial situation.

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Thirty-Somethings Fear Home Values Won’t Help Retirement

By: Steve Cook; Tue, Sep 20, 2011

1 Comment

Nearly half of all homeowners in their thirties have lost hope that their homes will recover enough value in time to play an important role in paying for their retirement.

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Buyers are Less Satisfied, Sellers More

By: editor; Fri, Jul 29, 2011

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Home buyers are less satisfied today with real estate brokerage services from franchises and seller s more so than they were a year ago.  That’s the bottom line from J.D. Power and Associates’ 2011 Home Buyer/Seller Study.

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More Owners Remodel Rather than Move

By: Steve Cook; Mon, May 16, 2011

2 Comments

The March BuildFax Remodeling Index, which is based on building permit data, increased for the seventeenth straight month on a year-over-year basis as the residential remodeling industry continued to strengthen and more homeowners opted to stay where they are and remodel rather than move.

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Home Sellers Regret Going it Alone

By: Steve Cook; Fri, Feb 25, 2011

2 Comments

  Homeowners who used a real estate professional to sell their homes reported a 50 percent better closing rate than those who went it alone, according to a new consumer survey by HomeGain.

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HUD Moves to Protect Gay Rights in Housing

By: Frances Flynn Thorsen; Thu, Jan 27, 2011

1 Comment

The housing market took another big step towards civil rights and equality last week when the United States Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) proposed a new rule to guarantee equal access to housing regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

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Support for Homeownership Falls 6 Percent

By: Steve Cook; Fri, Oct 15, 2010

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The number of Americans who believe buying a home is a good financial decision has fallen every year since 2007 and reached a low of 77 percent this year, according to an annual survey released yesterday by the National Association of Realtors.

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Home Builder Confidence Dips as Homebuyer Credit Deadline Nears

By: Steve Cook; Mon, Oct 19, 2009

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With the expiration date for the first-time homebuyer tax credit approaching, builder confidence in the market for newly built, single-family homes slipped one point to 18 in October.

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Better Days Ahead for Remodelers

By: Steve Cook; Thu, Oct 15, 2009

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The remodeling industry is turning a corner and annual consumer spending for home improvement should start to rise in the beginning of next year

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Homebuyers Will Regain Negotiating Edge: Zillow Economist

By: Steve Cook; Tue, Oct 13, 2009

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Foreclosures and the demise of the first-time homebuyer tax credit will swing the negotiating advantage back to buyers and away from sellers, who have been enjoying an improved status in many markets as declining inventories discourage price reductions.

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Home Price Discounts Shrink as Inventories Fall

By: Steve Cook; Sun, Oct 11, 2009

1 Comment

Falling inventories are helping home sellers gain a negotiating edge over buyers for the first time in many months.

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Apartment Renters Save Money With Roommates

By: Steve Cook; Sat, Oct 10, 2009

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To save money, more and more renters are teaming up with a roommate or two in a larger unit rather than living alone in a studio or one bedroom apartment, but they are driving up vacancy rates.

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Reverse Mortgages Could Become a Fiasco for Senior Citizens

By: David Lereah; Wed, Oct 7, 2009

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Senior households may become the next group of consumers harmed by irresponsible marketing and selling practices according to a report released by a major consumer organization released yesterday.

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Apartment Rental Vacancies Go Through the Roof

By: Steve Cook; Tue, Oct 6, 2009

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After setting a 20-year record last summer, the national apartment vacancy rate has risen even higher in the third quarter and there is no relief in sight for landlords through the balance of the year.

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Customer Satisfaction with Homeowners Insurance Rises

By: Steve Cook; Mon, Oct 5, 2009

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For the first time in five years, overall consumer satisfaction with homeowners insurance has increased significantly, driven by favorable customer perceptions of the value of their policies.

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Massachusetts AG Busts Scheme to Prey on Homeowners in Trouble

By: Steve Cook; Fri, Oct 2, 2009

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A Worcester, Mass. grand jury indicted an Oxford, Mass. attorney and three accomplices late last week for a complicated scheme to defraud desperate homeowners facing foreclosure..

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Pot Planters Plead Guilty of Massive Mortgage Fraud

By: Steve Cook; Fri, Oct 2, 2009

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Four South Florida brothers pleaded guilty in Miami yesterday to obtaining 18 mortgages fraudulently in five different Florida counties to buy houses for a massive marijuana farming operation.

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Move-Up Home Buyers are Stuck in Neutral

By: Steve Cook; Thu, Oct 1, 2009

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More renters became homeowners last month but fewer existing homeowners moved up to more desirable homes or neighborhoods even though they acknowledge current home prices are a good value, according to an industry-sponsored survey. Most potential move-up buyers believe homes are more affordable today than in recent months and 69 percent believe the economy is improving.  […]

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Lennar Increases Home Starts

By: Steve Cook; Mon, Sep 21, 2009

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One of the nation’s largest homebuilders reported increased losses during the third quarter but also issued a forecast on the housing market that was so rosy it moved stocks higher during pre-market futures trading this morning.

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3.7 Million Unemployed Miss Payments

By: Steve Cook; Tue, Sep 8, 2009

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About one quarter of the nation’s 14.9 million unemployed workers have missed a mortgage, rent, or credit card payment according to a comprehensive national survey of 1,200 Americans nationwide who have been unemployed and looking for a job in the past 12 months, including 894 who are still jobless.

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Foreclosures Dim Minorities’ Dreams

By: Steve Cook; Tue, Aug 25, 2009

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The make-up of American homeownership is becoming increasingly white as foreclosures turn the dream of owning a home into a nightmare for thousands of minority families, pushing the minority homeownership rate to its lowest level in decades.

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Stocks Tank on First-Time Homebuyer Tax Credit

By: Steve Cook; Mon, Aug 24, 2009

1 Comment

Even though the first-time home buyer tax credit doesn’t expire for three months, analysts’ assessment of the pending demise of the  credit sent helped end the stock market’s four day rally today, driving down housing and financial stocks.

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Buying is Becoming as Cheap as Renting

By: Steve Cook; Wed, Aug 12, 2009

1 Comment

Home prices have dropped so much in the past two years that if they continue to fall as expected, monthly ownership costs will be less than monthly rents in a number of major markets, according to a new study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the Low Income Housing Coalition.

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Home Values Keeping Sinking in Q2

By: Steve Cook; Tue, Aug 11, 2009

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There’s little to smile about in Zillow’s latest report on home values:  US home values fell 12.1 percent year-over-year, marking the 10th consecutive quarter of declines; Total home sales fell 23.7 percent in June versus a year earlier; and more than one-fifth (23 percent) of all owners of single family homes with mortgages owe more on a mortgage than their home is currently worth.

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Match-up of the Fixes: Cash for Clunkers vs. Homebuyers’ Tax Credit

By: Steve Cook; Tue, Aug 4, 2009

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It’s hard to turn on a newscast these days without hearing about the Cash for Clunkers program and what it has done for the auto industry.   It’s also hard to resist the urge to make comparisons between Washington’s two great fixes to stimulate the economy: C4C and the first-time homebuyers’ tax credit.  If you’re thinking that the real estate industry needs a Cash for Clunkers program, you might match up of the two fixes to see if it makes sense.   New Housing Forecasts available now at: https://www.realestateeconomywatch.com/category/housing-forecasts/forecasts/

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This Schizophrenic Market is a Long Way from Healing

By: Steve Cook; Mon, Jul 27, 2009

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Like black markets that spring up in ravaged cities during wartime, there’s something inherently unhealthy about the existence of a two-tiered housing market, one for “normal” sales and one for “distressed” sales.

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The Pending Supply

By: Steve Cook; Wed, Jul 15, 2009

2 Comments

Perhaps you’ve heard of the pending demand for real estate-prospective buyers who have postponed taking action until they perceive conditions have optimized. There’s also a pending supply of real estate and it’s large enough to have a serious impact on the housing markets if a recent study is correct.

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Take This House and Shove it

By: Steve Cook; Wed, Jul 15, 2009

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  Just what is the world coming to?

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Fear and Opportunity

By: Steve Cook; Thu, Jul 9, 2009

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A new national survey by Move, Inc, operator of Realtor.com, sheds some light on the two most powerful factors motivating buyers in this complicated market. Those would be fear and opportunity.

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Why They Walk Away…

By: Steve Cook; Tue, Jul 7, 2009

2 Comments

A recent study conducted by researchers from the graduate schools of business at the University of Chicago and Northwestern University found that one out of four homeowners who default on their mortgages make a strategic decision to clear out their belongings and walk away from their homes-even if they can afford to pay their mortgages.

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Remodelers on the Rebound

By: Steve Cook; Sun, May 24, 2009

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There’s an old construction industry adage that goes something like this: when home builders prosper, remodelers have hard times and when remodelers are doing well, it’s a bad market for builders.

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Homeowners Accept Reality

By: Steve Cook; Sat, May 16, 2009

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For the first time during the current real estate recession, most homeowners have come to grips with the fact that their homes have lost value during the past year.

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Public Mood Swings to Real Estate

By: Steve Cook; Sat, May 9, 2009

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National surveys over the past month are detecting a change in public attitudes towards real estate for both homeowners and investors.

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Surveys Find Consumer Confidence Improving

By: Steve Cook; Fri, Apr 24, 2009

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Two new public opinion surveys taken last week found encouraging stirrings of consumer confidence and pent- up demand for homeownership. A new national survey conducted last weekend and commissioned by Move, Inc. found that 23 percent of adults plan to purchase a home in the next five years, and more than half of them are first-time homebuyers, even though half of all Ameri­cans are concerned they or someone they know will face foreclosure in the next six to 12 months. The Move survey also found nearly one out of five home owners plan to take advantage of the Administration’s new program to help prevent fore­closures. While searching for answers in the past 12 months, 21 percent of all homeown­ers with a mortgage contacted a lender to restructure their loan. Half of those homeown­ers who contacted their lender experienced success while six percent still await an answer. Despite today’s challenging market conditions, 18.1 percent of adults plan to buy a home this year in or­der to take advantage of the $8,000 tax credit recently passed by Congress in the Administration’s economic stimulus package.

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Confidence in Banks Plummets

Americans have less confidence in banks than ever, but most like the …

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Support Grows for Foreclosure Policy

By: Steve Cook; Tue, Mar 17, 2009

1 Comment

Two national surveys conducted immediately after President Obama released the outline of his foreclosure plan ten days ago show a marked shift in public opinion in support of using government aid to help homeowners having problems paying their mortgages. Yet the nation remains split over whether the policy is fair or unfair to those who have met their mortgage payments.

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A Growing Confidence Problem

By: David Lereah; Tue, Jan 27, 2009

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It is not an overstatement to say that confidence has played a significant role during the past decade with regard to the performance of the economy and hous­ing markets. Who could forget the day when America shook after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and consumer and investor confidence plummeted?

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