In one more indication that rising interest rates and replenished inventories are dampening hot markets, the Seattle online brokerage that coined the term “flash sale” reports that the percentage of multibid offers in the largely West Coast markets it tracks has fallen over the past three months. Read More »

Fewer new problem loans, declining levels of negative equity and shrinking inventories of bad loans from the boom era have helped to reduce mortgage delinquencies by the largest year-to-date decline since 2002. Read More »

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. Read More »

With the year half over, the first two June national price reports suggest that America could be headed for the biggest annual price increases since the boom years-or not. On a national basis, moderate increases in inventories have had no impact yet on prices. Read More »

Another measure of the strength of the housing recovery has found that April prices have pushed 14 major markets, including Omaha, Denver and Pittsburgh, over the peak prices they reached during the housing boom. Four, all in Texas, have reached new price levels twice as high as their previous peaks. Read More »

Rising inventory levels during the final months of the buying season are dramatically boosting sales and prices have continued to increase as the forces driving the housing recovery shift from lack of supply to demand. Sales are soaring despite new evidence that investors are buying fewer properties. Read More »

As the spring home buying season transitions into summer, month-over-month inventories are rising faster than they were as sellers respond to price increases at a faster pace than earlier in the buying season. On a national basis, both list prices and Inventories rose in last month, according to Realtor.com’s May data. Read More »

Zillow reported today that the greatest year-over-year decreases in inventory have been among more expensive homes, with the availability of top-tier and middle-tier properties each falling 15.7 percent year-over-year. The number of bottom-tier properties for sale on Zillow nationwide fell only 2.5 percent in early June compared to June 2012. Read More »

Four times more homeowners returned to positive equity in the first quarter of year as the recovery drove home values higher across the nation. Read More »

Multi-bid offers have declined from 73.3 percent of offers written in April to 69.5 percent of offers written in May by Redfin agents, basically the same as May 2012, when 69.3 percent of Redfin offers went into bidding war. Most Redfin agents are located in West Coast markets. Read More »