With housing starts on the rise, new homes are popping up all over the country. But many homebuyers prefer older homes that are often considered a piece of local history.
Trulia ($31.48 -0.18%...
U.S. Housing Market Commentary
Posted by Megan Hopkins on 5/2/13 at 9:40am
In certain housing markets, it seems homes are selling like hot cakes. Buyers in California are feeling the heat more than anyone, with four of the top five fastest-moving housing markets in The Golden State.
Orange County, San Diego, Sacramento and Los Angeles topped the list, with Las Vegas coming in at no. 5, according to data from ZipRealty.
In Orange County, the median days homes spent on the market dropped from...
Posted by Megan Hopkins on 5/1/13 at 1:53pm
Lender Processing Services is in the middle of its three-part video series titled "The State of the Housing Union," hosted by Jonathon Weiner, vice president of research and development at LPS.
In the first video, Weiner recapped the events that led to the mortgage and finance housing bubble. The VP notes that the 13% annual appreciation in 2004 and 2005 coupled with rising mortgage rates in the same time period hurt...
Posted by Kerri Ann Panchuk on 5/1/13 at 9:47am
The president’s reported pick of Congressman Mel Watt, D-N.C., to lead the Federal Housing Finance Agency is likely to be stalled by the simple fact that Watt is not qualified for the job based on a job description created by Republicans and Democrats back in 2008.
Yes, that’s right. Forget the confirmation hearing, he doesn’t even have the right...
Posted by Brena Swanson on 4/29/13 at 3:49pm
They may be young, but millennials have witnessed their share of crisis. So far, millennials have lived through two wars, the financial crisis and terrorists attacks, with the most recent being the Boston Marathon—to name a few.
The millennials, also known as Generation Y, range mostly from age 18 to 34, and are 7% larger than the baby-boom generation.
Despite several hurdles like student debt, according to an...
Posted by Kerri Ann Panchuk on 4/29/13 at 12:51pm
There’s a reason the world hates lawyers, but in reality, the world should be more upset at politicians who generally confuse politically driven lawyers as task masters that are useful, but neither committed to the laws they write or willing to back them under divergent scenarios.
Take eminent domain for example. Even after San Bernardino County, Calif., gave up on the idea of allowing government officials to use eminent domain to disrupt investors' interest in mortgages for the...
Posted by Bubba Mills on 4/25/13 at 4:14pm
Those of you who know me know I love every single day – each is its own special blessing. But I have to say the days of spring make me especially grateful. And this spring is proving particularly pleasant for Realtors because of a strong seller’s market and interest rates that are continuing to hover at historic lows for buyers.
These two factors alone can make your spring selling season bloom with business – if you’re ready. To get ready, you need to think about the tradition this...
Posted by Megan Hopkins on 4/24/13 at 10:30am
One of the hottest debates coming out of Washington D.C. right now is immigration. But one thing that’s not debatable is the contribution of new immigrants to the housing recovery.
In fact, new legal status for current non-citizens could result in a potential $100 billion in new mortgage loans, the Financial Times reported in Wednesday’s paper.
As homeownership plummeted to a 17-year low...
Posted by Kerri Ann Panchuk on 4/24/13 at 9:24am
We just completed day two of the Mortgage Servicing Conference hosted by SourceMedia here in Dallas.
Lending Reporter Brena Swanson and I have already published a few articles on key themes from the conference, but I thought I’d take this opportunity to share my thoughts on what a mortgage servicing conference would sound like if attendees took a hefty shot of truth serum before arriving.
Unfortunately, I have traveled to enough mortgage servicing conferences...
Posted by Kerri Ann Panchuk on 4/23/13 at 5:29pm
A sudden Consumer Financial Protection Bureau audit is the fear that keeps compliance departments and servicing executives up at night.
But preparing for a CFPB probe is generally straightforward as long as servicers and lenders are both “proactive” and able to apply a common-sense approach to the process, industry experts say.
"Being reactive in compliance is always much more expensive and painful than being proactive," said Michael...