Foreclosures | Mortgages | Financing
Auction.com takes a multi-channel approach to marketing foreclosure properties, which means sellers get a broad, global pool of potential buyers. The Auction.com website boasts more than 4 million active users and more than 300,000 unique visitors each week. …read more
From:: Real Estate Wire
According to Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, the supply gap in 2015 was 400,000 units. Of course, that leads to price inflation on rental rates for existing units as well as driving developers to build. But today’s construction isn’t necessarily providing for all of tomorrow’s renters. …read more
From:: Real Estate Wire
As one of his last housing accomplishments before he leaves office, President Obama signed H.R. 3700 into law on Friday, which will dramatically improve long-fought restrictions on Federal Housing Administration financing for condominiums. Meanwhile, 2.8 million borrowers should be thanking Brexit right now for their positive financial situation. …read more
From:: Real Estate Wire
The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. led a month-over-month rise in the securitization of agency mortgages, which soared to a three-year high.
Issuance of fixed-rate mortgage-backed securities on behalf of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae totaled $126.884 billion during July.
Securitization activity last month was greater than it has been during any month since July 2013, when fixed-rate issuance came to $139.366 billion.
From:: Financing
Despite a slight bump in overall quarterly commercial real estate lending, the volume of securitization conduit fundings turned sharply lower.
Compared to the first quarter of this year, commercial mortgage originations during the period from April 1 through June 30 jumped 17 percent.
A more telling comparison, the one between the second quarter of last year and the second quarter of this year, had CRE production up 1 percent.
From:: Financing
In line with interest rates in general as of late, the monthly 11th District Cost of Funds Index turned modestly lower.
COFI, which is utilized as an index for a small share of adjustable-rate mortgages, landed at 0.69 percent in June.
That was up ever so slightly when compared to one month previous, a month that saw an index of 0.691 percent.
From:: Financing
(TNS)—Federal Reserve policymakers said Wednesday they were holding a key interest rate steady but signaled a hike could come this fall as their concerns have eased about a slowing job market and the fallout from Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.
Following a two-day meeting, central bank officials voted to keep the federal funds rate at between 0.25 percent and 0.5 percent, where it has been since December.
But there was a markedly improved characterization of the U.S. economy in the statement released by the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee compared with what was said after the last meeting in June.
The labor market had “strengthened” since June, with “strong” job gains and household spending that “has been growing strongly,” the committee said Wednesday. Policymakers noted that “near-term risks to the economic outlook had diminished.”
A key risk that had eased was the potential for the effects of the “Brexit” vote to cause long-term turmoil in financial markets and hinder U.S. economic growth.
While world financial markets tumbled sharply in the immediate aftermath of the British vote, they have rebounded since then. Major U.S. stock indexes hit record highs last week.
The Fed statement’s upbeat language opened the door for a small rate hike at the committee’s next meeting, in September.
“The tone of the statement reaffirms our view that the FOMC is likely to raise its policy rate at the September meeting, so long as the labor market continues to perform,” Barclays said in a research note after the statement was released.
But Lindsey M. Piegza, chief economist at brokerage firm Stifel Nicolaus & Co., says she thinks the Fed is unlikely to raise the rate any time soon, noting the statement did not say near-term risks to the economy had disappeared.
“After all, ‘diminished’ translates into still-present with strength in some sectors merely offsetting weakness in others,” she says.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose about 50 points after the statement was released but then fell about the same amount, closing down 1.58 points at 18,472.17. Stocks would be expected to decline in the face of a potential rate hike because it would make saving money more attractive.
The Fed has been expected to hold the rate steady Wednesday, with the odds of a hike at just 3.6 percent, according to a closely watched barometer from the CME Group futures exchange.
But the odds increased to 26 percent for September, according to futures activity before the statement was released. After the statement, the odds for September declined to 18 percent.
Based on futures prices tied to the federal funds rate, investors now believe there’s nearly a 40 percent chance the FOMC will wait until December to increase the rate.
Fed policymakers seemed poised for a small rate hike in June as economic growth picked up following a weak winter. But the May jobs report was shockingly poor—just 38,000 net new positions were added, later revised down to 11,000.
Fed policymakers decided they wanted to see more data to determine if the one-month plummet in job growth was an anomaly or a signal …read more
From:: Finance and Economy
(TNS)—Federal Reserve policymakers said Wednesday they were holding a key interest rate steady but signaled a hike could come this fall as their concerns have eased about a slowing job market and the fallout from Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.
Following a two-day meeting, central bank officials voted to keep the federal funds rate at between 0.25 percent and 0.5 percent, where it has been since December.
But there was a markedly improved characterization of the U.S. economy in the statement released by the policymaking Federal Open Market Committee compared with what was said after the last meeting in June.
The labor market had “strengthened” since June, with “strong” job gains and household spending that “has been growing strongly,” the committee said Wednesday. Policymakers noted that “near-term risks to the economic outlook had diminished.”
A key risk that had eased was the potential for the effects of the “Brexit” vote to cause long-term turmoil in financial markets and hinder U.S. economic growth.
While world financial markets tumbled sharply in the immediate aftermath of the British vote, they have rebounded since then. Major U.S. stock indexes hit record highs last week.
The Fed statement’s upbeat language opened the door for a small rate hike at the committee’s next meeting, in September.
“The tone of the statement reaffirms our view that the FOMC is likely to raise its policy rate at the September meeting, so long as the labor market continues to perform,” Barclays said in a research note after the statement was released.
But Lindsey M. Piegza, chief economist at brokerage firm Stifel Nicolaus & Co., says she thinks the Fed is unlikely to raise the rate any time soon, noting the statement did not say near-term risks to the economy had disappeared.
“After all, ‘diminished’ translates into still-present with strength in some sectors merely offsetting weakness in others,” she says.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose about 50 points after the statement was released but then fell about the same amount, closing down 1.58 points at 18,472.17. Stocks would be expected to decline in the face of a potential rate hike because it would make saving money more attractive.
The Fed has been expected to hold the rate steady Wednesday, with the odds of a hike at just 3.6 percent, according to a closely watched barometer from the CME Group futures exchange.
But the odds increased to 26 percent for September, according to futures activity before the statement was released. After the statement, the odds for September declined to 18 percent.
Based on futures prices tied to the federal funds rate, investors now believe there’s nearly a 40 percent chance the FOMC will wait until December to increase the rate.
Fed policymakers seemed poised for a small rate hike in June as economic growth picked up following a weak winter. But the May jobs report was shockingly poor—just 38,000 net new positions were added, later revised down to 11,000.
Fed policymakers decided they wanted to see more data to determine if the one-month plummet in job growth was an anomaly or a signal …read more
From:: Real Estate News
NAHB analysis of the most recent Census estimates concerning sources of financing for new home sales reveals that the share of mortgages financed through conventional, FHA, and VA loans, as well as cash, held steady in the second quarter of 2016 while the number of new homes sold grew by 22 percent.
According to data from the Census Bureau’s Quarterly Sales by Price and Financing and NAHB calculations, new home sales due to FHA-backed loans increased to a quarterly count of 28,000 as market share of remained at 17 percent for the second quarter of 2016. The FHA share rose sharply at the start of 2015 due to a change in FHA mortgage rules, jumping from 10 percent to 24 percent between the last quarter of 2014 and the second of 2015.
It is worth adopting some caution associated with the Census market share estimates. In particular, the statistical error associated with the FHA, cash, and VA sales estimates from this data set are relatively high. This reduces the reliability of measures of short-term market changes.
Mindful of this limitation, over the long run the current FHA-share is lower than the 28 percent share determined for the first quarter of 2010 but still substantially higher than the 10 percent 2002-2003 average.
Cash-based transactions for the second quarter made up 5 percent of sales and have hovered between 5 percent -6 percent over the last year and a half. However, in contrast to new home sales, cash purchases constitute a considerably larger share of the existing home market—22 percent in May—according to estimates from the National Association of Realtors.
It is also worth noting that a different measure from CoreLogic shows a higher market share for cash sales for new construction: 14.5 percent in April.
VA-backed loans were responsible for 8 percent of new home sales during the second quarter of 2016.
Conventional financing has expanded as the housing recovery has grown. The market share of new home sales with conventional financing was 58 percent in 2009 and came in at approximately 69 percent for the second quarter of 2016. This share has remained between 69 percent and 73 percent every quarter over the last three years.
These sources of financing serve distinct market segments, which is revealed in part by the median new home price associated with each. For the second quarter, the national median sales price of a new home was $305,500. Split by types of financing, the median prices of new homes financed with conventional loans, FHA loans, VA loans, and cash were $347,900, $215,700, $281,800, and $323,400, respectively.
This post was originally published on NAHB’s blog, Eye on Housing.
From:: Finance and Economy
NAHB analysis of the most recent Census estimates concerning sources of financing for new home sales reveals that the share of mortgages financed through conventional, FHA, and VA loans, as well as cash, held steady in the second quarter of 2016 while the number of new homes sold grew by 22 percent.
According to data from the Census Bureau’s Quarterly Sales by Price and Financing and NAHB calculations, new home sales due to FHA-backed loans increased to a quarterly count of 28,000 as market share of remained at 17 percent for the second quarter of 2016. The FHA share rose sharply at the start of 2015 due to a change in FHA mortgage rules, jumping from 10 percent to 24 percent between the last quarter of 2014 and the second of 2015.
It is worth adopting some caution associated with the Census market share estimates. In particular, the statistical error associated with the FHA, cash, and VA sales estimates from this data set are relatively high. This reduces the reliability of measures of short-term market changes.
Mindful of this limitation, over the long run the current FHA-share is lower than the 28 percent share determined for the first quarter of 2010 but still substantially higher than the 10 percent 2002-2003 average.
Cash-based transactions for the second quarter made up 5 percent of sales and have hovered between 5 percent -6 percent over the last year and a half. However, in contrast to new home sales, cash purchases constitute a considerably larger share of the existing home market—22 percent in May—according to estimates from the National Association of Realtors.
It is also worth noting that a different measure from CoreLogic shows a higher market share for cash sales for new construction: 14.5 percent in April.
VA-backed loans were responsible for 8 percent of new home sales during the second quarter of 2016.
Conventional financing has expanded as the housing recovery has grown. The market share of new home sales with conventional financing was 58 percent in 2009 and came in at approximately 69 percent for the second quarter of 2016. This share has remained between 69 percent and 73 percent every quarter over the last three years.
These sources of financing serve distinct market segments, which is revealed in part by the median new home price associated with each. For the second quarter, the national median sales price of a new home was $305,500. Split by types of financing, the median prices of new homes financed with conventional loans, FHA loans, VA loans, and cash were $347,900, $215,700, $281,800, and $323,400, respectively.
This post was originally published on NAHB’s blog, Eye on Housing.
From:: Real Estate News