U.S. home sales unexpectedly fell in January, leading to the biggest year-on-year decline in more than three years, as a persistent shortage of houses pushed up prices and kept first-time buyers out of the market.Uphill Battle for First Time Buyers The drive home is an uphill battle these days, especially for first-time homeowners who are … [Read more...]
The California Housing Crisis
The backlash comes as California’s lack of housing supply is becoming a crisis. A postwar building boom gave birth to a labyrinth of freeways and sprawling suburbs, and between 1980 and 2010, coastal metro areas in California added new housing units at about half the rate of the typical U.S. metro area.Our golden state of California seems to be … [Read more...]
2017: The Focus Ahead
Some shocking numbers have just come in. It has been reported that total housing inventory dropped 10.8% in December to 1.65 million existing homes available for sale, the lowest level since the National Association of Relators (NAR) began tracking housing supply in 1999. Inventory decreased 6.3% from last year and has fallen for 19 consecutive … [Read more...]
Loan Originations at a High, More Homes For Sale Soon
Real estate predictions for the coming years are generally positive. With strong home sales, near-historic low interest rates, a refi boom, and steady home price appreciation, Freddie Mac's economic team projects that mortgage loan originations will scale nearly $2 trillion for 2016.The projections from the current edition of the company's … [Read more...]
Housing Barely Budging
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) has conducted its Housing Market Index (HMI), which it produces in conjunction with Wells Fargo, for the past 30 years. The HMI is derived from new-home builder survey responses which in July reported an utterly static outlook."For the past six months, builder confidence has remained in a … [Read more...]
April Home Sales Surge, Foreclosures Drop
This just in: after disappointing March data, new home sales surged in April. The Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported this week that sales were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 619,000. This is an increase of 16.6% from the previous month and 23.8% higher than in April of 2015.West coast sales in … [Read more...]