Why Your Best Investment Right Now is a Home

I’ve heard it over and over again for the past couple of years from friends, family, business colleagues, and even my local bartenders and baristas. The refrain is eerily similar each time, and it sounds something like this: “What are you waiting for?  Now is the time to buy that house.” I let these comments roll off my back for a long time, as I knew the metrics of large supply overhang, increasing foreclosures, slow GDP growth and anemic employment figures were liable to keep home prices down for some time.

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How Rising Mortgage Rates Could Boost Home Sales

If you're in the market for a home, you're probably feeling pretty calm: Prices are falling, interest rates are low, and there are few other buyers to compete with. You can probably just hang out for awhile and wait for prices to fall some more.

But how long will the buyer's market last? Conventional wisdom holds that prices will fall another 5 to 10 percent, most likely bottoming out sometime in 2011. As the housing market stabilizes, sales will slowly pick up, while the huge backlog of foreclosed and bank-owned homes gets worked off. In healthier markets—like many in the Midwest, where there was never much of a bubble to start with—the housing market might even start to feel normal again in 2011 or 2012.

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10 Market Facts for Uncertain Times

Although the economy is soft and consumer confidence remains low, new data from the National Association of REALTORS® shows positive signs for the future. To help REALTORS® interpret current economic data and address clients’ concerns, here are 10 key facts to understand about today’s market.

1. The economy is growing, though slowly.
2. The private sector is finally creating some jobs.
3. Consumer confidence remains low, though clearly off bottom.
4. The 30-year mortgage rate is at generational lows.

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Is The Real Estate Market Turning Around?

The home sales index spike from the home buyer tax credit has almost run out. If you didn't have a deal in escrow by April 30, you didn't get the credit. The time to close a deal was extended to September 30. The predictions were that we'd see a fall in July activity which is exactly what is occurring.

The reports that are currently coming in don't yet reflect July sales which will show a drop in sales. For example, the Case-Shiller report came in yesterday for May, 2010, but that report is a three-month average of prices. The report said prices were up 1.2% MoM, and 5.4% YoY. That was the peak of housing credit driven sales.

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As FHA Mortgage Volume Increases From 2009, Serious Delinquencies Spike

The rate of seriously delinquent mortgages backed by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) declined slightly from May to June, but the gross number of mortgages that are either 90 or more days past due or in foreclosure increased 35% year-over-year.

According to the FHA June single-family operations report, the total volume of mortgage in-force increased more than 24% to 6.4m in June compared to the same month one year ago. The total value of unpaid FHA mortgages was $865.5bn in June, up 30.3% from $663.8bn one year ago and up 3.3% from $837.8bn in May.

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Obama Signs Bill Eliminating HVCC

When President Barack Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Act this week to reform the financial markets, the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) was officially set for elimination in 90 days.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) implemented HVCC in May 2009 in an attempt to improve the independence of appraisers by prohibiting lenders and third parties from influencing appraisals. It’s a controversial regulation, leading to an increase in demand for appraisal management companies (AMCs) and complaints from independent appraisers who claim they’re being cut out of the market.

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Single Women Home Buyers: Key to the Housing Recovery?

Looking to sell your home? Make sure you don't overlook single women as potential buyers. A recent National Association of Realtors report found that single women outdistanced unmarried men when it came to buying real estate in 2009.

Unmarried women made 21 percent of home purchases, while single guys made up 10 percent of the buyers. According to the research, single females also made up a quarter of first time-home buyers.

This wasn't always the case. In 1995, single women represented only 14 percent of home buyers. But in recent years, they have raced ahead of their male counterparts in snapping up real estate.

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