Michael Hobbs's (michaelhobbs) Blog

  According to a recent study by Reis Inc. (REIS), office vacancy rates are down to their lowest level since 2009. The vacancy rate in the third quarter fell by 0.1 % to 17.2 percent from the second quarter and in the last year, the vacancy rate declined by 0.30 %. Compared to 2009 the rate has d...

  A news release on October 10th by the National Association of Realtors blamed real estate appraisals and tight mortgage credit for holding back home sales. In the news release, it was noted that while most appraisers were competent and provided valuations compliant with guidelines by Uniform St...

  According to Reis Inc., after a short-lived economic recovery, demand for retail space is falling again. As noted by a senior economist at Reis, consumer spending had remained inconsistent due to the struggling labor market and economy. With the advent of online shopping, malls have continued t...

  In the last week there has been a lot of chatter in major news outlets about a new trend towards micro units, which has probably been in response to a scheduled vote that did not happen in San Francisco. The vote which was supposed to happen on September 25th was on proposed legislation to chan...

  Earlier in the last decade, the real estate industry started on the path to understanding the importance which many consumers put on ‘green’ building and real estate. Of course, we all know how the past decade went.  The surge in the housing market resulted in a bubble and, like all bubbles, it...

  If you are a loan officer, it is very, very likely that you are swamped.  Based on conversations with several mortgage loan officers at Wells Fargo, Guaranteed Rate and Prospect Mortgage, “it is like trying to drink from a fire hose, there’s so much mortgage activity.”  Digging deeper, it is di...

  Residential mortgage refinances hit their highest level since 2009 as mortgage interest rates drifted to their lowest levels in history.  The data was provided from the weekly survey by Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) that covers over 75 percent of all U.S. retail residential mortgages. Mort...

  Ron Phipps, Immediate Past President NAR, quipped, “that means 15% of potential buyers cannot qualify (for a mortgage).”  What exactly did Ron mean? In his recent post in the National Association of Realtors weekly blog, he was referring to the change in underwriting standards and the powerfull...

  In January the National Public Radio (NPR) website ran a story accusing Freddie Mac, a government sponsored entity of betting against homeowners, by investing billions of dollars to ensure that they do not refinance their mortgages at lower rates. The broadcaster had sighted an investigation ca...

    The recent housing burst and the eventual financial crisis that preceded it has opened up a lot of debate about what our economic system really can handle and what the role of government in society should be.  One such debate has been the conversation about whether counties and cities should ...