2012 Economic and Housing Outlook Released yesterday, December 29th, 2011, here is the 2012 Economic and Housing Outlook from NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. The full 15 slide PowerPoint looks at economic indicators such as existing home sales, new home sales, housing starts, GDP, payroll jobs
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12/30/2011
While most home buyers continue to see their home purchase not only as a place to live, but also as a good financial investment, a smaller share of buyers expressed this view than in the past. Seventy-eight percent of buyers feel that their home purchase is a good financial investment, while onl
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12/28/2011
A Banker Speaks, With Regret By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF If you want to understand why the Occupy movement has found such traction, it helps to listen to a former banker like James Theckston. He fully acknowledges that he and other bankers are mostly responsible for the country’s housing mess.
Last time we discussed shadow inventory, we focused on the large build up in the seriously delinquent category of distressed inventory. Since then, many of the 90+ days-late loans have progressed into foreclosure inventory. Along with the improvement among new delinquencies, the seriously delin
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12/28/2011
The realtors say it, the home builders say it, the architects say it, I've said it: For better or worse, tight mortgage lending standards are one of the big roadblocks to housing's recovery. Now one economist is saying that's not true. In studying data from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, which
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12/28/2011
There might be no way to exaggerate the extent to which the Great Recession and the slowcovery is fundamentally a housing implosion surrounded by a bunch of ripple. (Just ask Dan Indiviglio.) Why do consumers feel so gutted? To begin with, a fifth of mortgages are underwater. Why is overall inves
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12/28/2011
The plan, in its most sensible form, would call for a massive refinancing program that would permit homeowners—ranging from those with lots of equity in their homes to those with deeply underwater loans—to obtain mortgage rates near today's 40-year low of 4% and reduced closing fees. The one big
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12/28/2011
Aside from North Dakota and the Washington D.C. metro region, home prices have yet to show definitive and consistent upward movement. Though there has been no meaningful change in the 20-metro Case-Shiller home price index for the past three years, farm land prices in the Midwest have been soari
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12/28/2011
Working in concert to meet a tight deadline, Congress and the White House have raised the FHA loan limit in high-cost real estate markets, making it easier to obtain an FHA loan on properties up to $729,750*. Following passing votes in the House of Representatives and Senate, President Obama sign
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12/28/2011
A poll in October of 2011 put the approval rating of the US Congress at just 9%. When Rasmussen pollsters asked Americans if they approved of the US going communist, a full 11% said they were OK with that; two points ahead of Congress. To put that into context, during Watergate Richard Nixon’s
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12/28/2011
