Some Home Builders Run Out of Lifelines- WSJ.com Imagine an industry that just six years ago built 1.3 million new homes and now is on a pace of building less than 300,000 units in 2011 – the fewest number since statistics commenced being collected in… Read more

The Mortgage Bankers Association just released their latest forecasts for the remainder of 2011 and 2012 and there is both good news and bad news.  Good news is that the MBA has raised their forecast for refinance activity lending volumes for the remainder of 2011. … Read more

July 2011 Existing Home Sales Up 21 Percent From July 2010 at 4.67 Million SAAR — But Were Down 3.5 Percent Sequentially From June 2011 — Median Price Down 4.4 Percent Year-Over-Year at $174,000 Year over year home sales rose 21 percent from July 2010… Read more

Two weeks ago I spoke at the California Association of Mortgage Professionals (formerly the California Association of Mortgage Brokers) in San Jose regarding the economy, housing issues and trends.  It was a great break from the heat (which previously that week when I left Wichita,… Read more

June existing home sales dropped almost 1 percent sequentially from May 2011, and were off 8.8 percent from June 2010 (not a surprise since June 2010 was the last month featuring the $8,000 homebuyer tax credit.  Also expect an increase year-over-year in July due to… Read more

Given that 23 percent of homeowners are currently underwater on their mortgages, that prices have yet to recover, and that 2.87 million homes alone in 2010 received notices of default, there remain a minimum 4 to 5 million properties that will either go through foreclosure,… Read more

Record housing sales in some hard-hit markets are finally getting inventory down to manageable levels—so there is good news on the horizon (but that does not mean we will reach that horizon tomorrow).  And yes, these writers confirm the slowdown in foreclosures are not related… Read more

I spoke this past month in Las Vegas—one of the hardest hit economies and real estate markets in the country.   Employment has finally ceased its downward plunge—but still has yet to really turn the corner.   As shown in the graph, Las Vegas-Paradise employment… Read more

Median Price Off 5.2 Percent Year-Over-Year — see link to press release at the end of the post The housing market continues to struggle as February sales of existing homes dropped 9.6 percent sequentially from January and were off 2.8 percent when compared to February… Read more

HomeGain surveyed both For-Sale-By-Owners (FSBOs) and via Realtors® to gauge both success and satisfaction rates of the two groups in selling their homes.  Those offered via a Realtor®  had a 50 percent greater success rate at selling their homes, and 81 percent of those that… Read more