People buying homes in the country’s most expensive housing markets likely will face pricier mortgages starting in the fall.That’s when the current conforming mortgage limits are scheduled to expire, with limits for the most expensive markets falling to $625,500 from $729,750 in the contiguous U.S. On Friday, however, two lawmakers introduced a bill in the …
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Housing short sales may be targeted for fraud
Short sales may be targeted for fraud A study estimates that banks and distressed home sellers will lose more than $375 million this year when they sell undervalued houses to tag teams consisting of realty agents and investors. Are banks and distressed home sellers getting rooked on a massive scale in the booming short-sale arena …
Nation’s Unemployment Rate Rises to 9.1%
The national unemployment rate edged up to 9.1 percent in May from 9.0 percent in April, according to figures released Friday morning by the U.S. Department of Labor. The economy added just 54,000 jobs last month, the worst showing in eight months. Employment increases averaged 220,000 over the prior three months. Freddie Mac’s chief economist …
Robert Shiller Interview on U.S. Housing Market – Video
May 31, 2011 Robert Shiller, an economics professor at Yale University and co-creator of the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index, talks about the outlook for home prices. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities fell 3.6 percent from March 2010, the biggest year-over-year decline since November 2009, the group said today in New York. At …
Case-Shiller home-price index hits new low
Is now the time to buy? An index of home prices in the nation’s largest American cities plumbed new depths in March, pushing past a low set during the worst of the Great Recession. The ominous new drop for the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of 20 cities, a key measure that is closely watched by …
Price vs time: Measuring your motivation
Pick a price, any price for your home. Now wait. Eventually, someday, someone will probably be willing to pay you that price. The question is – Do you have the time or the desire to wait for that to happen or would you rather sell your home now for a reduced amount of money? Welcome …
Home starts and sales running at half speed: Standards and Poor’s
Friday, May 6th, 2011, 9:56 am tandard & Poor’s expects about 320,000 new home sales and 470,000 housing starts this year — about half the historical average. James Fielding, a senior housing director at S&P, made that assessment in a video posted on the ratings agency website. This performance is running at half the historical …
4 Signals It Might be Time to Buy (vs. Rent) Your Home
To rent or to buy: what used to be a given – that you would buy a home as soon as you could afford to – has become an agonizing conundrum for many a would-be homebuyer, in the face of the housing market’s big bust and super-slow recovery. Low prices seem to create a wide-open …
Home Prices Edge Closer to 2009 Lows According to the S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices
New York, April 26, 2011 – Data through February 2011, released today by S&P Indices for its S&P/Case-Shiller1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show prices for the 10- and 20-city composites are lower than a year ago but still slightly above their April 2009 bottom. The 10- City Composite fell …
Real Estate Outlook: Foreclosures Remain Focal Point
Foreclosures are still big news in real estate across the country. Most homeowners are looking forward to a day when foreclosures make up a much smaller share of the market. For now, however, 1 in 119 homes are in foreclosure. One in every 577 housing units received a foreclosure filing in the month of February. …
