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Home Builders Hedge Their Bets on Housing Recovery
Several of the nation's largest public home builders reported earnings this week, and I was struck by the way their CEOs spoke of the current state of housing.
Remodeling as a Housing Indicator
Today the National Association of Home Builders put out its quarterly remodeling index, which rose to the highest level since 2006. What does remodeling say about home buying? I think it says two things.
Home Rentership Society
I spent this morning at a conference by Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies. They released a survey showing one in four renters, low and middle income, are spending more than half their income on rent and utilities. That's about 10 million households.
‘Optimism’ In Housing?
Thanks to all the streaming feeds of constant news I'm subjected to, I just clicked on a CNBC story titled, "Four Years Later, Housing Market Shows Signs of Life." I was curious, seeing as I write about housing for CNBC, and I didn't write that. It's a Reuters piece, and I don't buy it.
Does Private Mortgage Insurance Have a Place in the New Mortgage Order?
It's no surprise that the private mortgage insurance industry is fighting hard against proposed new risk retention rules for the mortgage industry.
Foreclosure Fight Needs to Find Fast Answers
As federal regulators clamp down on foreclosure procedures at the big banks, and the government sets new lender requirements for risk retention in residential mortgages, the cry from the industry is that this will only hamper the housing recovery and price more borrowers out of home ownership.
Robo-Settlement Snags
Word was last week that federal banking regulators, not the state attorneys general, were going to announce some kind of "enforcement action" against 14 big banks/servicers in the so-called "robo-signing" foreclosure paperwork mess today or tomorrow. Now I'm told that may be a bit delayed, and now I'm reading the AGs expected punitive monetary "settlement" is also in question.
Even Short-Term FHA Shutdown Will Hit Housing
I was hoping not to have to write this particular piece, but it seems I may have no choice, so here we go with housing. What happens to today's housing market without FHA loans?
Short Sales Pressure Home Prices
Home prices fell 6.7 percent in February year over year, according to a new report from CoreLogic. That numbers includes distressed sales, that is, sales of foreclosed properties or short sales, where the bank agrees to let the homeowner sell for less than the value of the mortgage. If you take those sales out, however, home prices were basically flat.
