As this week’s signal that homebuyers are returning to the market, both Existing Home Sales and New Homes Sales posted improvement versus month-prior figures this April. According to the National Association of REALTORS, the number of Existing Home Sales rose by 130,000 units in April. New Home Sales rose by a modest 1,000 units in [...]

Conforming mortgage rates rose by 0.625 percent Wednesday. Yes, you read it right. Zero-point-six-two-five percent. The surprise surge in pricing started shortly after 1:00 P.M. ET, then continued all the way until the market’s closing. It was the sharpest one-day surge in mortgage rates in recent history. Perhaps ever. For mortgage rate shoppers swept up [...]

Each month, researchers measure home values in 20 large U.S. cities, then compile their findings in a report called the Case-Shiller Index. It’s a popular measurement of housing health across the country, but it’s far from perfect. As 3 examples: It gives more weight to expensive homes than inexpensive ones Its sample set includes just [...]

Mortgage markets reacted poorly to not-as-strong-as-expected housing data and employment data last week causing mortgage rates to rise on the week overall. It was the third time in 4 weeks that mortgage rates were up. To the detriment of rate shoppers, mortgage rates were especially volatile Thursday and Friday. As an increasing number of traders [...]

Rates go up, rates go down. Catch them while you can. After Wednesday’s mortgage market rally drove rates down by a bunch, Thursday’s sell-off pushed them right back up. This has been a common pattern in the skittish world of mortgage rates this year. With the U.S. economy still teetering between recession and growth, markets [...]

Mortgage rates fell after the Federal Reserve released its April 28-29, 2009 meeting’s internal notes Wednesday. Officially known as “Fed Minutes”, the report is an in-depth account Federal Reserve’s last get-together, detailing the discussions and decisions that create our country’s monetary policy. It’s the lengthy companion to the Federal Reserve’s brief, post-meeting press release. For [...]

A “housing start” is a new home on which construction has started and, for the fourth straight month, single-family home construction remained flat in April. For the battered housing market, this is the latest in a series of signals that a long-awaited turnaround is coming. The number of homes under contract to sell are rising [...]

According to the American Resort Development Association, there are more than 4 million timeshare owners across the United States. There are ample buying opportunities, but what if you want to sell your timeshare? In this 4-minute piece with NBC’s The Today Show, Barbara Corcoran talks about the difficulties today’s timeshare sellers face with respect to [...]

After a dreadful start to the month of May, mortgage markets improved last week, pushing mortgage rates lower overall. It was the first week since late-April in which mortgage rates fell. The biggest reason rates improved last week was because the economic optimism that was responsible for the stock market’s 30% gain since March faded [...]

Getting approved for a home loan isn’t getting easier, but it doesn’t appear to be getting much more difficult, either. In its quarterly survey to member banks, the Federal Reserve asked senior bank loan officers whether “prime” residential mortgage guidelines had tightened in the last 3 months. Nearly 50 percent of banks said guidelines tightened [...]