Wednesday, May 27, 2009

NAR - "Existing-Home Sales Rise in April" (5-27-09)

"Existing-home sales – including single-family, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops – increased 2.9 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate1 of 4.68 million units in April from a downwardly revised pace of 4.55 million units in March, but were 3.5 percent below the 4.85 million-unit level in April 2008."

Mortgage Bankers Association - "Refinance Activity Falls, Purchase Applications Steady in Latest MBA Weekly Survey" (5-27-09)

"
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) today released its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending May 22, 2009. The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, was 786.0, a decrease of 14.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from 915.9 one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 13.8 percent compared with the previous week and increased 28.5 percent compared with the same week one year earlier."

Bloomberg - "
U.S. Home Price Declines Slowed in First Quarter" (5-27-09)

"
The average price of a U.S. home fell 7.1 percent in the first quarter, slower than the fourth quarter’s 8.3 percent drop that was the largest on record, the Federal Housing Finance Agency in Washington said today."

Bloomberg - "Mortgage-Bond Yields Jump, Jeopardizing Fed’s Housing Effort" (5-27-09)

"
Yields on Washington-based Fannie Mae’s current-coupon 30- year fixed-rate mortgage bonds climbed to 4.51 percent as of 2:17 p.m. in New York, the highest since Dec. 5 and up from 3.94 percent on May 20, data compiled by Bloomberg show"

Bloomberg - "U.S. Commercial-Mortgage Defaults Set to Increase, Reis Says" (5-27-09)

"
Delinquency and default rates for securitized loans on office, retail, industrial, apartment and hotel properties are likely to rise above 6 percent by the end of the year from a weighted average of 1.76 percent in the first quarter, said the New York-based provider of property data. Those rates climbed from 1.14 percent in the fourth quarter and 0.8 percent in the third quarter. CMBS loans represent about 21 percent of the $3.5 trillion commercial real-estate debt market, Reis said."

Inman - "'Junk' fee or necessity?" (5-27-09)

"In what's become standard practice at a growing number of real estate brokerages, homebuyers and sellers are being asked to pay flat fees of several hundred dollars per transaction on top of the percentage-based commissions they've traditionally been assessed. The fees can come as an unpleasant surprise to consumers, and some have charged that they violate federal law. Many real estate agents don't like the flat fees, either -- in most cases, they don't receive a cut, and some end up paying them out of their own commissions."


Inman - "Site dishes out distressed property data" (5-27-09)

"Foreclosure.com provides information on about 2.3 million foreclosure, preforeclosure, bankruptcy, for-sale-by-owner and tax-lien properties in the United States, according to the Web site. The site obtains its information from lenders, government agencies and corporate sellers. Users can search for properties by property type, ZIP code, city and county"

Realty Times - "Millions of Foreclosures, More Renters and Multi-Family Sales" (5-27-09)

"In essence, the multi-family market is benefitting from the downturn of the general market. This means that educated agents in the field of multi-family homes are reaping large gains. Agents today seeking to learn all that they need to know about multi-family properties are earning the 'Multi-Family Specialist®' real estate designation. They are choosing to earn this certification so that they can react intelligently to the positive turn in the multi-family marketplace."

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