Category Archives: housing market

Strong Home Sales Mean What?

The Mortgage Corner   It looks like home sales are are defying expectations of an economic slowdown, as both existing and pending home sales are rising. Pending sales measure contracts scheduled to close in 30-60 days, which is a sign … Continue reading

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What Happens When % Rates Go Even Lower?

The Mortgage Corner FRED The NAR’s pending home sales index was softer than expected in July, thereby reversing nearly all of its June increase.  That left the index with a slight YOY decline of 0.3 percent.  Those results probably mean … Continue reading

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Housing Sales Higher, % Rates Plunging to Zero?

The Mortgage Corner Calculatedriskblog Total July existing-home sales, https://www.nar.realtor/existing-home-sales that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums and co-ops, rose 2.5 percent from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.42 million in July, according to the National Association of Realtors … Continue reading

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How Low Can Interest Rates Go?

Popular Economics Weekly Calculatedriskblog Why are interest rates so low—not just in the US? It’s been below 0 percent in the northern EU countries and Japan for years because there is little worldwide inflation, which means there’s not sufficient demand … Continue reading

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Why Are Home Sales Declining?

The Mortgage Corner Weekly FRED WASHINGTON (July 23, 2019) – Existing-home sales weakened in June, as total sales saw a small decline after a previous month of gains, said the National Association of Realtors®. While two of the four major … Continue reading

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Housing Market in Gradual Decline?

The Mortgage Corner Econoday Happy 4th of July, everyone, even though it looks like we are nearing the end of this housing cycle; and maybe this business cycle as well.  But we can still celebrate what is now the longest … Continue reading

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Who Can Still Afford to Buy a Home?

The Mortgage Corner MarketWatch That question of who can still afford to buy a home is up in the air, as we say, since home sales have been trending lower of late and there is still a housing shortage. MarketWatch’s … Continue reading

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How to Provide More Housing For Everyone?

ANSWERING THE KENNEDYS’ CALL thelundreport.org I said in an earlier column “that part of the solution to the housing and homeless crisis has to be the responsibility of governments.” But the Silicon Valley giants Google, Apple, and Washington State’s Microsoft … Continue reading

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How Strong is 2019 Housing Market—Part II?

The Mortgage Corner FRED We asked just how strong is the housing market last month with rates beginning to fall again. Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, said he is not overly concerned about the trending drop in existing-home sales reported … Continue reading

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May Employment Not looking So Good

Popular Economics Weekly MarketWatch Total nonfarm payroll employment edged up in May (+75,000), and the unemployment rate remained at 3.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment continued to trend up in professional and business services and … Continue reading

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