Housing was chugging right along in early 2020, then covid happened. Housing experienced lots of unexpected volatility with the most important development being a huge increase in demand an...
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) keeps track of applications for purchase and refi mortgages every week. Purchase apps are slower moving, less responsive to rates, and generally bounc...
The Census Bureau's New Residential Construction report held few surprises for the month of September despite some mixed signals. Building permits, which often foreshadow future constructio...
Interest rates continued their slow decline last week while application volume is inching up almost as slowly. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports a 1.6 percent increase in its seaso...
Home sale numbers continue to retreat and in July the National Association of Realtors’® (NAR) Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) fell to its lowest level…. Ever!
Based on signed sales contracts...
The mortgage market seemed to be in a wait-and-see mode last week as the Federal Reserve signaled a might, maybe, we are thinking about it, approach to a September rate cut. In the interim, mos...
Two major home price indices show home price appreciation is still running well above historical norms. However, increases in the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller indices and the Federal Housing Fi...
Existing Homes (the jargon word for a home that has already been owned and occupied) represent a much larger piece of the home sales pie compared to new homes, but the series has been flagg...
Two weeks ago, we saw a sudden surge in refinancing activity. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reported that, during the week ended August 9, its Refinancing Index soared by almost 35 perce...
Residential construction slowed in July. Both the rate of permitting and of housing starts were down from the prior month and starts were the worst in more than four years.
The U.S. Census Bure...
The record will show that today's Housing Market Index (aka "builder confidence") from the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo fell to 39 from 41 last month. That's the ...
A second week of lower interest rates appeared to send homeowners scrambling to refinance their higher-rate mortgages assumed over the last few years. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its ...
A drop in interest rates pushed mortgage applications sharply higher last week although nearly all the gains belonged to refinancing. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Comp...
Signed contracts for home sales increased in June, a broad-based improvement seen in all four major regions of the country. The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said its Pending Home Sales...
Interest rates were largely unchanged during the week ended July 26. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) says its Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, decr...
Interest rates and prices continued to curtail home sales in June. The Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development reported on Wednesday that new home sales declined again ...
Home buyers remained on the sidelines as interest rates drifted lower, perhaps paying attention to the Federal Reserve’s musings about future cuts. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) report...
Existing home sales fell in June, but the median sales price hit a record high as it had also done in May . The National Association of Realtors® said sales of previously owned single-family hou...
Mortgage application activity staged a moderately strong recovery from the previous holiday-shortened week, although the recovery was attributable solely to the refinance side of the business. ...
The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) blamed high interest for lagging new home sales and the resulting dampened industry confidence in building them. NAHB chief economist Robert Deitz...
Mortgage applications declined slightly on a seasonally adjusted basis last week but plummeted on an unadjusted basis during the July 4th week. The week’s results include an additional adjustment...
May turned out to be a dismal month for home sales. Sales of existing homes dipped a modest 0.7 percent from April, but new home sales fared far worse. The U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Ho...
Slightly lower mortgage rates failed to impress potential borrowers last week. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, t...
Two major home price indexes had very different conclusions about the growth of annual home prices in April, but each showed a significant month-over-month uptick. The S&P CoreLogic C...
The rate of both construction permitting and residential construction starts fell in May, with permitting losing ground for the third straight month. The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of ...
There was a slight increase in mortgage application volume during the week ended June 14. For a change, it was accounted for by the home purchasing component.
The Mortgage Bankers Associ...
Mortgage application activity recovered nicely last week from a downturn during the previous holiday-shortened week, helped by a temporary drop in interest rates . The Mortgage Bankers Associat...
Interest rates , along with the distraction of a three-day weekend, further slowed the mortgage market last week. Tho Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) reports that its Market Composite Index, a...
Pending home sales fell another 7.7 percent in April according to the National Association of Realtors® (NAR). NAR’s Pending Home Sales Index (PHSI) for the month was 72.3 compared to 78.3 in Ma...
Higher interest rates helped to wipe out three weeks of gains in mortgage application activity. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Composite Index, a measure of that activit...
The inventory of existing homes for sale increased from March to April, but the increased availability didn’t bolster sales. The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said pre-owned single-fami...
Interest rates hit a seven-week low last week, boosting the level of refinancing applications for the third straight week, but those for home purchases continued to recede. The Mortgage Bankers ...
The latest data on new residential construction from the U.S. Census Bureau paints a somewhat mixed picture of the housing market. While housing completions surged in April, Housing starts only i...
Builders’ confidence in the new home market retreated this month , the first decline since last November. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) reports that the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housin...
Lower interest rates gave a lift to refinancing activity for the second week but failed to do the same for those financing home purchases. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its Market Compo...
Lower interest rates allowed mortgage activity to rise modestly during the week ended May 3. It was the first increase in three weeks. The Mortgage Bankers Association said its Market Composite...
Rising interest rates continue to constrain mortgage borrowing. The Mortgage Bankers Association says its Market Composite Index, a measure of loan application volume, decreased 2.3 percent on ...
Home price increases continued to accelerate in February even as interest rates also moved higher. Both the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Indices and the Housing Market Index (HMI) produced by...
The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, fell back for the first time in three weeks during the week ended Aril 19 as...
Existing home sales posted strong gains in February while sales of new homes slipped slightly. In March each category switched directions. The U.S. Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and...
Mortgage interest rates rose for the second straight week, and so did the volume of mortgage applications. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Composite Index, a measure of t...
While builder confidence in the market for new residential construction improved in March, it remained flat in April and residential construction numbers showed a decline in momentum as well.
R...
The interest rate for conforming 30-year fixed-rate mortgages (FRM) again topped 7 percent last week, but mortgage application activity still squeezed out a tiny gain. The Mortgage Bankers ...
Mortgage application activity drifted lower again last week , the third straight week of mostly fractional declines. The Mortgage Bankers Association’s Market Composite Index, a measure of applic...
The Mortgage Bankers Association said its Market Composite Index moved lower last week, apparently indifferent to a slight improvement in mortgage interest rates . The Index, which measures loan...
Sales of newly constructed homes were virtually unchanged in February. The 662,000 seasonally adjusted annual units recorded in during the month was down by 2,000 units or 0.3 percent from the ra...
Rather than easing back from the January level as expected, existing home sales shot significantly higher in February, The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) said pre-owned single-family hou...
After rising a cumulative 17 percentage points over the prior two weeks, mortgage application volume slowed slightly last week. The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) said its Market Composite In...
Builder confidence rose for the fourth straight month and residential construction stats may now be trying to catch up. Both construction permits and housing starts rose in February compared to b...