ADP Research Institute reported the addition of 213,000 private sector jobs for the month of January on a seasonally-adjusted basis in its January 2015 National Employment Report released this week.
Read More »Index Reports Modest Gains for Housing Markets in Q4
The latest National Association of Homebuilders/First American Leading Markets Index (NAHB/LMI) released Thursday found that markets in 63 out of 351 metropolitan areas nationwide (about 18 percent) matched or exceeded their normal levels of economic and housing activity in Q4 2014, according to an announcement from NAHB.
Read More »Unemployment Rate Falls, Payrolls Increase in Most Metro Areas
Continued labor market improvements may bode well for the housing market for the coming year, since housing relies on steady nationwide employment to flourish, according to some economists' predictions. The national unemployment rate continues to drop – December's rate of 5.4 percent is a decline of 1.1 percentage points from the same month a year earlier.
Read More »Mortgage Fraud Risk Down, But Rising Costs Still Challenging Homebuyers
The findings align with CoreLogic's latest fraud report, which revealed application fraud risk was down across all categories—except home equity lending, which has seen risk indicators rise as demand grows.
Read More »Strong Finish to 2014 For Texas Housing Market Caps State’s Second-Best Year Ever
Housing in Texas heated up in the final quarter of 2014, capping off the second-best year for the market in the state's history, according to data released by a local Realtor group.
Read More »Servicers Name Property Preservation as Biggest Challenge With FHA Loans
Mortgage professionals involved with the servicing of Federal Housing Administration (FHA) mortgage loans said the biggest challenge they face with those loans is "fulfillment of FHA property preservation and conveyance requirements," according to the February 2015 Mortgage Industry Outlook Report released Monday by The Collingwood Group and The Five Star Institute. Thirty-nine percent of survey respondents who service FHA loans for their respective companies said that fulfilling fulfilling property preservation requirements was their toughest challenge.
Read More »Despite Slight Downturn, Consumer Sentiment Still at Highest Level in 11 Years
According to a report from the group, more consumers reported improvements in their finances in January than any other time in the past decade, and four in 10 cited income gains as the primary reason. Notably, more of those gains are being reported among households with incomes under $75,000, a group that has seen relatively little of the recovery so far.
Read More »Economic Growth Slows as GDP Expansion for Q4 Falls Short of Economists’ Predictions
According to BEA, the slowdown mostly came from a rise in imports coupled with a decline in exports, a downturn in government spending, and decelerations in nonresidential fixed investment. Those weaknesses were offset by an upturn in private inventory investment and a pickup in consumer spending as falling gas prices left Americans with more discretionary income.
Read More »Homeownership Rate Drops to 20-Year Low
The rental vacancy rate, meanwhile, fell 0.4 percentage points to 7.0 percent on a combination of tighter supply conditions and a rise in demand as homeownership looks like a distant dream for some Americans. In a survey last month, Freddie Mac found 61 percent of adults living in rental housing don't plan to purchase a home within the next three years as housing costs and credit challenges keep them on the sidelines.
Read More »Flipping Still Near Historic Averages in Some Areas
While percentages of homes being flipped nationwide are nowhere near their peak reached in 2005 and 2006, in some areas such as California they remain near their historic levels consistent with home price gains in those areas, according to a report released by Trulia on Thursday.
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