Market Studies

According to the RE/MAX National Housing Report for January, freezing weather mixed with winter storms helped depress home sales, down 26.9 percent over the month. The weather caused delays in appraisals and closings. Year-to-year figures from 2013 also showed a downward yearly trend continuing through January, 2014.

In a report released Tuesday by S&P Dow Jones Indices and Experian, data from the S&P/Experian Consumer Credit Default Indices revealed a decline in default rates during the month of January. The Indices are a comprehensive measure of changes in consumer credit defaults. The Indices are calculated based on data extracted from Experian's consumer credit database.

Zilllow Mortgage Marketplace, a lending service operated by the home listing website Zillow, announced new mortgage rates Tuesday. Currently, the mortgage rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage is 4.18 percent, according to the release. The rate hovered between 4.17 and 4.21 percent before spiking on Wednesday to 4.27 percent. Mortgage rates eventually came down, dropping to the reported 4.18 percent on Thursday.

Cold weather across the nation caused more than long commutes and cancelled school. How did the frigid temperatures affect homebuilder confidence? A new report from the National Association of Home Builders noted a few key metrics about new home construction this month.

In a report released Tuesday, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York noted that aggregate consumer debt rose from last quarter, noting an increase of $241 billion dollars in the fourth quarter of 2013. The figure represents the largest quarter-to-quarter increase since 2007.

Although the new QM rules are expected to bring stability to loan manufacturing, the many nuances of compliance have resulted in doubling the cost of loan origination. This assessment was offered by Tom Showalter, Chief Analytic Officer at Digital Risk, a top provider of risk, compliance, and transaction management solutions.

January marks another decline in home inventory, according to a report issued by Redfin. With the caveat that "it is too soon to tell," the brokerage did offer some optimism regarding inventory in coming months, revealing "Redfin agents report that most of their home selling clients are planning to list between March and May."

The California Association of Realtors (CAR) released its Traditional Housing Affordability Index (HAI) on Wednesday, revealing levels of affordability in the Golden State. The CAR reported 32 percent of home buyers could afford to purchase a median-priced, existing single-family home in California.

Prudential Real Estate released results of its fourth quarter Consumer Outlook Survey. The survey showed that consumers perceive residential real estate favorably, and more are committed to buying and selling homes in 2014 than in the previous year.

HOPE NOW, a voluntary, private sector alliance of mortgage servicers, investors, mortgage insurers, and non-profit counselors, released a press release Thursday outlining its loan modification data from 2013. In total, 768,000 homeowners received loan modifications from HOPE NOW in 2013.