News

According to Freddie Mac, the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage (FRM) was 4.20 percent (0.6 point) for the week ending June 12, an increase of 6 basis points from last week's report. Last year, the 30-year FRM hovered just below 4.0 percent. The 15-year FRM averaged 3.31 percent (0.5 point), up from 3.23 percent in the last report.

Home sellers in Southwestern Pennsylvania may have more to cheer about this summer than just the Pittsburgh Pirates. According to the May 2014 residential real estate report from the West Penn Multi-List, Inc., the outlook for the Southwestern Pennsylvania home market is steadily increasing as demand continues to rise and inventory works to keep up.

The unemployment rate was unchanged in May, staying put at 6.3 percent with 9.8 million Americans unemployed. Unemployment is the lowest it has been since September 2008. However, RealtyTrac's Octavio Nuiry makes the case that there is more to unemployment than percentages, and that a hidden actor is depressing housing market growth—and could cause more problems in the future.

NetDirector, a provider of cloud-based data and document exchange services, recently launched their new Military and PACER combo searches using their integrated workflow technology.

Leonard Potillo of Longwood, Florida has been charged in a 33-count indictment for wire fraud, bribing a bank official, and unlawful monetary transactions. Potillo is charged with operating an alleged $76 million fraud scheme involving the purchase and sale of delinquent debt portfolios from banks, according to the Office of the Special Inspector General for the Trouble Asset Relief Program (SIGARP).

LoanLogics has hired Leah Fox as SVP of Customer Success. In her role, Fox will build new customer success initiatives and lead the LoanLogics Customer Success organization.

Local home prices rebounded in Southern Nevada in May despite slight decreases from March to April, according to statistics released by the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors (GLVAR). The GLVAR reported that the median price of existing single-family homes in the area was up 1.6 percent from April to $195,000.

Ongoing settlement negotiations between Bank of America and the Justice Department to resolve an investigation into the bank's role in the mortgage crisis reached a stalemate Monday as the government reportedly rejected the bank's earlier $12 billion offer.

Annualized housing starts crossed the 1 million mark in April for the first time this year, but little of that improvement came on the single-family side—and that's a serious problem, says the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Measuring new homebuilding against employment numbers—which only recently recovered from their recessionary decline—NAR finds that historically, there is one new home built for every 1.5 jobs added to the economy.

The Wells Fargo Economics Group released its Housing Chartbook for May 2014. The group found that most markets are finding themselves "wildly out of balance" from inflated home prices driven by investor purchases, as well as exceptionally tight inventories that are well ahead of any improvement in demand.